TheReligionofPeace.com
Guide to Understanding Islam

 

 

What does the
Religion of Peace
Teach About...

Homosexuality
 
 

Question:

What is Islam's position on homosexuality?
 

Summary Answer:

Islamic law teaches that homosexuality is a vile form of fornication, punishable by death.  Beneath the surface, however, there are implied references to homosexual behavior in paradise, and it has been a part of historical Arab and Muslim culture.
 

The Qur'an:

Sura (7:80-84) - "...For ye practice your lusts on men in preference to women: ye are indeed a people transgressing beyond bounds.... And we rained down on them a shower (of brimstone)" -  An account that is borrowed from the Biblical story of Sodom.  Muslim scholars through the centuries have interpreted the "rain of stones" on the town as meaning that homosexuals should be stoned, since no other reason is given for the people's destruction.  (The story is also repeated in Suras 27 and  29).

Sura (26:165-166) - "Of all the creatures in the world, will ye approach males, "And leave those whom Allah has created for you to be your mates? Nay, ye are a people transgressing"

Interestingly, the same rules don't apply in paradise, where martyrs for the cause of Allah enjoy an orgy of virgins and "perpetual youth" Sura (56:17) (otherwise known as "boys" Sura (52:24)).  Sura (76:19) bluntly states, "And immortal boys will circulate among them, when you see them you will count them as scattered pearls." [Editor's note: We are not implying a link between homosexuality and pedophilia here anymore than we are implying one between heterosexuality and pedophilia when mentioning the young female virgins preferred by Muhammad.]
 


From the Hadith:

 

There are several lesser hadith stating, "if a man comes upon a man, then they are both adulterers," "If a woman comes upon a woman, they are both Adulteresses,” "When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shakes,” and “Kill the one that is doing it and also kill the one that it is being done to."

 

Bukhari (72:774) - "The Prophet cursed effeminate men (those men who are in the similitude (assume the manners of women) and those women who assume the manners of men, and he said, 'Turn them out of your houses .' The Prophet turned out such-and-such man, and 'Umar turned out such-and-such woman."

 

Reliance of the Traveller, p17.2 - "May Allah curse him who does what Lot's people did."  This is also repeated in three other places.

 


Additional Notes:
 

When Mehmed conquered Constantinople in 1453, the Muslim general demanded the 14-year-old son of one of the city's Christian leaders as his sexual concubine (the father and son chose death instead).  Subsequent Ottoman administrators also engaged in homosexuality, often with the boys of conquered populations who could not afford to satisfy the jizya (poll tax on non-Muslims) in any other way than to relinquish their own children to the Religion of Peace.

 

And yet, homosexuals have been beheaded, hung and stoned in modern Saudi Arabia and Iran, where Muhammad's laws are applied most strictly.  Five other Muslim countries also have the death penalty on their books for homosexual behavior.

 

Thus illustrates the moral confusion that Islam has with homosexuality.  There are several places in the Qur'an where the story of Sodom is repeated, with emphasis placed on the destruction of the town for homosexual lewdness.  Also, according to Serge Trifkovic:

 

Mohammed’s first successor Abu Bakr reportedly had a homosexual burned at the stake. The fourth caliph, Mohammed’s son-in-law Ali, ordered a sodomite thrown from the minaret of a mosque. Others he ordered to be stoned. One of the earliest and most authoritative commentators on the Koran, Ibn ‘Abbas (died 687) blended both approaches into a two-step execution in which “the sodomite should be thrown from the highest building in the town and then stoned. (source)

  

Yet, in the West, some contemporary Muslims not only advocate tolerance, but openly engage in homosexual practice.  In the US, political alliances make for strange bedfellows, and many high-profile Muslims find it expedient to parrot the same rhetoric of gay rights and civil unions that they hear from those who defend Islam on multicultural grounds. 

 

Even in the West, where Muslims often join with social liberals in political alliances, there does not appear to be any noticeable effort on their part to relieve the plight of homosexuals in Islamic countries overseas (where their influence might carry more weight than that of their secular allies).
 

 

TheReligionofPeace.com Home Page

 

© 2006, 2007 TheReligionofPeace.com. All rights reserved.