- by Dr. Junaid bin Jahangir
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As in Christianity and Judaism, there has been a shift in the Islamic
position on ‘homosexuality’. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has said that he
would not worship a homophobic God. Likewise, Rabbi Harold Schulweis has
stated that the counsel of celibacy is contrary to the Judaic
affirmation of sexuality.
In Islam, US based Imam Suhaib Webb has expressed regret on his
referral to a reparative therapy group and argues against the
discrimination of gay congregants. Likewise, Sudan based Sheikh Hashim
Al-Hakim has indicated that while, he used to be hard against
homosexuals, he has ‘learned to respect their humanity’. US based Imam
Johari Malik has said that ‘It’s time to get past our homophobia to help
human beings’.
In contrast to traditional Muslim views, several church denominations
and synagogues bless same-sex unions. However, Muslim discourse is not
shaped by alternative voices in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Groups
like Muslims for Progressive Values work towards supporting
Muslim LGBTQ rights. However, in contrast to Judaism and Christianity,
the discussion on same-sex unions in Islam is fairly recent.
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- Orientation
Traditional Muslims believe that any homosexual conduct is
prohibited. Several Muslim medical professionals argue that
homosexuality was declassified as a disorder due to pressure from gay
activist groups. However, Rabbi Gershom Barnard indicates that medical
opinion gradually evolved from hormonal treatment to psychoanalysis to
behavioral conditioning to saying that there is no treatment to finally
indicating that there is nothing to treat.
Professor Hashim Kamali of the International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies
in Malaysia has stated that both Islamic jurisprudence and science
confirm that sexual orientation is inherent. Dr. Qazi Rahman from the University of London and co-author of the book ‘Born Gay: the Psychobiology of Sex Orientation’ also affirms the innateness of ‘homosexuality’.
According to Dr. Bassem Nathan, three medical opinions existed among
medieval Arabs. According to one school of thought, ‘homosexuality
results when the maternal sperm prevails over the paternal sperm’. Like
Al Razi (d. 925 CE), the Nestorian Christian Hunain Ibn Ishaq (d. 873
CE) and the Melkite Christian Qusta Ibn Luqa (d. 912 CE) also subscribed
to the view that ‘homosexuality’ was an inherent trait.
According to Dr. Sahar Amer, Al Kindi (d. 873 CE) and Ibn Masawayh
(d. 857 CE) respectively stated that ‘lesbianism’ was explained on the
basis of physical traits and exposure to the effects of certain foods
during infancy. In contrast, traditional Muslims reject the prevailing
psychiatric view of homosexuality and reference the works of reparative
therapy groups. It is striking to note that reparative therapy
groups offer suggestions that include a ‘Dad exposing his penis to his
young son in the shower’.
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- Promiscuity, anal intercourse, fatal diseases, alcoholism and celibacy
Traditional Muslims attribute suicidal behavior to ‘homosexuality’
rather than societal prejudice. They associate fatal diseases with
‘homosexual behavior’, specifically understood as male anal intercourse,
rather than promiscuity. They allude to the statistics on HIV
infections among ‘MSM-men who have sex with men’ and indicate that ‘homosexuality’ leads to ‘fitna-social chaos’.
In contrast, dissenting Muslims distinguish between orientation and
the act of ‘anal intercourse’. They indicate that anal intercourse,
while strongly disliked, is permissible with the wife’s consent in Shia
jurisprudence. Furthermore, they indicate that while many heterosexuals
indulge in the act, many monogamous long-term gay couples do not have
anal sex.
Dissenting Muslims also distinguish between gay men and the ‘MSM’.
The latter are occasionally heterosexuals, who indulge in homosexual
acts for financial reasons or because of lack of access to women in
prisons or in gender segregated cultures. According to Nadya Labi,
writer of ‘The Kingdom in the Closet’, a Filipino expatriate in
Saudi Arabia indicated that Saudi men stop calling him for sex after
their wives are no longer pregnant or menstruating.
Dissenting Muslims indicate that we do not erroneously associate high
AIDS cases in Sub Saharan Africa with heterosexuality. They state that
HIV and other diseases should be associated with stigma and promiscuity
rather than orientation. However, traditional Muslims analogize
‘homosexuality’ with alcoholism and prescribe celibacy to homosexuals
just as they prescribe self control to alcoholics. They view
‘homosexuality’ as a test of life justified by a great reward in the
Hereafter. In contrast, the 14th century mystic poet Hafiz stated that ‘not even seven thousand years of joy can justify seven days of repression’.
Dr. Abdul Azeem Abozaid and Dr. Asyraf Wajdi Dusuki indicate that the
Sharia provides alternatives in lieu of a prohibition. They allude to
the permissibility of ‘Nikah-marriage’ in lieu of adultery, many food
and drinks in lieu of pork and wine and many trade based contracts in
place of usury and gambling. However, no such substitute exists for gays
and lesbians. Thus, dissenting Muslims argue that it would not be
appropriate to create an analogy between a basic intimacy need and
craving for a liquid for which exist many alternatives.
Dissenting Muslims further argue that celibacy is a value foreign to
Islam. They indicate that Islam, like Judaism, acknowledges basic
intimacy needs and affirms a legitimate avenue for their expression.
They also warn of ‘fitna-social chaos’ in the absence of a legitimate
avenue for sexual expression. The Rabbis, who wrote for the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards on homosexuality, state that many celibate clergy have found it impossible to fulfill their vows.
However, traditional Muslim scholars caution young Muslims against
making homosexual behavior compatible with Islamic teachings. In
contrast, Rabbi Schulweis states that the ‘Jewish law was not instituted
to make life miserable’ and that denying intimacy to innocent people
would violate his Jewish sense of fairness and compassion.
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- Jurisprudence
Traditional scholars are bound by a forbidding legacy that either
prescribes flogging or the capital penalty for ‘liwat-male anal
intercourse’. These punishments were either based on analogizing ‘liwat’
with fornication or on texts that were discredited by several jurists
like Imam Abu Hanifa and Ibn Hazm as inauthentic. Contemporary Muslim
scholars like Sheikh El-Shinqiti also reject these narratives based
on the doubts raised by Bukhari, Muslim and other Hadith experts.
Rejecting the analogy with fornication, these jurists suggested a
‘tazeer-discretionary’ penalty by equating ‘liwat’ with other sexual
conduct. However, the absence of correction for constitutional
homosexuals and the absence of consent in analogizing ‘liwat’ with
bestiality and necrophilia limits the scope of any discretionary
penalty. As such, some contemporary Muslim scholars like India based
Asghar Ali Engineer, Maulana Abu Zafar Hassan Nadvi and Maulana Zaheer
Abbas Rizvi are prone to the decriminalization of ‘homosexuality’.
Several past scholars like Imam Abu Hanifa, Ibn Taymmiah and Al Razi
assumed that ‘liwat’ was a one-sided conduct. They reasoned that in the
absence of disease or financial reasons, the passive partner does not
desire ‘liwat’ as it results in hatred and humiliation. However,
Archbishop Tutu questions any reason to deny that homosexual love leads
towards compassion.
Professor Scott Kugle distinguishes between ‘liwat’, a later juristic
term, and ‘amal qaum lut-actions of Lot’s people’, which is associated
with apostasy, highway robbery and rebellion in some texts that allude
to the Companions. This further emphasizes that any homosexual conduct
was viewed as non-consensual by past authorities.
Acknowledging such limitations, some traditional Muslims argue on the
basis of the ‘awrah-nakedness’ texts or verses 4:15-16. However, the
‘awrah’ texts are as irrelevant to ‘Nikah-marriage’ as verses 4:15-16,
by scholarly unanimity, are for homosexual conduct.
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- Qur’anic Analysis
While addressing ‘liwat’, the Muslim tradition does not deal with the
anachronistic issue of same-sex unions. Nonetheless, the eventual
arguments used to prohibit same-sex unions are based on the verses on
Lot’s people and verses 23:5-7 on ‘Hifz Furuj-guarding private parts’.
Based on a holistic contextual analysis, dissenting Muslims argue
that the verses on Lot’s people refer to acts of coercion and
inhospitality. They argue that the part ‘you approach males and commit
highway robbery’ in verse 29:29 refers to coercion. Whereas, the part
‘Have we not forbidden you from (entertaining) others?’ in verse 15:70
refers to inhospitality.
The part ‘we have no right on your daughters’ in verse 11:79 also
emphasizes coercion over orientation as the word ‘Haqq-right’ has been
used in lieu of the word ‘Irba-desire’. In the context of verse 7:80,
Ibn Katheer mentions that Lot’s people invented deeds unfamiliar to men
and other creatures that existed before them. In contrast, historical
record places homosexual conduct in Bronze Age Mesopotamia (3000 BCE),
Stone Age Brazil (12,000 years ago) and several continents in the
Paleolithic Age prior to the time of Lot’s people (1800 BCE or 2300
BCE).
In contrast, some Muslims argue that the phrase ‘ma sabaqakum-none
preceded you’ in verse 7:80 serves to emphasize the gravity of the crime
of Lot’s people. As such, they disagree with the understanding of Ibn
Katheer and other commentators on verse 7:80. Likewise, dissenting
Muslims indicate that these verses are not referring to constitutional
gays but sexual violence committed by, to borrow Ronnie Hassan’s words,
“a lunatic fringe of humanity”.
Dissenting Muslims substantiate these arguments by secondary texts,
which, according to Professor Kugle, are relatively difficult to forge.
These texts that provide the context for the conduct of Lot’s people
appear in ‘Tarikh Tabari’, ‘Qisas Al Anbiya’ and the ‘Jalalyn Tafseer’.
Of the various texts, three are reproduced below as examples.
[Lot’s people] said: make it your tradition that if you take a
stranger in your country, you penetrate him, and make him pay four
Dirhams. People will not come to your place if you did that.
(Tafsir Jalalyn)
Greed and miserliness bid them follow its call, to the extent
that if any strangers stopped to ask for their hospitality, they would
rape them (fadahahu) without sexual need, in order to dishonor them.
They persisted in this behavior until they began to search out men and
force themselves on them. (Qisas Al Anbiya by Al Rawandi)
[Yunus à Ibn Wahb à Ibn Zayd]: Concerning God’s
statement, “And you commit abominations in your meetings”, their
meetings were the assemblies, and the abomination was their disgusting
act which they would perform. They would accost a rider and seize him
and mount him. (Tarikh Tabari)
Based on a linguistic analysis, dissenting Muslims argue that the
phrase ‘atatoona ldhukrana-approaching males’ in verse 26:165,
traditionally understood as consensual homosexual conduct, refers to
coercive action. They argue that the verb ‘atatoona’, based on Edward
Lane’s Lexicon, also connotes the meanings of ‘pursue’, ‘hasten’, and
‘the act of propelling or impelling – particularly of an arrow from a
bow’. Whereas, based on Lisan Al-Arab, the noun ‘ldhukrana’
connotes a non-receptive entity in contrast to the noun ‘untha-female’
that connotes a receptive entity.
As such, Dr. Hussein Abdul Latif argues that in Classical Arabic
usage, consent is assumed to exist between a male and a female. However,
such implicit consent is assumed to be absent between males. This
substantiates reading the phrase plausibly as ‘pursuing non-receptive
entities’. France based Imam Tarek Oubrou has confirmed that the
Qur’anic narrative on Lot’s people depicts ‘violent sexual
relationships’. Likewise, Dr. Youssef Seddik writes in ‘We never read the Koran’ that ‘homosexuality’ is not forbidden in the Qur’an.
Based on Dr. Khaled El-Rouayheb’s work, scholars like Ibn Hajar
Al-Haytami (d. 1566 CE) and Abd Al-Baqi Al-Zurqani (d. 1688 CE) walked a
thin line on non-penetrative sexual conduct. The Rector of Al Azhar,
Shaykh Muhammad Al-Hafni (d. 1767 CE) summarized the contrasting opinion
of the scholars for the permissibility of ‘liwat’ in Paradise.
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- Revisiting Jurisprudence
Dissenting Muslims argue that verses 23:5-7 that confine legitimate
sexual relations between opposite gender spouses are open to exceptional
cases. They allude to past jurists who allowed ‘khuntha
mushkil-intersexuals’ to marry based on their inner constitution.
According to the Kuwaiti Encyclopedia of Fiqh, the Hanbali jurist
Al-Kharqi reasoned as follows.
‘If he [khuntha] said that he is a man and that he desires women,
then he can do it [marry a female]. If he said that he is a woman
and he desires men, then he can do it [marry a male]. This is
because only he can decide and no one other than him can decide
this. So, his word is accepted as the word of the woman is
accepted on menstruation. He, the Khuntha may know himself
according to the desires as he sees which of the two sexes he desires.’
These Muslims eventually reference the juristic framework of
‘maslaha-public interest’ and ‘darura-dire necessity’ to argue for
Muslim same-sex unions. The Shafi’i jurist Shihab Al-Din Ahmad Al-Ramli
(d. 1550 CE) is recorded to have stated that kissing the object of one’s
affection was a duty if in line with the then medical theory such
frustration would contribute to the lover’s death.
In contemporary times, the European Council for Fatwa and Research,
while recognizing usury as a major sin, allow for home mortgages on the
principle of equating ‘Hajah-need’ with ‘darurah-dire necessity’ and
restrict this ‘rukhsa-facility’ to those Muslims in a real need for a
house. Likewise, Sheikh Hashim Al-Hakim implicitly uses the ‘darurah’
framework when he states that if ‘homosexuals’ are to continue, they
must practice safe sex to avoid harm.
Traditional Muslims may reject the scope of ‘aql-reason’ and such
juristic frameworks by associating them with ‘hawa-desire’. They argue
that the ‘necessity trumps prohibition’ maxim might apply to consuming
pork but not sexual conduct. However, dissenting Muslims appeal to a
higher ethic based on the Prophet’s teachings.
They emphasize the Prophet’s words paraphrased as ‘do not harm and
accept no harm’, ‘wish for your brother what you wish for yourself’,
‘when some Muslims hurt other Muslims ache’, ‘facilitate, do not cause
difficulties or cause people to detest the law’ and ‘do not fall into
extremities but seek the middle path’.
US based Dr. Emran El-Badawi paraphrases Egyptian scholar Gamal Al Banna as stating that ‘Imam
al-Shaf’i was great, but I am greater than him, because I learned from
him and I have the benefit of centuries’ worth of knowledge beyond him’.
Given our increased knowledge of sexual orientation and the injustice
of condemning people to celibacy, the issue of gays and lesbians
deserves to be revisited with a renewed perspective. As such,
Netherlands based Imam El-Ouazzani and Spain based Abdennur Prado,
President of the Junta Islámica Catalana, have indicated to make the issue more debatable.
In 2006, based on human dignity, Conservative Jews sanctioned
same-sex unions. Their reasoning included a reference to Rabbi Eliezer’s
quote that ‘Let your neighbor’s dignity be precious to you as your
own.’ Likewise, in the context of gays and lesbians, Indonesia based Dr.
Siti Musdah Mulia has pointed to the Islamic emphasis on ‘Ird-dignity’
of human beings. As such, Muslim scholars are invited to heed the words
of Ibn Taymmiah.
When the scholars find out that their decisions are causing lots
of suffering, or that people are looking for worse loopholes than the
actual prohibition, or that people end up living in the ‘Haram’, then it
is time for the scholars to think again about their conclusions.
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