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Homosexuality in Islam By Yossarian | Published: July 12, 2009 One of the bizarre hypocrisies of modern
Britain is that criticising people who claim religious sanction for homophobia
can be labeled bigotry but, at all other times, homophobia is the unacceptable
bigotry. I have always attempted to square this
circle by drawing a line between those who say we are all sinners and
homosexuality is a sin like any other judged by their god on judgment day
(generally speaking, the Anglican answer) and those who say that it is a sin
worse than all others (Fred “God Hates Fags” Phelps, for example) and
homosexuals deserve punishment in this world. There is another way – and it is
significantly more intellectually satisfying: to argue that religions can
accept homosexuality. Dr Amanullah De Sondy does so today in the Sunday Times. One of Scotland’s leading Muslim
academics is challenging his religion’s orthodox opinion on homosexuality by
suggesting Islam is compatible with a gay lifestyle. Dr Amanullah De Sondy says there is
evidence in Islamic history to support his claim but said conservative Muslims
refuse to acknowledge it as they are “deeply homophobic”. Rather than spend our time working out
exactly what kinds of homophobia can be tolerated in modern British society, we
should join De Sondy in making the positive case for accepting homosexuality. The 29-year-old said his opponents often
cite the story, which appears in both the Koran and the Bible, of God sending
angels to destroy the sinful inhabitants of the valley of Sodom. “It is often said to illustrate God’s
disapproval of homosexuality. But on closer inspection it is about his
disapproval of the rape of young boys. There is a big difference,” he said. Intolerance is not necessarily part of
Muslim tradition, De Sondy argues, pointing to examples of people living openly
in same-sex relationships. “In the 16th-century Punjab, there lived
a Sufi [uslim mystic] saint and poet called Shah Hussain. He fell in love with
a Hindu boy. They lived together and are buried in the same tomb. But some
people want to rewrite history, saying the boy was in fact a girl.” Then, inevitably, the Sunday Times goes
to a couple of self-appointed Muslim “community leaders” for The Traditional
View™. Bashir Maan, a former councillor and a
prominent member of the Glasgow Central Mosque, said many Muslims would be
upset by De Sondy’s comments. “Where is he getting his knowledge
from?” he said. “Islam condemns homosexuality. He is quoting the saint out of
context. He loved that boy but it wasn’t for sexual purposes, he just liked
that boy as we all have our likes and dislikes.” Maan also criticised De Sondy for
asserting that many Muslims were homophobic. “As one of the leaders in Scotland said
some time ago, we don’t hate homosexuals —, we hate homosexuality. “So it’s not that Muslims are
homophobic, they just do not like lewdness. They do not like homosexuality.
These people, homosexuals, they are human beings. They should be, I think, not
hated, but we should try to put them off such practices.” Apart from the fact that I consider
homophobic the direct equation of homosexuality and lewdness, I am particularly
troubled by the pathetic attempt to delegitimise De Sondy’s views by saying
they would cause “upset”. Contradict if you will, but complaining about hurt
feelings is a coward’s defence and one that is used far too much by
self-appointed Muslim “community leaders” to suppress reformist and progressive
Muslim voices. The Sunday Times moves on to the views
of the Scottish Islamic Foundation. A spokesman for the Scottish-Islamic
Foundation agreed that homosexuality is incompatible with Islam, adding: “The
view of mainstream Muslim scholars and individuals is that it is against
Islamic teachings. “Like with everything, though, people
are free to choose how to live their own lives.” It is sad to see the Scottish Islamic
Foundation backing away from its previous uncompromising defence of liberal
values – as reported here. Both Maan and the Scottish Islamic Foundation’s
spokesman are defending a deeply conservative position without bothering to
formulate coherent arguments; they simply state it has always been that way in
Islam. Quite apart from the fact that De Sondy
has shown this not to be the case, this is not as good an argument as they
clearly believe. For many centuries, Islamic scholarship tolerated slavery;
certainly it is (as it is in the Bible) accepted in the Qur’an. People who make
the argument that homosexuality always has been and always will be completely
unacceptable in Islam should also make their case for why slavery is a
different matter – which went from being accepted to illegal. De Sondy makes an important argument for
the acceptability of homosexuality in Islam and the “community leaders” also
interviewed by the Sunday Times can only answer with intellectual dishonesty
and unthinking conservatism. Sad but unsurprising. This entry was posted in Hermeneutics,
Homophobia and tagged Dr Amanullah De Sondy, Scottish Islamic Foundation.
Bookmark the permalink. Trackbacks are closed, but you can post a comment. « Conspiracy Theories and Birmingham
Central MosqueBNP’s “Reverend” West Refuses to Answer Questions About His
Ordination » 14 Comments Faisal Posted July 12, 2009 at 1:56 pm |
Permalink Great piece. Homosexuality is becoming increasingly
difficult to defend on the lines of doctrinal sanction in the face of
intelligent reformist voices like De Sondy’s. Instead it is becoming a point of
departure for modernist Islamists, especially of the Ikhwani mindset, to hold
up as yet another aspect of anti-Westernism to legitimise Islamism. It’s more
political than strictly spiritual. Western liberal attitudes to
homosexuality, like the concept of human rights, is held up as a direct
challenge to the supremacy of Islamic doctrine and by extension, to political
Islamist ideology. I was in a conversation with an takfiri
Islamist “scholar” once who put it to me that there will come a time when
muslims will be judged to be “true believers” based on whether they believed in
the Khilafah and whether homosexuality to be illegal or not! This is exactly the type of person who
gets “upset” with questions relating to sex and sexuality in Islam. I wonder
how long before these reactionary types resort to banning and, worse, violence
to silence voices like De Sondy’s. Abu Wanabe Arab Posted July 12, 2009 at 5:10 pm |
Permalink God made Adam and Eve not Adam and
Steve. julia bashir Posted July 12, 2009 at 5:39 pm |
Permalink http://lonestartimes.com/2006/05/22/google-saudis-cant-get-enough-gay-sex/ The new Google Trends feature shows
statistics for aggregated search information. Type in a search phrase, and you
can see how popular it is, how the popularity has changed over time, and where
it’s popular. It also breaks down the searches by
language, and it turns out that the top language for “gay sex” is Arabic. Now it’s time for some analysis. Let’s
compare the Kingdom’s obsession with gay sex to other popular search phrases: Gay sex vs. Britney — Gay sex wins. Gay sex vs. ipod — Gay sex wins. Gay sex vs. freedom — Gay sex wins. Gay sex vs. football — Gay sex wins. Gay sex vs. jobs — Jobs win. This last one is quite interesting — gay
sex vs. Islam. Among English-speaking Saudis, Islam runs away with it. But when
Arabic-speaking Saudis get on Google, they want to see — you guessed it — gay
sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with
that. Abu Wanabe Wahabi Posted July 13, 2009 at 10:05 am |
Permalink I suppose not being able to see women at
all pushes them towards gay sex acts, sad. Shams al-Tabriz Posted July 13, 2009 at 11:38 am |
Permalink Perhaps Allah (swt) knew that most
gayers are Arabian which is why He, in His infinite wisdom, revealed Islam
there. Me
Posted July 13, 2009 at 2:05 pm | Permalink Yossarian “One of the bizarre hypocrisies of
modern Britain is that criticising people who claim religious sanction for
homophobia can be labeled bigotry but, at all other times, homophobia is the
unacceptable bigotry.” Actually the hypocrisy is that
homosexuals can criticise religious peoples lifestyles (fair enough) but
religious people cant criticise homosexual’s lifestyles Yossarian Posted July 13, 2009 at 2:21 pm |
Permalink Actually the hypocrisy is that
homosexuals can criticise religious peoples lifestyles (fair enough) but
religious people cant criticise homosexual’s lifestyles That doesn’t make any sense. How many
gay people have you heard going around saying that Christians should not get
married. How many people have used Christianity to justify stopping gay people
getting married? I’m guessing “zero” and “lots” respectively. Faisal Posted July 13, 2009 at 2:52 pm |
Permalink It’s great when you’re muslim ‘n
straight. yeah! cjcjc Posted July 13, 2009 at 4:14 pm |
Permalink @me where exactly are homosexuals
criticising religious lifestyles? we just want you to f*ck off and leave
us alone – not too much to ask is it? Faisal Posted July 13, 2009 at 4:16 pm |
Permalink me is “munir”/”blah”, PP’s resident
Islamist nutter, by the way me Posted July 13, 2009 at 6:36 pm |
Permalink cjcjc “where exactly are homosexuals
criticising religious lifestyles?” are you serious? there are a number of
homosexuals calling for curtailing of Muslims religious rights- Terry
Sanderson, Douglas Murray etc Ever heard of Pim Fortuyn? Bruce Bewer? And dont gays criticise polygamy for
example? or Muslim women wearing hijab and niqab? Faisal Posted July 13, 2009 at 6:41 pm |
Permalink Perfectly valid where religion is used
by law as a means of persecution of homosexuals or women or Ahmadiyya etc. me Posted July 13, 2009 at 8:59 pm |
Permalink Faisal “Perfectly valid where religion is used
by law as a means of persecution of homosexuals or women or Ahmadiyya etc.” what a hypocrite! what do polygamy and
wearing hijab or niqab have to do with these? And since you support consensual
homoseuxality why dont you support consensual polygamy? Faisal Posted July 13, 2009 at 9:14 pm |
Permalink And since you support consensual
homoseuxality why dont you support consensual polygamy? Who said I don’t support consensual
polygamy? But since you’ve called me a
‘hypocrite’, let’s turn this up a notch. Since you support consensual polygamy
why don’t you support the keeping of slaves? Or keeping concubines and have sex
with your slaves outside of your marriage? Since these are all sanctioned by the
primary texts, and this seems to trump social norms, surely you must support
them and/or defend anyone else who does. http://www.spittoon.org/archives/1724 |
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