I owe a lot to this article as it really helped me during my coming out. A must read for everyone entangled between Islam and HomosexualitySEXUALITY, DIVERSITY, AND ETHICS IN THE
AGENDA OF PROGRESSIVE MUSLIMSScott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle 1
This study is dedicated to Hamid Nastoh, for bravery despite despair.2
In the name of God, the Merciful and Compassionate. Praise be to God,
the marvels of whose creation are not subject to the arrows of accident.
Minds do not reflect on the beginning of such wonders except in awe and
bewilderment. Praise be to God, the favor of whose graces continue to be
bestowed upon all creatures. These graces come in succession upon the
created beings whether or not they wish to receive them. One of God’s
marvelous favors is creating human beings out of water, causing them to
be related by procreation and marriage, and subjecting creatures to desire
through which God impelled them toward sexual intercourse and thereby
preserved their descendants.3
With this majestic praise of sexual intercourse, Imam al-Ghazali begins his book
that deals with sex, procreation, marriage, and romantic relations. Imam
al-Ghazali is very forthright in talking about sex. In this respect, he represents
the whole tradition of Islamic scholars, who never shied away from a frank (and
often delightfully raunchy) discussion of sex with all its dangers and delights,
following in this way the footsteps of the Prophet Muhammad. If we can judge
by the traditions passed down from him, it appears that Muhammad challenged
his society not only in the realms of faith and ritual, but also in the realm of
sexual pleasure and the complex relationships it creates.
In comparison with many other religious traditions, it has often been noted
that Islam is a religion that has evaluated sexual life positively. Articulating the
integral relationship between spirituality and sexuality is one way that the
Prophet Muhammad challenged his society. It remains for us, today, to
continually struggle with that challenge. The system of norms, rules, and laws
created by Muslims in the past (a collective body we call Shari‘ah) does not
absolve us of this challenge. It may, in fact, create complexities that drive us to
reinvestigate the topic while presenting obstacles to a just resolution of those
complexities. Scholars in the contemporary period have not lived up to the
standards and frankness of pre-modern Islamic scholars, and much work has yet
to be done on the question of sexuality in Islamic scripture, law, and society.
Many scholars and Islamic leaders in the present shy away from honest
discussions of sex and sexuality, with all its promise and problems. Muslims in
pre-modern times certainly were not shy about discussing matters of sex, so why
should we be prudish? The most basic goal of this essay is to return to us
contemporary Muslims the “awe and bewilderment” that al-Ghazali felt when
considering sexual pleasure.
Sexuality is connected not just to spirituality, but to politics as well. What is
required of us in political situations is an acute sense of justice, but we often
ignore or obscure justice when it comes to matters of sex and sexuality. We need
to think more clearly about “intimate citizenship,” how the personal, emotional,
and sexual dimensions of our lives (which are often locked away as “private”)
actually have very public and often political consequences.4 Questions of sex and
sexuality become incendiary when members of a religious community feel
threatened by or in conflict with external “enemies.” Under such conditions,
religious communities maintain restrictions and develop ideologies governing
sexuality and gender. In our contemporary age, this is a serious problem, in both
Muslim-majority societies in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and also among
Muslim minorities in the West. We see fundamentalist groups securing political
power through the persecution of women, sexual minorities, and gender
minorities. Even in North America, where many in the Muslim community feel
threatened, the discourse around sexuality and especially homosexuality can
become quite ideological and even violent. The Qur’an demands an acute sense
of justice from all Muslims. Justice does not allow us to displace political
tensions and economic inequalities onto sexual and intimate relationships.
Conversely, open discussion of human sexuality helps us perceive more clearly
ethical issues in the more public social fields of politics, economics, and criminal
law.
What do we mean by sexuality? We certainly mean more than lust. The
concept of sexuality identifies an integral dimension of each individual’s
personality: “an indicator of our core being, a sexuality which interweaves
thoughts, desires, motivations, acts and psychological and mental well-being
within its meaning.”5 The critical re-evaluation of sex and sexuality grows out of
the feminist re-evaluation of gender and the constraints that gender imposed on
women. As feminist scholars critique the assumed superiority of patriarchal
masculinities, space is opened for a deeper introspection about sex – not in the
light of gender alone but also in the light of sexuality. The success of any project
to free sexual practices from the constraints of patriarchy depends ultimately on
the success of freeing women (and eventually men too) from the same
dominance of patriarchal structures of power.
The mass media in the West assert that Islam is a “repressive” religion. However,
comparison with other religious traditions reveals that Islam is a sex-positive
world religion. In Muhammad’s teachings (as in the Qur’an), sexuality is not an
obstacle to spirituality in general. Rather sexuality is a field where spirituality
plays out, as it does in economic life, ritual practice or political struggle. Even
conservative religious scholars saw sexuality in a positive light.6 The Qur’an does
not blame sex or sexual desire for the “fall” of Adam and his mate from Eden,
nor do Muslims in general see sex as part of fleshly corruption in the life of this
world. Rather, sexual desire is part of creation and expresses Allah’s wisdom. It
brings divided people together, forces them to confront spiritual and ethical
truths, and allows for continuity between generations.
This characteristic distinguishes Islam from its Abrahamic cousins.
Authorities in the Judaic tradition often see sex as positive only in procreative
results, and Christianity (like many interpretations of Buddhism) harbors deeply
negative assessments of sexual activity. Early Christian leaders struggled with the
question of whether the faithful should have sex at all, and speculated with
horror whether the resurrection would be “bodily” with sexual organs and
sexual desires. In contrast, the Qur’an depicts a heaven that is not just bodily,
but sensually delightful and even sexually blissful.
In posing the radical legitimacy of the practice of sexuality, Islam helped
in the formation of a specific form of culture. The continuous outpouring
of oneirism [cultivation of dream visions], combined with the most
delicate and most elaborate eroticism, gave birth to a particularly original
and attractive mode of life . . . To be attentive to one’s own body, to
assume it in its totality, to take one’s own fantasies seriously, to make the
quest for orgasm an essential aim of earthly life and even of the life to
come, are some of the aims of Islam.7
With these words, the Tunisian sociologist Abdelwahab Bouhdiba tries to
preserve the Islamic challenge of connecting eroticism with spirituality.
The Prophet Muhammad is remembered as saying, “Three things were made
beloved to me in this world of yours: women, perfume and prayer.”8 This saying
has given generations of Muslims pause to consider the intimate connection
between beauty, sexual desire, and worship of the One God. The general picture
that emerges from the traditions preserved about the Prophet’s teachings is that
sexual activity is an important form of worshipful pleasure. It embraces sexual
play (the giving and receiving of erotic pleasure) in many forms as a good in and
of itself, without being restricted to procreative acts. One hadith scholar, ‘Ali
Muttaqi (who died in 1567 CE) relates these prophetic traditions about the
benefits of sexual play with one’s partner:
A man’s sexual play with his partner, when accompanied by sincere
intent, causes him to be rewarded by Allah. As the Prophet is reported to
have said, “Allah is pleased with a man’s playing with his wife, and records
a reward for him and makes a worthy provision in the world for him
because of it.” There is another hadith that says “When a man gazes at his
wife and she gazes at him, God looks at them both with a gaze that is
compassion and mercy.”9
This openness to sexual play is within established relationships, in which
partners acknowledge their relationship through some kind of contract. Such
relationships were not historically limited to formally matrimonial relationships
(nikah), but included sexual relations through informal contract (mut‘a),
ownership in slavery, and other less formally legalized relationships.10
Contemporary Islamic communities, especially in the West, tend to demand
exclusively matrimonial relationships. However, this was never the exclusive
norm in pre-modern Islamic societies, where other kinds of sexual relationships
were legal and socially sanctioned.
Islamic society’s acceptance of sexual pleasure as a good in itself explains its
openness to the use of contraception.11 Beyond its procreative function, sexual
play was valued for establishing effective and emotional bonds of caring between
partners. The Qur’an addresses the question of non-procreative sexual acts
directly and affirms them (in Surat al-Baqara 2:223, though interpretation of this
verse was always the subject of contest and debate).12
In summary, the Islamic tradition has valued the pursuit of sexual pleasure
positively. Sexual play was not limited to marital relations, but was permissible
in other kinds of contractual relationships. Sexual pleasure was not restricted to
procreation, but was seen as spiritually and socially beneficial in itself, such that
some kinds of contraception were encouraged. This positive assessment of sexual
pleasure was traditionally limited to sex between a male and a female. A
“heterosexist” assumption underlies all these positive assessments. Accordingly,
Muslim jurists saw their primary duty to regulate sexual activity that might lead
to the birth of illegitimate children or situations of unclear parentage.
However, is it honest to assume that all Muslims are heterosexual in their
sexual orientation and practices? Is it factual to assert that genders are clearly
divided by physical nature rather than by socialization? Is it realistic to pretend
that sexual desire is always only between a man and a woman? The ambiguities
that arise from exceptions to the heterosexist assumption are always a challenge
to any human community, and Muslims are no exception. Muslim scholars and
jurists of the past certainly confronted these issues and offered certain answers to
the questions they raise.
In the light of new biological knowledge about genetics and sociological
knowledge about personality development, the traditional answers may no
longer be convincing. This is especially true now that several generations of
Muslim feminist scholars have questioned the patriarchal assumptions behind
so many practices that Muslims popularly consider integral to their religious
tradition. Inspired by feminist critiques, some Muslims who are attuned
to sexuality are taking the contemporary situation as an opportunity to return to
the sources of Islamic religious beliefs in order to reassess questions of sexuality
and its diversity. An honest and subtle examination of these sources (the Qur’an,
the prophetic traditions, and the decisions of Islamic jurists) reveals more
ambiguities than the defenders of “orthodoxy” care to admit. This study will
illuminate these ambiguities to show how they are productive ambiguities. These
ambiguities should urge those Muslims with a keen sense of justice and a firm
hold on reason to entertain the possibility of reassessing the Islamic tradition’s
stand regarding homosexuality as part of rethinking its stand on sexuality in
general.
This study begins with what might seem like a radical notion, that Islam does
not address homosexuality. It might be conceivable that particular Muslims in
particular situations addressed issues related to something we currently call
“homosexuality.”13 We must be instantly suspicious of statements like “Islam
says . . .” or “The Shari‘ah says . . .” as if these abstractions actually speak. Things
do not speak. Only people speak. Although all Muslims revere the Qur’an and
respect the Prophet Muhammad, statements about these sources of divine
guidance are interpretations of them. Such interpretations are always expressed
and advocated by people. And people, even Islamic leaders, are never infallible.
There must be room for an educated and sensitive dialogue about even these
most intimate (and sometimes scandalous) topics.
Before turning to the topic of homosexuality in all its controversy, let us return
to the more general category of sexuality. We should approach homosexuality
from the wider perspective of diverse sexualities. We should begin by asking
whether the Qur’an positively assesses diversity in creation and among human
beings. We should observe the Qur’an’s positive assessment of diversity in
gender, race and ethnicity, color, language, and culture, and then turn to ask
whether this positive assessment might include diversity in sexuality as one more
dimension of the creation of humanity.
Such a basic question might seem absurd to Muslims who identify as gay or
lesbian. Like many Christians and Jews, Muslims tend to put religion behind
them when they begin to identify as gay or lesbian, in reaction to the rejection
they experience from their families and religious communities. They tend to leave
behind the active participation in religion (as ritual or community) even if they
feel nostalgia for the sense of belonging that religion promises or retain a sense
of distinctive identity in coming from a Muslim background. Many gay and
lesbian Muslims feel that Islam is antiquated, oppressive, or hopelessly corrupted
by a patriarchal elite. In avoiding the Islamic community, many embrace gay and
lesbian communities, hoping to feel comfort and belonging under the rubric of
“homosexuality” that they were denied under the rubric of “Islam.”
For gay and lesbian Muslims, the term “homosexuality” represents the
acknowledgement that there is a natural diversity in sexuality in human
societies. For them, it may be disquieting to examine the origins of that term
“homosexuality.” When it was invented and interpreted in Europe and America
in the late nineteenth century, “homosexuality” did not represent an acceptance
of diversity in sexuality. The term was popularized in medical clinics to identify
a “deviant” sexuality in order to classify people, control their behavior, and
“cure” them or confine them. Western societies are still deeply divided over
whether there is and should be a natural diversity in the sexuality of its
members, though more and more thoughtful people are accepting that
homosexuality is not a sickness, weakness, or sin, but rather is a natural
variation in human character.14 This should give gay and lesbian Muslims reason
to be courageous and optimistic, for terms mean what they mean as a result of
discussion, debate, and struggle. Like the term “homosexuality,” the term
“Islam” can (and inevitably does) mean different things to different generations
and communities. It may not be inevitable that “Islam” stands in opposition to
“homosexual” in a relation of contradiction.
A basic strategy for questioning dominant Muslim interpretations of Islam is
not to reject Islam as an entire tradition. Rather we should return to Islam’s most
basic principles, knowing that the details of dominant interpretations may not
be in accord with the basic principles.
At its most basic level, Islam is a religion that positively assesses natural
diversity in creation and in human societies. Despite the chauvinism of many
Muslims, the Qur’an announces the radical idea of diversity in religion. Allah
has sent many Prophets, speaking in different languages, bringing ethical
teachings and exhortations to different nations, giving rise to a confusing array
of ritual practices and legal norms. Islam has a unique history of being a
confessional, universal, and missionary religion that nonetheless accepts and
protects other religious communities, guaranteeing the security of their
members. As a corollary, the Qur’an accepts diversity in tribal, ethnic, and
national groupings. The Qur’an’s vision stands in stark contrast to the Biblical
portrayal of the Tower of Babel (in which God scatters humanity into different
groups with mutually incomprehensible languages as a punishment for their
competition with God). The Qur’an addresses humanity, saying, “We created
you different tribes and nations so that you may come to know one another and
acknowledge that the most honorable among you are those that stay the most
conscious of Allah” (Surat al-Hujurat 49:13).15
The Qur’an respects diversity in physical appearance, constitution, stature,
and color of human beings as a natural consequence of Divine wisdom in
creation. Muslim feminists have shown that the Qur’an celebrates the creation
of women as equal to men, asserting that the differences between them are
complementary and are an ethical challenge. The Qur’an does not portray Eve as
having been created from Adam’s rib, as if she were derivative or inferior.16
Islamic scholars have traditionally acknowledged that Allah created two genders
and also created people who cannot be categorized through a binary
construction of gender. One Islamic scholar, ‘Ali Muttaqi, displays this
acknowledgement clearly in the introduction to his book on marriage and
sexual play.
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Praise be to God
who created male and female as partners, then mixed the two in a display
of Divine power by creating hermaphrodites as well. Praise be to the One
who favored humanity over all the rest of creation and made the
continuation of the world to rest upon the conjugal union of the male
with the female.17
Beyond the fundamental category of gender, the Qur’an asserts that human
beings are created in variety and assesses this variation positively. “From among
Allah’s signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the difference of
your tongues and the variation of your colors [alwan]” (Surat al-Rum 30:22).18
Alwan is the plural of the word lawn, which literally means “color” but
figuratively stands for shade or type, and can describe variation of texture, flavor,
and kind (as in dishes of food).19 Alwan therefore implies the existence of
variations among people, not in outward appearance only but also in inward
disposition. Another verse declares “that everyone acts according to his or her
own disposition [shakila]” (Surat al-Isra’ 17:84). This suggests that human
nature that has been created diverse, not just in language, ethnicity, and
appearance, but also in inward disposition and personality.
It is not a long step from these profound examples to ask whether the Qur’an
accepts diversity in sexual disposition and orientation. The Qur’an never states
this clearly, since there is no term in the Qur’an for “sexuality” in its abstract
meaning (just as there is no term in the Qur’an for “gender”).20 The above
examples show that the Qur’an asserts that creation is diverse on so many levels
and that this variation is not random or mistaken and is never to be assessed
negatively. With the Qur’an’s vivid portrayal of diversity at so many levels of the
natural and human world, it would be logical to assume that this diversity of
creation plays out on the level of sexuality as well. It is also plausible to assert
that, if some Muslims find it necessary to deny that sexual diversity is part of the
natural created world, then the burden of proof rests on their shoulders to
illustrate their denial from the Qur’anic discourse itself. The Qur’an certainly
implies that some people are different in their sexual desires than others when it
mentions “men who are not in need of women” (Surat al-Nur 24: 30).21 The
Qur’an includes such men in a list of people whose presence does not require of
women social modesty or seclusion (along with male relatives and children who
have not attained sexual maturity). It is not clear what inner disposition caused
such men to not be attracted to women. Perhaps they simply have no sexual
desire (due to age, illness or self-control that involves an inner disposition that
could be characterized as “asexual”) or perhaps they experience sexual desire
that is not attuned to women (which suggests an inner disposition that involves
sexual orientation that could be conceived as “homosexual”). In either case, the
Qur’an offers an example without negative judgment about men who do not
conform to patriarchal assumptions that men are always, inevitably, and
uncontrollably attracted sexually to women.22
This example from the Qur’an is suggestive, but not indicative. It is clarified
by the fact that the Prophet Muhammad knew of men in his era who belonged to
this category of “men who are not attracted to women.” In Arab society at the
time of the Prophet, there were men who lived outside the patriarchal heteronormal
sexual economy (mukhanath), as described in the detailed study of
Everett Rowson.23 The evidence presented by Rowson from early Islamic
literature shows that the Prophet accepted these men-who-acted-like-women as
citizens in Medina, as long as they did not transgress certain ethical rules. They
attracted the criticism of the Prophet only when they helped arrange clandestine
affairs between men and women (since they were in the unique position of
having access to both women’s secluded spaces and the more public space of
men).
It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the Qur’an accepts the existence of
diversity in sexuality and sexual orientation. This is the basic fact that must be
acknowledged before moving on to address any particular legal regulation of
sexual acts or sexual relationships. In other words, Islamic discourse based on the
Qur’an did not use a discourse of “natural” or “unnatural” to describe sexualities.
European Christians introduced this concept of “natural” versus “unnatural” to
describe variation in sexuality and sexual actions. It has remained the keystone
of denunciations of homosexuality long after Christianity ceased to function as
the moral touchstone for Western societies. Contemporary Muslims who
explicitly denounce homosexuality as “un-Islamic” adopt this dichotomy of
natural and unnatural, and apply it as if it were indigenous to the Islamic
tradition and to the Qur’an.24 This is a sign of bad faith, and a signal that
contemporary Muslim moralists are not insulated from modernity, even as they
depict gay and lesbian Muslims as corrupted by modernity. Gay and lesbian
Muslims are certainly not required to accept the posturing of self-righteous
defenders of a “tradition” that they anachronistically defend with conceptual
tools from Christian thought and modern Euro-American culture. These same
moralists and fundamentalists blithely assert that there are no homosexual
people in Islamic communities (or if they are they should be killed). On the
contrary, when one looks through the historical and literary records of Islamic
civilization, one finds a rich archive of same-sex sexual desires and expressions,
written by or reported about respected members of society: literati, educated
elites, and religious scholars.25 This is so much the case that one might consider
Islamic societies (like classical Greece) to provide a vivid illustration of a
“homosexual-friendly” environment in world history. In fact, medieval and early
modern Christian Europeans have often engaged in polemics against Muslims by
accusing them of being “sodomitical” and of engaging openly in same-sex
practices; this rhetoric was an integral part of the Christian campaigns to
re-conquer Spain.26
How ironic, then, that modern Western scholars have averred to Muslim
jurists’ views of sexual morality, those jurists who were always a minority voice
and often had no social power to enforce their views. It is surprising that most
modern Western scholars consistently ignore the observations of medieval
European scholars as well as the rich literary and historical examples of same-sex
relationships among pre-modern Muslims. The situation among Western
scholars has not changed since the time of John Addington Symmonds (who
first used the word “homosexual” in English prose in 1883), who remarked that
homosexuals are a topic that scholars “touch with reluctance and dispatch with
impatience.”27
If medieval Westerners condemned Muslims for being completely permissive,
modern Westerners have recognized only the most repressive elements among
Muslims as spokespersons for their religious beliefs and practices. In this,
modern Western scholars are certainly acting out their own indigenous forms of
homophobia in the mis-recognition or erasure of gay and lesbian Muslims, who
might protest, along with the poet Ghalib, that they were not created by mistake
no matter who may seek to erase their presence.
Oh Lord, why does time move to obliterate my every trace?
I’m no misspelling chalked on the tablet of the universe
In punishment, go ahead, torment me any way you see fit
I’m no infidel in the end, but just a simple sinner28
It is as if Ghalib were echoing (with a note of sarcasm) the benediction of Imam
al-Ghazali: “praise be to God, the marvels of whose creation are not subject to
the arrows of accident.” If sexuality is inherent in a person’s personality, then
sexual diversity is a part of creation, which is never accidental but is always
marvelous.
Here we have to pause, and scrutinize this evident clash of pre-modern and
modern terms of understanding sexuality. Under the conditions of modernity, as
it developed in Europe and America, the terms for the debate over sexual
diversity are “homosexuality” with its derivative terms “heterosexuality” and
“bisexuality.” As mentioned above, these conceptual terms are unique to modern
societies. While we cannot avoid the terms, we admit that they are contested and
debated. It is also crucial for the Muslim community to understand the subtlety
of these terms before refuting or denouncing them. Many contemporary analysts
are uncomfortable with the term “homosexuality,” since it is clinically
prescriptive and was invented at the end of the nineteenth century. The term
presumes a binary and irreducible opposition between two sexual orientations:
“heterosexuality,” which is normative, and “homosexuality” which is derivative
(and therefore judged to be perverted, inverted, sick, criminal, or somehow
unnatural or undesirable). Some historians of sexuality posit that “homosexuals”
did not exist before the creation of the term “homosexuality”; they claim that
homosexual people, like the term “homosexual” itself, are products of the
peculiar conditions of modernity. This argument is the cornerstone of a political
position that religious traditions have nothing to say about homosexuality or
modern homosexuals, since their ancient scriptures have no term to describe
them. Other historians of sexuality take a less nominalist position and argue that
“homosexuality” is a particularly modern lens through which to see types of
people, behaviors, and dispositions that exist in a more universal way in all
societies.29 They argue that an apple is an apple whether one calls it Apfel, tufah,
or sib, even if the word/concept in English, German, Arabic, or Persian might
have different metaphoric associations and cultural connotations. The argument
between “essentialists” and “constructionists” over the usefulness of the term
“homosexuality” has been a very productive argument with no easy resolution.
Many historians of sexuality have reacted against the binary opposition
asserted by the language of “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality.” Many now
prefer to use a more open-ended term, “queer,” to describe all sexual
orientations and practices that fall outside the narrow constraints of patriarchal
procreative sexuality (called “hetero-normativity”). “Queer” would include
same-sex eroticism between men and men or between women and women. It
would also include variations of bisexual eroticism in which men might engage
in sexual attraction or practices with both men and women (either in series or
simultaneously) and women might engage in the same with both women and
men. At its conceptual frontier, “queer” would also include celibacy as a sexual
practice that falls outside hetero-normative sexuality. More complex would be
sexual practices that include gender-crossing identification, as with men who
take on social roles described as “female” (through dress, language, or behavior),
or women who take on roles described as “male.”
The term “queer” allows for a more descriptive and complex analysis of a
variety of sexual orientations and practices that are very distinct, but united in
their common difference from hetero-normative sexuality. “Queer” is also a
literal translation of the Arabic term shudhudh which is currently applied to the
phenomena of homosexuality in humanistic studies and journalism. Shudhudh
literally means “odd” in the sense of numerically unusual or rare. “Queer” also
has a further merit, in that even heterosexual and normative sexual practices of
the past may seem “queer” to heterosexuals in the present. For instance, the
notion that Islamic law and prophetic example permitted sexual relationships with
slaves who were “owned” rather than “married” appears to many contemporary
Muslims very strange and even shameful (since most Islamic communities today
do not habitually own slaves any more, with some exceptions). Investigating
queer people of the past makes us realize the general “queerness of the past.”
With this background of basic Qur’anic principles about diversity and modern
concepts of sexuality, what can we say about homosexuality? We can make some
statements that may seem radical, but actually come from an insistence on
respecting the literal specificity of the Qur’an as revelation. The Qur’an contains
no word that means “homosexuality” (as an abstract idea denoting a sexuality of
men who desire pleasure with other men or a sexuality of women who desire
pleasure with other women). The Qur’an contains no word that means
“homosexual” as a man or woman who is characterized by this type of sexuality
as forming a core part of his or her identity. The terms that became popular in
Arabic in later times (Liwat for acts associated with same-sex relations, and Luti
for persons associated with these acts) are not found in the Qur’an at all. The
Qur’an does not explicitly specify any punishment for sexual acts between two
men or two women. Most modern commentators and demagogues insist that
the Qur’an does do all these things, but their insistence is not rooted in a close
reading of the Qur’anic verses with attention to specific terms and their narrative
context.
Let us address each of the above points one at a time, since they may strike
many Muslim readers as not just controversial but beyond serious consideration.
The Qur’an contains no word that means “homosexuality.” Nor does it contain a
word that means “heterosexuality.” The very concept of “sexuality” as an abstract
idea is a characteristic of modern societies. This is why sociologists who write in
Arabic have had to invent new words to describe homosexuality in the later part
of the twentieth century, and have come up with al-shudhudh al-jinsi (which
means literally “sexually rare or unusual”). Had there been a Qur’anic term for
this idea, it would have entered the Arabic language through common usage and
modern scholars would not have had to invent a new one. The Qur’an does
contain terms that describe desire (raghba) and lustful appetite (shahwa) which
are certainly components of sexuality in the abstract. But without the idea of
sexuality, the Qur’an does not have specific terms for either homosexuals or
heterosexuals.
That said, it is admitted that the Qur’an assumes a heterosexual norm among
its listeners. This does not automatically mean that the Qur’an forbids
homosexuality or condemns homosexuals – it means only that the Qur’an
assumes that sexual desire between men and women is the norm and that
addressing and regulating this desire is the basis for establishing a moral society.
Heterosexuality is certainly a numerical norm. In any society, homosexuals are a
numerical minority and are discursively located at the margins of ethical
regulations: whether they are condemned or admired, they are always unusual.
This is exactly what the modern Arabic term al-shudhudh al-jinsi means: a
sexuality that is uncommon, outside the general norm, and rare. However,
despite being a numerical minority, homosexual women and men are also
present in society and numerically persistent. In every historically documented
society there is evidence of homosexual desire and activity and there are persons
characterized by such desire and activities.
The closest the Qur’an comes to directly addressing homosexual people is the
phrase “men who are not in need of women (or have no sexual guile before
women).” The Qur’an presents this phrase descriptively in neutral tone, not
linked to denunciation or legal proscription. To such people, the Qur’an does
not explicitly address its discourse. Commentators and jurists have drawn
analogies and presented arguments to conclude that the Qur’an does address
such sexually unusual people, despite the Qur’an’s lack of a term for them or the
actions that characterize them. Those are, however, arguments of jurists and
commentators; they are not the words of the Qur’an itself.
The Qur’an does not contain abstract analytical terms like homosexuality or
homosexual, yet it does have words for certain acts. Its verses contain terms that
designate actions that transgress ethical norms, like fahisha: some acts deemed
fahisha could be sexual in nature. The most explicit term for sexual transgression
is adultery, zina, but that is clearly applied to sexual penetration between a
woman and man outside the bounds of a contractual relationship. As we will see
later, many jurists sought to draw equivalence between “adultery” (zina)
between a man and woman and other sexual acts between two men or between
two women. However, this equivalence is based on analogy (qiyas) utilizing a
legal fiction and is not based on the explicit wording of the Qur’an. Such
analogies were the subject of intense debate and little agreement in classical
Islamic law.
The Qur’an does specify an abstraction for the underlying moral attitude
that gives rise to behaviors and actions that are deemed fahisha or transgression;
it calls this attitude fisq or fusuq, which is usually translated as “corruption.” As
an action, fusuq means to break out of the bounds of moral restraint. As an
attitude or spiritual condition that causes such action, fusuq means not being
bound by obedience to the ethical demands of God and is synonymous with the
worship of idols. Often in sermons or moral advice, well-meaning preachers will
use the word fusuq to denounce sexual acts or sexual minorities, in utter
disregard of the Qur’anic use of the term. In the Qur’an, the term is both general
and deep, specifying a person’s or community’s inward spiritual state that either
accepts God’s presence through the Prophets’ teachings or conversely rejects
them. Fusuq is deeply linked to kufr, or denying that God is One who sends
Prophets who are many. In the view of this writer, those who claim that fusuq is a
term referring mainly to sex, specific sexual acts, or types of sexuality grossly
disregard the ethical and spiritual specificity of the Qur’anic message.
Since the Qur’an does not provide explicit terms for homosexuality or
homosexuals, why have Muslims traditionally felt so confident in declaring that
the Qur’an forbids homosexuality and condemns homosexuals? This is a very
complicated subject, demanding that we assess the ways in which Muslims have
read the Qur’an in the past. Nobody simply “reads” a text, especially when it is a
scripture or sacred text. We have “ways” of reading. These “ways” refer to
practices through which we come to the text, engage the text, and apply the text
to people, situations, and events that are not the text. We do not come to the
text naı¨vely. We come as human beings with our pre-conceptions, prejudices,
experiences, and “pre-understandings.” Our minds and hearts are already full of
concepts and ideas (hard-wired, we could say in this computerized age) that we
bring to the text before we ever open its pages and pronounce its words.
Every interpreter enters the process of interpretation with some preunderstanding
of the questions addressed by the text – even of its silences
– and brings with him or her certain conceptions as presuppositions of
his or her exegesis . . . One can proceed to examine and discuss the
legitimacy, usefulness and justice of particular pre-understandings in
contrast to others. Pre-understanding is a condition of living in history
. . . the ethics or absence of them, are located in an acknowledgement or
denial of its [pre-understanding’s] presence.30
These pre-conceptions both enable us to read and also limit our reading. It is
unethical to ignore their presence even in the most respected of classical
interpreters. Feminist scholars have shown how traditional readings of the
Qur’an have been “male” readings of the Qur’an, entirely shaped by assumptions
of masculine prerogative, privilege, and patriarchal power. Feminists have
accused male readers of distorting the sacred text by importing into it
patriarchal assumptions that may not be present in the Qur’an itself.
Contemporary scholars attentive to injustices against gay and lesbian Muslims
approach the question with the same moral agenda as feminist scholars. They
use the same critical techniques of rereading the scriptural texts through new
lenses in order to free the text from its former patriarchal confinement.
This is a very weighty undertaking. It is a project in process. This study can
only sketch the preliminary scope and method for such a project. Let it be
admitted at the outset that gay and lesbian Muslims are not certain what will be
found after a thoroughly critical reassessment of scriptural and juridical texts of
their religious tradition. They are only certain that no reassessment has yet been
made that takes into account differences in sexuality as well as gender. This
article hopes to contribute, in a small way, to this project. It cannot address all
the details, but it can highlight the crucial importance of this project and some
of the preliminary insights that might be gained from it. It asserts that there is
reason to doubt the reasoning behind the traditional condemnation of
homosexuality. More urgently, there is reason to doubt the justification of
capital punishment for homosexual acts. This article will address texts and
traditions in their order of importance to Islamic jurisprudence: the Qur’an, the
hadith reports attributed to the Prophet Muhammad (Sunnah), legal reasoning
by analogy (qiyas), and the consensus of jurists (ijma‘).31
There is, at present, no complete interpretation of the Qur’an from a nonpatriarchal
perspective. Islamic feminists have boldly begun this project, but it is
hardly complete. Scholars like Amina Wadud, Riffat Hassan, and Fatima
Mernissi have asserted that the Qur’an does not picture women as devoid of
reason, biologically inferior, or inherently subject to men’s control, despite the
interpretations given to the Qur’an by traditionalists, jurists, and commentators.
Gay and lesbian readers of the Qur’an have much to contribute to a nonpatriarchal
reading of the sacred text, but have only recently become empowered
to join this project in the footsteps of their feminist heroines. As they do, they
will use the same interpretive tools that feminists have developed (and these are
the same tools that modernist, even politically radical, interpreters have used for
liberationist purposes). Let us call this kind of interpretation “sexuality-sensitive”
interpretation, as short-hand to compare its results to feminist interpretation
and liberationist interpretation.
Sexuality-sensitive interpretation is attentive to the fact that sexualities are
always multiple in society. It is attentive to the fact that variation is always
arranged in hierarchical orders of power, leading to marginalization and
disempowerment of the non-normative groups, such as gays, lesbians, or those
whose gender is not easy to categorize as male or female. An elite is always
empowered by silencing and oppressing the marginal few; the elite claims to
speak for the norms of society, while subtly or explicitly supporting the
oppression of other groups, like women or political dissidents. “Sexualitysensitive”
as a descriptive term for this kind of interpretation is a direct
translation of the Arabic term hassas, meaning literally “a sensitive person” but
used colloquially to denote “a homosexual person.”32
Two basic interpretive strategies are important for sexuality-sensitive
readings of the Qur’an: semantic analysis and thematic analysis of the Qur’an.
These strategies are designed to move beyond “traditional” Qur’anic
interpretation with its verse-by-verse analysis that decontextualizes moments
of revelation, freezes their meaning, and specifies their interpretation according
to a word-for-word replacement. It will become clear that word-for-word
replacement, as practiced by classical Qur’anic commentators, has led to very
narrow interpretations of the Lut story in the Qur’an. The Lut story in the
Qur’an is the same as the Lot story in the Bible, yet it is told in a very different
way, with contrasting emphases and contradictory details. The stories are
comparable but not collapsible. This study insists on naming the Prophet Lut
(with Arabic spelling) in order to draw this distinction from the story of Lot,
which may be more familiar to many readers. The Lut story is the constant
reference for Muslims’ understanding of same-sex relationships. Word-for-word
replacement in classical commentaries has given rise to the dubious equation of
the Divine punishment of Lut’s people with a condemnation of homosexuality
and juridically enforceable punishment for same-sex acts. This is a conclusion
that looks less inevitable (and less intelligible) when we pursue different
techniques of interpretation, like semantic or thematic interpretation.
First, let us review how classical commentators have interpreted the Qur’an.
I do not say “traditional” commentators, for in their time they were pioneers not
traditionalists. Only in retrospect have their works come to represent immutable
tradition, as later readers of the Qur’an were too modest or were disempowered
from giving alternative readings. Let’s look at the example of al-Tabari, whose
commentary on the Qur’an is accepted as one of the foundational texts of this
genre. In his commentary on the verse in which Lut admonishes his people for
“approaching the transgression” (Surat al-A‘raf 7:80–81), al-Tabari writes,
The transgression [fahisha] that they approach, for which they were
punished by Allah, is “penetrating males sexually” [ityan dhukur]. The
meaning is this: it is as if Lut were saying “You are, all of you, you nation
of people, coming to men in their rears, out of lust, rather than coming to
those that Allah has approved for you and made permissible to you from
the women. You are a people that approach what Allah has prohibited for
you. Therefore you rebel against Allah by that act.” That is what the
Qur’an means by going beyond the bounds [israf] when Lut said, You are
a people who go beyond all bounds.33
It is clear from this passage that al-Tabari’s basic strategy is definition and
substitution. He takes a term that is pivotal to the verse and defines it:
“transgression” equals anal sex between men. Al-Tabari supplements definition
with substitution. He substitutes his own words for the words of the Qur’an in
order to add weight and validity to his interpretation: “It is as if Lut were saying”
this and that. This strategy allows al-Tabari to make a speculative assertion as if
it were a foregone conclusion: “This reproach [declaring anal sex between men
hateful] was the content of Lut’s prophetic message [risala]; his purpose was to
make this act forbidden.”34 This speculative assertion is not certain from the
Qur’an itself. It is not clear that Lut was sent as a Prophet solely (or even
primarily) to declare anal sex between men to be forbidden. It is not clear from
the Qur’anic text that Lut’s entire prophetic message revolves around sex acts.
Rather, this is the conclusion that al-Tabari engineers through his strategy of
definition and substitution.
Al-Tabari’s techniques of commentary are very limited and give a very
limited interpretation. However, it is the dominant mode of commentary in the
classical period, and al-Tabari’s interpretation is echoed in almost all later
commentators. Once they were enshrined in classical commentaries, such
conclusions were repeated in most commentaries through the present day,
especially in commentaries that pretend to be simple “translations.” If we take
Abdullah Yusuf Ali’s popular English “translation” of the Qur’an as an example,
we find him engaging in very irresponsible translation that promotes a
dangerously reductionist way of thinking. In his translation of Surat al-‘Ankabut
29:28–35, where the Qur’an talks about “the lewdness that not has come to
before in the wide worlds,” Yusuf Ali describes this “lewdness” as homosexuality
which is a “crime against the laws of nature.”35
Al-Tabari’s commentary conflates sexual acts of a specific nature with sexual
desire of a particular orientation. He does not distinguish between sexual acts,
sexual desire, or sexuality. These terms must be carefully dis-aggregated,
according to sociological facts about the human personality and sexual
diversity. Does the Qur’an talk about a sexual identity characterized by erotic
orientation? Does it address a coupling between two people characterized by
this identity? Or does it refer to specific sexual acts? These are specific questions
that al-Tabari does not ask or answer.
In fact, his interpretive strategy pointedly precludes the possibility of asking
these questions of the Qur’an. Sexuality-sensitive interpretation of the Qur’an
needs to ask these questions. When we use methods of analysis and
interpretation that are more complex and ethically alert, it becomes clear that
the story of Lut is not about homosexuality or homosexuals in any general sense.
Let’s turn to two methods of interpretation that can give us new insights into the
Qur’an. They can give us insights precluded by the simple denunciation of
homosexuality which is content to take a few words or phrases out of context in
order to interpret the verses by definition and substitution.
Semantic analysis of the Qur’an is a technique of reading that does not trust
simple translation. The Islamic scholars have long been skeptical of the ability of
translation to capture the meaning of the Qur’an in another language. Semantic
analysis takes this skepticism further and makes an analytic technique out of
refusal to trust a word-for-word translation of Qur’anic terms. The Japanese
scholar of Islam Toshihiko Izutsu provided the most sophisticated explanation
of this technique and demonstrated what it can contribute to Qur’anic
interpretation.36 He explained that words have meaning only by being enmeshed
in a web of relationships to other words. This is especially true in regard to the
Qur’an, which was revealed as scripture and represents the “Speech of Allah”
that belongs to its own realm of discourse. The ethical imperatives of the Qur’an
can be understood by looking at how its words relate to each other; in effect, its
words “define themselves” by grouping into clusters of relationships in
“semantic fields.”
One scholar has applied this technique to the sexuality-sensitive interpretation
of the Qur’an, in the first serious critical attempt to reassess the Qur’an’s
view of same-sex relationships.37 Amreen Jamel analyzed the passages from
fourteen surahs of the Qur’an that mention Lut and his relationship to the
community of people to whom he was sent as a Prophet.38 While it is clear that
Lut’s people were wicked and were destroyed by Divine punishment for their
wickedness, it is not clear at all whether the Qur’anic terms that describe their
wickedness and destruction are terms that specify same-sex relationships. Jamel’s
goal is
to discover the nature of the moral judgements within the Qur’an by
raising questions about the Qur’an’s perception of sin. The question that
needs investigation is whether the specific moral terminology used within
the Lut saga as well as in the rest of the Qur’an provides a direct link to
attitudes toward same-sex sexuality.39
To do this, Jamel’s article highlighted the seventeen Arabic root-words that
appear in the story of Lut (which carry the weight of ethical condemnation of
Lut’s people). The article then analyzed their range of meanings both in the Lut
story and throughout the Qur’an where they appear without any relationship to
Lut’s people. Jamel charted whether these terms specified sensual or sexual acts
or attitudes and whether they were clearly positive or negative in their moral
weight. Semantic analysis was used to discover how the Qur’an gave these terms
a range of meanings, dependent on how the terms were related to each other and
how they were repeated in different contexts.
This method gives a very “literal” reading of the text. It respects the words of
the Qur’an not as defined not by human authorities who assign them meanings
by definition and substitution, but rather as defined by their placement in
relations to other words in the Qur’an itself. The results of Jamel’s systematic
and comprehensive study confirm that there is great ambiguity in the Qur’anic
retelling of the story of Lut.
While there are no terms in the Qur’an that are uniquely attached to
same-sex sexuality, certain terms (e.g. from the roots sh-h-y [as in
shahwa] and f-h-sh [as in fahisha]) are frequently associated with samesex
sexual practices . . . However, these terms are used to qualify morally
opposite-sex and non-sexual activities as well. Same-sex indiscretions are,
in fact, put on the same ethical plane as all sorts of inappropriate
opposite-sex and non-sexual activities. In that form, same-sex sexual
abominations [sic] are just another form of alienation from God, no
different than anything else . . . It is possible to suggest that Lut’s people
(specifically the men) were indeed destroyed right after they threatened
to assault Lut’s male guests sexually; however, there are others, like Lut’s
wife, who are destroyed for non-sexual indiscretions. This example alone
confirms the premise that same-sex sexuality is not the ultimate
abomination that causes people to be alienated from God.40
Jamel’s analysis is the first step in a serious analysis of the Qur’an from a
sexuality-sensitive perspective. Yet the conclusions are very moderate in
comparison with the data the study raises.41 Jamel notes that the terms that
the Qur’an uses to denounce Lut’s people are not unique to Lut’s people; some
imply sexual activity but are not limited to sexual activity. Jamel’s conclusions
could go one step further, to question whether the overall condemnation of Lut’s
people was either about their sex practices in general or about the sexuality of
specific persons in the community. It is certainly hard to imagine a just God,
whose most basic message through the Prophets is that “whoever does an atom’s
weight of good will see the results and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will
see the results” (Surat al-Zalzala 99:7), would destroy women and children
because of acts of anal intercourse that could occur only between men. From this
vantage point, it would seem that it was not sexual behavior or sexuality for
which they were all punished, but rather something far more basic.
It is crucial to pursue this point in Qur’anic analysis beyond the initial
study by Amreen Jamel. That study notes how Lut’s people were destroyed
after some of their men “threatened to assault Lut’s male guests sexually.” Why
did these men threaten to assault them? What was the social, political, and
moral context of this assault? Should readers of the Qur’an understand this
“sexual assault” as an expression of sexuality (let alone homosexuality) or
rather as an exercise of coercive power through rape? These are questions that
cannot be answered through the technique of semantic analysis alone. We have
to turn to a second technique, to “thematic analysis,” to supplement Jamel’s
study and take its analysis to a deeper level of critical re-evaluation of
tradition.
Thematic analysis of the Qur’an is based on the insight that the Qur’an is a
unique scripture in its form and texture. Unlike the Hebrew Torah, the Qur’an is
not a chronological account of a distinct people or tribe; unlike the Christian
Gospels, it is not a biographical account of a founding religious figure. The
Qur’an’s verses are organized into chapters whose structure is more like a
kaleidoscope than a chain. Its central themes radiate out in patterns from a
central point (where Divine will impacts human language in the consciousness
of the Prophet). These patterns are not subordinated to a chronologically
organized story. In the Qur’an, narratives comes as reminders. They are told in
short sequences, interspersed with parables, directives, or ethical exhortations,
only to be repeated or continued in a different place. This contributes to the
Qur’an’s unique power to communicate and move its audience. But this also
creates a daunting challenge for those who seek to interpret “what the Qur’an
says” about a particular topic. An interpreter cannot just pick one verse and use
it as a proof-text to make an authoritative statement, for the same theme could
come up, in different contexts with different shades of meaning, in other places
in the Qur’an.
Thematic analysis of the Qur’an embraces this structural characteristic of the
Qur’an, while classical commentaries ignore it. A thematic analysis identifies a
single theme (be it a concept, an image, or a character) and traces its multiple
appearance throughout the Qur’an. It tries to provide a composite picture of the
theme, based on its multiple and varied single instances, without privileging one
verse over another and trusting that the Qur’an provides a thematic unity
underneath all these instances. This type of analysis is basic to all reformist
interpretation that searches for an inner unity of the Qur’an beyond the juridical
rulings enshrined in the Shari‘ah.
Reformist scholars all agree that the task of interpretation today must
consider the time, location and an understanding of how tenets and
directives respond to the contemporary context. They also share a
commitment to the inner unity of the Qur’an and a rejection of random
and selective citation.42
To see how this works, let’s take a simple example. When one reads a Qur’anic
passage about “water” one should not interpret it solely based on the lexical
meaning of “water” as “liquid H2O” or on the grammatical placement of the
word “water” in a sentence. One should not stop at “water” as a particular subject
related to the verse before it or the verse after it. Rather, thematic analysis urges
us to interpret “water” in relationship to all other instances in which the Qur’an
mentions “water.” This gives us a more holistic basis for interpretation, in which
any mention of “water” is not isolated but has a greater meaning created by the
varied repetitions of water imagery: as rainfall, as seas, or as a means of ritual
purification. The meaning of “water” is more fully and more deeply understood
if we take account of the multiple and varied contexts in which it is embedded,
rather than ignoring these contexts in order to interpret a single verse. The
Qur’an’s repeated and varied references to water is a key to our thinking about
rizq or how Allah distributes provision to all creatures, forcing us to consider the
economics of distributive justice in our societies. Through thematic analysis,
“water” forces us to examine the way our economies destroy the environmental
interconnectedness that is the apparent conduit for Allah’s continuous creation
and provision. In addition, water is linked to sexuality through procreation, for
(as al-Ghazali asserted in the quotation that heads this study) “Allah created all
things from water,” and al-Ghazali interprets “water” to mean the meeting of
male and female sexual fluids with their procreative potential.
This method of analysis is especially useful, even indispensable, when we
come to the Qur’an’s more narrative passages. These are frequently about the
Prophets who came before Muhammad, including the Prophet Lut. This study
will focus here on the narrative of Lut’s struggles as a Prophet, since it is from
verses in this narrative that commentators and jurists have made assertions
about homosexuality. The Qur’an does not present this narrative completely in
one place. Rather, various parts of Lut’s story are mentioned in different places
as reminders. Thematic analysis has trained us to be wary of interpreting one
part of this story separate from the composite whole that is created by the
repeated and varied presentation of parts of the story in scripture. The deeper
meaning of Lut’s struggles will be lost to us if we do not try to construct these
textual incidents into a cohesive narrative while simultaneously being attentive
to the context of their incidence.
Since the classical period, Muslim scholars have been engaging in thematic
analysis of the Qur’an (without announcing the fact) by telling stories of the
Prophets. They developed these “narrative re-constructions” into a new genre,
called “Stories of the Prophets” (Qisas al-Anbiya’). Though this genre was
distinct from classical commentaries (tafsir), the Stories of the Prophets were in
reality a kind of commentary on the Qur’anic verses that mention the various
Prophets. Tradition presents the practices of telling these stories as just as old
and just as authentic as making explicit commentaries on the Qur’an.43 We have
no books that date from this early period. For this study, we will focus on the
Stories of the Prophets written by al-Kisa’i.44 Although he wrote in the twelfth
century CE, al-Kisa’i quotes from earlier books that no longer exist.45 Al-Kisa’i is
one of the earliest texts that we have in this genre in Arabic, along with other
similar books in Persian, to which this study later refers.46
Al-Kisa’i interprets the Qur’anic verses about Lut by telling Lut’s story. He
arranges all the verses about Lut in a narrative sequence, buttressed by what the
Islamic tradition had preserved of historical and sociological knowledge about
“the Cities of the Plain” and the society that thrived there. Let’s listen to his
interpretation as an example of a thematic analysis of the Qur’an.
There were five cities known as the “Cities of the Plain” and the chief
among them was named Sodom. The cities were each surrounded by high
walls of iron and lead. In each lived thousands of inhabitants. The king
of the realm was called “Sodom son of Khariq” and was from the family
of Nimrod. The people of this realm were more skilled than any in the
whole world in cheating in accounts and shooting at thrown clay targets.
They were well-known for sins like clapping their hands, playing sports
with pigeons, lining up fighting birds, playing with tooth-picks, chewing
gum, setting up dog-fights and cock-fights and worshiping graven idols.
Their king established special temples for the idols which were intricately
sculpted and set up. Special seats for the idols were bedecked and
decorated.
The people of these cities took to building gardens within the walls of
their houses to avoid the public. In this privacy, they would retire to
partake of beautiful and pleasant pass-times. Then a famine came and
they fell into poverty. Iblis the accursed took this opportunity to come to
them, saying, “This famine has befallen you all because you prevented
other people from entering your homes but did not prevent them from
entering your orchards which are outside your homes!” They had gardens
inside their homes that were hidden from the public, and gardens and
orchards outside their homes which they left open for the rest of the
people who might be travelling through and need to stop at night to take
rest and provision.
So the people asked the Tempter [Iblis], “How can we guard against
strangers and travelers entering these public orchards?” Iblis replied,
“Make it your custom that if any strangers come and enter the orchards
of your land you will fuck them from behind and steal all their
belongings! If you do that, nobody will dare stop there in their travels to
spend the night!”
On hearing this, the people went outside the city walls, searching for
people whom they could debauch [yafjuruna bihi]. Iblis then appeared to
them in a different form: the form of a young man, handsome and richlydressed.
The people overtook him, stole all his belongings, and fucked
him. The people all decided this was a good thing. It became a habitual
custom for them with any stranger who wandered onto their lands.
Corruption spread among them.
Then Allah revealed to Ibrahim that his cousin, named Lut, has been
chosen as a warner and a messenger to those corrupt and degenerate
people.47
At this point, the apostlehood of Lut begins in earnest. Into this narrative reconstruction,
al-Kisa’i embeds the verses from the Qur’an that mention Lut. The
Qur’anic words are rendered here in italics, to make clear how he quotes
scripture interspersed with commentary.
So Lut set off and traveled until he came to the cities [of the plain]. He
stopped just outside the area, not knowing in which city he should begin.
Then he entered the city of Sodom since it was the largest city and the
residence of the king.
When he reached the market place, he raised his voice and announced,
“Oh people, stay conscious of Allah and obey! Restrain yourself from
these transgressions [fawahish, in the plural] that no other people has
practiced like this before you! And quit worshipping idols! For indeed, I
am the messenger of Allah sent to you!” It is as Allah said in the Qur’an,
And [remind them of] Lut, when he said to his people: Do you come to the
transgression that nobody in the universe has before you? And Allah also
said, Do you come to the men in your lust disregarding the women? Indeed
you are a heedless and headstrong people! (Al-A‘raf 80–1 and al-Naml
27:55).
His people simply answered him by retorting, Let us expel Lut and his
family from this city of ours, for they are people who pretend to be purer!
(Al-Naml 27:56). They meant purer than them by abstaining from these
transgressions [fawahish]. These are the things Allah indicated in the
verse: Indeed you come upon men and rob wayfarers and practice
reprehensible things in your gatherings (Surat Al-‘Ankabut 29:29) meaning
short-changing and cheating people, clapping their hands [tasfiq],
playing sports with pigeons, wearing clothes dyed scarlet [luxurious
clothes]. Then the people answered Lut immediately, saying “Bring on the
punishment from Allah if you are a sincere speaker of truth!” (Surat
Al-‘Ankabut 29:29).
News of this confrontation reached their king, who demanded that Lut
be brought before him. Lut came into his presence and the king asked,
“Who are you? Who sent you here? And why?” Lut answered “Surely it is
Allah the Exalted who sent me to you as a messenger that you might put
an end to these transgressions [fawahish] and return to obedience to
Allah.”
Hearing this, the King’s heart was struck with fear. He said to Lut, “I am
one with my people – as they answer you so I answer you.” So Lut left the
king and went out to the people. He beseeched them to return to
obedience to Allah and forbade them from continuing their rebellious
ways, warning them about the punishment of Allah and preaching to
them about the destruction of former nations who were oppressive.48 The
people rushed upon him from every side, shouting If you don’t desist, Lut,
you will surely be driven out! (Surat al-Shu‘ara 26:167) meaning driven
out of their land. So Lut rebuffed them, saying I am surely of those who
stands above what you practice! (Surat al-Shu‘ara 26:168) meaning that he
was one of those who find what they do reprehensible. [Lut prayed] My
Lord, save me and my family from what they are doing. (Surat al-Shu‘ara
26:169).
In al-Kisa’i’s interpretation of the story, Lut is helpless. He lives among the
people of the cities for twenty years, during which time his first wife dies (who
had come with him from outside). He marries a new wife from among the
people of Sodom. Now partly integrated into their society,
He persisted in preaching to them, but they heaped insults on him and
beat him while continuing their ugly behavior. This continued until he
had lived among them forty years. They continued to ignore him and
refused to follow him and never desisted from their custom. This
continued until the earth beneath them rose in tumult because of their
awful deeds. So Allah revealed these words to the earth: “I am most
restrained and patient and I never rush against those who rebel against
me, until their appointed time comes about” (echoing the phrasing of
Surat al-Dhariyat 51:30). Yet still the people persisted in deeming this
messenger of Allah as trivial and not heeding his call to return to
obedience to Allah.49
The solution to this troublesome situation comes from outside the Cities of the
Plain. Lut had an integral connection to the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham). Lut
was related by family ties to Ibrahim, and their prophetic missions were similar
in opposing idol worship and espousing an ethic of care for vulnerable, weak,
and marginalized people of their societies. As if to assert this integral connection
between the two Prophets, the four angels who are sent to destroy the Cities of
the Plain first stop at the camp of Ibrahim, in the form of human beings.
Ibrahim welcomes them as his guests, “For it was his custom not to eat except
with guests with whom to share his food, and he had not had any guests for
three days in a row.”50 He greets them by saying, “Peace be upon you, strangers
from an unknown people” (Surat al-Dhariyat 51:24). He invites them to stay
with him and eat of his food. He grows suspicious and frightened when the
guests do not eat, fearing that the risk he took to help them would be repaid by
their intending harm against him (Surat Hud 11:69–70).
This sets up a narrative tension that explains the story in more depth. The
hospitality, generosity, and care for the poor, strangers, and travelers that was
exhibited by Ibrahim and Lut contrasts vividly with the “practices of the people
of Lut” in the Cities of the Plain. They do not host strangers; they chase them
away. They do not feed travelers; they rob them. They do not take care of guests
and the needy; they rape them sexually by force as an operation of power over
them.
Thematic analysis of the Qur’an has the goal of finding the deep structural
motifs of the Qur’an and relating individual images or verses to these deeper
motifs. In this way, thematic analysis of the Qur’an tries to make clear the most
basic and profound ethical principles expounded in the Qur’an. At its deepest
and most meaningful level, the Qur’an argues that humane values come from
belief in one God while inhumane values come from idolatry. Belief in one God
is the basis for generosity, hospitality, and an ethic of care for the needs of others.
On the contrary, belief in idols is the basis for pride, hoarding wealth, denying
the rights of others and exploiting their weakness in every way possible (through
wealth, property, coercion, objectifying others, and using them). Sexual relations
are not exempt from this ethical dynamic. They can express care for others or
abuse of others, depending on the ethical situation, the moral intention and the
social context in which they are practiced. Clearly the sexual acts of the people of
Sodom are only one expression of their overall ethical corruption. Their acts are
not important as sexual acts (as expressions of sexuality) but rather as
expressions of their disregard for the ethical care of others and most specifically
their rejection of the prophethood of Lut.
This is the repeated message of the Qur’an, which becomes clearer as al-Kisa’i
re-constructs a narrative context for the story. It is the message that comes across
clearly even as the angels enter the cities and Lut tries to take responsibility for
hosting and protecting them as strangers and wayfarers.
Then the angels left Ibrahim and traveled to the cities where Lut lived.
They arrived just before evening. The eldest daughter of Lut, named
Rabab, spotted them approaching as she was irrigating the fields. When
she saw how beautiful and attractive they were, she approached them and
said, “What are you doing coming to these corrupt people? Especially
when there is nobody to give you hospitality and protection except that
old man over there. He is their Prophet, against whom they are
remorselessly cruel in their opposition.”51
This narrative commentary does not interpret the verses against their literal
meaning; it places them in a social and historical context in which their literal
pronouncements make sense. This context focuses not on sex acts as expressions
of sexuality that might be called “homosexuality” or could be judged as
“unnatural.” Rather the context of the narrative focuses on acts of greed,
selfishness, and inhospitality, which are taken to the extreme of violence against
strangers. The sexual acts of the narrative are acts of violence more than acts of
sexual pleasure; they are contiguous with acts of coercion and robbery. Worse, all
these incidents of violent inhospitality are concentrated in rejecting the
prophethood of Lut and disbelieving in the God whom Lut claims to represent.
The narrative is clearly about infidelity through inhospitality and greed, rather
than about sex acts in general or sexuality of any variation in particular.
One possible critique of this narrative style of commentary on the Qur’an is
that it frames the Qur’anic verses in a “fictional” story. Critics might rush to
point out that al-Kisa’i does not cite any reports from the Prophet or the early
Companions to authenticate the elements of this story. However, other scholars
who wrote narratives of the Prophet Lut in Stories of the Prophets have
presented similar narratives in the form of reports from the Prophet and early
Companions with an authenticating record of transmission (isnad). One
example is the book by al-Rawandi, written in the late twelfth century CE.52 He
quotes a series of hadith attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, with full isnad,
which support elements of the narrative framework presented by al-Kisa’i. For
instance, one hadith presents Muhammad asking Jibra’il why and how the
people of Lut were destroyed. Jibra’il answers,
The people of Lut were a people who did not clean themselves after
excreting, and did not wash after sexual ejaculation. They were stingy and
covetous in refusing to share food generously with others. Lut stayed
among them for thirty years, living amid them without ever becoming
like them, entering into intimate terms with them or establishing a family
among them. Lut called them to follow Allah’s command but they never
heeded his call or obeyed him as their Prophet.53
This hadith stresses that the sinful nature of the people of Lut was greed, avarice,
covetousness, and a cruel lack of generosity. It supports the basic framework of
al-Kisa’i’s narrative interpretation of the Qur’an.
This is even more explicit in another hadith quoted by al-Rawandi. The
report has Abu Ja’far asking the Prophet Muhammad to describe the
consequences of stinginess in refusing to share with others (bukhl). The Prophet
is reported as reciting the Qur’an – “And those who protect their souls from
stinginess, they are the spiritually successful” (Surat al-Hashr 59:9) – and then he
answers,
I will tell you about the consequences of miserliness. The people of Lut
were inhabitants of a city that refused to share its food with others. This
miserliness consequently became a disease that had no cure that infected
their sexual organs [furuj] . . . Their city was on the main highway
between Syria and Egypt, so caravans and travelers used to halt there and
stay as their guests. This situation increased until their means were
stretched to the limits and they grew dissatisfied. 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.54
Again, al-Rawandi asserts that the “sexual acts” of the people of Lut were acts of
violence to drive away strangers, travelers, and those in need. They were not
sexual acts expressing a distinct sexuality or even fulfilling the desire for sexual
pleasure. They were acts of coercion expressing their miserliness, greed, and
rejection of the ethic of care that was the hallmark of the Prophets. Rape is not
primarily about sexual acts, pleasures, or relations. It is primarily about power
and authority (as recent evidence from the war in Bosnia, involving the rape of
women or police brutality cases involving anal rape of men, demonstrates).
This argument can be extended to explain why Lut offered his daughters to
the crowd that rushed to his home intending to violate Lut’s guests. Many
interpreters have stressed the gender difference between the daughters who were
female and the guest-angels who were male, explaining this episode as
confirmation that females are the appropriate sex-objects of males to the
exclusion of other males. However, this episode can be explained in a different
way that highlights the ethics of hospitality rather than the hetero-normative
conflation of gender difference with sexual desire.
As the head of a household, Lut had the duty to protect two kinds of people:
his kin and his guests to whom he had offered food and shelter. Offers of
hospitality were not just a matter of sharing a meal, but also cemented a social
bond including the duty to protect guests from threats in the surrounding
community. The people of Lut rejected his prophethood by violating his right
to offer hospitality and protection to strangers and visitors. Their attempt to
abduct his guests and rape them most graphically demonstrates this rejection.
When Lut offers up his family members (who happen to be female daughters) in
exchange for his guests (who happen to be male visitors), he displays in most
extreme terms the sacredness of protecting guests who are elevated even above
the status of offspring. The difference in gender between the female characters in
the narrative and the male characters obscures the more important underlying
message, that caring for those in need is a sacred duty that overrides the duty to
protect one’s own family. How many of us, homosexual or heterosexual, can
claim to live up to that ethical principle?
In this way, the genre of Stories of the Prophets acts as a commentary on the
Qur’an, beyond the technical limitations of the tafsir genre. One could argue
that authors of Stories of the Prophets are actually articulating the fundamental
ethical principles of the Qur’an better than do the authors of tafsir, since they are
not confined to grammatical and lexical commentary on each verse. They are
freer to compare verses to come up with an intelligible narrative that does not
contradict the explicit word of the Qur’anic verses that inform it. Their goal is
to present each Prophet as a character who upholds ethical values in the face of
rejection and opposition by their community, ethical values that can and should
inform the Muslim community that strives to follow the whole line of Prophets.
There is an instructive contradiction here. In populist religious discourse
(muwa‘iza), sexual acts between men are always condemned in reference to the
people of Lut. However, in juridical discourse, there is nothing in the Qur’anic
verses about Lut on which to base legal rulings. Jurists refer to Lut’s people only
rhetorically, not juridically. As short-hand, they call the act of penetration of a
penis in another’s anus “the act of the people of Lut.” To construct legal rulings
about this act, jurists rely on either hadith or, more often, reports of the
decisions of the early followers of the Prophet. It is to this body of textual
sources for the law they we must now turn.
Let’s look closely at commentaries on the Qur’an that were written by jurists.
Their concern was not to give a semantic or thematic analysis of the Qur’anic
discourse, but rather to give legal rulings for the ordering of society. Their
commentaries were meant to highlight those Qur’anic verses from which legal
rulings could be deduced. Jurists were concerned with acts rather than
intentions, and they focused rather obsessively on the act of anal intercourse
between men. While gay men can rightly protest that anal sex is not the
definitive feature that characterizes them, and many gay men do not practice
anal penetrative sex at all, it is the case that this is how the Islamic juridical
tradition pictured all same-sex desire.55 It will become clear that jurists in the
classical period did not reach a consensus about the legal status of anal sex
between men. It will become even clearer that they did not even address
something called “homosexuality” in the abstract. The jurists argued over how
to understand the term fahisha in the Lut story, and whether it was, in legal
terms, equivalent to zina or sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who
are not related by marriage, contract, or ownership.
Let’s begin with al-Qurtubi, a Maliki jurist who died in 1273 CE. He wrote a
detailed commentary on the Qur’an, and tried to argue that anal sex between
men was a hadd crime requiring capital punishment. A hadd crime (pl. hudud) is
a crime that is explicitly defined in the Qur’an and for which specific
punishment is demanded in the Qur’an. There are five crimes with hadd
punishments that are explicitly mentioned in the Qur’an: murder, highway
robbery, theft, adultery between a man and a woman, and false accusation of
adultery. Al-Qurtubi argues that anal sex between two men is also a hadd crime,
even if this is not explicitly stated in the Qur’an, since this sexual act is the legal
equivalent of zina. Zina is an act of sexual penetration between a man and a
woman who are not joined by a contractual relationship or marriage, and the
punishment for zina, under certain legal conditions, is death by stoning. To
make this argument, al-Qurtubi lines up a series of assertions, all of which are
open to question and critique.
In the Qur’an, Lut says to his community, “Do you approach the
transgression [a ta’tuna al-fahishata]?” In the commentary on this verse,
al-Qurtubi gives a classic example of interpretation by substitution. He is
unconcerned about the semantic range of the term fahisha or whether it is related
to wider themes. Rather, he defines the word fahisha in juridical terms, by
substituting it with a phrase that is explicit.
Do you approach the transgression means “sexually entering males” [idkhal
al-rijal]. Allah mentions this act with the term the transgression [fahisha]
in order to make it clear that this act is adultery [zina]. It is just like
Allah’s statement in another verse, Do not approach adultery [zina] for it is
a transgression [fahisha] (Surat al-A‘raf 7:80–84).56
In classical Islamic law, the hadd punishment for adultery is either lashing (if the
person is unmarried) or stoning to death (if the person is already married). This
is the punishment that al-Qurtubi argues should apply to men who have anal sex
with a man. He argues this despite the fact that the Qur’an does not specify this
as a hadd crime and the Prophet Muhammad does not give any explicit example
of having applied this punishment to the act in question. By offering a definition
(substituting “entering males” for “transgression”) and an analogy (sexual
penetration of an unmarried man by a man is equal to sexual penetration of an
unmarried woman by a man), al-Qurtubi argues that this juridical decision is in
reality nothing but a simple “reading” of the Qur’an.
One could argue with al-Qurtubi that his reading of the Qur’an is not just
simple, but also erroneous, limited, and misleading. His reading is not attentive
to grammatical subtlety or narrative context. In the verse that communicates
Lut’s prohibition al-fahisha comes in the definite nominal form, “the
transgression,” whereas the verse about adultery mentions fahisha in the
indefinite nominal form “transgression.” This suggests that transgression is a
general category including many different specific kinds of acts; one could speak
of the particular transgression in specifying an act or one could speak of
transgression in general to imply a whole range of acts that transgress the
boundary of decency, righteousness, or legality. Not every term mentioned as
“transgression” would be equivalent, morally or legally or punitively. In fact, the
Qur’an often uses the term “transgressions” (fawahish) in the plural in the
narrative sections about Lut and his conflict with his community. One would
have to ignore grammar and narrative context to draw the one-for-one
equivalence that al-Qurtubi has done.
Al-Qurtubi is quite bold about doing this, and insists that he knows Allah’s
intention in using particular terms. However, al-Qurtubi cannot deny that other
jurists have read the same passage and come to different conclusions. He admits
that “jurists have differed amongst themselves over the exact punishment for this
[anal sex between men] after they have come to consensus on forbidding it.”57
The Maliki and Shafi‘i jurists insist that anal sex between men is a hadd crime
punishable by death. This contradicts the Hanafi jurists, who argue that although
it is an immoral act and is forbidden, it does not qualify as a hadd crime. Hanafis
insist that there should be no punishment of death but rather the government
authorities can punish the act as they think appropriate. As a Maliki jurist,
al-Qurtubi quotes Imam Malik, for whom two contradictory judgments have
been recorded: one says “He should be stoned [to death] whether he is married
or unmarried,” while the other says, “He should be stoned if he is married and
disciplined if he is unmarried.” Despite the contradiction, both judgments
interpret anal sex between men as a hadd crime, equivalent to zina, or adultery.
Imam al-Shafi‘i’s judgment makes this explicit in ways that Malik leaves implicit
when he is reported to have said, “He should be punished with the hadd penalty
to adultery by reason of juridical analogy.”
There is a deep problem here for those who advocate capital punishment for
anal sex between men. It is primarily countries that follow the Hanbali legal
method (or countries ruled by fundamentalists influenced by Hanbalism) that
make a state policy of executing gay men. Hanbalis are a tiny minority in the
Islamic world. Only Saudi Arabia is an officially Hanbali state, though
fundamentalist regimes in Sudan, Pakistan (under General Zia ul-Haqq), and
Afghanistan (under the Taliban) have been overtly influenced by Hanbali
dogma. Hanbalis follow Shafi‘i juridical positions in regard to anal sex between
men, though they degrade legal reason and analogy and advocate capital
punishment as a “literal” reading of the Qur’an itself.58 The state of Iran (since
the Islamic Revolution in 1978) also has a state policy of executing gay men,
which they justify through the Shi‘i Ja‘fari legal school. Though Shi‘i Iranians are
usually quick to distinguish themselves from their Sunni neighbors, in the case
of execution of gay men the Iranian legal arguments parallel the Hanbali
arguments. All these states argue (along the lines described by al-Qurtubi) that
homosexual men are exclusively characterized by anal sex, which, they claim, is a
crime with a “hadd penalty.” It is unclear whether any of these contemporary
states in practice apply the legal conditions that limit hadd cases, such as
observation of the actual act of penetration by four adult male witnesses.
Hadd penalties are, by definition, those penalties described explicitly by the
Qur’an itself. Jurists are not supposed to exercise legal reasoning and analogy in
cases of hadd penalties. Al-Qurtubi, we noted above, had to resort to legal
reasoning and analogy to argue that anal penetration between men was a hadd
crime, since the language of the Qur’an is not explicit and exact in this case.
Hanafi jurists were keenly aware of this problem, and argued that anal sex
between men could not justifiably be considered a hadd crime.
The punishment for adultery [zina] is known [from the Qur’an
explicitly]. Since this act is known to be different [in nature] from
adultery, it should not be treated as a hadd crime equivalent to adultery
. . . This act is a kind of sexual intercourse in a bodily opening that has no
relation to legal marriage and does not necessitate giving a dowry or
determining parentage [as adultery does]. Therefore it has no relation to
the hadd punishment for adultery.59
The Hanafi jurists mounted a strong case against the Malikis, Shafi‘is, and
Hanbalis (and also, implicitly, the Shi‘is), and accused them of applying a hadd
penalty for an act that was not defined in the Qur’an as a hadd, thereby
committing a grave injustice.
In his juridical commentary on the Qur’an, the Hanafi jurist al-Jassas (who
died in the tenth century CE), addresses this issue. He argues that the Qur’an
specifies a hadd punishment of death by stoning for adultery between a man
and a woman and in this specificity the punishment applies only to adultery
(not to anal sex between men or other types of sexual acts). He argues this
position with two hadith attributed to the Prophet. “Whoever applies a hadd
penalty to a crime that is not a hadd crime has committed injustice and
oppression” and “The blood of a Muslim is not liable to be shed, except in these
three cases: adultery after marriage, infidelity after adopting Islam, and
murdering an innocent person.”60 He acknowledges that certain hadith were in
circulation, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, that men found “doing the
act of the people of Lut” should be killed. However, he notes that these reports
have weak chains of transmission containing unreliable transmitters, and
therefore cannot form the basis for a juridical decision to put a Muslim to
death.61
Clearly, there was a hot argument on this issue among classical jurists, with
no actual consensus on the nature of the act, the status of punishment for it, or
the relation of punishment to the words of the Qur’an. It also appears that jurists
faced opposition from commentators who read the Qur’an as a narrative of
ethical exhortation rather than as a legal text, as did the authors of the Stories of
the Prophets. When al-Qurtubi argued that the Prophet Lut’s conflict with his
community was about forbidding anal sex between men and that this justified
capital punishment against those men found doing this, he recognized at least
two possible objections to his interpretation. Both of these objections were based
on ethical readings of the same Qur’anic narrative. The first objection is that “the
people of Lut were punished because of their disbelief in Allah and their calling
their Prophet a liar [kufr wa takdhib] just like the rest of the ancient communities
that were destroyed by Allah.” The second objection is that “the young children
and old people of Lut’s community were included with the mature men in being
punished, and that proves that their actions should not be considered in the
realm of hadd crimes [were not primarily sexual intercourse].”62 After stating
these objections from anonymous critics, al-Qurtubi dismisses them. Yet the
points they raise are logical and ethically important, and are based on a literal
reading of the Qur’anic narratives about Lut. Al-Qurtubi’s dismissal of
dissenting opinions cannot be construed as indicating consensus among the
jurists on the legal status of anal sex between men.
In the face of dissenting opinion, how did jurists defend the position that
anal sex between men deserved capital punishment (by stoning or by other
means)? To defend this decision, Imam Malik simply noted that the people of
Lut were destroyed by stones as hard as baked brick (sijjil) that fell from heaven.
This is an argument by rhetorical association, not an argument by legal
reasoning. However, it is a kind of argument that would prove very effective, and
seems to be based on early precedent among the Companions of the Prophet
(though not on the example of the Prophet himself).
As noted above, jurists argued their cases based on the analogy that anal sex was
like adultery, and that the Qur’an specified the firm and exact punishment for
adultery. The earliest jurists did not make reference to specific hadith attributed
to the Prophet Muhammad about anal sex between men. In fact, we have no
evidence that the Prophet Muhammad ever punished any men for anal sex (or
any women for same-sex behavior). We have no evidence that he addressed cases
where people were accused of committing “the act of the people of Lut.” This
leads to another radical assertion of this study; the Qur’an does not address
homosexuality or homosexuals explicitly and the Prophet Muhammad did not
act to punish people as homosexuals or for acts associated with them in his
lifetime.
At a certain point in history, hadith attributed to the Prophet Muhammad
began to circulate which addressed the issue of punishing men for having anal
sex. This is just one specific case of a very general problem for Muslims ever
since: the existence of reports, on a whole range of subjects, that circulate in the
name of the Prophet without being reliably or verifiably known to represent the
Prophet’s actual actions and teachings. As more and more jurists accepted Imam
al-Shafi‘i’s argument that all legal decisions had to be based on hadith attributed
to the Prophet, the role of these hadith changed radically. They had circulated
informally as moral advice, but now began to harden and crystallize into formal
“knowledge” about what the Prophet said and did. It is probable that such
hadith came into being long after the Prophet had died, and were attributed to
him in order to give them the force of association with the Prophet’s respected
and revered personality.63
It is very difficult to establish the authenticity of most reports that circulate
in the name of the Prophet Muhammad. But clearly, many reports were
projected retrospectively back upon the Prophet without being reliably
attributed to him. Muslims are confronted with hadith in which the Prophet
reportedly speaks about issues that did not exist in his lifetime: such as the Shi‘i-
Sunni schism, various theological “heresies,” and even the systematic collection
of hadith. Reassessment of the authenticity of hadith reports is the key to legal
and social reform among Muslims. However, in the contemporary period, there
are less and less scholars who are trained in hadith criticism. Wahhabi and Salafi
scholars, who may have such training, have no motive to critique hadith, for in
their zeal to escape history and return to the Prophet’s own time, they reify
hadith as unquestionable building blocks for their monolithic iconic image of
the Prophet’s exemplary behavior.
The hadith that address the issue of punishing men for having anal sex are
not linked to any specific case or event in the Prophet’s life. This is in marked
contrast to the hadith that address the issue of adultery between a man and
woman, which are linked to very detailed cases that preserve the names of the
men and women involved during the Prophet’s lifetime. A review of hadith from
the two most reliable collections (Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Bukhari) reveals no
evidence that the Prophet asserted, in word or deed, that homosexual relations
were a hadd crime, or were to be equated with adultery, or ever punished any
actual persons for “crimes” relating to homosexuality.64 Nor is there any hadith
in these two most authentic collections in which the Prophet discusses Lut in
relation to sexual acts or relationships.65 This writer further suspects that the
very terms Luti and Liwat are not found in authentic hadith, although this would
take more research to substantiate.
Based on this preliminary research, we can make some general conclusions
about hadith. Most reports in which the Prophet reportedly condemns same-sex
activities have weak chains of transmission and are found in hadith collections
that are not the most authoritative. Hadith scholars in the medieval period
(when hadith criticism was still actively pursued in Muslim communities)
explicitly debunked some of them for having forged chains of transmission. In
the earliest period, jurists did not agree as to which hadith might be authentic
and strong enough to form the basis of legal rulings.
It is very difficult to suppress hadith once they gain credibility and circulate
widely. This is especially so when a report reinforces the common prejudice of
patriarchal societies against same-sex relationships. Hanafi jurists earlier
criticized the chain of transmission of hadith like “Whomever you find doing
the act of the people of Lut, kill the active and the passive participant.”66
Al-Jassas rejects this hadith, since one of its transmitters, Amr ibn Abi Amr, is
considered weak and unreliable. Similarly, he rejects the supposed hadith that
reads “the one practicing the act of the people of Lut, stone the one on top and
the one of the bottom, stone them both together,” since one of its transmitters,
‘Asim ibn Amr, is also considered weak and unreliable.67 Despite these critiques,
the hadith continue to circulate and are frequently put to rhetorical and even
legal use.
There is further historical evidence to suggest that these hadith were
fabricated long after the Prophet Muhammad had died and were retrospectively
projected back onto him.68 The earliest incident in which a man was punished
for same-sex relations occurred during the rule of Abu Bakr, after the death of
Muhammad. It is clear from this incident that the closest Companions of the
Muhammad knew of no precedent for such punishment. The Prophet had never
punished anyone for same-sex relations and had not specified a method of
punishment. The Companions consulted together and decided to burn the man
accused.69
This story is very revealing, since it shows the uncertainty of the Companions
surrounding same-sex activity and confirms that the Prophet Muhammad
himself had never specified it as a crime with a specific punishment. When Abu
Bakr received report from a governor that he had found a whole town “doing the
act of the people of Lut,” he gathered the Prophet’s closest Companions together
to consult with them about what to do. ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib reportedly said, “This
is a sin that no community from the known nations has perpetrated except one
single community. Allah did to them what you all know [from scripture]. My
opinion is that such people should be burned in a fire.” So the Companions
agreed with ‘Ali’s idea that the punishment was burning.
This incident is certainly very disturbing. First, we don’t know exactly what
the governor meant by “the act of the people of Lut.” If it were same-sex
relations in general (or anal sex between men in particular) it is difficult to
imagine a whole town being involved in a way that would be significantly
different from other towns. It is highly probable that the town might have
resisted the governor’s authority (as this occurred during the earliest years of the
Islamic conquests when their rule was new and contested) just like the people of
Lut resisted Lut’s assertion of authority over them. It may not have had anything
specifically to do with sexual acts. If the acts were sexual in nature, how could
Islamic legal procedure have been applied (with four adult male witnesses to the
actual act of penetration)? It is more probable that this was a case of putting
down resistance to political conquest than enforcing Islamic “family values.”
However, the Islamic jurists have interpreted this incident as the first case of
actual punishment for same-sex activities.70
Even if that were the case, it shows us something more disturbing still. The
earliest punishment was burning. It was based on Imam ‘Ali’s opinion about
what to do (very roughly linked to his reading of the story of Lut from the
Qur’an), but clearly not based on any precedent or oral teaching or exemplary
conduct of the Prophet Muhammad. The supposed hadith that later circulated
usually specify stoning as the punishment, not burning. This establishes that
these hadith were later inventions, reflecting the jurists’ ongoing debate about
whether anal sex between men was the legal equivalent to adultery with stoning
as the hadd punishment. The conflict between stoning or burning as the
appropriate punishment signals that the Prophet had not left any specific
teaching about appropriate punishment, neither in word nor in deed.
Could it be that the Prophet never addressed the issue because he did not see
it as an issue of crime and punishment, but rather as one variety of indiscretion?
The Prophet certainly did encounter people in his Arab society in Mecca and
Medina who had uncommon sexual identities and practices that contradicted
the heterosexual norm. Researchers in pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabic
literature have uncovered a wealth of examples. Salah al-Din Munajjad has
documented that same-sex practices existed among both men and women in
pre-Islamic Arabia (refuting ideologues who claim that these practices were
unknown among Arabs until the Persians introduced them during the Abbasid
revolution).71 Everett Rowson has documented the very lively culture of
“effeminate men” during the Prophet’s lifetime in Medina. These men took on
women’s social characteristics and were especially noted as popular musicians
and comedians; some of them were associated with same-sex sexual desire while
others were not. These people were ambiguous in their gender and their
sexuality. Yet the Prophet is not known to have censured any of them for sexual
acts or sexuality in the wider sense. There is no report of the Prophet having any
of them burned or stoned for sexual practices.
Jurists claimed to enforce a punishment for same-sex acts that was based solidly
on a literal reading of the Qur’an and legal proscription by the Prophet
Muhammad. The evidence presented above shows that their assertions are
based on legal analogy, not on literal interpretation. The analogy, in addition, is
quite weak and is based on sources that are of doubtful authenticity. At its most
basic level, this study argues that capital punishment for anal sex between men
is unjust and of questionable legal validity in Islamic law. There is not and has
never been full juridical consensus that anal sex between men is a hadd crime
(let alone less dramatic sexual acts that might be practiced in same-sex
couplings).
In reading the story of Lut’s struggle with his obstinate and violent
community, jurists have missed the point. Why does the Qur’an tell the
narratives about Lut if the story is not about forbidding homosexuality in the
abstract or same-sex practices in particular? This study argues that the story is
primarily ethical in intent, not juridical. The jurists’ narrow focus on
punishment for sexual acts obscures the deeper meaning of the story and the
force with which the Qur’an tells it to an audience struggling to meet the
challenges of faith and realize the fullness of the Prophets’ teachings on tawhid.
Leaving behind an obsessive attention to anal sex and stigmatizing same-sex
sexuality can actually be a positive act for contemporary Muslims, one that
brings new clarity to questions of sexual ethics. Addressing sexual ethics is, in
the view of this author, a more faithful reaction to a close reading of the
Qur’an.
To get beyond the jurists’ obsessions, let’s return to the project of thematic
interpretation of the Qur’an as presented in the Stories of the Prophets genre.
This genre highlights how the Qur’an tells the stories of Prophets with an
underlying unity of intention. Their situations are different, but their ethical
message is the same to each community. Through different means, each
community finds ways of rejecting their Prophet, and the means are often
violent. The Qur’anic discourse on Lut, therefore, mentions his unique
circumstances, but always stresses his commonality with the other Prophets
who preceded him and came after him, like Noah, Abraham, Salih, Hud, and
others. Fragments of Lut’s story are always retold in the Qur’an as part of a series
about the seven exemplary punishments meted out to the communities of the
past who rejected their Prophet.
To see clearly how the jurists’ treatment of this story perverts its deeper
message, we can compare Lut’s story with that of Salih. Allah sent Salih to the
people of Thamud as their Prophet. Like the people inhabiting the Cities of the
Plains, the people of Thamud were wealthy, powerful, and arrogant. While the
issue with Lut was giving hospitality and protection to travelers, the issue with
Salih was the protection of a consecrated camel. Salih announced to his people
that a certain camel was made sacred and should be allowed to wander freely, eat
and drink on anyone’s land, and be respected by all. The camel stood
symbolically for the weak and vulnerable members of society; if the people could
care for the sacred camel, they might have the spiritual insight and ethical
strength to care for the needy in the midst of their society and at its margins.
Clearly, there are deep thematic parallels between the story of Lut and that of
Salih. The people of Thamud rejected Salih as their Prophet and ridiculed his
exhortations to live up to an ethic of care and justice. When he urged them to
protect the consecrated camel, the arrogant nobles of their community
hamstrung her, tied her up, and slaughtered her. As a consequence, their city
with all its inhabitants was destroyed by Allah (with an earthquake and choking
clouds from what appears to be a volcanic eruption). Why did they kill the
camel? To repudiate their Prophet, lower his dignity in the eyes of their fellows,
and reject the belief in the One God which was the foundation of his ethical
message.
Nobody would take seriously a commentator who presents the people of
Thamud as being obsessed by a hatred of camels or a perverted lust for camel
blood that corrupted their innermost dispositions. Nobody would take seriously
a jurist who argued that slaughtering another’s camel is a capital crime, based on
the example of the people of Thamud who were destroyed after killing a camel.
Nobody would argue that anyone who slaughters an animal that does not belong
to him should be punished by asphyxiation, in a rough human approximation of
how Allah razed the people of Thamud by a volcanic eruption. Anyone
suggesting these interpretations would be laughed out of the mosque, and
would be gently reminded that he or she had missed the basic point of Salih’s
story.
The same is true for those who miss the point of Lut’s story. The Qur’an tells
these stories in a series; they are always grouped together. Further, they are told
in specific contexts that encouraged Muhammad to have patience and
perseverance in the face of rejection, repudiation, and oppression at the hands
of the rich and powerful of the pre-Islamic Quraish nobles in Mecca.72
So what can the Muslim community deduce as ethical principles from the
story of Lut, once the story is freed from the jurists’ narrow and obsessive
attention to anal sex? Lut was exemplary in revealing the challenge of hospitality,
generosity, and protection of the vulnerable. He struggled with his community
to get them to support the needy, the poor, and those who appeared as strangers.
He challenged their arrogance, their inhuman exertion of power over vulnerable
people, and their creation of a coercive system out of trade and economic
relations. These are certainly challenges that Muslims face in their personal lives
and collective societies. We have not lived up to Lut’s basic challenge yet.
As part of this fundamental ethical challenge, it is clear that Lut also
confronted his society’s exploitative use of sex. He condemned its use of sexual
acts as a form of coercion. This is the prohibitive side of his message. The
positive side would enjoin upholding consensual agreement, reciprocity,
mutuality, and care in sexual acts and relationships. For Muslims to live up to
Lut’s challenge would mean categorically opposing rape, whether it be men
raping men or men raping women. Lut’s story clearly shows that rape is only
sexual on the most crass level (in that it has to do with sexual organs). It reality,
rape is motivated by desire for domination, not by sexual desire or the desire for
pleasure. It is a form of coercion, control, and punishment that can have no
place in a society that respects the message of the Prophets.
This is important to keep in mind when we confront contemporary
fundamentalist movements, like that fostered in Pakistan under General Zia
ul-Haqq. The clever General declared himself ruler in a military coup and
executed the democratically elected Prime Minister. To court the support of
Islamist parties, like the Jama‘at-i Islami, among others, General Zia ul-Haqq
justified his military coup by claiming to institute Shari‘ah law through the
“Hudud Ordinances.” These ordinances allowed legal prosecution and punishment
for gay and lesbian consensual sex acts, while erasing any punishment for
male rapes of women. In Zia ul-Haqq’s Hudud Ordinances there is no term for
“rape,” which is simply conflated with adultery, leading to the blatantly unjust
situation of a women who is raped not only finding no protection under the law
but actually being prosecuted for adultery with a possible punishment of
execution.73
Lest the reader consider such blatant hypocrisy to be concentrated in only
one nation state, consider recent developments in Egypt. In 2001, police there
arrested fifty-two allegedly “gay men” at a nightclub and tried them in Cairo’s
State Security Court, not under the national legal code but under emergency
executive courts that had been set up to try “fundamentalist terrorism.”74 In
order to justify trial in extra-constitutional courts (that were designed to try
fundamentalists and terrorists) and to completely avoid discussing the issue of
sexuality, sexual diversity, and ethics, the Egyptian government charged the men
for “contempt for religion,” “false interpretation of the Qur’an,” and “obscene
behavior.” Almost half of the fifty-two men convicted were sentenced to five years
of hard labor; some of those incarcerated subsequently reported having been
tortured or raped. On the educational and legal levels, many Muslim
communities vociferously denounce homosexuals or acts associated with them
(regardless of whether these are consensual), while maintaining a silence around
men who coerce others (women, men, or children) through sexual acts in homes,
schools, or work places. This silence, coupled with homosexual scapegoats,
actually protects men who engage in rape and sexual abuse, guarding their
patriarchal privilege to use sex as a weapon to maintain their position of power
over others.
What kind of society would denounce consensual sexual activity while
protecting violent sexual abuse? Such a society could never be considered to
uphold high ideals of justice. Will Muslims allow their societies to be counted
among such as this? Will progressive Muslims allow such injustice to be
legitimized through simplistic interpretation of scriptural sources? This problem
highlights the interconnectedness of social ethics with sexual ethics. Muslims
with a keen sense of justice should not let sexual relations be judged by the
surface component of the gender of the partners, but should look rather to the
content of the relationship. We judge any sexual relationship by examining its
ethics and intent, in accord with the Prophet Muhammad’s teaching that “Acts
are according to the intentions behind them.”75
We must be honest in acknowledging that patriarchy existed before the Qur’anic
revelation, persisted in the early Islamic community, and continued to exist
centuries later during the formative period of Islamic law. The Qur’anic
revelation and the Prophet Muhammad’s creation of a new community seriously
challenged many of the patriarchal practices that were routine in Arab societies.
The young community, especially after the death of Muhammad, often did not
live up to the initial challenge. It fell back on patriarchal norms in hopes of social stability and in the creation of a new Islamic elite ruling class.76 With the advent of modernity (for all its newly introduced forms of violence and imbalance),
perceptions of human nature and social organization change, and the practice of
religion changes with it. This is not just a reality; it is an ethical challenge and is also potentially a blessing. Modernity gives us the chance of thinking differently
and freeing ourselves from the shackles of patriarchal power.
For most of the history of Islam, Muslims assumed that the Qur’an
demanded the political rule of a monarch, whether conceived as a khalifa, sultan,
or king. This was true despite plenty of evidence of dissent in the earliest
community, since many early followers of the Prophet rejected authoritarian
rule.77 Monarchal rule by an all-powerful male is one facet of patriarchy that is
deeply woven into Islamic society and religion. This is so even though monarchy
is not explicitly sanctioned by the Qur’an. In previous centuries, to be a Muslim
who questioned the right of monarchs to rule was largely unthinkable. If one
acted upon a critique of monarchs, one would be branded an apostate. Today,
most Muslims do not live under monarchies, and most Muslims think this is a
good thing. Their Islam is not less faithful because they live without monarchies;
in fact it might be stronger for that reason.
For most of the history of Islam, Muslims have taken for granted that slavery
was a legal and useful social institution. Islamic law adapted to the practice of
owning human beings as slaves, a practice that existed before Islam and
continued after Islam’s advent. Rights of ownership by a wealthy male is one
facet of patriarchy that is deeply woven into Islamic society and religion. This
was true despite the Qur’an’s clear emphasis on freeing slaves and the Prophet’s
example in this matter. Yet today, most Muslims do not own and sell fellow
human beings. Most Muslims would consider this a good thing, and consider
slavery a clear form of oppression.
For most of the history of Islam, Muslims have assumed that women were
inferior to men. Some might limit this inferiority to realms of physical
constitution and legal privilege, while others would extend the inferiority to
piety and even rationality. The superiority of gendered males is one facet of
patriarchy that is deeply woven into Islamic society and religion. This was true
despite the Qur’ran’s empowerment of women in many fields. Islamic law
adapted to this basic assumption of patriarchy, and encoded it in all manner of
legal norms and authoritative interpretations. Yet many Muslims today assert the
fundamental equality of women and men in economic, social, religious,
educational, and political spheres of life. Their Islam is not less faithful because
they live without gender segregation and tribal honor codes; in fact their Islam
might be stronger with their commitment to gender justice.
Many Muslims today cannot imagine that Islam could be a religious practice
that acknowledges and respects diversity in sexuality and sexual practices. They
may not even recognize the aspects of patriarchy that oppress people
characterized by same-sex desire and erotic longing. This is no different from
other forms of oppressive prejudice in the past that, with struggle (that is, with
jihad and ijtihad), Muslims have managed to overcome with positive results for
our understanding of our faith. As progressive Muslims, we have focused our
sense of justice demanded by radical tawhid on the fields of political
organization, economic ownership, or gender norms. Why stop there? Why
not continue to extend this challenging focus on justice into the more intimate
spaces of our sexual lives, in order to think more clearly about how our erotic
lives intersect with our spiritual lives?
Many lesbian and gay Muslims who read this study will support the challenge
articulated above. However, many will wonder whether any purpose is served
by focusing on classical jurists and Qur’an commentators. Can there be any
rapprochement with the Shari‘ah and the authorities that support it? Or is
any discussion of the Shari‘ah a capitulation to authority that is hopelessly
prejudiced against the very possibility of thinking that homosexuality is about
anything beyond misplaced lust? This is a crucial question. The Islamic legal
scholar Abdullahi Ahmed an-Na‘im has addressed this question directly in its
widest form by asking whether there is any possibility of “reforming” the
Shari‘ah in contemporary times to revive its underlying principles so that it
protects civil liberties and human rights rather than suppressing them. He
concludes that this is possible, but is complicated by the neo-colonial struggles
of nations inhabited by Muslims for the long-deferred promises of political and
cultural “self-determination.”
We have Muslim demands for self-determination by the application of
Islamic law in public life. Yet such Islamic law cannot possibly be Shari‘a
as historically established. The only way to reconcile these competing
imperatives for change in the public law of Muslim countries is to
develop a version of public law which is compatible with modern
standards of constitutionalism, criminal justice, international law, and
human rights . . . We can then proceed to resolve the conflict and tension
within the framework of Islam as a whole, albeit not necessarily within
the framework of the historical Shari‘a.78
An-Na‘im is arguing for the disengagement of the Shari‘ah as historically formed
from Islam as a whole. The Shari‘ah in its historical development is not Divinely
ordained: it is the creation of many generations of commentators, jurists, and
hadith scholars who lived long after the Prophet Muhammad died and in a
completely different political and cultural milieu. Radical tawhid demands that
Muslims let nothing created by human beings stand in for Allah, the Single and
the Unique.79 From a critical point of view, it is a kind of icon worship to
imagine the Shari‘ah to be infallible, unchanging, or somehow Divine. Just as
building the Shari‘ah was a historical process, the creation of human (and
fallible) minds, hands, and hearts, so the Shari‘ah should be open to continual
reform and re-creation.
A new and evolving Shari‘ah is a politically and religiously necessary project.
It would offer Muslim-majority national states in post-colonial situations a way
of resolving many of the contradictions created by European colonialism’s
imposition of modernity through violence and domination, without having
to destroy the nation state or reject some of the more valuable innovations of
modernism. It would offer immigrant or indigenous Muslim communities in
North America and Europe a way to reconcile their religious faith and
community aspirations with the reality of living as minorities in states that
enshrine secular legal traditions and cultural values. The new South Africa will
be an important test case, since it has recently emerged from the apartheid
regime with a politically active Muslim community. South Africa now has one of
the most progressive constitutions in the world (which explicitly protects the
civil liberties and human rights of women, lesbians, and gays).80 It will be
instructive to observe how Muslims there, many of whom sacrificed their lives in
opposing apartheid, will come to accept and embrace the new constitution and
the values it enshrines.
An-Na‘im has pointed out that the central questions to be addressed in this
reformation of the Shari‘ah are those of international law, human rights, and
civil liberties. Under this last rubric come concerns about women and their
rights. However, as argued in this study, asserting women’s rights will never be
limited to the realm of women. It will necessarily change the way men behave
and the way both women and men perceive sexuality. As feminism opens up
sexuality as a topic for discussion, homosexuality will inevitably come up as a
challenge to all Muslims with a keen sense of justice.
endnotes
1. The author would like to acknowledge two friends and colleagues who helped in the
revision of this text, Daayiee Abdullah and Nicholas Heer.
2. Hamid Nastoh was a fourteen-year-old in Vancouver from an Afghan family who was
driven to suicide on March 11, 2000. Schoolmates persistently bullied him with
accusations of being gay and he found no consolation or protection in his religious
tradition as it had been presented to him. Since Hamid’s death, his mother has become a local advocate for sexuality education and “gay–straight alliance clubs” in Canadian high schools.
3. Madelain Farah, Marriage and Sexuality in Islam: A Translation of al-Ghazali’s Book on the Etiquette of Marriage from The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1984), 45. Creation “from water” (as found in Q. 21:30) is often interpreted as sexual union and the meeting of ejaculatory fluids, while the term “sexual intercourse” is understood metaphorically from the Qur’an’s use of “tillage” (hirth) in Qur’an 2:223.
4. Momin Rahman, Sexuality and Democracy: Identities and Strategies in Lesbian and Gay Politics (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), 172.
5. Ibid., 21.
6. Some ascetic-minded Sufis were the exception, and saw sexual desire as a distraction from worshipful contemplation of God.
7. Abdelwahab Bouhdiba, Sexuality in Islam (London: Saqi, 1998), 159. This is the best study in English illustrating the continuity between Muslim sexual practices in this world and how Muslims imagine the sacred world of paradise to come. In Arabic, there are many full studies of this theme, like Ibrahim Mahmud, Jaghrafiyat al-Muladhat: al-Jins wa’l-Janna [Geography of Rapture: Sex and Paradise] (Beirut: Riyad el-Rais, 1998).
8. This frequently cited hadith is referred to by a number of authorities, such as al-Ghazali who records it in his Ihya ‘ulum al-Din (Beirut: Dar al-Hadi, 1992), vol. 2, p. 48. See Sachiko Murata and William C. Chittick, Vision of Islam (St Paul: Paragon Press, 1994) 228, 350. For discussion of this hadith, see R.W.J. Austin (trans.), Ibn al-Arabi: the Bezels of Wisdom, (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1980), 269–78, and Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992),186–7.
9. ‘Ali ibn Husam al-Din al-Hindi Muttaqi, Jarr al-Thaqil fi Suluk al-Ma‘il, [Bearing the Heavy Burden on Soul Training of Men Considering Marriage], manuscript in Lahore:Punjab University Library 4950/1937 folios 22–9, and Islamabad: Ganj Bakhsh Library (Iranian Cultural Institute) 3745.
10. Surat al-Ahzab 33:50–2 directly addresses the question of sexual relationships outside of marriage with slaves and concubines, explicitly allowing this for the Prophet (and implicitly allowing it for other believers) while contrasting such women to those formally married.
11. Basim Musallam, Sex and Society in Islam: Birth-Control before the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), supplemented by Munawar Ahmad
Anees, Islam and Biological Futures: Ethics, Gender and Technology (London: Mansell,
1989).
12. Scholars argue whether this verse refers to anal sex between men and women, or to vaginal sex from behind, or to whether the control of timing and frequency of sexual relations should be in the hands of men or women. Fatima Mernissi, The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1991) discusses the importance of this verse and its context of revelation for a feminist critique of Islamic patriarchy.
13. Athar Hussain and Mark Cousins, Michel Foucault: Theoretical Traditions in the Social Sciences (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1984) is a good introduction to Michel Foucault, one of the most influential historians of sexuality. Foucault argued that the term “homosexuality” (as well as “sexuality”) is completely modern, and cannot be justifiably applied to ideas, practices or people before European modernity and its uneven spread to the wider world. Many historians of sexuality have questioned this assertion and are suspicious of accepting Foucault’s glib Eurocentric conclusions about the uniqueness of modernity.
14. John Boswell, “Concepts, Experience and Sexuality,” in Forms of Desire, ed. E. Stein (New York: Routledge, 1992) provides an overview of the concept of sexuality, from a scholar who has wrestled, as a historian and committed Christian, with the traditional Christian denunciation of homosexuality.
15. The Qur’an is very clear here that no ethnic group is racially or cultural inferior to another, but Islamic culture has often slipped into justifying slavery in terms that approach racial chauvinism.
16. Amina Wadud, Qur’an and Woman (Kuala Lumpur: Penerbit Fajar Bakti, 1992; 2nd edn,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
17. ‘Ali Muttaqi, Jarr al-Thaqil, which was a Persian commentary on al-Ghazali’s book quoted at the beginning of this study.
18. In other passages the Qur’an uses alwan to describe different types of honey, different types of beasts, and different types of agricultural produce.
19. “Lawn,” Encyclopedia of Islam, New Edition (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1954–2002), vol. 5, 699.
20. The Qur’an comes closer to discussing gender than it does to discussing sexuality. The Qur’an uses the term zawj to mean “one of a pair of people or things.” Sometimes, zawj is used in an abstract sense and sometimes concretely as applied to human beings or objects. At least once, the Qur’an uses the term to indicate a binary relationship of male to female: “We have made them pairs, male and female” (42:49). But the term is not used constantly in this way; at times zawj refers not to clearly gendered pairs, and often to non-living entities. At one
point the pair is not male and female persons, but the soul and body of each person
regardless of anatomical or social gender: “We made the souls joined to their pair” (Q. 81:7).
21. The phrase is al-Tabi‘in ghayr ulu al-Irbat min al-Rijal. The phrase might also be translated as “those men among your followers who have no guile with women.”
22. Muslim theologians have not yet considered the fascinating case of the Prophet Dhu al-Qarnayn as described in Surat al-Kahf. Qur’an commentators have traditionally
identified him as the historical figure of Alexander the Great, and Yusuf Ali has recently argued very persuasively for the authenticity of this identification. Historical record clearly reveals that Alexander’s major erotic attachments were to a series of men (though he did marry as his political role required). Could it be that Dhu al-Qarnayn as Alexander may have been a gay man who acted as a Divinely appointed Prophet? Islamic theologians have not even begun to grapple with this question.
23. Everrett Rowson, “The Effeminates of Early Medina” in Que(e)rying Religion: a Critical Anthology, ed. G. Comstock and Henking (New York: Continuum, 1997). Rowson has clearly shown that some of these “effeminate” men acted in ways that we would identify as “gay” but that many of them did not; what characterized them was their breaking norms of gendered behavior rather than their sexual orientation.
24. Najman Yasin, Al-Islam wa’l-Jins fi al-Qarn al-Awwal al-Hijri [Islam and Sex in the First Century Hijri] (Beirut: Dar al-Atiya li’l-Nashr, 1997), 111 uses a phrase (in Arabic) that can be translated as “unusual sexual practices that are unnatural.” Islamic jurists never used “nature” to denounce same-sex sexual practices; these practices may have been forbidden, but were not “unnatural.” This is a subtle but crucial distinction that reveals how much modern Muslim intellectuals (even those who write in Arabic) have been shaped by Euro- American discourses of modernity.
25. No list will be offered here, since it would be very long. Let us highlight one personality, on whom more research must be done. That is the medieval writer Ibn Dawud al-Zahiri, who was the leading jurist of the Zahiri legal school. He was also well known for having fallen into a deeply romantic love with a school friend, Ibn Jami‘, to whom he dedicated his book in praise of love, Kitab al-Zahra. Ibn Dawud al-Zahiri held that a man’s love for another man is noble as long as it is “chaste” [‘udhri] and made no effort to conceal his erotic orientation. See Massignon, The Passion of Hallaj, 1:80 and 338–68.
26. Norman Daniel, Islam and the West: The Making of an Image (Edinburgh: University Press,1960) and Nabil Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (New York:Columbia University Press, 1999) document the scope and persistence of this pre-modern European condemnation of Muslims as “sodomites.” Though driven by the European need to make Muslims alien, inferior, and worthy of conquest, this theme was based on a substantial contrast between medieval Christendom (which seemed obsessed with punishing “sodomites”) and a medieval Islamdom (which seemed far more relaxed and accepting of same-sex eroticism, despite the jurists’ condemnations depicted in this study).
27. Byrne Fone, Homo-Phobia: A History (New York: Metropolitan, 2000), 294. There are
many examples of Western scholars who ignore or repress the presence of homoerotic
practices among Muslims in their specific subjects of study. Let one example suffice.
Madelain Farah’s comments in the introduction to Marriage and Sexuality in Islam, 37 can only be called “bad faith.” She errs in stating that “The Koran addressed the subject of sodomy. It is a reference in over seventy Koranic verses.” She demonstrates a lack of understanding Arabic when she writes that liwata in Arabic means “homosexuality” while Lut means sodomy (in fact li wata means sodomy or anal intercourse while “Lut” is the name of a Prophet). Farah blithely ignores the fact that Imam al-Ghazali’s own brother, Shaykh Ahmad al-Ghazali, who was a respected religious scholar and Islamic leader, was well known for homoerotic sentiments in his poetry and devotional practices, like shahidbazi or “gazing at beautiful men” in order to contemplate t he beauty of God. Examples of Western scholars working out their own prejudices by supposedly “representing” the Islamic tradition are legion.
28. Asadullah Khan Ghalib, Divan-i Ghalib, Urdu (New Delhi: Ghalib Institute, 1998), 104. Translation is by the author. Ghalib repeats al-Ghazali’s insight with sarcasm because Ghalib was no theologian or ascetic; rather he was a highly intellectual and aesthetically refined poet in Urdu and Persian, who is known for writing verses of love and longing for beloved men.
29. Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe. Islamic Homosexualities: Culture History and
Literature (New York: New York University Press, 1997) asserts a universal gay identity that underlies any variation in history and culture. This contrasts with the careful avoidance of asserting any gay identity in Everett Rowson and J.W. Wright (eds), Homoeroticism in Classical Arabic Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
30. Farid Esack, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspective of Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression (Oxford: Oneworld, 1997), 75.
31. This study is very limited in its focus on homosexual men and anal sex. This is not ideal and will certainly not satisfy lesbian or women readers (nor should it satisfy them). However, there is a purpose to this limitation. What follows in this study is in dialogue with the Islamic legal tradition, which addresses homosexuality through condemning anal sex between men. The condemnation was the platform for a more general cultural rhetoric against homosexuality in general, including same-sex relations between women. Though anal sex (and penetrative sex in general) is not necessarily relevant to lesbian sexuality, it was the dominant theme used by jurists to condemn both men and women. Therefore, it is the starting point of this article, though future investigation of this topic should not and cannot focus solely on men. This article is also driven by a critique of capital punishment that is inflicted on homosexual men in certain countries, and this punishment seems to be directed primarily (in the knowledge of this writer, only) against men. Lesbians, by virtue
of being women first, tend not to suffer publicly under these laws, though they suffer differently under other laws and under pressure to marry and procreate.
32. The term hassas is used this way, in a clever double entendre, in Morocco. Though it is a North African term for “homosexual” (which may not be used in eastern Arabic-speaking regions or in the wider Islamic world) it is conceptually understandable anywhere.
33. Al-Tabari, Tafsir al-Tabari min Jami‘ al-Bayan ‘an Ta’wil Ayi al-Qur’an, ed. Bashar ‘Awwad (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Risala, 1994), 3:463.
34. Ibid., 3:464.
35. The Qur’an’s Arabic makes no reference to “nature” or “laws of nature” in this passage. As noted earlier, the Qur’an has no term that can be explicitly equated with “homosexuality,” and it is not clear that “lewdness” means homosexuality in particular. Yusuf Ali interprets away the reference to other crimes that are actually described in the Qur’anic narrative about Lut’s community, like highway robbery and fighting in public assemblies. This last item Yusuf Ali interprets as only committing their “special horrible crime” (meaning anal sex between men) in public places. This disregards the more straightforward and literal reading of the Qur’an, and is a speculative “interpretation” rather than a linguistic “translation.” Abdullah Yusuf Ali is not unusual in this regard. He is only more explicit in his footnotes than other translators who make similar reductionist moves.
36. Toshihiko Izutsu, God and Man in the Qur’an: Semantics of the Koranic Weltanschaaung (Tokyo: Keio Institute of Cultural and Linguistic Studies, 1964).
37. Amreen Jamel, “The Story of Lut and the Qur’an’s Perception of the Morality of Same-Sex Sexuality,” Journal of Homosexuality, 41(1), 2001, 1–88.
38. The people to whom Lut was sent are commonly associated with Sodom and its satellite cities, the Cities of the Plain. The names Sodom and Gomorrah do not occur in the Qur’an, though they do in classical commentaries. How earlier Near Eastern names, interpretations and folk-tales entered classical commentaries is a deep topic, addressed later in this study.
39. Jamel, op. cit., 5.
40. Ibid., 64. Note that the Arabic triliteral root sh-h-y gives rise to a host of words meaning “to lust after” or “to desire” while the root f-h-sh gives rise to words meaning “to transgress” or “to exceed appropriate bounds.”
41. In this crucial concluding paragraph, Jamel’s use of the term “abominations” to qualify the description of same-sex acts seems to slip back into the traditional rhetoric that denounces homosexuality without critical examination, despite the overall thrust of the argument.
42. Esack, op. cit., 60.
43. Hajji Khalifa, Kashf al-Zunun (Istanbul: Maarif matbaası, 1943) 2:1324, argues for the authentic pedigree of this genre of “telling the stories of the Prophets” as opposed to “giving the detail of the words,” which is what tafsir literally means. Hajji Khalifa notes that the earliest traditionists and commentators, Ibn ‘Abbas and Abu Hurayra, both studied with Ka‘b al-Ahbar, a Yemeni Jew who joined the Muslim community and was famed for his knowledge of “sacred history” and his retelling the stories of the Prophets. Along with Ka‘b al-Ahbar, Wahb ibn Munabbih was a specialist in this kind of knowledge, and was reputed to be the first to write a book in the genre. Wahb lived from 34 to 110 Hijri (654–728 CE) and was famous for his vast knowledge of religious texts and stories relating to the pre-Islamic prophets and past nations (Isra‘iliyat). His name is attached to many
reports about stories that have entered the Islamic tradition as part of sacred history.
44. ‘Ali ibn Hamza al-Kisa’i, Bad’ al-Khalq wa Qisas al-Anbiya’, ed. Al-Tahir ibn Salama (Tunis:Dar Nuqush Arabiyya, 1998).
45. Al-Kisa’i relies on the names of al-Munabbih and al-Ahbar as his sources, though it is difficult to ascertain whether he attributes reports to them in an authentic or accurate way. Al-Kisa’i claimed in the introduction to his book to have studied hadith criticism and mastered its complexities.
46. The two earliest Stories of the Prophets written in Persian are by Muhammad ibn Hasan Al-Dadormi or al-Dirumi (who has preserved textual remnants of an older original text by al-Tha‘albi) and Ibrahim or Ishaq ibn Khalaf al-Nishapuri, whose Persian text I refer to as: al-Nishapuri, Qisas al-Anbiya, ed. Habib Yaghma’i (Tehran: Bngah-yi Tarjama o Nashr, 1965).
47. Al-Kisa’i, op. cit. 219–20.
48. This final phrase, “preaching to them about the destruction of former nations who were oppressive,” is found in some copies of the text and omitted in others.
49. Al-Kisa’i, op. cit., 220.
50. Ibid., 221.
51. Ibid., 222.
52. Al-Rawandi, Qutb al-Din Sa‘id ibn Hibbat Allah (d. 573 hijri), Qisas al-Anbiya, ed. Ghulam Riza-yi ‘Irfaniyan al-Yazdi (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-Mufid, 1989), 117–25.
53. Al-Rawandi, op. cit., 117. He quotes this hadith on the authority of Abu Ja‘far.
54. Ibid., 118.
55. The Islamic tradition is not unique in this way, but rather all patriarchal moral systems see same-sex desire as exclusively “anal.”
56. Al-Qurtubi, Muhammad ibn Ahmad (d. 1273 CE), Tafsir al-Jami‘ fi Ahkam al-Qur’an
(Cairo: Dar al-Qalam, 1967), 7:243.
57. Ibid., 7:248.
58. Since they reject legal reasoning and analogy, one can question whether the Hanbalis actually qualify as a “legal school” with a bona fide juridical method (despite the fact that they are commonly accepted as “the fourth Sunni legal school”).
59. Al-Qurtubi, op. cit., 244.
60. Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Ali al-Razi Al-Jassas (d. 981 CE), Ahkamal-Qur’an (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-‘Arabi, 1978), 2:363, under the discussion of adulterers in commentary on Surat al-Nur.
61. Ibid., 2:363.
62. Al-Qurtubi, op. cit., 7:243.
63. Richard Bulliet, Islam: AView from the Edge (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).
64. Salih Ahmad Al-Shami (ed.), al-Jami‘ bayn al-Sahihayn (Damascus: Dar al-Qalam, 1995), 3:505–20 is an invaluable tool for such research.
65. Al-Nuwayri, op. cit., 206 relates the text of a report in which ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib reportedly used the terms Luti and Mulawwat bihi to mean “inserting partner in anal sex” and “receptive partner.” These terms are not found in the majority of reports about the Prophet and the earliest Companions, and were undoubtedly projected retrospectively back into the early community from a much later date. Most hadith use the term “the act of the people of Lut” (af‘al qawm Lut).
66. This hadith is found in the collections of Ibn Maja and Abu Dawud and, in a slightly different wording, in the collection of al-Tirmidhi.
67. Al-Jassas, op. cit., 2:363.
68. Forged hadith report condemning same-sex sexual relations began to circulate in earnest during the Abbasid period, when it became aristocratic and courtly fashion to own young male slaves, employ handsome wine-bearers, and flaunt same-sex romances. Many hadiths circulated in the name of the Prophet to address these practices, as part of the traditionalist cultural war on the cosmopolitan elite of Abbasid-era cities.
69. Al-Qurtubi also relays that men were burned to death for this act in the time of Abu Bakr and ‘Umar and while Ibn al-Zubayr was ruling. Ahmad ibn Abd al-Wahab Al-Nuwayri,Nihayat al-Arab fi Funun al-‘Arab (Cairo: Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya, 1923), 206 preserves the text of this report. It is narrated on the authority of Muhammad ibn al-Munkadar, but without full isnad to verify its authenticity. The governor in question is Khalid ibn al-Walid. Some critics hold that this report is of doubtful authenticity because there is not corroborating evidence that burning was ever a criminal punishment among Muslims.
70. See al-Qurtubi, op. cit., 7:244.
71. Salah al-Din Munajjad, Al-Hayat al-Jinsiyya ‘and al-‘arab min al-Jahiliyya ila Awakhir al-Qarn al-Rabi‘a al-Hijri [Sexual Life among the Arabs from Pre-Islamic Age to the Fourth Century Hijri] (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Jadid, 1975).
72. Al-Tabari, op. cit. 3:465 makes clear in his commentary that Lut’s story always comes in a series of references to other Prophets, including Salih.
73. Shahla Haeri, “Woman’s Body, Nation’s Honor: Rape in Pakistan,” in Hermeneutics and Honor: Negotiating Female “Public” Space in Islamic/ate Societies, ed. Asma Afsaruddin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 55–69.
74. Joshua Hammer, “Gay Egypt in the Dock: The Big Crackdown Might Reflect Cairo’s Own Insecurities,” Newsweek International, February 11, 2002, and Kate Garsombke, “Gay Life – and Death – in the Arab World: Persecution of Homosexuals Increases in the Middle East,” Utne Reader, February 5, 2002.
75. Al-Bukhari hadith number 6953 and Muslim hadith number 1907. Hadith scholars
considered this to be the key hadith (of all the thousands attributed to the Prophet) and it comes first in al-Bukhari’s collection before thousands of other hadith.
76. Fatima Mernissi’s research is the strongest statement of this idea from a feminist perspective, linking the emerging rule of elite men to the suppression of democratic values and women’s authority in the generation after the Prophet Muhammad’s death.
77. Hamid Dabashi, Authority in Islam: From the Rise of Muhammad to the Establishment of the Umayyads (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1989) documents varieties of resistance to Arab kingship from positions that came to be called Shi‘i or Khariji.
78. Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na‘im, Toward an Islamic Reformation: Civil Liberties, Human Rights and International Law (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990), 9.
79. The central ethical and religious teaching of Islam is tawhid. This could be narrowly defined through theology, or more radically conceived. In talk about God, tawhid means radical monotheism and insisting that God is singular and unique with no partners or associates. In theology, tawhid means perceiving radical monotheism as the single teaching of many Prophets, not just Muhammad, and the religious communities they founded. In social life, tawhid means urging a plurality of people to join in a harmonious unity. In personal life, tawhid means struggling with alienation and fragmentation from each other person, urging them and oneself through honesty and sincerity toward a more unified whole. Tawhid in general means assessing honestly the alienation, violence, egotism, and hypocrisy that are the major obstacles that keep people fragmented and keep societies unjust.
80. Farid Esack, On Being a Muslim: Finding a Religious Path in the World Today (Oxford:Oneworld, 1999) is one of the first writings of an Islamic theologian to couple women’s rights to the rights of homosexuals (both female and male) in Muslim communities. Not surprisingly Esack writes as a South African.
Photo Courtesy: Love is Gay by Luke Gillan
