#70 - On Revisionist Arguments (Part II)

This is part II of a 2-episode series with Br. Mobeen Vaid addressing revisionist arguments pertaining to homosexuality within Islam.

In this episode, Mobeen and I discuss the punishments of sodomy according to Islamic Shari'a, to what extent Islam can be considered a "sex positive" religion, as well as the notions of marriage and celibacy for men and women who experience same-sex attractions. Under what conditions is sodomy punished by Islamic law, and why is there no consensus on this matter? Since a lot of homoerotic prose and poetry were written during the Islamic Golden Age, and we also know of famous Islamic scholars from the past, like Ibn Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī, Ibn ʿArabī, and Ibn Ḥazm who had homoerotic feelings, wouldn't all of this constitute an acknowledgment and acceptance of homosexuality? Is it fair or just that Islam denies men and women who experience same-sex attractions their rights to sexual fulfillment? These and other questions are explored in this episode.

Resources used and references mentioned in the episode:
- "Can Islam Accommodate Homosexual Acts? Quranic Revisionism and the Case of Scott Kugle" by Mobeen Vaid

Chapters

• 0:39 Episode Introduction
• 1:57 On Arguments Related to Punishments
• 35:49 On Islam, Sexual Liberation and Sexual Minorities
• 1:04:51 On Arguments Related to Marriage and Celibacy
• 1:22:43 Ending Remarks

Transcript

Waheed  00:39
Assalamu alaikom warahmatullahi ta’ala wabaraktuh, and welcome back to “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, this podcast series dedicated to Muslims experiencing same-sex attractions who want to live a life true to Allah's subhanahu wa ta’ala and Islam. I'm your host, Waheed Jensen, and thank you for joining me in today's episode. Today's episode is part two with Br. Mobeen Vaid as we continue our discussion on revisionist arguments. In the previous episode, as you guys remember, we explored the sociocultural and broader backdrop to this kind of revisionism, particularly within Muslim circles, and then we spoke a little bit about the arguments presented with regards to terminology, and then we spoke about a lot of the arguments presented with regards to the story of Prophet Lut (PBUH) and his people. In today's episode, inshaAllah, Mobeen and I are going to be talking about the broader topics of punishments of sodomy within Islam, the “sexual liberation” within Islam and acceptance of sexual minorities, and we will end with a discussion on marriage versus celibacy, particularly for individuals who experience same-sex attractions or identify as “homosexuals” within Islam. So let's get started, inshaAllah.

01:57
And now we get to the broad topic of punishments, and this is a point of contention and a point of fitnah (conflict) or subhah (doubt) for a lot of people when it comes to the topic of LGBT rights and homosexuality. And there has been the argument that scholars in Islam rely on one weak hadith that promotes capital punishment to explain the hadd crime, even though the Prophet (PBUH) had never carried that out, and there is no mention of punishments in this regard in the Qur’an whatsoever. And then based on the authentic hadiths, no punishment is assigned to, you know, if we're talking about anal sex between man and man, and even Ibn Hazm himself disapproved of other ahadith stating otherwise, and he argued that if we're going to go for punishment, then we can go for 10 lashes as a punishment. So how do we respond to this? And if this is the case, then why is there a mention of capital punishment for homosexuality in Islam?

Mobeen  02:58
Sure, Bismillah. That's a good question. I think there are a number of things that are being addressed or alluded to in the question. I'll mention a few points, and then if you have any questions, we can talk through them. The first point that I'll mention is that the hadiths themselves on this issue are subject to intra-Sunni disagreement, and so the muhadditheen, the scholars of hadith, differ on them. The most prominent hadith that is cited on this particular topic mentioned the killing of the active and the passive participant of sodomy. This hadith was accepted by many scholars as sufficiently reliable or sound, so either hasan or sahih, and we see that from the Al-‘Iraqi, Ibn Al-Talla’, Ibn Al-Qayim, Sheikh Al-Albaani more recently, Al-Suyuti early on, Al-Tahhawi, a lot of scholars make mention of it. Other scholars regarded it as weak, and so they didn't say it was a sound hadith. Ibn Hajar Al-‘Asqalani, a very famous scholar of hadith, perhaps one of the most famous, regarded it as unsound or weak, but he wasn't alone. Again, there was a lot of dispute over the particular hadith in question, this one perhaps being the most prominent where it just inspired a lot of debate over the isnaad, or the narrators, of the actual hadith, and whether or not they were all reliable, and whether or not they reported this particular hadith reliably. 

There are also reports of how companions dealt with sodomy when it was brought to them. And there is a very prominent hadith in this category, from the famous companion and khalifa Ali ibn Abi Taleb (RAA) who was the nephew of the Prophet (PBUH) who was said to have ordered capital punishment for those who committed sodomy. We don't have any reports during the life of the Prophet (PBUH) where a person comes to him who had committed sodomy, nor do we have any explicit reports of people asking him about sodomy. So when people say the Prophet (PBUH) never carried it out, well, it was never brought to him. And so, in some sense, there's an absence of address there. So that's sort of the hadith at a high level. 

There are other reports as well that are mentioned. Some of them mention punishments, some of them don't. Others just mentioned a curse of Allah on the person who commits sodomy. Usually, it's usually "من عمل عمل قوم لوط" i.e. whoever does the actions of the people of Lot, they'll say something like that, it usually invokes that type of address, even though those hadiths are not unanimously agreed upon or they’re subject to internal differences. So, you know, you do have this corpus of hadith through which you have scholarly difference. You also have the actions of the companions which are included as supported legal evidence. And so that's also introduced as a relevant criteria and consideration. 

There's also the question of analogical reasoning, which is to say, how do we regard sodomy vis-à-vis zina (i.e. fornication and adultery), as zina itself and sodomy are both penetrative sexual acts? For scholars who admitted analogical reasoning on this point, which is the majority, the relevant violation for zina, rather what makes zina zina is not that it's heterosexual, but that it's a penetrative act. That is really the most significant violation that's taking place, or the locus of transgression. In fact, this was part of why, you know, when it came to witnessing the act of zina for the hadd crime, part of the witnessing actually had to be witnessing penetration, not simply to people having an intimate romantic relationship. Because sodomy like zina is penetrative, scholars would say that there's analogical reasoning that's permitted, and when analogical reasoning is permitted, there is a dispute or debate - is it like zina or is it worse than zina? How do we look at it? Many scholars held it to be worse. You'll hear or read some of the scholars referring to it as the greatest fahisha, الفاحشة الكبرى is a term that some scholars use to describe it, which is the most grievous of sexual transgressions, or the greatest of sexual transgressions. They'll describe it that way. Others said no, they said that it's equivalent to zina, and that the punishment for it should map on to that. And so for someone who's unmarried, they get the 100 lashes, and then for people who are married and they commit sodomy out of wedlock, or outside of marriage, rather, it's an adulterous sodomy, then it's capital punishment. So some scholars held that type of view.

Others and fewer, like Ibn Hazm, objected to using analogies altogether, especially when one is attempting to determine what is worse and what's better. They saw such conclusions as fundamentally thanni, or subjective, and that absent any clear, revelatory guidance stating that this is worse or better, we really can't make something a hadd crime on the basis of just our rational deliberations. And so that's where Ibn Hazm’s objection comes from as well as the objections of many of the Hanafi scholars in the past. So, for them, the alternative that Ibn Hamz and others argued for was a discretionary punishment, or ta’zeer. And there are scholars, when they talk about ta’zeer, they'll usually discuss minimum and maximum penalties; usually, the focus is often on what maximum penalties can be applied, typically a form of corporal punishment when we're talking about punishments in general. And then some scholars said, well, if a person's a repeat offender, especially for grievous crimes, then what is invocable, and the punitive measures become more severe. 

So that is sort of a hashing out of the layout of just how scholars differed on this and some of the reasons that they differed on this, it really boils down to methodology, reasoning, as well as how they viewed the probative hadiths that covered this particular topic. So, hopefully that helps just hash out why there's difference on this at all.

Waheed  10:00
Jazak Allah khairan, we really appreciate that. So, in other words, there is no unanimous decision. It's not clear cut, as opposed to something else which is clearly mentioned in the Qur’an, like the hadd for zina, for example, for someone who's not married, the 100 lashes, this is clearly mentioned in the Qur’an, but when it comes to homosexuality, or like penetrative male-male sexual acts, that is not as clear cut, so to speak, right?

Mobeen  10:29
Yeah, and I think it's better to use the word “sodomy” because, you know, part of what we discuss when it comes to the reasoning is, well, is it a penetrative act? Because lesbian sexual activity does not involve penetration, scholars would not include it within the remit of hadd punishment, even ones who did say that sodomy was punishable as a hadd crime, they didn't say the same for lesbian sexual activities. They didn't say that it was a hadd crime, they limit it to ta’zeer or discretionary punishment, simply because, for them, they are drawing analogies based on the violation of penetration - and not just lesbian acts, even heterosexual or homosexual sexual acts that are done short of penetration, you know, if we're talking about things like oral sex, for instance, or just other sexual activities, or romantic, intimate activities, short of penetration, would actually not constitute capital crimes for people who held, you know, sodomy to be a capital crime.

Waheed  11:37
Absolutely, and it is worth mentioning here for the audience members that these punishments are carried out, typically, by the Islamic government, and it's carried out by the ruler, and it's not carried out by lay men or women, and it has to involve four witnesses who actually witness the penetrative act happening, correct?

Mobeen  11:57
Correct, yeah, so that's an important point. This isn't something that a person can just do on their own, when we talk about vigilantism. We're talking about something that has to be adjudicated within a proper court that actually has procedures and a certain threshold or bar of evidence that has to be met. One of the greatest sins in Islam is false testimony (شهادة الزور) that a person testifies against someone else falsely. And this is especially so who it comes to accusing people of sexual transgression. In fact, there are instances that we see from the time of the companions, for instance, where four men do witness the act of zina, rather adultery, having occurred, they go and testify to it in front of a judge. One of the people backs out, one of the men backs out, for various reasons, the other three are then asked whether or not they are holding on to their story. One of them holds on and doesn't sort of waver on what he saw, the others do. The one that holds on is actually subject to a ta’zeer or discretionary punishment for having not met the evidentiary bar, in spite of the fact that, you know, based on the actual telling of that particular report and the historiography of it, it's quite likely that he was the only one that remained truthful in upholding what he saw, whereas the others just got cold feet for whatever reason. But there's that, you know, the testimony of one honest person is not something that can override the evidentiary bar that's required for something like this, and, in fact, is subject to punishment when it's bandied about casually. 

Likewise, and I think we talked about this last time, when it comes to even insulting people pejoratively, in sort of a casual sense, or implying something negatively about people using terminology that is apathetic. So, you know, that is something that traditionally fell under the rulings of qathf, or slanderous accusation. And so, if you sort of refer to someone and say, “Oh, Luti!” (i.e. sodomite) or “Oh, Zani!” (fornicator/adulterer), and things like that, if you just talk about people that way, that was actually something that was punishable, as well, by lashing and corporal punishment. So these weren't things that were taken lightly. In fact, there is a report from one of the early scholars and tabi’een, a successor, by the name of ‘Ata, there was a man who came into his gathering and then left, and one of the students in this gathering made a suppositional statement, he said, “You know, I think that man is a little effeminate, I believe he's a mukhannath”, and that's what we discussed. And so, you know, ‘Ata is reported to have gotten so angry with him, and just visibly upset that he told the man, and he sort of reprimanded the student, and he told him to redo his prayers for the day, and to fast X number of days and to do this and that, and he told him all these things to do for having said that word. And it's not clear that he was necessarily insulting or making fun of the person, he was just making a conjecture about perhaps this man is a bit effeminate. And so, just based on that alone, ‘Ata didn't stand for it, and he told this man to do all those things. 

And so, yeah, when it comes to even what we consider to be relatively small things in the way we talk or the way we disparage or describe people, those are things that were, in fact, implicative when it comes to both how a person is dealt with in societies vis-à-vis laws and punishments, let alone in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, the severity of speaking about people inappropriately, let alone just carrying out violent acts against them. 

Waheed  16:16
Indeed. Brilliant examples, jazak Allah khairan for sharing that, I really appreciate it. And one thing, you know, keeping in line with what you mentioned, a lot of people would argue, if there's an Islamic government, let's say, we're living in an Islamic society, why is this government adamant about, you know, spying on people, or whatever happens behind closed doors is people's business? Well, that is true. I mean, no one is going to knock on doors and just check that people are not doing wrong things behind closed doors. This is basically, I mean, even the condition that four witnesses have to be there is very difficult to attain, to the point that unless you're actually doing it in public where people can see the act happening, then the probability of the punishment being carried out, given this condition, is very, very low, almost nonexistent, correct?

Mobeen  17:04
Yeah. I mean, it's certainly something that's more rare. One would say that, you know, “Oh, why is Islam so focused on sort of prying in people's private affairs?” Well, it's not. In fact, in the Qur’an, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala says, "ولا تجسسوا" (Qur’an 49:12), do not spy on others. And so, in general, many of these rulings actually intends the exact opposite reaction, which is that, what is relevant for Muslims is actually public sexual indecency. Because if it's public, that's when you'll end up getting these evidentiary bars being met. When it's a private transgression, it becomes rather difficult to arrive at such an evidentiary bar, let alone just make accusations of that sort, as opposed to what happens in the public square. 

And just about all societies are concerned with what happens in the public square sexually, right? No one just has, you know, every single society has rulings and guardrails and norms when it comes to how men and women are supposed to dress in public, and how they're supposed to act in public and everything else, right? In no society can a person just sort of have sex out in the open or take their clothes off, things like that, right? At some point, there's a limit where a person might say, okay, there indecency laws that have to be invoked, and things like that. Societies might differ as to what the threshold should be on those, but nonetheless, they still uphold that those are rational, normal things that society should be invested in upholding. Because they do have a concept of decency and propriety and what is sexually licit and illicit, they stand for those things being violated. In fact, most people are very passionate about sexual violation, in just about all societies, especially when they feel that there has been a transgression or a wrong that has taken place. You know, and that's something that we're constantly mired in in the West, where people of authority and power, having potentially abused that power for their own sexual lens. And so the idea that, “Oh, you know, these Muslims have these rules on sexuality and sex and sexual ethics, and it just seems so prude or overwrought!” But no, just about all societies do. Islam has its own sexual schema, and that sexual schema is drawn from and derives from Revelation. Insofar as we're concerned, we actually have a sexual ethic that can help solve a lot of problems that we're seeing today. It can help people live really upright, ethical and moral lives.

Waheed  19:36
For sure, inshaAllah. Barak Allah feek. And one more thing to add to this, just a tangential point: We see, unfortunately, a lot of things happening in the Muslim world that have nothing to do with Islam. For example, the issue with honor killings, where a woman is just accused in her honor without any witnesses, without any evidence whatsoever, and she is killed. And that has nothing to do with Islam. And we also see that people, men in particular, are accused of being “homosexuals”, just because they may behave effeminately, or maybe someone has a particular assumption about another person, and they are killed right there and then. And, unfortunately, a lot of people take this and justify it, because of the presence of “capital punishment” in Islam against people who commit sodomy, or people who commit fornication let's say in the case of women, even though she might not be married, but they use that as justification. So I just wanted to touch upon this with you right now, just to highlight this for people, because a lot of people have misconceptions that this is what Islam is, whereas these practices have nothing to do with Islam, correct?

Mobeen  20:47
Yeah, of course not. I mean, obviously honor killings have no basis in anything, Qura’n and Sunnah. A person carrying out punishments on their own outside of a proper Islamic court with the authority of a Muslim judge is, in fact, a sin. In fact, when it comes to zina itself, you have a hadith - and I believe this hadith is in Sahih Muslim - from Uwaimir Al-‘Ajlani (RAA) who was a companion, and he reportedly had witnessed a man having sex with his (i.e. Uwaimir’s) wife. And he went to the Prophet (PBUH) and he was eager to just sort of mete out justice on his own, he was eager to just go ahead and basically kill the man. He wanted to avenge his own honor and the honor of his family. And the Prophet (PBUH) did not permit him to do so. So, this actually ends up relating to a particular practice where a husband and wife, or one of the spouses rather witnessed the other committing zina, you have the institution of li’an, or mutual cursing, that gets introduced, where a person invokes God and swears by God that they've either seen it or that they never did it, and at the end of li’an, if both people sort of maintain their innocence or guilt on both sides, they sort of separate and the marriage dissolves at the end of it. But the whole point is that that entire procedure and process has to occur within the context of court, overseen by a Muslim judge. The Prophet (PBUH) didn't tell him, “Oh, you saw that? Go ahead and just take care of that guy!” He was seeking that type of permission, and he was very angry about what had taken place, but that permission was not granted to him. Someone who does something like that, that's homicide, right? That's murder. That would be the relevant crime, and that's what would be punishable in any court, not just an Islamic court.

Waheed  22:57
Absolutely. I have another question here, and I know that you've already touched upon this previously, earlier in this episode, but feel free to maybe just add a little bit on this, or maybe we can skip it as you see fit. But basically, a lot of people would argue that there's a chance for human bias and misinterpretation, and there are common examples given with regards to the abrogation of particular verses of the Qur’an with hadiths coming from the Prophet (PBUH). A very common example is that of adultery, right? The punishment of adultery for men and women who engage in that when they are married. So we know that the hadiths of stoning came before the verse on flogging that was revealed in the Qur’an, and stoning is not mentioned anywhere in the Qur’an. But at the same time, scholars would abrogate the Quranic verses with the hadiths of the Prophet (PBUH) that talk about stoning. And hence, people would argue that the same logic is actually used for the punishment of homosexuality. So how do you respond to this?

Mobeen  24:00
I don't mind, I mean, I think one point I’ll mention briefly is that, you know, a lot of people bring up abrogation when it comes to stoning versus flogging, when it comes to zina itself, because there is the آية الرجم or the verse of stoning that is mentioned, for instance, and that verse itself is abrogated. And so they'll say, “How come that verse is still effective insofar it is applicable for people who engaged in adultery?” I think that's a general misunderstanding, because the verse of flogging still applies. There's no abrogation actually that goes on. So you still have the verse of flogging getting applied to people who commit zina and are, as we said, sort of bound to have committed it based on the evidentiary bar for witnesses having seen the penetrative act occur. In those cases, you have the sort of 100 lashes and flogging that occurs, it is in the marital context where you have it sort of transition into a capital crime for adultery. 

And so, what the Sunnah ends up doing, the sort of lived example and the decisions of the Prophet (PBUH) in his life end up doing is actually explaining the Qur’an. That's what happens, right? The Sunnah explains the Qur’an. And the number of hadiths that actually discuss stoning of the adulterer are actually quite a number. In fact, so much so that many of the scholars consider that to be tawatur, there are at least 15 different companions that narrate, and that's just in Bukhari and Muslim, if I'm not mistaken, that actually narrate the sort of carrying out of capital punishment for the adulterer. And so, it's not something that, in fact, relies on the abrogated verse at all, it just has enough hadith and Sunnah evidence to actually demarcate and delineate between what is capital punishment and what is sort of subject to flogging alone. 

And so this type of explaining of the Qur’an through the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) is, in fact, extremely, extremely common. In fact, one of the interesting verses where this comes up, it relates to fasting. And so you have the verse in the Qur’an, where Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala says, "وكلوا واشربوا حتى يتبين لكم الخيط الأبيض من الخيط الأسود من الفجر” (Qur’an, 2:187), eat and drink until the white thread appears to you distinct from the black thread من الفجر of the dawn had not been revealed yet. And so, some of the companions who were fasting or intended to fast that time, what they would do is that they would take a black thread, and they would take a white thread, and they would tie them around their legs. And they'd wake up and they’d eat until they could tell the difference between those two threads. So they'd look at them, and they'd keep eating, and then once they could tell the difference between the black and white that they'd stop. And it was when they went and asked the Prophet (PBUH) about it later that they understood that the black and white thread here we not actually referring to physical cloth threads, but in fact, they were meaning or referring to the day and the night. And so the breaking point for eating is in fact dawn, the entering in of Fajr. 

And so, you have hadiths like this that come in that either delimit, constrain, qualify or explain verses of the Qur’an. That's throughout - in fact, without the Sunnah, we wouldn't know how to practice the Qur’an at all, we'd be quite lost using the Qur’an alone. And so I think those types of things, you know, people end up getting wrapped around the axle on. And this is a common reformist or revisionist tactic, that they make the Sunnah out to be this very nefarious thing. It becomes an oppressive artifact, instead of something that's necessary for, in fact, living as a Muslim and understanding Islam.

Waheed  28:13
Absolutely beautifully said. Jazak Allah khair. There is another argument that comes up nowadays, and it's more common nowadays than before, as I've seen it, where there's an accusation of scholars, that a lot of the positions, punishments or the interpretations of the ahadith and the Qura’nic verses, you name it, it's all from a “male heterosexual/heteronormative perspective”. And in the case of homosexuality, same-sex attractions, or same-sex relationships, you know, there's always this question, “Why would Allah give one man sexual rights to having four wives, for example, and unlimited sex slaves, as you know, وما ملكت أيمانكم, at the time, whereas another man would have no sexual rights whatsoever?” i.e. in reference to a man who has same sex attractions. Obviously, the conclusion that they reach is that there is a lot of heterosexual male bias when it comes to Islamic scholarship, which explains why many Islamic scholars were so adamant about persecuting or kind of ousting that “tiny minority” of people who identify as homosexual. And that has influenced the way that we look at the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and practically a lot of the Islamic laws and rules and regulations. How do you respond to that? 

Mobeen  29:32
Yeah, I mean, obviously, there's a lot of anachronisms going on here. When you start transposing contemporary identities onto the past, that “Oh, these people are just heterosexual men, and they didn't understand what it means to live like a homosexual!” Well, you know, obviously, the contemporary psychosocial profile of the homosexual and the way it participates in sort of our cultural standing is quite distinct, right? So just grafting that on the past I think is always a problem. But I think that entire discourse presupposes that Islamic sexual ethics were constructed by scholars and not Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, right? If a person begins from the premise of understanding that our sexual ethics and the laws that regulate and govern how we're supposed to behave sexually have been provided to us through revelation, that these are God's words, these are Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala’s words for us and how we're supposed to live, then the question actually transitions to one of God's justice and theodicy. And, you know, people may have challenges or trouble with questions in theodicy, in terms of, you know, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has burdened certain people a certain way, and those burdens seem to be onerous and difficult. 

In this particular regard, people who have same-sex attractions are certainly not alone in terms of their own challenge with the question of theodicy and the question of God's justice. Plenty of people have had trouble with that when it comes to just trying to apprehend or appreciate struggles that they're going through. And this is where it's important just to remember the fact that, you know, everybody has challenges and difficulties to varying degrees, right? A lot of times people feel that the single most difficult challenge that exists in the world is the one that I'm going through. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala tests some people differently, some people's tests are far more severe than your own, right? A person might be living with, you know, exclusive, predominant, same-sex attractions, but in many other respects of their life be blessed, right? And other people may have opposite-sex attractions, and yet, in other aspects of their life, be going through enormous difficulties and trials and tribulations that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has protected you from. And so, in some ways, you know, I think a person can make themselves miserable, by constantly meditating and marinating in the challenges that they see in front of them, instead of taking a step back and saying, “You know what? Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has put in front of me a particular test, and this test is an opportunity to gain closeness to Him. And He has put in front of other people other tests, and those tests are their own challenges to bear. And they're going to be asked about their test, and I'm going to be asked about mine. And perhaps through this test, I will gain closeness and nearness to Him, perhaps I will achieve the rank of saintliness in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, and really have that deep connection to Him, as opposed to this being something that is indicative of His displeasure with me.” I mean, that would be just a general way that a person should look at their own tests and their own difficulties that they have in this world, regardless of what they might be.

Waheed  32:50
Beautifully said, I love that! Jazak Allah khair. And the last question on the theme of punishments, a question that gets asked quite frequently, actually, you know, there's this argument that a lot of Islamic rules did change depending on the necessity of the times. Like, for example, in the times of Umar ibn Al-Khattab (RAA), there was a lot of famine in the Islamic world, and so he suspended the punishment for theft, during that time, among other examples throughout history. A lot of people would ask, then, why not use the same logic nowadays, when LGBT relations are becoming more and more normalized? When it comes to the punishment at least of homosexuality, why not let that go, given the changing times? How do we respond to that?

Mobeen  33:38
Yes. So, I mean, obviously, if Umar ibn Al-Khattab (RAA) puts a moratorium on the punishment of theft, he doesn't make theft licit. He doesn't say that it's okay now to steal, right? In fact, the punishment of theft still persists once the situation is under control. When it comes to the punishment of homosexuality, perhaps the scholar might argue that today we should put a moratorium on the punishment for XYZ reasons. Some scholars and some people have, in fact, argued that across the board, with the hudud (Islamic legal punishments) that we should have a temporary moratorium for various reasons. I mean, those are scholarly deliberations that people can make. I don't know that there is a lot of punishment, or the applying of punishment, over homosexual acts in Muslim majority nations, perhaps some do exercise those punishments more than others. And I'm not familiar with the details around whether or not they are applying those punishments responsibly or in a way that is defensible vis-à-vis Islamic law, and so that would probably be outside of my personal scope of insider information. I would just suffice to say that, if in fact you do have places that are responsibly applying punishments in keeping with the guidelines of Islam, then that's within the right obviously, I mean there's nothing immoral or unethical about doing so. In fact, they would be acting in a way that is in keeping with Islamic law, assuming that they are doing so, you know, principally and appropriately and all of that. I don't know enough about different Muslim states and the extent to which their apparatus of Islamic law does in fact reflect fiqh and what the scholars have said, and things like that. I just don't know. Allah knows best.

Waheed  35:40
Wa Allahu a’alam. Indeed.

35:49
Alright, and now we move on to the second theme of this episode, which is about Islam and sexual liberation, as well as the acceptance of sexual minorities. So, the first question, in your article, where you dissected Scott Kugle's arguments in his book Homosexuality in Islam, one of the points of critique was that Kugle paints Islam as a “sex positive religion”, based on a biased presentation of verses and ahadith. So what does sex positive in this case mean? And is Islam as “sex positive religion” to begin with?

Mobeen  36:22
Yeah, I think we have to sort of qualify what we mean by terms like that. I think a lot of times, you know, “sex positive” ends up being this really modern cliche around sexual liberation and stuff like that, as opposed to something that is properly situated within the sexual ethics and schema of Islam. I think if you juxtapose Islamic sexual ethics against the sexual ethics of other religions, especially pre-modern religions, and the way in which those religious discourses function, there's certainly an argument to be made that Islam was more accepting of sex as something that is mutually pleasurable, and something that is not a source of embarrassment or shame, or human weakness and frailty, and all of that. 

If you read Augustine, for instance, and his Confessions, there are times in which sex and sexuality is seen as being a human shortcoming, that a person should sort of engage in it as little as necessary, that they should try to abstain from it as much as possible, and just sort of get out of their system what they need, so that they can continue living life. And if a person is able to be celibate and live without any sex at all, that that's sort of a more virtuous life, as opposed to someone who gets married and has sex and all of that. Obviously, we don't have any parallel discourse within Islam, certainly not the same way. But we do have a discourse that provides a lot of guidelines around how the sex positivity is to be pursued, and how the sexes are supposed to mutually interact with one another. And so, for instance, you know, you have guidelines around things like khalwa, or solitude, where a marriageable man and a woman are not to be alone in a room together without a third person, that they're not supposed to share an intimate private space. That type of space is one in which people are susceptible to falling prey to their own whims and desires. And so the hadith says that if a man and a woman are alone together, shaytaan is the third with them. You have other guidelines like this about lowering the gaze, and this is explicitly Qur’anic: "قُل لِّلْمُؤْمِنِينَ يَغُضُّوا مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِمْ وَيَحْفَظُوا فُرُوجَهُم " (Qur’an, 24:30) – “tell the believing men to lower their gaze and guard their chastity” ; "وَقُل لِّلْمُؤْمِنَاتِ يَغْضُضْنَ مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِنَّ وَيَحْفَظْنَ فُرُوجَهُنَّ" (Qur’an, 24:31) – “and tell the believing women to lower their gaze and to guard their own chastity”. 

And so you have a lot of rules and guidelines that govern the propriety and the norms with which men and women are supposed to live with one another. And those are, by contemporary standards, certainly not to be portrayed as sex positive, I don't think… I think it'd be very tough to make that case. Because most people would look at all of this and say, “This is so backwards or medieval”, or “this is primitive or excessively prudish”, and “we have to open ourselves up into our modern liberating sexual norms” and all of that. And so, that's where I'm quite cynical and skeptical about leveraging the description of sexual ethics as sex positive. However, within the appropriate sanctionable context, it's not something that's frowned upon, as I said, you know, the Prophet (PBUH) when he described different acts of charity, and in this hadith, you have a group of companions who don't have as much money, and they say "ذهب أهل الدثور بالأجور" (the people of wealth have taken all the reward) "يصلون كما نصلي ويصومون كما نصوم ويتصدقون بفضول أموالهم" - they pray just as we pray, they fast just as we fast, but they also give in sadaqa, in charity, on account of their wealth. And the Prophet (PBUH) looks at them and he says, “Aren't there so many ways in which Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has opened the doors to charity for you?” And I'm paraphrasing when he mentioned “Every single time that you say Alhamdulillah, there's sadaqa in that. Every time you say Allahu Akbar and Subhan Allah, there's sadaqa in those words. And "أمر بالمعروف صدقة ونهي عن المنكر صدقة" - commanding the good is sadaqa, and forbidding the evil is sadaqa. And as part of this is expressing what's charitable, right? He says that, “and having sexual relations/licit sexual acts with your spouse is sadaqa”, and the companions respond with shock, and they asked “A man fulfills his desires, and he gets reward for that?” And the Prophet (PBUH) responds to them and he says, “if he relieved those desires in an illicit way, wouldn't he receive sin?” Of course, he would. “Therefore, if he does so in a sanctionable capacity, then he gets a reward.” 

And so, the very idea that something that is pleasurable still gets rewarded in a particular context is affirmed in the Sunnah in those ways. Likewise, you have many ahadith where you have discussions about things when it comes to sex, or rather questions about that. And so, in this sense, you do have a richer discursive around sex and sexuality in Islam and in the Islamic tradition, that's not lewd, that is not inappropriate, that still maintains a sort of sense of propriety and respectfulness, but nonetheless doesn't treat it as something that is fundamentally, you know, stigmatized to speak about. It should be spoken about with respect and appropriateness in the right context, as opposed to today where people have very little reservation or inhibition when it comes to the way that they talk about sex, and they start talking about just the very lewd and in a very sort of lowly way. And Allah knows best.

Waheed  42:49
Absolutely. And then, you know, he [Kugle] moves on to talk about how the Qur’an kind of celebrates diversity. And one of the examples that is given in Surat Al-Noor, verse 31, "غير أولي الإربة من الرجال" – “men who are not in need of women”, and that is taken as an example of showing that the Qur’an has included “homosexuals” or men who do not have desires for women. And that is taken as a case of “legitimizing homosexuality”. How do we respond to this? Because I've seen this argument more often, you know, come up in revisionist discourse. So how would you tackle that?

Mobeen  43:33
Yes, so this particular verse, is the verse where, in fact, I mentioned some of it already, when we're talking about the lowering of the gaze; lowering of the gaze and guarding one’s chastity and modesty (Qur’an 24:31). That's the verse where this comes up. And then, in the verse, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala tells the believing women to not display their zeena - I guess, oftentimes, this is translated as adornments, but it's really speaking about the parts of their body that they cannot reveal around those who are marriageable. And so, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala goes down the list of different categories of people who women can, in fact, display their zeena, so we're talking about things like their hair and stuff like that, people who they don't have to cover around. And so, you have different categories of people when it comes to this, their parents and their children and their siblings, and it's just going down the list, sort of relatives and others. And then, it says as part of that, "أو التابعين غير أولي الإربة من الرجال" (Qur’an, 24:31) – “or those attendants/men who have no physical or sexual desire for women”, and then after that "أو الطفل الذين لم يظهروا على عورات النساء" (Qur’an, 24:31) – “or children who really do not have any awareness when it comes to the private aspects of women” i.e. the ‘awra/the private areas of women, they have no self-awareness of that. And so, even the children, you know, they're sort of okay, as long as they're at those ages. 

So, that's all the verse is expressing, it is just speaking about that. Now, which men would not have any sexual interest for women? There may be different men that have none: you may have a man who is fundamentally asexual. Certainly, you had discussion around the eunuch, he would be described as the خصي/khasiy, and you have a discussion about eunuchs and others that this verse would potentially apply to. They would also talk about men who are very old and where virility has passed them, potentially, for instance. Those are the types of categories that it's speaking about. That mentioned, however, if someone's saying, “Does that legitimize homosexuality?” Well, what does someone mean by that? If someone means, okay, does that acknowledge that there are certain men who do not possess any sexual interest in women at all? Okay. Even we've talked about the mukhanath and Hit [coming later in the season], and how that tends to be what the scholars say in fiqh, that a man who is perhaps effeminate in certain ways that are dispositional, and that he's not affectively performing, and he also has no sexual interests in women, well, the majority of the jurists said that that man is permitted to stay in the private company of women, where they do show their zeena, in terms of, you know, they're not wearing hijab and stuff like that. And so they permitted that insofar as a man does not have that, this would be one of the rulings that ends up being or coming into play potentially. You know, that would be the net of what the verse is related to, not whether or not a specific set of sexual acts are legitimate, or whether or not a particular identity is being affirmed, or a psychosexual profile is being asserted, nothing like that. All it's doing is it's speaking to something relative to women themselves, and who they're permitted to be around when it comes to their own private spaces.

Waheed  47:58
Barak Allah feek. Yeah, absolutely. Jazak Allah khair. Another argument that is in line with all of this, or more kind of very modern or postmodern in the sense that it's not a choice, i.e. having same-sex attractions is not a choice. Therefore, it's a natural tendency; therefore, it is okay to act upon these desires. Or that, you know, “homosexual” is a natural state, and it's very similar to one's skin color. So, it's un-Islamic to deny that. How do we respond to this argument?

Mobeen  48:31
I think they have to qualify what they mean by “naturalness”. I mean, it's definitely not akin to skin color, I don't know how anyone would say that. But, you know, I think that's a very tendentious assertion, even just medically or biologically. If the person is going to talk about skin color as a fraction of certain pigmentation of one’s skin, you don't necessarily have a very clear genetic relationship when it comes to how one sort of experiences sexual attraction, obviously, the environmental factors are far more significant when it comes to how a person expresses and conceives of and experiences sexual interest. Whereas, you know, skin color and skin tone is less variable, environmentally, like I’d suppose it probably has more relationship to perhaps things like, there is probably some relationship to how much sun you're getting exposed to, the foods you eat, things like that, that can have some variation on how dark or light you end up being, but that's sort of a side note, but, you know, nonetheless, it's more biologically ingrained as opposed to something that has a more deeply set environmental component to it. 

You know, if someone's going to invoke naturalness, one could easily say that certainly that's the case where the telos, the sexual teleology, that we have between men and women, the only context in which procreation can really occur is between a man and a woman, and sort of the natural sexual act between two people is actually between a man and a woman through the specific act of penetrative heterosexual activity, to sort of put it very crudely, a man and woman have sort of been conceived of and created that way for sex to happen organically in that way. You don't have any similar mechanism or method by which two men can have sex, right? Every single sexual act that's occurring is occurring through some sort of expression of a person's underlying erotic urge and desire. But all the outlets through which that erotic urge is being expressed, are, in fact, unnatural, in that sense. And so, you know, if a person's going to just say, “Well, oh, it's not a choice.” Well, the acting on the desire is a choice, right? The actual desire itself may occur to me in a way that is outside my conscious control, but whether or not I act on that desire is definitely a choice, which is why we're morally culpable for our decisions. You know, Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala gave us takleef, we have moral agency, and we're accountable for that. And, you know, a person saying, “Well, you know, I just sort of felt a particular urge, and I acted on it.” Well, that would completely undermine the entire institution of takleef. And, suddenly, you know, potentially smuggling all sorts of illicit and immoral activities and actions simply because a person felt that urge in a capacity, which to them felt quite organic and natural, and it just came into their hearts and minds, and suddenly they felt overwhelmed by it. Well, you know, “crimes of passion” are still crimes, right? Because the person actually had to carry them out.

Waheed  51:56
Right. Correct. And we've touched upon this before, basically in the podcast, but I just wanted to hear it from you, so jazak Allah khairan. Another question under this theme, I know we've touched upon this before in the previous episode, we talked about this, that in the Islamic “Golden Age”, so to speak, Muslims were known for having a lot of things happening, a lot of practices that were not necessarily part and parcel of religion, like you gave the example of people drinking, like wine drinking was rampant in the Muslim communities, but it didn't make it halal. We know what is haram and what is halal. And so, a lot of people would say that there was an Islamic discourse on same-sex behavior, it was well developed, there were a lot of poetry, a lot of books have been written about same-sex relations in Islamic societies back in the day, a lot of terminology that was used, and this was studied a lot. But then kind of that “tolerance” for homosexual behavior started to go down, after a lot of Islamic scholars came and “re-interpreted” Islam, so to speak, or they kind of “stifled” that sexual or platonic love, they put a limit on same-sex sexual behavior, and so on and so forth. Or the idea that, you know, given the politics of nowadays, they would tell you that “This minority was oppressed. Why would this behavior need to be politicized unless it was oppressed?” The idea that sexual identities were created because they were oppressed, and they had to kind of merge together and call for their own rights. I'm sure that you've come across these arguments more than me. So how do we respond to these, very briefly, if you don't mind? 

Mobeen  53:41
No, I mean, there’s a lot going on there. First of all, the construction of identities actually did not occur or did not emerge in the context of attempting to escape oppression. In fact, the construction of sexual identities occurred in the context of psychology and psychotherapy, it becomes a means by which sexual deviance can be pathologized. And so, in some ways, those identities were retrenching certain sexual morays, especially ones that relate to deviance and trying to maintain a particular heterosexual morality, or at least canonize it in a way that would be scholarly and classifiable in a medical context. That’s where those identities emerge out of, more so than creating these as a form of resistance against public heterosexual/heteronormative society or something like that. That's just definitely not the case. 

As we've said before, you can have an active discourse on any subject, where you can have a ton of poetry that's praising and lauding the drunk or this or that, but that's not a Shari’ argument for making something licit, it just holds no weight when it comes to Islamic law itself, and certainly it can't trump revelation, or God's words. So there is that. And the fact is that, as we mentioned before, that you do have a lot of literature, certainly poetic verse that speaks to the adolescent male, the ‘amrad, sort of the beardless youth, who was an object of sexual desire for many men. That was not seen as pathological or sociopathic or something like that, it was viewed as a type of sexual interest that a grown adult male could in fact have, even one who was married and had children and all of that, but it was nonetheless something that was cautioned and warned against in strong terms and reprimanded, and it was never made permissible, in spite of the fact that it was a common form of sexual interest. Now, that particular sexual interest is something that I think would make most of us today uncomfortable, right? If you have an adult male that actually has sexual interest in what would be, a 10, 11 or 12-year-old boy, somewhere around that age range. That strikes us as quite strange, although that actual sexual phenomenon was one that was quite more common in sort of pre-modern medieval Muslim societies.

Waheed  56:19
And even in Greek and Roman societies as well, it’s been reported.

Mobeen  56:23
Yeah, Greek, Roman, far Eastern societies. I recall once reading that the Samurai had an initiation process that incorporated some pederastic activity with the young initiate, the young boy would enter in, and that would be part of the grooming process or developing them into that. You have many aboriginal tribes that also used to do things like this with their young boys as they were growing up, and stuff like that. And so, you’re right, I mean, in some ways, it's certainly not an exclusive practice that occurred in premodern Muslim societies. Nonetheless, it was wrong, right? It was wrong. It's not something that we're looking at and saying, “Oh, this took place, and it's like so great that it took place in Islamic history!” They know that it was an unfortunate reality that existed. Some people wrote books in poetic verse where they talked about the attractiveness of the young boy, and they versified it. But when it came to scholarly literature, it all unequivocally maintained the prohibition and spoke against. And so, in fact, this is the type of thing that actually works against some advocates trying to sanction homosexuality insofar as the normativity and proliferation of particular sexual acts that are unacceptable Islamically does not lead to them suddenly finding dispensation or sanction within Islam. Scholars didn't look at that and say, “Okay, well, you know, there's all this poetry and all this stuff around us, we've got to get people out here!” No one ever did that. No one ever did. And so, I think that is sort of a sufficient argument and actually a major point of proof against people who are trying to marshal this historical evidence to produce a more thoroughgoing argument for reforming Islam itself. 

Waheed  58:18
Absolutely. And what's beautiful about Islam, or the Islamic law, is that it recognizes the presence of all of these desires, temptations and human tendencies, but it kind of provides the lawful channels and provides you with a legal framework that tells you that this is a red line that should not be crossed. It doesn't pathologize things, but it just tells you that these are things that are not okay, but this is what is okay for you. And society would recognize these things, and even though that they would carry it out [i.e. commit particular acts], they know that this is not Islamic, so to speak.

Mobeen  58:56
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I guess the point would be that there's not like a deeper psychologizing of a lot of things. There is a sort of focus on the actual acts themselves and to say, okay, these acts are immoral, transgressive, subject to major sin, some of them are punishable, what those punishments would be, there's differentiation on that, there is a public interest in making sure that these sins do not get acted upon in the public sphere or become normalized in a way that's really brazen, because we do have public interests at play. But, nonetheless, our focus is on the acts themselves and not on sort of the overall psychological apparatus of trying to analyze how this person might be more deeply set, deviant or something like that, to your point. 

Waheed  59:45
Absolutely. Absolutely. And then, in your article on Scott Kugle, you also mentioned Ibn Dawud Al-Zahiri who had homoerotic feelings for another man, but he remained chaste, he protected himself and he put Allah first and foremost. And then we have examples of an Ibn ‘Arabi and Ibn Hazm, as well, they were religious scholars who were abiding by the deen and they were devout, but they experienced homoerotic feelings, to the best of our knowledge. And even Ibn Hazm himself did not endorse the hadd punishment, as we mentioned, he said, well, if that is proven that someone had a same-sex relationship with another man, then that would be 10 lashes. The idea is that people would use this and be like, “Well, society accepted those people, so why are we different nowadays? And even those religious scholars were okay with it” But [our] argument is, none of those actually said that same-sex sexual relations are okay. And the fact that we have these feelings doesn't make it okay to act upon them, correct?

Mobeen  1:00:46
Correct. I mean, look, none of these people acted on homosexual acts or stated that they were permissible. In fact, Ibn Dawud Al-Zahiri, he passes away and he expresses some of the challenges of his unrequited love, and he hopes that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala reward him for having remained chaste and having resisted those desires, as he writes about. And there's no greater dialogue around Ibn Dawud Al-Zahiri that condemns him for that. In fact, many scholars do gloss his verse and his mention of that particular hadith, though that hadith is, you know, a lot of scholars considered fabricated in terms of a person who dies with unrequited love, for the sake of God, he ends up dying the death of a martyr. I think that's the one that he mentions, which is a fabricated hadith as some scholar said, Ibn Al-Jawzi and others say that, while some of the others say no, it's weak or extremely weak. Regardless, I mean, the point is that he abstained, and he saw his abstention as something that he was doing for God and hoping for Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala’s reward. And a lot of scholars mention that non-problematically, right? I mean, they mention that just sort of matter-of-factly, and they didn't look at him as somebody like he’s sort of the odd man out, or something like that, or that there was something wrong with Ibn Dawud. You don't see this. In fact, a lot of scholars who mention this will praise Ibn Dawud Al-Zahiri. So, there's no necessary issue with something like that.

Again, Ibn Hazm not endorsing hadd punishments for homosexual acts, you know, he's not alone. Again, a lot of the Hanafi scholars, in fact, the majority of the mathhabs, as far as I understand it, did not regard sodomy specifically as a hadd punishment. But the determinations of legal punishment have nothing to do with whether someone is subjectively sympathetic to a particular act, and it has more to do with whether or not a person sees in Revelation this supportive legal reasoning to determine and conclude that those things in fact should be punishable or criminal activities. That's what it’s related to. So Ibn Hazm, for instance, also didn't endorse bestiality, for instance, as a hadd punishable act. That's not because he was sympathetic to bestiality, he just said that there's no explicit evidence that supports something like that. Where's the proofs? Where's the verse from the Qur’an and where’s the hadiths that tell us something like this? Are we just going to use analogies to try to make determinations of what's worse or what's better, this and that? It's like, it might be something that we see as repulsive, but unless we have real proofs that can furnish for us decisive conclusions, we're acting on the basis of our minds in a way that could be potentially tendentious and problematic. And so he was very averse to interjecting his own reasoning into items like that, which is why he was a Zahiri scholar, i.e. his legal reasoning was one that really was committed to viewing revelatory guidance on what was apparent, vis-a-vis hadiths and ayaat (verses) of the Qur’an, and not appealing to extra-legal reasoning, whether that's analogical reasoning or extra-revelatory reasoning, whether it's analogical reasoning or something else. 

And so, again, the point here being that, look, no one here is actually working to sanction homosexual acts, all of them are upholding the prohibition uniformly. And they all have a sort of treatment of this that is consistent with how other scholars do it, even if they're arriving at different conclusions, because their concern is trying to make determinations that are pleasing to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and that maintain the intent of the Law Giver.

Waheed  1:04:41
Amen! Jazak Allah khair. Beautifully said. 

1:04:51
And now we get to the last theme, inshaAllah, in this episode, which is on marriage versus celibacy. And one of the counterarguments against some of the points that you mentioned in your article was that you and other scholars push the view that sex is meant primarily and paradigmatically for procreation purposes. And this has been argued that it's influenced by a Christian worldview. Whereas, in Islam, and particularly in the Qur’an, there's a mentioning of the enjoyment and the intimacy aspect of sex. And the argument puts forward the idea that previous generations were more open, as opposed to nowadays, because of all of the scholarship and this narrowmindedness that has put a lot of barriers when it comes to sex, or at least marriage, even like sex within marriage, there's this emphasis on procreation rather than enjoyment of the sexual act. And an example is given, like if a wife is sterile, let's say, or she has reached menopause or doesn't want more kids, sex doesn't stop, obviously. So the question is, why are we strict when it comes to focusing on something that is not there? Like, we know that there is that enjoyment aspect of sex. So why are we dismissing that and favoring procreation, where, you know, procreation is important, reproduction is definitely important, but why do we favor that, as opposed to, you know, also focusing on the idea of this intimacy or sexual pleasure in the act itself? And doesn't this focus or like skewed perception lead to more repression and adds more barriers to the youth of today? How do you answer that?

Mobeen  1:06:31
Yeah, so I'll mention a couple of things. I think, first and foremost, the idea that something like procreation is explicitly or exclusively an import of the Christian tradition or the Christian worldview is misguided. I think that comes from people who possibly don't know enough about Islam or the Islamic tradition itself. Lineage and the preservation of lineage is from the maqasid (objectives) of the Shari’a, i.e. nasl al nasab, this sort of preserving of one's lineage or progeny and the procreative aspect of that, is a significant part of Islam. The fact that it's from the maqasid of the Shari’a should tell us what we need to know about that. And we're talking about one of the primary maqasid of the Shari’a the scholars talk about, the five principles of the maqasid. It's one of them, which are the higher objectives of Islamic law. So that's significant. It's not a small thing. 

Now, I think there's a difference here, we have to be careful about, between procreative purpose versus paradigmatically procreative, which is to say that that paradigm, which is a heterosexual paradigm of sex between a man and a woman, and that context within which procreation is possible normatively, is the form and shape and paradigm within which sex is licit. That doesn't mean that every single sexual act has to be procreative in purpose, or procreative even in potential. So even during the time of the Prophet (PBUH), for instance, you had the concept of ‘azil, which was sort of pulling out (i.e. coitus interruptus), which is permitted by the Prophet. And the companions said that we used to practice ‘azil during the time of the Prophet (PBUH), we used to practice that. So they're having sex with their wives and then they’d pull out before they ejaculate. So, you know, the idea is that they're still having sex, but coming short of that, because clearly, the purpose of their sexual activity is not necessarily to produce or furnish procreation. Scholars differed on the use of contraception; a lot of scholars permit it, some of them don't. But, again, what's relevant here is that the procreative paradigm, which is exclusively heterosexual, is the context within which sex is licit and moral and sanctionable within Islam. And that is something that has an indigenous Islamic heritage to it. That goes back to the earliest days of Islam, beginning with Revelation, and trusted, supported, maintained and upheld by scholars since then. 

Waheed  1:09:16
Alhamdulillah, barak Allah feek! Regardless of everything that we've spoken about, whether identity or oppression, heteronormative perspective, regardless of all of that, putting all of that on the side, there's this argument, which has personally kind of bewildered me for a very long period of time, because I do deal with same-sex attractions, I experience them. I've asked myself these questions over a long period of time. I've arrived at my conclusions, but we'll discuss them inshaAllah, I would love hearing your perspectives on them. But a lot of people argue, “Okay, we understand Islamic position and we're here for it. We listen, you know, we're here to comply and everything is okay. But sex is an instinctive need, and our unique sexuality is the filter through which all of these needs are identified. Some of us are not able to get married. So, this commitment to celibacy is unfair and unjust. Why am I not able to fulfill my sexual or intimate needs, whereas another man can? I might go through my entire life without having experienced the joys of having a family, raising kids or being intimate with another man or a woman.” And so, a lot of Muslims struggling with same-sex attractions, be they men or women, kind of feel ostracized. Sometimes maybe deprived of friends as well. And even the story of Ibn Dawud Al-Zahiri, someone that we look up to mashaAllah, he himself died with a broken heart at the end when he was on his deathbed. Yes, he kept himself chaste for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, and he kept his desires in check, but at the end of the day, it kind of, you know, broke him. And so, there's this argument that “heterosexual men” have their sexual rights, their freedoms, it's elaborated in the Qur’an. They have their outlets, we don't have these outlets, even masturbation, and we've talked about this earlier in the podcast, there are, you know, rules and regulations governing that; some mathahib would say this is permissible, and others would say it's impermissible. So, the end result is that people say that, “Well, you are driving “homosexual” men and women to the point of breakdown, and they don't have any outlets. What does Islam provide for them?” etc. How do you respond to this? 

Mobeen  1:11:35
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really, really difficult question overall, just because there's so much involved in it. I think on the point of Ibn Dawud Al-Zahiri, I would just contend that I don't think he was broken. I think certainly, and so one of the things that's not uncommon, and we actually see this even in hadith of the Prophet (PBUH), for instance, with the men in the cave. And you have three men who seek refuge in a cave, because there's a torrent of rain that comes. And when they seek refuge in that cage, there's a boulder that blocks it off and obstructs their exit, it's so heavy that they can't move it. And they say, “Let us pray to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala by mentioning the best deeds that we do and things that we did only for Him.” And so, they mentioned different private deeds that they did, and they said, “Oh, Allah, if we did this for You, please allow us to escape this cave, provide for us a way out.” And each man says one deed and the boulder shifts a little and a little until the opening is wide enough for them to depart. The idea is that they're seeking intercession to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala by mentioning and interceding by their deeds, they're mentioning their good deeds in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala to sort of help them in different situations. 

Different people in the past, they would remember certain deeds that they did once that were quite arduous and difficult in their life, and they would have hope in Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala through those moments and through those deeds. And so Ibn Dawud Al-Zahiri, he's on his deathbed and saying, “Look, I had this particular difficulty, and I stayed the course, irrespective of how difficult it was for me, and how challenging it was for me, irrespective of how unfulfilled I was in in my desire to actually fulfill this sexual desire, I didn't do so. And I am hopeful in front of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala that He will give me this particular reward on its account.” So that particular attitude of, you know, look, I had a particular sin, or I was called to sin in this way, and I didn't do it, and it's something that lives with me, and it's something that I remember. And I hope that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala forgives me and has mercy on me at the end of my days, because I was able to stay strong on that point - this is something honorable, right? Those aren't the words of a broken man, those are the words of, to me, a very, very strong individual. I think it takes extreme strength to be able to live with that resolve, and that sense of purpose and that sense of mission, and just be that ordered towards Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, to be that pious. I mean, that's the type of example we should try to model ourselves off of, because we're all going to encounter different sins and difficulties that we go through in our lives. And the extent to which we shepherd those and overcome them patiently by remembering God, perhaps that becomes the means by which we enter Jannah and are saved in the Afterlife, right? So, I would just mention that first and foremost. 

I think when it comes to individuals who do have same-sex attractions, I think there are a couple of things. I think one is, this is something that we've spoken about, which is just the whole idea of a person's identity. I think if we're able to extricate ourselves from the identities that we take on, especially these newfangled sexual identities, we don't have to reduce ourselves to them, i.e. that the only thing that we are these people who have a certain sexual identity, or like we're just this sexual being that feels this sexual urge, and that is the core of who we are as human beings. We can say no, we actually are composed and comprised of a lot internally as human beings. And there is a lot of life through which we can find fulfillment and purpose, and what defines me is not the sexual act or the sexual urge that I'm experiencing. But, in fact, what defines me is my relationship to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala as a Muslim and a believer, what helps give me purpose in life is that I'm a son, I'm a daughter, I’m a brother, I’m a sister, I’m a student, I am a doctor or working professional, or an engineer or whatever, right? The whole world is open to you, you can become a person who is charitable and giving, you can be a person who's merciful, you can do so many things with your life that can give you purpose and value. And they can help you obtain nearness to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. It's almost like you're just staring down a road that's been blocked off, and you have all these other roads that you can turn on to. And you're just saying, “Well, I have nowhere to drive now.” And I would say that, look, you know, the actual road, the whole world is open to you to drive. And you can find so much within those roads of meaning and purpose within those roads of value, even if this particular road is one that you may not be able to drive down. At least not right now. 

And I don't think that we should necessarily foreclose, as we said, on the possibility that a person, even someone who has dominant or exclusive same-sex attractions, that they experience attractions exclusively, or dominantly, for one sex, that potentially, perhaps at some point, marriage does become a possibility for them, that they are able at some point in their life to find fulfillment and happiness in living together with somebody of the opposite sex. Again, marriage is not just sex, sex is a part of marriage, that's not all marriage is, to sort of live your life together. Perhaps there will be somebody out there who isn't looking for just a romantic interest, but is looking for somebody who's going to be their life partner to live together with, and to care for each other and to be around each other during one's old age, right? Perhaps that will be there, perhaps it won't. Allah knows what's in store. All I'm saying is that I wouldn't foreclose on that possibility, and that there's a lot that goes into marriage, and perhaps as part of the process, you come to really enjoy time and love this person enough, where perhaps some sex does at some point materialize. Again, I'm not suggesting that a person can just like recondition themselves this way. But I do think it's a human possibility. 

I mean, we see enough sexual fluidity around us where, you know, people who are sort of “straight” or “gay” end up going “bi”. That tends to happen enough these days, right? And you have enough “straight” people who just go “queer”, and that type of stuff is very common as we look at what's going on around us in popular society. So, you know, given that that's happening so often now, why should we just say like this absolutely 100% definitively can never happen to me? Well, you know, maybe it will, maybe it won't. And, as I said, you don't have to reduce your life to this aspect of your feeling and what you're going through, your life is much bigger than that. Your purpose in life, the reason why Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala put you here is much bigger than that. This is a significant test; I'm not trivializing it. As I said, other people have really significant tests, I'm not trivializing those tests. A person, when they are fixated on one aspect of their life and one difficulty that they're going through, can lose sight of the world and lose sight of just the broader picture of what's out there, and what's out there for them as people. And Allah knows best. 

Waheed  1:19:19
Absolutely, jazak Allah khair! Brilliant answer! I wanted to hear it from you. Basically, we've touched upon this before in the podcast, and we actually elaborated a lot on the topic of marriage and celibacy, what goes into that, and the intimacy and sex aspects. And you said it so beautifully, that it's not immutable, things may change in the long run, or they may not. And a lot goes into marriage, as you said, and even if someone stays single, it doesn't mean that they have to be lonely or alone. And yeah, the whole world is open to you, and you don't even have to define yourself based on your sexuality or desires. We discussed this a lot back in season three as the audience remembers, and we encourage the listeners to get back to these episodes if they haven't done so already, because we've kind of dissected all of this together, but jazak Allah khairan for mentioning this, it really means so much coming from you. Barak Allah feek. 

Mobeen  1:20:12
I mean, and also just, on a sort of side note with this, I mean, I've seen it in my own life with brothers that I knew who, for instance, you're in college, and you have an opportunity, for instance, to just go and take a corporate life. And some of them said, “You know what? I'm going to dedicate my life to doing relief work.” And suddenly, that's their life, they're going from one country to the next. And they're spending their time around the poor and helping them out. That becomes their life. And that's an example, but the idea is that a person has so many places through which they can really gain a deep sense of fulfillment and purpose and do things that are charitable, rewardable, and laudable, and we have those opportunities around us as human beings. Allah has placed us in a position where we can really achieve a lot spiritually, gain piety and become noble individuals. That’s there for all of us. So, I don't think we should just close the door to all of that and lose sight of so much that we can do. 

Waheed  1:21:13
Absolutely. Jazak Allah khairan. So, this kind of wraps up the two episodes on the revisionists arguments. Br. Mobeen, jazak Allah khairan for coming on these two episodes, it's been a pleasure having you and I've learned so much from you. Any last words that you would like to give the listeners? 

Mobeen  1:21:28
I think, you know, these are difficult times, obviously, that we're living in, we have a lot of confusion when it comes to religion itself, especially Islam. It's not easy being a Muslim today. You know, there's no country in the world where it's easy to be a Muslim today, a Muslim country or otherwise. And I think one of the things that we have to try to do is just try to block out a lot of the noise, and, you know, really come to appreciate the fact that there's a lot of beauty in our religion. And that's a tough thing to really grasp. And the beauty of faith comes through living it, practicing it, learning it. And, you know, hopefully some of these sessions that we've done here has helped expose people to some of the sophistication of the tradition, but also gives people a broader appreciation of just who we are as individuals, and who we are as people, and our overall purpose in life. 

Waheed  1:22:29
Ameen. Jazakom Allah khairan. I really appreciate your time and your efforts being here. 

Mobeen  1:22:34
Jazak Allah khair for having me. 

Waheed  1:22:43
And with this, we have come to the end of today's episode, which is part two of our two-episode series with Br. Mobeen Vaid on revisionist arguments. I hope that you guys have enjoyed it and found it beneficial, inshaAllah. Br. Mobeen is going to be joining me later in the season in the series of episodes on gender nonconformity, gender dysphoria as well as transgenderism. In the next episode, inshaAllah, Sh. Mustafa Umar is joining me all the way from California in a two-episode series on contemporary issues and Shari’ perspectives. Until then, stay safe and healthy. This has been Mobeen Vaid and Waheed Jensen in “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, assalamu alaikom warahmatullahi ta’ala wabarakatuh.