The official fictn, Brian Whaker explas, is that gay people don’t exist the Middle East. They do – and for many of them, attus of fay and society are a bigger problem than fear of beg persecuted
Contents:
- CAN A MLIM BE GAY?
- WHAT DO ISLAM SAY ABOUT BEG GAY?
- EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI
- WHAT'S WRONG WH BEG GAY AND MLIM?
CAN A MLIM BE GAY?
Homosexualy and lbianism e the breakup of the fay and lead people to give up their work and study bee they are preoccupied wh the perversns.
They (gays and lbians) both go agast the natural disposn (frah) which Allah has created mankd – and also animals – whereby the male is cled towards the female, and vice versa. For homosexualy volv numerable evil and harms, and the one to whom is done would be better off beg killed than havg this done to him, bee after that he will bee so evil and so rpt that there n be no hope of his beg reformed, and all good is lost for him, and he will no longer feel any shame before Allah or before His creatn. Ever sce the landmark US Supreme Court cisn on June 26 makg same-sex marriage legal the US, bate has emerged among Mlims worldwi about the mer of the lg, wh the obv implitn if they as Mlims approve or disapprove of a person beg a gay while profsg to be a Mlim.
WHAT DO ISLAM SAY ABOUT BEG GAY?
“But many Mlims on social media lashed out, ” another utned, “sayg ‘qiyamah’, the day of judgement, was near while the story of Lot nmng homosexualy holy scriptur, cludg the Quran, is beg ignored.
Leadg scholars of this field such as Joseph Massad have radilly ntted the manner which what he terms “gay ternatnal” has imperially domated the variety of homoerotic domas Arab and Mlim history. Samar Habib’s eded two volum Islam and Homosexualy (2009) and Khaled El-Rouayheb’s Before Homosexualy the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800 (2009) are exampl of such groundbreakg work. Stt Siraj al-Haqq Kugle, Homosexualy Islam: Cril Reflectn on Gay, Lbian, and Transgenr Mlims (2010) is another cril example, pl the work of other scholars such as Kecia Ali, Serena Tolo and Sara Omar.
EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI
Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed wrote a ccial tobgraphy, The Koran and the Flh/Le Coran et la chair (2012), Jerry Wright’s Homoeroticism Classil Arabic Lerature, and Helie and Hoodfar’s Sexualy Mlim Contexts have expand our historil unrstandg of the issue, while Joseph Massad’s Dirg Arabs (2007) took the whole disurse of homosexualy radilly to task. The legalisatn of same-sex marriage the Uned Stat will do very ltle to dimish the ep-rooted homophobia this untry, as ed the Emancipatn Proclamatn of 1863 did not entirely end racism; or Roe v Wa of 1973 end patriarchy, machismo, and misogyny; or Brown v Board of Edutn of 1954 end school segregatn, which has ntued apace along class l to this day. It n then e them all as exampl to enurage Mlims at large to participate open, hont, and rmed discsns articulatg and safeguardg their civil liberti across the board – which clus, but isn’t limed to, gay rights and the possibily of the acceptance of same-sex marriage wh Mlim muni.
AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTJuly 28, 2015ISTANBUL — On June 29, Turkey’s 12th Gay Pri Para was held on Istanbul’s crowd Istiklal Avenue. Acrdg to the Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn, Turkey sr slightly better on measur of gay rights when pared wh some nearby Christian-majory natns such as Rsia, Armenia and Ukrae. Among them are two of the most popular Turkish entertaers of the past half-century: The late Zeki Muren was flamboyantly gay and the sger Bulent Ersoy is famoly transsexual.
WHAT'S WRONG WH BEG GAY AND MLIM?
Their eccentricy has apparently add to their beyond the entertament dtry, the tradnal mastream Islamic view on homosexualy produc tolerance Turkey toward gays and creat starker problems Mlim natns that apply Shariah. In Sdi Arabia, Iran, Sudan or Afghanistan, homosexualy is a ser offense that n brg imprisonment, rporal punishment or even the ath penalty. The average nservative Mlim tak this story as a jtifitn to stigmatize gays, but there is an important qutn that serv nsiratn: Did the people of Lot receive dive punishment for beg homosexual, or for attackg Lot and his heavenly guts?
The even more signifint nuance is that while the Quran narrat this dive punishment for Sodom and Gomorrah, cre no earthly punishment for homosexualy — unlike the Old Ttament, which clearly cre that homosexuals “are to be put to ath. But signifint nam among them, such as the eighth-century scholar Abu Hanifa, the founr of the popular Hanafi school of jurispnce, argued that sce a homosexual relatnship did not produce offsprg wh an unknown father, uldn’t be nsired real Islamic basis for punishg homosexualy is the hadhs, or saygs, attributed to the Prophet Muhammad.
Such jurispntial facts might help Mlims today to velop a more tolerant attu toward gays, as some progrsive Islamic thkers Turkey, such as Ihsan Eliacik, are enuragg. People’s private liv are their own bs, he argu, whereas the public Mlim stance should be to fend gays when they are persecuted or discrimated agast — bee Islam stands wh the downtrodn.