VCU

Same-sex Acts and The Making of The Islamic Tradition

Approach and Methodology

Research Question

Research Interests and Goals

Read primary texts across and within multiple genres in their historical context to gain a comprehensive web of meanings:

How did Muslim scholars transform the vague wording of the Qur'ān into concrete technical legal terms?

Uncover the logic, context, and heritage that have shaped early Islamic discourse and continue to shape modern Muslim doctrine and praxis.

Qur'ānic Verses

Islamic Jurisprudence of same-sex acts

Marginalized Individuals:

• Qur'ān & exegetical commentaries
• Hadīth reports & their commentaries
• Jurisprudential texts
• Israelite traditions & oral narratives
• Biographical dictionaries
• Historical annals
• Prose & poetry
• Medical texts
• Unpublished manuscripts

"He [Lot] also said to them, ‘You practice abominable acts [fāḥishāt] that no people before you have ever committed. You lust after men, commit highway robbery, and practice wickedness in your assemblies." (29: 28-29)

Liwāt - male-male anal intercourse

Sihāq- female-female 'intercourse'

Fāḥishāt

(to'evah)

Abomination

Result in various punishments

• Sexual desires- "homosexuality," Pederasty
• Physical state- Elderly, Young, Disabled
• Social status- Free, Slaves, Freedman
• Religious affiliation- Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, etc.
• Gender- Women, Men, Intersex

What were some of the factors that shaped the jurists' adjudication of same-sex acts?

Consider theoretical frameworks used in other fields of study while attempting to avoid the projection of modern categories onto historical moments.

1- Existing social attitudes

2- Muslim interactions and exchanges with

neighboring Jews, Christians, & Zoroastrians

3- Exegetical treatments of Qur'ānic Lot narrative

4- The use of Prophetic & Companions reports

5- Jurists' legal framework, reasoning,

& methodologies

Context: The Near Eastern Landscape and Social Attitudes

Sunna: Living Tradition and Normative Practices

The Qur'ān and its Exegetical Treatments

The Israelite Traditions and Tales of the Prophets

• The Prophet is attributed with two conflicting commands

1- What were some of the laws regulating same-sex acts in neighboring regions?

What is the Qur'ānic Lot narrative?

1- In what ways did the interaction between the Jews and Muslims of early Arabia shape the formation of the extra-scriptural Islamic Lot narrative?

2- Are there any indications of same-sex acts in the Prophet's Arabia?

• The Companions are each attributed with holding Conflicting positions

How does the Qur'ānic narrative compare to the exegetical narrative?

2- What role did Jewish converts play in transmitting lore?

No Death Penalty

Unconditional Death

Conditional Death

Prophetic Reports and Circulation

Qur'ānic Lot Narrative: A Desperate Prophet

Midrash Aggadah

Pre-Islamic legal Treatments

1- "Whomever you find doing the act of the people of Lot,

kill the active (fā'il) and the passive partners (maf'ūl bihi)."

Biblical narrative- Genesis 19:1-38

Zoroastrians:

• punishes males with castration
• Silent on punishment for females

1. Midrash Rabbah (4th-6th century CE)

• Doesn't seem to have been in wide enough circulation to warrant documentation prior to the early 3rd/9th century

2. Pirke De Rabbi Eliezer (8th century CE)

• When guests arrive, Lot declares, "Truly this is a distressful day."

• When townspeople get wind of the news he begs, "These are my guests, disgrace me not, and fear God and do not shame me."

• His people respond saying, "Did we not forbid you to associate with (other) people" and 'Have we not told you not to interfere [with us and] anyone else?

Roman Law:

• Theodosius (d. 395CE) punishes with amelioration.
• Justinian (d. 565 CE) in his Institutes punishes with death through castration or insertion of sharp reeds into the organ's pours.
• Silent on punishment for females

Shared motifs:

2- “A woman does not have “intercourse” (tubāshir or ta'tī) with another woman except that they are both zānīyatān, and a man does not have intercourse (yubāshir/ya'tī) with another man except that they are both zānīyān.”

• Earliest documentation of this report is not until the late 4th/10th century

Talmud, Mishna and commentaries:

• Leviticus 18:22, "Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman,"
• Leviticus 20:13, "... both of them have committed an abomination [to'evah]: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them."
• A death penalty should be inflicted by lapidation.

• "Oh my people, 'My daughters are here, if you must.' So fear God, and do not put me to shame with my guests.
• They respond, "You know that we have no right with your daughters, and you know quite well what we want"

Conflicting Accounts Mirror Legal Debates

Tales of the Prophets: Qisas al-Anbiyā'

Qur'ān to Exegesis

Semantic Disagreements

The Prophet's Arabia

"He [Lot] also said to them, ‘You practice abominable acts [fāḥishāt] that no people before you have ever committed. [1] You lust after men, [2] commit highway robbery, [3] and practice wickedness in your assemblies." (29: 28-29)

1- Muḥammad b. Isḥāq (d. 150/767 CE)

2- Abū Ḥudhayfa Isḥāq Ibn Bishr (d. 206/821 CE)

• 'Amr b. Hishām: Derogatory phrase

Abū al-ḥakam/Abū Jahl (d. 2/624 CE)

Their sins in the Qur'ān:

1- Lust after men (tashtahūna al-rijāl)

2- Commit highway robbery

3- Practice wickedness in your assemblies (ta'tūna fī nādīkum al-munkar)

=

Exegetical elaborations:

1- Have intercourse with men

2- They stopped travelers through their lands to do the evil act to them

3- Group orgies

Does NOT qualify as zinā

(illicit sexual intercourse)

No fixed punishment (ta'zīr)

Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767 CE)

Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1054 CE)

al-Kāsānī (d. 587/1189 CE)

• Two preliminary conclusions:

1- These acts existed in the Prophet's Arabia

2- Viewed negatively to the extent that it was used as an insult

Munkar = "first dibs"

Exegetical Developments

Munkar = pelting & mocking

The prophet was asked, "what is this munkar that they used to commit?" He responded, "'they used to pelt wayfarers and mock them."

Mu'āwiyya (d. 680 CE) attributes the Prophet with saying: "the people of Lot used to sit in their gatherings and each one of their men had with him a sack that contained pebbles, whenever a wayfarer would pass them by, they would all pelt him. Whomever of them had struck him [the wayfarer], then he [who had struck him] was entitled to him [kanā awlā bihı]."

Mujāhid Ibn Jabr (d. 102/720) al-munkar

"their approaching men (ityān al-rijāl)"

al-Ṭabarī’s (310/923) reduces all negative words to mean sodomy: (1) al-munkar, (2) al-fāḥisha, (3) al-sayyi'āt, (4) ta'tūna al-rijāl, (5) shahwatan, (6) musrifūn, (7) fāsiqūn,

(8) yataṭahharūn.

Implications of this Study

• Role of social context:

- In reading scriptural texts

- In producing laws

- In shaping issues pertaining to women & gender in Islam

• Positions the development of the Islamic tradition historically

• Establishes a foundation for comparative work across religious & geographic boundaries

Current & Future Research

Connect the past with the present:

Identify the historical roots of modern Muslim ideologies, movements, and praxis.

1- Modern Muslim discourses over homosexuality

2- Non-state sponsored Egyptian preachers

3- Countering violence with tradition