From: mmirza@frodo.eng.ohio-state.edu (Muhammad Mirza)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: ISLAM on HOMOSEXUALITY
Date: 29 Aug 92 04:21:46 GMT
Reply-To: mmirza@frodo.eng.ohio-state.edu (Muhammad Mirza)
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Electrical Engineering
Originator: gwydion@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu


                   ISLAM on HOMOSEXUALITY
                   -----------------------


       " So, ( O Prophet and the followers of the Prophet,) set your
         face truly and sincerely towards the Faith, and be steadfast
         on the Nature whereupon Allah has created mankind. There can
         be no alteration in the Nature made by Allah. This is the
         right and true Faith, but most people do not know. (Be
         steadfast on this)  turning wholly towards Allah, and fear
         Him, and establish the Salat, and do not be of the mushriks
         who have set up their separate creeds and divided themselves
         into sects, each sect rejoicing what it has. " (30: 30-32)

    Islam is the Deen (way of life) of Fitrah (nature). We are living
    in a universe which is governed and regulated by firm laws
    ordained by its Creator, the Almighty, the All-Powerful Allah. Man
    has no power to change these physical laws. If his tries to
    transgress these limits, he immediately faces the consequences.
    His progress is dependent on how closely he follows these physical
    laws. e.g. no one can see through his mouth and eat through his
    eyes. This is law made by the Creator and none has the power to
    change it.
  
    However, there is another small domain of laws, the SPIRITUAL
    domain, where man has been given some freedom. This is not that His
    Creator was unable to subjugate him, rather:

    " Full of blessings is He in Whose hand is the Kingdom of the
      universe, and He has power over everything; Who created death
      and life that He may try you to see which of you is best in
      deeds, and He is All-Mighty as well as All-Forgiving." (67: 1)

    A trial, a test, for which man has been created. He is not like an
    animal whose physical and spiritual life is completely controlled.
    Man has been given a limited freedom to choose between right and
    wrong. In this domain, his Creator has given him the means, shown
    him the two ways and then it is up to him to select whichever way
    he wants to go.

     " Does he (the man) thinks that no one will have power over him?
       He says, " I have squandered heaps of wealth." Does he think
       that no one has seen him ? Have We not given him two eyes, and
       a tongue and two lips (means of obtaining knowledge and
       wisdom), and shown him both the high ways (of good and evil)?"
                                                       (90: 5-10)

     However, this does not mean that he will get away from  the
     consequences. The trial ends either with individual's death or
     with the destruction of the community, and then, they march 
     either to hell or to heaven based on their choice and actions.

     " Then, when the great Disaster befalls -- the Day when man shall
       remember whatever he had striven for -- and Hell shall be laid
       open for everyone to see, then the one who had rebelled and
       preferred the life of the world, Hell shall be his home. As for
       him who had feared to stand before his Lord and restrained evil
       desires, Paradise shall be his home." 


    Islam and the Family: Beginning of human civilization
    -----------------------------------------------------

    Let us go to the specific issue of homosexuality, and why it is
    against the nature on which Allah, the Almighty has created human
    beings.

 
  1) The Creator has made the male and female of each and every living
     species different from and complementary to each other for their
     reproduction. 
   
     " And We have created everything in pairs; may be that you learn
       a lesson from it."  (51: 49)


     " He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth, Who made for
       you pairs from your own kind, and pairs also of the cattle
       (from their own kind) so as to multiply you. There is nothing
       like him in the universe: He is the All-Hearing, the
       All-Seeing."  (42: 11)


   2) However, the difference in the human species has been created to
      serve another purpose. This is to urge the two to live together
      in order to form a family along with their offsprings. For this
      is the foundation of a civilized life for which man has been
      created. That is why human beings have been bestowed (until they
      remain within the bounds of their nature) with love and
      affection besides sexual urges and reproduction.


      " And Allah it is Who has made wives for you from your own
        species and bestowed upon you sons and grandsons from those
        wives, and provided you with good things to eat." (16: 72)

      " And of His Signs is -- that He has created for you mates from
        your own species that you may find rest and joy with them, and
        created love and mercy between you." (30: 21)

      " They are (like) a garment to you and you are (like) a garment
        to them."  (2: 187)


   3) This sex relationship not only demands mutual love between the
      male and female but also it demands that they should have a deep
      spiritual relation with their offsprings, the direct result of
      their sex relationship. The Divine Will has endowed man, and
      especially the woman, with such a physical structure and natural
      course of pregnancy and suckling that the love of offsprings
      becomes her very nature.

      " His mother bears him with much pain and he is not weaned
        before he is two years of age."  (31: 14)

      " With much pain his mother bears him, and with much pain she
        brings him into the world. He is born and weaned in thirty
        months."  (46: 15)

      The man also loves his offsprings though his love is not as
      intense as of mother.

      " Men are tempted by the lure of women and offsprings." (3: 14)

   
    4) From these relations then spring up families, clans and nations
       whose inter-relationships give birth to civilization. The
       ties of blood and the relations of descent and marriage provide
       indeed the very basic and natural foundation for the human
       society. 
 
      " And it is He, Who created man from water: then from him He
        caused two kinds of kindred, by blood and by marriage: your
        Lord is All-Powerful."  (25: 45)

      " O mankind, We created you from one man and one woman, and then
        divided you into nations and tribes so that you may recognize 
        one another."  (49:13)

    5) Another demand of the human nature is that if a person leaves
       something behind him from the fruits of his lifelong labors and
       toil, he wishes it to go to his offsprings and near relations
       with whom he is bound in ties of blood all his life.

      " .... according to Book of Allah, those who are bound by ties
        of blood are nearest to one another ( in the matter of
        inheritance)."  (8: 75)
  
 
    HOMOSEXUALITY: against Islam (the Natural way of life)
    ----------------------------------------------------- 
  
    Now we will see how the one who satisfies the sex urge in an
    unnatural way disrupts this system and becomes guilty of many
    crimes one and the same time.

    1) Such a one, so to speak, wages a war against the natural and
       physical functionings of his own organs and those of the
       victims of his lust. 

    2) He becomes guilty of treachery and dishonesty against Nature
       for he enjoys sexual pleasure, without performing the
       necessary service of his species and civilization and without
       fulfilling the rights and obligations attached to it.

    3) He commits a breach of trust against the society in general for
       he enjoys all the benefits of the civilized society, but in his
       turn does not take on himself the responsibilities of the married
       life and wastes all his powers in the unnatural gratification
       of his sexual desires. This selfish and unworthy attitude is
       not useless but also positively harmful to the collective
       morality. Thus he makes himself unfit for the service of the
       family and of the human race and produces unnatural feminine
       characteristics in, at least, one other male, and opens the
       way to adultery and moral degradation for at least two women.

    
    How Islam deals with HOMOSEXUALS ?
    ---------------------------------

    Islam did not come for preaching some good morals to the mankind
    and then leave it up to them to accept or reject its injunctions. It
    is the biggest irony and the ignorance of 20th century that Muslims
    have accepted the domination of unjust man-made rules and are
    struggling to establish the so called Islamic life within the
    bounds dictated by the party of shaitan. They are trying to
    accommodate themselves and live under the domination of
    judo-christians traditions, although they were commanded by the
    real Lord, the Revealer of Quran:

    " Fight with those from among the people of the Book, who do not 
      believe in Allah nor in the Last Day; who do not make unlawful
      that which Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful, and do
      not adopt the Right Way as their way. (Fight with them) until
      they pay Jizyah with their own hands are humbled." (9: 29)

    They were ordered to establish that Natural way of life
    (Al-Islam) on His earth and then eradicate all evils (as laid down
    by Quran and Sunnah). The fundamental duty of an Islamic state is
    to create an environment so that no one is forced by circumstances
    to commit a crime. We cannot talk about Islamic punishments
    living under rules which have legalized this heinous crime.
    However, I have to mention how Islam deals with it under its own
    rule (not under kufr rule).

    Quran merely declares that sodomy is such a heinous crime that it
    brought the wrath of Allah on people of LOT. How Quran mentions
    about the destruction of this nation shows the anger of Allah to
    this unnatural act.

    " And We sent Lot as a Messenger: Remember that he said to his
      people, " Have you become so shameless that you commit such
      indecent acts as no one committed before you in the world? 
      (probably west is the other nation which has gone one step ahead
       and legalized lesbians) You gratify your lust with men instead
      of women: indeed you are a people who are transgressors of all
      limits!" But the only answer his people gave was "Turn out these
      people of your habitations for they pose to be very pious." At
      last, We delivered Lot and the members of his family -- except
      his wife, who was of those who stayed behind -- and We rained a 
      rain upon his people; then behold, what happened in the end to
      the guilty ones! "   (7: 80-84)

   
     What was that rain?

     " The We turned their habitations up-side-down and We rained upon
       them stones of baked clay."  (15: 74)


     " Accordingly, when the time of the execution of Our judgement
       came, We turned the habitation upside down and rained on it
       stones of baked clay, each of which had been specifically
       marked by your Lord. And such a scourge is not far from the 
       workers of iniquity."  (11: 82-83)


     However, we learn from the guidance of Holy Prophet(saw) that it
     is the duty of Islamic state to eradicate this crime and should
     punish those who are guilty of it. In regard to this there are
     traditions with wordings to this effect:

     (a) " kill the sodomite and the object of sodomy"

     (b) " ..... whether they are married or unmarried "

     (c) " Stone to death the upper and the lower one."

     But no definite and specific punishment was prescribed for the
     criminals because during his time, no case of sodomy was ever
     brought before the Holy Prophet (saw)

     There are, however, some traditions from his successors regarding
     this. Again I reemphasize, this can only be done under Islamic
     state.


     Umar and Uthman (raa)
     --------------------

     They should be taken under the roof of a dilapidated building,
     which should be pulled down on them. 


     Ali (raa)
     ---------

     Criminals should be killed with sword and the dead bodies should
     not be buried but burnt to ashes. Abu Bakr (raa) also agrees with
     it. 

     Ibni Abbas (raa)
     ----------------

     He has decreed that they should be thrown down headlong the top
     of the highest building of the habitation and the stoned to
     death.

     Imam Shafii
     -----------

     Both the criminals involved in sodomy should be killed, whether
     married or unmarried.

     Shi'ibi, Zuhri, Malik, and Ahmed
     --------------------------------
     
     Stone to death.

    
     Sa'id, Ata, Hasan, Nakhi, Thauri, and Auzai
     -------------------------------------------

     Punishment is the same as for adultery, that is, one hundred
     stripes and exile for the unmarried, and stoning to death for the 
     married.

     Imam Abu Hanifah
     ----------------

     Culprit should be punished in accordance with the circumstances
     of the crime with an exemplary punishment.


     It should also be noted that it is unlawful for the husband to
     commit sodomy with his own wife. The Holy Prophet (saw) has
     declared, " The man who commits such an act with a woman is
     accursed." In an other Tradition, he has warned, "The one who
     cohabits with a woman in her menses or commits sodomy with her or
     goes to a soothsayer and believe him true, is a disbeliever in
     what has been sent down to Muhammad (saw)."

     I have presented a summary of how Islam views homosexuality
     (sodomy). Islam does not request people to become Muslims. It
     gives an open choice to everyone. It is highly immoral that
     someone professes to be Muslim and then denies the basic tenets
     of Islam. My only request is to reconsider the matter. If someone
     wants to continue this heinous crime, he has an option until his
     death. BUT PLEASE DO NOT INVOKE ALLAH'S WRATH BY LOOKING FOR ANY 
     APPROVAL FROM ISLAM. Quran says emphatically:

     " It does not behove a believing man and a believing woman that 
       when Allah and His Messenger have given their decision in a
       matter, they should exercise an option in that matter of
       theirs; and whoever disobeys Allah and His Prophet, has indeed 
       strayed into manifest error."  (33: 36)  


 


        


    



    






  


  


 

     







 


                                              
     



 

-- 
Muhammad Javed Mirza
The Ohio State University 
Electrical Engineering Dept.
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam