From: nabeel@sce.carleton.ca (Nabeel Ghuzlaan)
Subject: Re: ISLAM on HOMOSEXUALITY
Organization: Carleton University
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 01:56:11 GMT

[Something wrong happened to posts to sri so I had to post this
this way. _0]

mmirza@frodo.eng.ohio-state.edu (Muhammad Mirza) wrote, 
along with other things:
>     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)."

Introduction:
   When I was a teenager a decade ago I tried to do my best to prove that
Mu^aawiyah, ^Amr and their faction were infidels for their chaos with ^Ali
and his faction.
   We sometimes like to believe that if someone spits in the street or makes
a misspelling mistake is deemed for ever in hell and try to believe 
"^Hadeeth"'s to such an effect, we always overreact (and underdo useful
things).
   God said to the meaning of, if God punished people for their wrong doing
He would have left no living creature on earth. You know God is merciful and
He is the one to decide when someone deserves His mercy of His indeed severe
punishment.

Main Idea:
   I am apprehensive about those ^Hadeeths about whoever did so and so is a
disbeliever, or whoever did so and so is alike to who commits adultery to
his mother under the curtain of the Ka^ba.
   Is it really a man who sleeps with his wife in her menses or commits
sodomy with her a disbeliever? Is it real that the one who masturbates is
equivalent to a mother-adulterer, or worse -- under the curtain of the Ka^ba? 
Do you really think a mother adulterer is better than a masturbater?
   I can understand that if you go to a fortuneteller and believe her or him
then you essentially believe in the ability of a creature, other than God, to
know the future while you read in the ^Qur'aan that only God does know the
future. That is why you disbelieve in God.
   However in the quotes Mirza posted I did not remember any to the effect
that even fags are nonbelievers. In fact I think they are not, otherwise
no scholar will say stripe the single and stone the married because a
disbeliever/murtadd is killed (no matter how).
   God did not punish the people of Sodom and Gammorah for their fagotry, He
did punish them because of their nonbelieving in God and then their fagotry.
And, I think, in their fagotry because of their lusting after men rather
than women, not because of the mere sodomy. So, if some man lusts after another
while not doing sodomy, he is too in great danger. God said about them, you 
take men for lust rather than women. 

Conclusion:
   I think we have enough reason to question the authenticity of such
^Hadeeths since by all means menstruational sex (or the other) is much less
severe than fagotry and has no reason to throw someone out of the Islamic
arena or equate him to a committer of the worst social sin.

Disclaimer:
   I did not claim herein that sodomy, menses sex, etc. are permitted but
if a sinner is a nonbeliever then we can as well prepare for the longest
stay in hell (this excludes people who never commit sins!).

**Nabeel