Same-Sex Intimacy / Homosexuality in Islam: A Summary of Ch. 5 of Kecia’s Ali’s Sexual Ethics & Islam | What the Patriarchy?!

My latest video is up! Script below the video.

In this episode, we discuss chapter 5 of Kecia Ali’s book Sexual Ethics & Islam, which is on same-sex relations/intimacy in Muslim thought. I do share some of my own opinions and interpretations on homosexuality/lgbtq+ justice in Islam, but to keep this short, I didn’t very much – so we’ll be back!

I’ve written a lot on this topic on my blog. Here are two such links:

– Islam, Homosexuality, and Pederasty: what does Islam really say about homosexuality?

– To Muslims who condemn homosexuality

Hello, salaam, and welcome to the channel, What the Patriarchy, where we exist to dismantle the patriarchy, one Muslim feminist issue at a time! Thanks for being here! This is Shehnaz Haqqani.

Today, we discuss ch. 5 of Kecia Ali’s book Sexual Ethics and Islam, of which we’ve covered the last 4 chapters and the intro already.

Chapter 5 of the book is on homosexuality or same-sex relations in Islam. It’s called, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Same-Sex Intimacy in Muslim Thought” and it covers a brief history of the topic, the idea of “don’t ask don’t tell” (basically, don’t out yourself and you’re all good! Which, of course, is deeply probelmatic), same-sex marriage, and a coda in the 2016 in which the author talks about bisexuality, asexuality, some of the ways in which the language of the ch as published in 2006 is outdated, and she provides updates on how queer Muslim are talking about this topic since the publication of the first edition.

Before we begin, if you’re looking for a quick simple easy answer to the question, does Islam allow same-sex relations? The answer is, it can, but it’s very complicated. There are ways to read the Qur’an and the entire male historical tradition in a way that can allow for people of the same sex to marry Islamically, for marriage to not be exclusively for heterosexual couples, but that would require re-thinking, re-imagining marriage in a way that historical scholars, who made the rules of what is and isn’t acceptable, didn’t (or didn’t want to) imagine. For more on marriage according to the historical Islamic legal tradition, you can see the previous videos in this channel which I’ve summarized this particular topic on marriage. And for the author’s suggestions about this, you can keep watching because I do get to this a little bit later and of course you can read the book for more details. I have written a lot on this issue in my blog, and I’ll give links in the video description. I assure you it’s completely, totally Islamically possible for LGBTQ people to get married Islamically and for them to identify as Muslim! So trust no one who tells you otherwise.  

The chapter provides I think a good overview of the range of opinions on same-sex relations in Islam, in Muslim communities specifically in the West—so you’ve got the usual “it’s haram! People can’t be gay! People can’t get married to someone of the same sex!”, those who insist that Islam CAN accommodate same-sex relations, those who believe that same-sex desire is legit but you can’t act on it, and so on. You should know that this range of opinions and attitudes is quite similar to what’s available in religious Christian and Jewish communities also. 

I have to say, for Muslims who insist that same-sex relations are haram, we have to ask here, what about same sex relations is haram? What makes it so wrong? Which particular part makes it haram? Especially when, if you know anything about the historical Islamic tradition, or historical religions generally, the traditions – Islam, Judaism, Christianity, etc. – they totally allowed child marriages and said it was ethically acceptable for a man to enslave a woman in order to have sexual access to her. So those very unethical things are acceptable, halaal, permissible, Islamically okay, but something like a consensual sexual relationship between people of the same sex is not? Why?! Yeah, not according to the God I believe in. People of the past who didn’t even acknowledge their privilege and biases, who gave themselves privileges God didn’t necessarily give them, are not my teachers. They’re not my moral teachers. This is what we mean when we say that the whole framework of marriage as understood by past Muslim jurists is what needs to change. So, here, justice for LGBTQ+ Muslims is inherently tied to justice for cis-heterosexual women– because the common denominator is patriarchy.

But that’s partly because, as the author highlights, in the past, humans didn’t care so much about orientation but about actions. So the male scholars we’re turning to to explain same-sex intimacy to us from “Islamic” (quote and quote Islamic) perspectives are writing in a context and a world that is very different from our own, where same-sex activity today is connected  to sexual identity. Also, past male scholars were concerned more with relationships between unequal partners, whether based on age, status, freedom, and so on. So their entire concept of marriage and sex was different than anything that we have today. And this is why, when we talk about same-sex relations, and really just marriage and sexual relations generally, we have to acknowledge this context, this historical context. That context is just not our reality today.

One important point, I guess clarification point, in the chapter is that for contemporary Muslims, the question isn’t whether people do in reality engage in same-sex activity, same-sex sexual activity, or ever have – whether people are having sex with each other – but what Muslims are permitted to do, Islamically, how to deal with something like same-sex desire from an “Islamic” perspective. And to answer the question, as with the rest of the topics covered in the book, we have to ask what we mean by “Islam.” If we mean the historical male textual legal tradition, the answer is, it doesn’t even consider the possibility that same-sex relations could be lawful. Especially between two equal partners! But the good news is, we don’t have to take their word for it! If by “Islam,” we mean the Qur’an and/or hadiths, it’s a little more complicated there – and the Qur’anic verses on anything same-sex related are extremely vague!

Many Muslims working on the topic of same-sex relations in Islam don’t take hadiths very seriously on the subject, as these are hadiths of varying authenticity levels that tend to condemn same-sex relations. The Qur’an is what’s relied mostly for re-interpretations of this topic. And, of course, the Qur’an deals only with male same-sex relations. If you’re tempted to say that’s not true because what about Q. 4:15, verse 15 of Ch. 4, the answer is that there’s no consensus among Muslim scholars on whether Q. 4:15 is about female homosexuality. The text there reads: “As for those of your women who are guilty of immoral conduct [the Arabic for which is fahisha], call upon four from amongst you to bear witness against them. And so on.” And 4:16 is for men committing the same sin of fahisha, whatever that means. Who decided this necessarily and only refers to something sexual? Male same-sex desire is addressed in the mentions of the story of Lot.

But of course contemporary Muslim scholars don’t agree on the way that the story of Lot is to be interpreted. For example, is it really same-sex activity that the people of Lot are being destroyed for? Or is their transgression something else? Some argue that it’s spiritual corruption and other issues that they were punished for, like rape. This argument makes excellent sense IF you read it alongside the biblical account because the biblical account gives a lot more detail, like how the townsmen attempt to break down Lot’s door and threaten to hurt him and his visitors. Since the Qur’anic account is not detailed at all, the biblical account gives us some context that I think is necessary, is crucial to understanding what’s happening. In Genesis 19 in the Bible, for example, Lot begs the men of his town to please, please, please leave the guests alone, and they threaten to do to him what they were planning to do to his guests! And they break the door, but the angels save Lot from these evil men. I mean, you don’t read that go, “yeah, this is same-sex desire that’s being condemned, same-sex activity, homosexuality that’s being condemned.” Hopefully you read that and go, wow, that’s rape, threats of rape, violence, that’s criminal – forcibly entering someone’s home, that’s what’s being condemned. So when you read the qur’anic account alongside the biblical account, you can see why it’s very likely rape and force that the people are guilty for. What makes it rape? The violent nature of it AND the lack of consent between Lot and these vicious men.

Speaking of consent, though, Kecia Ali tells us she’s not totes convinced that it’s about the lack of consent because, as we read in both the Qur’anic and the biblical account, Lot willingly offers his daughters to the depraved men of his town, the same men who are threatening to rape his guests! So we as contemporary readers of the Qur’an are assuming that in this story, consent is necessary for lawful, acceptable, ethical sexual relations, but the text doesn’t necessarily support this conclusion. But also, can we take a moment to condemn this? It’s really not okay that a male prophet felt so comfortable doing something so unethical, so unacceptable, so haraam as offering his daughters [or other women!] to random, terrible, angry, violent men? This is totally unforgiveable.

Here, in the story of Lot, we have the Qur’anic words that these men approach men in preference to those whom God created to be their mates. Kecia Ali suggests, tho, that one way to interpret this is that these men would otherwise be choosing female mates but are opting to have sex with or prefer to have sex with men. In other words, they’re going against their own individual nature, not necessarily against human nature. We’ll come back to this idea of human nature and going against human nature in just a bit.

But fun fact here: see, a lot of Muslims think that the reality of homosexuality and acceptance of homosexuality are a “western” invention (which btw is a huge big lie beucase if anything, homophobia is a western invention) and these Muslims condemn the idea of “imitating” other people’s cultures and ideas and practices. BUT!!! And here’s the fun fact: The Muslim male scholars of the historical Islamic tradition whose opinions and ideas we take a tad too seriously on anything but esp on same-sex relations and on gender generally actually borrowed most of their ideas on homosexuality from classical Greek and Roman peoples! Like the language they used in this discussion of homosexuality itself! There’s this hierarchy of the penetrator vs the penetrated, the dominant and the passive partner, the acceptance of a preference for male youth over female partners. But of course, qur’anic verses were used to justify such pedophilic ideas! You know when the Qur’an speaks of ghilman and wildan – which literally translates to something like two boys, two male servants, which is supposed to be some rewards that we get in heaven.  

The author notes that even some conservative Muslim scholars have come to accept the idea that homosexual desire is innate in some humans but they still don’t necessarily support the idea of same-sex marriage. But such Muslims have to deal with the question of divine justice, because on the one hand, they recognize, God has created humans who naturally incline toward humans of their “sex,” but on the other, they’re not allowed to do anything about that desire. This is especially important given that traditional Islam recognizes the importance of sexual satisfaction as a human need, as a basic human need.

I think a lot about the privilege of heterosexual Muslims making decisions about what is and is not legitimate for queer, non-binary, non-heterosexual people. So, for example on the one hand being all “marriage is necessary” and “sex is an imp thing that Islam recognizes” and even attacking other religions for not having a healthy relationship with sex, but then on the other hand requiring gay and lesbian and other non-heterosexual, LGBTQ+ people, to be celibate permanently! And this idea that it’s a test from God, having to be celibate for life is a test from God? Yeah, like LGBTQ people’s entire existence and the way that society treats them isn’t test enough. The whole discussion on homosexuality anywhere in the world reeks of heterosexual privilege.

Kecia Ali puts it very powerfully and here I’m gonna quote her directly from pg 111 of the new edition: “If one accepts the view that homoerotic desire is neither freely chosen nor inherently blameworthy, but can have no licit satisfaction, then one is left with the untenable stance that those who desire a satisfaction that cannot be obtained through licit means are, through no fault of their own, destined to choose between a celibate life devoid of sexual gratification and one of sexual release obtained through sin.” In other words, the only two options given to them by heterosexual lawmakers are inherently unfair.

The good news, though, is that as Ali suggests, it might actually be possible to view the fulfilment of same-sex desire through licit, Islamically acceptable means. Doing this would require some tricky exegetical maneuvering of certain Qur’anic verse that speak of male-female relations. And this possibility can be reconciled with the qur’anic idea that same-sex acts CAN – not inherently are but can – become reprehensible or forbidden when and only if and when such acts are freely chosen by those who would ordinarily choose sexual satisfaction with different-sex partners. Basically, the argument here is that as long as one is NOT transgressing against their own nature, their own natural inclinations, same-sex relations CAN be acceptable Islamically. The best part of this argument to me is that every human’s nature is actually not the same universally. So other people can’t know what’s against a person’s nature or not; only God would know, and it’s only God that you’d have to be accountable to, not humans. Another reason I love this interpretation is that in this argument, what becomes a sin is forcing a gay or lesbian person to marry and have sex with somebody of a different sex because THAT is against their nature from what they tell us. This argument would require trusting people when they tell us that they know themselves.

As I keep saying, Ali points out that Islamically permitting same-sex marriage would require a whole revamping of the legal structure of marriage as understood by Muslim jurists in the past. But if you think about it, we’re already doing that anyway—most of us don’t think of marriage as a form ownership or slavery or kingdom where the husband controls the marriage in exchange for a mahr. Historically, the same scholars who came up with this system did actually consider alternative possibilities, like can the woman be the one to give the mahr to the husband and retain control over divorce and sex, like the man can as they concluded. But they conveniently apparently unanimously agreed that na that was ridiculous, that’s not ok. Again, as in the previous chapters, a big question mark here to me is, is THIS Islam? Is this the Islam that we want to practice? Because, see, very specific and limited views of sex and gender were essential to this framing of marriage. A woman cannot control the marriage tie and have unilateral access to divorce based solely, exclusively on the fact that she’s a woman, on her gender; similarly, a man gets access to these things, is afforded privileges and responsibilities based solely and exclusively on HIS gender. For the scholars, reallocating, re-distributing these roles and duties and responsibilities would create a chaos so it’s best not to interfere with them. Once we complicate gender and sex, everything falls apart. Once we complicate and challenge their approach to marriage, this framing of marriage, nothing really makes sense anymore!

Although in my opinion, given that these are clearly human ideas and articulations of the human body and human actions and so on, we don’t necessarily have to re-think, re-imagine the whole structure of marriage. You see, the jurists historically always made exceptions to the rules that they were creating. Like, for example, the marriage of inter-sex people. So we have options as ethical humans – we can simply say, okay, these rules don’t apply in this particular context, to these particular individuals, to these particular groups of people. But of course that raises a whole bunch of questions – and that’s precisely my point! What they said in the past doesn’t necessarily work for us today.

Because it’s true that the fiqhi idea of marriage is so premised on hierarchies that we’ll have to completely, totally reconfigure the system of marriage in order to accommodate something like same-sex marriage. We’ll basically have to totally rethink marriage as what the Qur’an understands marriage to be, which is as a source of love and tranquility and mercy for the people involved in it. And apparently, that’s too much to ask for!

I need to stop now. We’ll come back to this topic another time! But you know I love my fun facts. So in this chapter of Sexual Ethics, we have a discussion on the kaba’ir – which is a technical Arabic term that amounts to something like “major sins.” According to whom, you ask? Well, according cis-male heterosexual humans of different time periods. But the important thing here is that they actually didn’t quite agree on what counts as a major sin. But just because it’s fun, here’s some things on one dude’s list of the kaba’ir, ok: illicit sex between a man and a woman (called zina’), anal intercourse between two men (called liwat), intercourse with animals,  tribadism—which is apparently defined as “a woman doing with a woman something resembling what a man would do with her” (that’s not vague at all!) And oh yeah having anal intercourse with a female stranger. I have a lot questions. Some of them add having anal sex with a wife, but that’s not an agreed upon sin cuz God never made it haram.

All right, I’ll stop here! Thanks for watching, and keep fighting the good fight because injustice to one community is an injustice to us all!

Salaam!