In Islam sexuality has positive connotations. Carnal pleasure is neither repressed nor removed, on the contrary it is to be searched for and satisfied, but within the institution of marriage. It is the Prophet himself who compares the sexual act to prayer., “I have been permitted to love three things from your lowly world: women, perfume and prayer.” Italy’s most important scholar of Islam Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, explains this issue very clearly, “Sex, therefore, is something positive in the Muslim collective conscience. […] however this sexuality must in some way be channelled, legalised and controlled. Marriage is the instrument for this. It is no coincidence that in Islam the worst of all sins is promiscuity; an illegal sexual relationship. Hence Islam’s traditional horror of prostitution. There are many jurists who say that Islam, acknowledging the nature of men, accepts polygamy so as to avoid promiscuity and the evils that result from it.” (1)
To analyse in greater depth the issue of homosexuality in Islam, one can divide sexuality into two types. On one hand one has a ‘good sexuality’ with roots founded exclusively in the institution of marriage, on the other there is a ‘harmful sexuality’, based on promiscuity, such as homosexuality, adultery, incest, rape and prostitution.
The religious viewpoint
Muslims call homosexuality “Lot’s sin” (2). Condemnation of homosexuality is very explicit both in the Koran and in the Sunnah.
“And Lot, when he said to his tribe: "Do you commit an obscenity not perpetrated before you by anyone in all the worlds? You come with lust to men instead of women. You are indeed a depraved tribe." The only answer of his tribe was to say: "Expel them from your city! They are people who keep themselves pure!" So we rescued him and his family, except for his wife. She was one of those who stayed behind. We rained down a rain upon them. See the final fate of the evildoers!” (Koran 7: 80-84) (3). And also “And so Lot said to his people “Do you do what is shameful though you see its iniquity? Would you really approach men in your lusts rather than women? Nay, you are a people (grossly) ignorant!!”. But his people gave no other answer but this: they said, "Drive out the followers of Lot from your city: these are indeed men who want to be appear clean and pure!”. (Koran 27: 54-56)
The Prophet said “When you discover two men committing Lot’s sin, kill them al-fa’l (active) and al maful (passive).” Muslim jurists agree in condemning homosexuals with the death penalty, but not however on the manner in which it is carried out. There are four alternatives, death at the stake, death by the sword, stoning or throwing the convicted man off a hill. Islam considers homosexuality as being unnatural. Relations between men and women with the objective of procreation are considered natural.
The real problem arises when addressing the “responsibility” and the culpability of homosexuals. Are men born homosexuals or do they become homosexuals? In 1993 Dean Hamer, a researcher at the National Cancer Institute, stated that he had discovered the genes of homosexuality. These are supposedly chromosomes “x” transmitted from a mother to a child. Hence, according to this research, homosexuality had nothing to do with culture or the free choices made by individuals (4). A number of Muslim scholars rejected this thesis because it implies questioning God and his infallibility. God cannot be imperfect and create “imperfect” human beings, punishing them in such an unfair manner. Hence a homosexual is always guilty.
The anthropological perspective
In “La plus haute solitude” [The greatest solitude] (5), Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun addresses the subject of homosexuality, which is still taboo in the Muslim world, emphasising its particularity. In fact, in the Muslim reality (in this case in the Maghreb), homosexuality assumes very different characteristics when compared to how it is generally perceived in the west. For example, in the delicate phase of adolescence, homosexuality plays a functional role in sexual initiation, first of all due to the problems that exist in having heterosexual relations outside marriage and secondly because it represents proof of sexual potency/power. “As far as homosexuality is concerned, it is considered additional evidence of sexual power, additional evidence of virility. Homosexuality is in certain cases parallel to heterosexuality, or considered a stage made necessary by a lack of relations with the opposite sex among adolescents.” (6)
In Muslim countries homosexuality is obliged to exist clandestinely, not only for religious reasons, but also due to social disdain. This situation does not only concern Muslims. Homosexuals continue to be the most persecuted minority n the world. In Iran they risk the death penalty and in Italy are obliged to suffer shameful insults.
Notes:
1) See Scarcia Amoretti, B., “The female issue in Islam: past and present” (A lesson held by the Provincial Commission for Equal Opportunities at the Centre for Women, Pisa, May 9th 1992).
2) After the arrest of fifty two Egyptian homosexuals on a boat used as a night club, the “Queen Boat”, in May 2001, the mass-media nicknamed them “Lot’s people.” To analyse in greater depth see the dossier “ Le Caire: panique chez les gays”, [Panic among gays in Cairo] in Le Nouvel Observateur, January 24th 2002.
3) Koranic quotations translated in the Italian version are from “Il Corano” (translated and edited by Alessandro Bausani), Biblioteca universale Rizzoli, Milan, 1995.
4) See Hamer. D., “A linkage between DNA markers on the x chromosome and male sexual orientation”, in Science, vol. 261, 1993, p 321-27; Hamer D & King M C. , “Sexual orientation and the x”, in Nature , vol. 364, 1993, pp. 288-299; Hamer. D & P Copeland. P, The Science of Desire: The Search for the Gay Gene and the Biology of Behaviour, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994.
5)La plus haute solitude by Tahar Ben Jelloun was published in France in 1975 by Le Seuil. In Italian it is translated with the title L’estrema solitudine (translation from French by Cosentino, V, Bompiani, 1999) and includes an extremely significant subtitle: the emotional and sexual misery of Maghreb immigrants in France. The book is a short version of his thesis for his doctorate in social psychiatry done in Paris. This research, carried out between 1972 and 1975 at a medical centre in Paris, addresses the issue of sexual impotence among immigrant Maghreb workers in France. Men emigrate and during their stay abroad some become sexually impotent at a certain point.
6) Ben Jelloun, T, Extreme Solitude,…op. quotation pages 90-91.
Translated by Francesca Simmons