Is ISIS persecution and murder of gay men Islamic?

[gsa]

We know that many Western politicians refuse to refer to "radical Islam" or "Islamic extremism," suggesting that the extremism exhibited by ISIS is "un-Islamic." But what about the murder of male homosexuals in Raqqa and other areas under control of ISIS?

Nour left Syria in 2012, before ISIS took over huge swaths of the country, after seeing a video of two men being beheaded. According to the voice on the clip, they are accused of being spies. Then toward the end, the voice speaks about "shaking the throne of God."


"Whenever we hear this in video or audio, we know that this is exactly meant for gay people," he says. "It was the moment of clarity, the moment of understanding; this place is not safe anymore."


The pictures released by ISIS and other videos refer to gay men as the tribe of Lot, who, according to readings of the Quran and the hadith, or prophetic traditions, sinned by refusing Prophet Lot's call to cease their homosexual activity and led to the destruction of Sodom. One hadith states, "When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shakes."

According to Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid, an Islamic scholar influential within the Salafi school, there is near unanimity among early Muslim scholars:

The Sahaabah were unanimously agreed on the execution of homosexuals, but they differed as to how they were to be executed. Some of them were of the view that they should be burned with fire, which was the view of ‘Ali (may Allaah be pleased with him) and also of Abu Bakr (may Allaah be pleased with him), as we shall see below. And some of them thought that they should be thrown down from a high place then have stones thrown at them. This was the view of Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him).

Some of them thought that they should be stoned to death, which was narrated from both ‘Ali and Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with them).

After the Sahaabah, the fuqaha’ differed concerning the matter. Some of them said that the homosexual should be executed no matter what his situation, whether he is married or not.

Is it fair to describe the ISIS persecution of gay men as Islamic?

 

[Sunstone]

So far as I understand it, Islam is not a monolithic religion. That is, there's lots of diversity in how the holy scriptures are interpreted. So I think you might find that under some interpretations, persecution of gays is ruled in, while perhaps under other interpretations it is ruled out. But I could be wrong about that.

 

[gsa]

So far as I understand it, Islam is not a monolithic religion. That is, there's lots of diversity in how the holy scriptures are interpreted. So I think you might find that under some interpretations, persecution of gays is ruled in, while perhaps under other interpretations it is ruled out. But I could be wrong about that.

I don't think that there are many favorable interpretations that rule out persecution of gays altogether; there do appear to be some differences in penalty. And of course, we know that there are Muslims who don't believe we should be living under sharia.

But the bigger question to me is, can you really describe this as "un-Islamic" in any meaningful way?

 

[LuisDantas]

Pretty good question.

 

[LuisDantas]

Another relevant question is what, if anything, can or should be done with such an interpretation if it can be supported.

Spread around in the hope that it convinces people, probably. That much is both ethical and worthwhile.

 

[Sunstone]

But the bigger question to me is, can you really describe this as "un-Islamic" in any meaningful way?

The way in which ISIS interprets holy scriptures would appear to me to be one possible -- even plausible -- way of interpreting them. In that sense their interpretation is "islamic". But I'm no expert.

 

[gsa]

Another relevant question is what, if anything, can or should be done with such an interpretation if it can be supported.

Spread around in the hope that it convinces people, probably. That much is both ethical and worthwhile.

a progressive interpretation you mean? I think that there are a few stray ones out there, but they are few and far between.

 

[gsa]

The way in which ISIS interprets holy scriptures would appear to me to be one possible -- even plausible -- way of interpreting them. In that sense their interpretation is "islamic". But I'm no expert.

I might add, it appears arguably more plausible than some other, liberal interpretations.

And this makes me question the argument that ISIS is simply making up arguments not supported by the hadiths or the Quran. Clearly, there is substantial support for their execution of homosexuals within the Islamic tradition. Given this, why should we assume that the other violent interpretations are outlandish or bizarre?

 

[Augustus]

Would depend on the interpretation, some would say that homosexuality is punished only in terms of fornication. Fornication would require 4 male witnesses to the act of penetrative sex to be admissible. Absent these 4 witnesses, there is an argument that it is unIslamic.

That is a view that some people hold anyway, I've no idea how representative it is. But given Islamic law is interpretive/subjective, it is a legitimate position.

 

[gsa]

Would depend on the interpretation, some would say that homosexuality is punished only in terms of fornication. Fornication would require 4 male witnesses to the act of penetrative sex to be admissible. Absent these 4 witnesses, there is an argument that it is unIslamic.

That is a view that some people hold anyway, I've no idea how representative it is. But given Islamic law is interpretive/subjective, it is a legitimate position.

Can the four witness requirement be waived in the event of a confession? And how are coerced confessions viewed?

I have read elsewhere that a confession can be a substitute for the witness requirement, which, given how easy it is to procure confessions in the US, strikes me as an easy way around the witness barrier. But I have not read anything that is consistent on this point.

 

[LuisDantas]

Is it even reasonable to aim for scriptural support of social enlightment and moral advance?

In my opinion finding some way of supporting what are now reasonable or even necessary attitudes with any scripture from centuries ago is attempting to fit a round peg in a square hole. It may sometimes be possible, but should not be expected.

If we attempt to insist on it, very soon the effort would lead to a situation of actively attempting to reestablish moral understandings that should be badly outdated. People learn better. Scripture is essentially incapable of doing so. And the moral space and moral demands of the current levels of population, technology, communication, transports and social and psychological sciences are very significantly different from those of Middle East one and a half millenia ago - and they should be.

 

[Augustus]

Can the four witness requirement be waived in the event of a confession? And how are coerced confessions viewed?

I have read elsewhere that a confession can be a substitute for the witness requirement, which, given how easy it is to procure confessions in the US, strikes me as an easy way around the witness barrier. But I have not read anything that is consistent on this point.

I don't think that forced confession is admissible, as confession can be recanted up until the sentence is enacted. I am unaware of any hadith or Quranic verse that advocates torture in order to force a confession, but I'm not an expert on the subject.

"The first written attempt to clarify what it entailed (published about one and a half centuries after the Qur'an's revelation) records that a Muslim once asked Muhammad incredulously whether someone who caught his wife having intercourse was supposed to round up four men to watch. "Yes" was the Prophet's categorical answer. The actual operation of the system emerges in greatest detail from a story that is still taught to all students of Islamic criminal law. It concerns a young married man named Ma'iz ibn Malik, who is said to have presented himself to the Prophet and declared that he had a confession to make. He was a fornicator. Muhammad reportedly refused to acknowledge the admission and turned away, whereupon Ma'iz repeated himself--three times. The Prophet wondered aloud if Ma'iz might be insane and had his breath smelled for signs of intoxication before tentatively inviting the youth to consider if he might simply have kissed or touched the girl. Ma'iz was adamant that matters had gone further. According to a hadith that has always been held in high scholarly estimation, the Prophet's inquiries then grew even more searching. In the words of a twentieth-century Islamic criminal law textbook (expurgated here, but not there): Calling a spade a spade, [the Prophet asked,] "Did you ___* her?" [Ma'iz] said "Yes." He asked, "Like the kohl stick disappears into the kohl container and the bucket into the well?" He answered, "Yes." Then he asked, "Do you know what zina means?" He said, "Yes, I did with her unlawfully what a man does with his wife lawfully." Then the Prophet said, "What do you intend with these words?" He answered, "That you purify me." Then he ordered him to be stoned. The tale of Ma'iz is hard to forget once heard, and whatever anxieties might have prompted his longing for purification, the story of his trial operates as something of a religious Rorschach test. Pious Muslims see only extraordinary restraint on the Prophet's part, and they often point out additional signs of his mercy: the fact that he made no attempt to track down the woman concerned, for example. At the opposite end of the spectrum are people who focus on nothing but the outcome. But a single perspective on a controversial event never makes for balance, and as soon as other hadiths are taken into account, a subtler picture begins to emerge. One of them states that the execution divided Muslims into two camps, and another has Muhammad asking the killers of Ma'iz: "Why did you not leave him alone? He might have repented and been forgiven by God." At least two more suggest that Ma'iz's real offense was not illicit sex but indiscretion. One contemporary was heard to ruminate many years later that the young man had been punished only because he insisted so publicly on his guilt. A second recalled that Muhammad once rounded on several followers who were ridiculing Ma'iz for having been stupid enough to confess, telling them that they would be better off eating carrion than speaking so dishonorably of the dead. Such stories are a reminder that criminal justice in the seventh century was underpinned by forces considerably more complex than compulsion."

Sadakat Kadiri: Heaven and Earth: A journey into Sharia Law [very interesting book btw]

 

[gsa]

Is it even reasonable to aim for scriptural support of social enlightment and moral advance?

In my opinion finding some way of supporting what are now reasonable or even necessary attitudes with any scripture from centuries ago is attempting to fit a round peg in a square hole. It may sometimes be possible, but should not be expected.

If we attempt to insist on it, very soon the effort would lead to a situation of actively attempting to reestablish moral understandings that should be badly outdated. People learn better. Scripture is essentially incapable of doing so. And the moral space and moral demands of the current levels of population, technology, communication, transports and social and psychological sciences are very significantly different from those of Middle East one and a half millenia ago - and they should be.

My feeling is no, it is not reasonable. Not in the long run.

In the short run, of course, we have to be worried about the lives of men and women who are trapped in theocratic regimes or coerced by family and tradition to remain within stifling religious communities. For their sake, we should encourage liberalization within those areas, without disturbing the "sanctity" of infallible scriptures if necessary. But we should also continue to emancipate the rest of the world from these texts altogether.

 

[Nietzsche]

I genuinely don't think this is a problem with Islam, but rather a problem with the Middle East, Central Asia, Indoneisa & parts of North Africa. When one looks at how homosexuals are treated in Bosnia, Albania & Turkey you see that things, while by no means ideal, are not remotely as bad. I'd go so far to argue that they're superior to Russia in how they view homosexuals. Again, we aren't setting the bar very high here, but I think that at the very least this lends some support to the idea that the problem runs far deeper than Islam.

 

[gsa]

I genuinely don't think this is a problem with Islam, but rather a problem with the Middle East, Central Asia, Indoneisa & parts of North Africa. When one looks at how homosexuals are treated in Bosnia, Albania & Turkey you see that things, while by no means ideal, are not remotely as bad. I'd go so far to argue that they're superior to Russia in how they view homosexuals. Again, we aren't setting the bar very high here, but I think that at the very least this lends some support to the idea that the problem runs far deeper than Islam.

Bosnia, Albania and to a much lesser extent Turkey has a history of militant secularism. Indonesia is comparatively tolerant I think. But I agree that all of them are better than Russia, save perhaps Aceh.

 

[Nietzsche]

Bosnia, Albania and to a much lesser extent Turkey has a history of militant secularism. Indonesia is comparatively tolerant I think. But I agree that all of them are better than Russia, save perhaps Aceh.

This is why I don't think that the problem is Islam, or at least, it's no larger or smaller a part of the problem than Judaism or Christianity is in regards to the same crimes, hate & close-minded bigotry.

 

[gsa]

This is why I don't think that the problem is Islam, or at least, it's no larger or smaller a part of the problem than Judaism or Christianity is in regards to the same crimes, hate & close-minded bigotry.

A larger problem at this point in history, not in other periods.

 

[Nietzsche]

A larger problem at this point in history, not in other periods.

I don't know. One need only go to Africa to see numerous examples of Christians being at the forefront of hate-crimes & murder of homosexuals, or to Russia to see a government becoming extremely scary in regards to the way it's viewing its gay communities.

 

[gsa]

I don't know. One need only go to Africa to see numerous examples of Christians being at the forefront of hate-crimes & murder of homosexuals, or to Russia to see a government becoming extremely scary in regards to the way it's viewing its gay communities.

Agreed on Christianity. Ultra nationalism is also rarely good for gays, particularly in the post-Orthodox countries. But in what was once Christendom (and even in what is now Christendom) it is not nearly as pervasive as it is in Islamist societies.

I am not denying that there are other extreme examples, but both of the examples you cited are less extreme as far as lethality goes. There is also pervasive social pressure (from the extreme of honor killings to the presence of the usual forms of familial banishment) within the ummah.

As for Christianity, I agree with Christopher Hitchens’ rats analogy. I am not denying that the potential is there. But Islamism is here, now.

 

[columbus]

This thread would be more interesting if there were Muslims participating.
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Tom