Islam, Gay Rights and The Death Penalty, A Muslim View
Posted: February 10, 2012 Filed under: articles by Paul Williams, Christianity, Islam, Militant Secularism, The Bible, The News 6 Comments »
The offending leaflet with content censored by the media
Today’s Guardian newspaper reports:
Three men have been jailed after becoming the first to be convicted of stirring up hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation for handing out a leaflet calling for gay people to be executed.
Ihjaz Ali, Kabir Ahmed and Razwan Javed gave out the pamphlet, entitled The Death Penalty? which showed an image of a mannequin hanging from a noose and quoted Islamic texts that said capital punishment was the only way to rid society of homosexuality.
So what is one to make of this news? I have conflicting emotions. On the one hand I dislike any attempt to stir up hatred against any section of the community. Islam is a religion par excellence of community cohesion and social tranquility. But Islam does not recognize the concept of ‘gay people’ as if they were a separate race of humans to the rest of us. Shariah is concerned with our behaviour, our public actions, not with what it done in private away from the public gaze. However, any public manifestation of fornication, homosexuality or adultery, if observed by four reliable witnesses, can in certain circumstances, merit very harsh punishments including the death penalty. According to the Quran, God may choose to forgive all aberrations except for the association of other ‘deities’, other powers and other agents, with Him.
By advocating these harsh punishments Islam is in agreement with Christianity and Judaism, at least as originally conceived. God’s law given to Moses on Mount Sinai required the death penalty for those who committed such acts:
‘If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them’ (Leviticus 20:13 KJV)
Jesus, according to the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament, absolutely agreed with this requirement:
‘Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.’(Matthew 23:1-3 NIV)
A similar attitude to the Law is found later in the same chapter:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.” (Matthew 23:23-24 NIV)
This is not to say that I agree with the crude way these leaflets were written. Perhaps it was inevitably going to rouse the gay lobby and the law to suppress these views. And the three Muslims have been sent to prison and have had their freedom of speech crushed. I think the sentence handed down by the court was unfair. I have no doubt that the churches, if they say anything at all, will mutter platitudes about the Almighty loving ‘gay people‘, as if this quasi ‘classification’ of humans presented a different set of moral issues than ‘adulterous people’ or ‘fornicating people’.
A difficult question, and props for tackling it brother. Your point about not defining a community merely by their choice of sexual partner is a very important lesson for both straight and gay individuals, because we all fall pray to that.
However, I am afraid that these guys are pretty stupid if they did indeed call for homosexuals to be harmed at all or even killed. As you know, that is not Islam and it only becomes an issue if homosexuals commit public sodomy in front of four witnesses who see penetration and announce their presence (because otherwise it’s ‘spying’ and the WITNESSES will be punished). I used to live off Canal Street in Manchester for a number of years, and despite there being a huge gay community there, I never witnessed anything like that, so you have to ask why they are making an issue out of it in a non – Islamic state where this kind of stuff is expected to take place. What ‘need’ are they addressing in the Muslim or wider community? None, they have just strayed from the ‘Middle Path’ of Islam.
Frankly, unlike enlightened and intellectually empowered individuals such as yourself, these guys probably fear ‘Liberalism’ and ‘Secularism’ etc. and rather than refuting these ideas in a reasoned manner which appeals to all free thinking men and women, which is entirely possible as people like yourself show, these people resort to knee jerk ‘Kill ‘em all and let God sort them out’ mentalities. If indeed that is what they did, I would not be surprised if the news coverage reflects the anti – Muslim bias prevalent in today’s mainstream media. I am not overly familiar with the case and I am sorry if I have accused them, I am merely saying that IF they called for violence in England against gays they are ‘asking’ for it.
You can’t deal with your enemies, intellectual or otherwise by eliminating them, that way lies madness. That also applies to people who are keen to lock people up for saying the ‘wrong thing’ though.
And I disagree with their alleged assumption that the only way to rid society of homosexuality (and thus by inference, any other form of sexual ‘malpractice’) is to have ‘capital punishment’. Firstly, that is not the method is Islam, since when there was a far greater preponderance of homosexuality (i.e in the people of Lot (PBUH)), God actually goes to the the extent of sending a Prophet specially to negotiate with them and to reform them, there’s no ‘Don’t pass go, don’t collect two hundred pounds and go straight to kill’. So if God expounds dawah, who are these guys to bypass that? Have they been striving in their local community (gay and otherwise) for years like Lot (PBUH)? I think possibly not.
Further, this was not the approach of Islam to sexual misconduct. Individuals were encouraged to fight their impulses, they gained huge reward before God for doing so, erring was understood and gentle reform of behaviour was expected. Even when adulterers used to come to the Prophet (SAW) he used to try and overlook their confessions until they insisted on worldly punishment. So where’s the headhunting and ‘final solution’ to the problem? In short, where does it say in Islam that punishment ‘solves’ the problem? It’s just the easy recourse of the fanatic or lazy mind (often the same thing).
If people don’t have the temperament or aptitude to follow the Islamic methodology, then I wish they would not make things difficult for the rest of us by ‘acting up’.
thanks for your comments – much to think about there…
”I have no doubt that the churches, if they say anything at all, will mutter platitudes about the Almighty loving ‘gay people‘, as if this quasi ‘classification’ of humans presented a different set of moral issues than ‘adulterous people’ or ‘fornicating people’.”
That had to be said. Really good point about the ‘classification error’. The fence sitting of the Church is actually damaging it hugely while they seem to think it is helping it with crypto – political correctness and revisionist reading of the texts. They seem to think this is going to revive dwindling congregations. They need to consider that this kind of ‘waffling’ is what caused the congregations to diminish in the first place.
I also very much think that the Church is doing a very (self) deceptive ‘takkiya’ on this issue. I thought your article on the CoE ‘rebellion’ on the issue of Civil Partnerships etc. made that point very well.
It was hard too say, but to give that kind of pamphlet is wrong. It totally give a bad impression.
Here scholars need to group and give a correct fatwa for their people. Yes, of course there are many sect, Hambal, Shafi, Malik, Asharitee, Salaf, etc but someone need to unite Muslim in West if not we just to see it crumble again.
[...] 1Islam, Gay Rights and The Death Penalty, A Muslim View « Muslim Debate Initiative SUBMIT [...]
Paul said: “Shariah is concerned with our behaviour, our public actions, not with what it done in private away from the public gaze. However, any public manifestation of fornication, homosexuality or adultery, if observed by four reliable witnesses, can in certain circumstances, merit very harsh punishments including the death penalty.”
Is this an authoritative pronouncement? I wonder if you have the scholars on your side here? I would hazard a guess that the leaflet distributors did not see it this way. Are they representative of mainstream Islam or are you? Whichever way it is strange to me that someting that is wrong in public ( or witnessed by four voyeurs ) becomes right in private. Another example of ethical dualism in Islam?