Homosexuality
Salman al-Odah, a leading Saudi cleric with 9 million Twitter followers, said in an interview with a Swedish newspaper April 30 [2016] that even though homosexuality is considered a sin in the Torah, Bible, and Quran, according to Islam the punishment comes in the next world, not this one.
"Those that say homosexuals are deviants of Islam, they are the true deviants and their actions are a graver sin than the homosexuals themselves,” he added, in a statement on his website.
[T]here is no prescribed execution for homosexuality in the Quran or in Islamic law. Instead, scholars say, the Quran implies that retribution is in the hands of God. As for the hadith, the sayings attributed to the prophet Mohammad, there is much dispute as to whether he prescribed a particular punishment for sodomy.
President Abdul Fattah Sisi [supported and armed by the West], who ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013 and brought back a more secular Egyptian regime, has persecuted the LGBT community, jailing dozens in so-called “morality raids,” even televising a nighttime raid on a bathhouse suspected as a frequent haunt for the gay community.
Yet opponents to criminalizing homosexuality can also be found across the spectrum of Islamists. In addition to the Saudi cleric Mr. Odah, Rached Ghannouchi, co-founder of Tunisia’s Islamist Nahda party, stated in an interview that the country’s law criminalizing homosexuality should be changed.
There have been no recorded executions for homosexuality in the Arab world over the past 30 years, but hundreds of jail sentences. Iran has executed several LGBT individuals in the past few years, while roaming militias in Iraq target suspected LGBT individuals in mass extra-judicial killings.
"Those that say homosexuals are deviants of Islam, they are the true deviants and their actions are a graver sin than the homosexuals themselves,” he added, in a statement on his website.
[T]here is no prescribed execution for homosexuality in the Quran or in Islamic law. Instead, scholars say, the Quran implies that retribution is in the hands of God. As for the hadith, the sayings attributed to the prophet Mohammad, there is much dispute as to whether he prescribed a particular punishment for sodomy.
President Abdul Fattah Sisi [supported and armed by the West], who ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013 and brought back a more secular Egyptian regime, has persecuted the LGBT community, jailing dozens in so-called “morality raids,” even televising a nighttime raid on a bathhouse suspected as a frequent haunt for the gay community.
Yet opponents to criminalizing homosexuality can also be found across the spectrum of Islamists. In addition to the Saudi cleric Mr. Odah, Rached Ghannouchi, co-founder of Tunisia’s Islamist Nahda party, stated in an interview that the country’s law criminalizing homosexuality should be changed.
There have been no recorded executions for homosexuality in the Arab world over the past 30 years, but hundreds of jail sentences. Iran has executed several LGBT individuals in the past few years, while roaming militias in Iraq target suspected LGBT individuals in mass extra-judicial killings.
Christianmonitor
*Homoerotic themes were cultivated in poetry and other literary genres written in major languages of the Muslim world from the eighth century into the modern era.[6][4] The conceptions of homosexuality found in classical Islamic texts resemble the traditions of Graeco-Roman antiquity, rather than modern Western notions of sexual orientation."
(Wikipedia). Colonialism (e.g. Victorian morals of the British) and mainly dictatorship changed that by the end of the 19th century.
"Same-sex sexual intercourse is legal in 19 Muslim-majority nations." (Ibid.)
Modern interpretation of the scriptures
Recommended: Desiring Arabs by Joseph Massad
*Homoerotic themes were cultivated in poetry and other literary genres written in major languages of the Muslim world from the eighth century into the modern era.[6][4] The conceptions of homosexuality found in classical Islamic texts resemble the traditions of Graeco-Roman antiquity, rather than modern Western notions of sexual orientation."
(Wikipedia). Colonialism (e.g. Victorian morals of the British) and mainly dictatorship changed that by the end of the 19th century.
"Same-sex sexual intercourse is legal in 19 Muslim-majority nations." (Ibid.)
Modern interpretation of the scriptures
Recommended: Desiring Arabs by Joseph Massad
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