title: Demiurge

text: The earliest Gnostic sects ascribe the work of creation to angels, some of them using the same passage in Genesis. So Irenaeus tells of the system of Simon Magus, of the system of Menander, of the system of Saturninus, in which the number of these angels is reckoned as seven, and of the system of Carpocrates. In the report of the system of Basilides, we are told that our world was made by the angels who occupy the lowest heaven; but special mention is made of their chief, who is said to have been the God of the Jews, to have led that people out of the land of Egypt, and to have given them their law. The prophecies are ascribed not to the chief but to the other world-making angels.


title: Demiurge

text: The Latin translation, confirmed by Hippolytus of Rome, makes Irenaeus state that according to Cerinthus (who shows Ebionite influence), creation was made by a power quite separate from the Supreme God and ignorant of him. Theodoret, who here copies Irenaeus, turns this into the plural number "powers", and so Epiphanius of Salamis represents Cerinthus as agreeing with Carpocrates in the doctrine that the world was made by angels.


title: Demiurge

text: In the Archontic, Sethian, and Ophite systems, which have many affinities with the doctrine of Valentinus, the making of the world is ascribed to a company of seven archons, whose names are given, but still more prominent is their chief, "Yaldabaoth" (also known as "Yaltabaoth" or "Ialdabaoth").


title: Demiurge

text: In the "Apocryphon of John"  AD 120–180, the demiurge arrogantly declares that he has made the world by himself:


title: Demiurge

text: Now the archon ["ruler"] who is weak has three names. The first name is Yaltabaoth ["child of chaos"], the second is Saklas ["fool"], and the third is Samael ["blind god"]. And he is impious in his arrogance which is in him. For he said, 'I am God and there is no other God beside me,' for he is ignorant of his strength, the place from which he had come.


title: Demiurge

text: He is Demiurge and maker of man, but as a ray of light from above enters the body of man and gives him a soul, Yaldabaoth is filled with envy; he tries to limit man's knowledge by forbidding him the fruit of knowledge in paradise. At the consummation of all things, all light will return to the Pleroma. But Yaldabaoth, the Demiurge, with the material world, will be cast into the lower depths.


title: Demiurge

text: Yaldabaoth is frequently called "the Lion-faced", "leontoeides", and is said to have the body of a serpent. The demiurge is also described as having a fiery nature, applying the words of Moses to him: "the Lord our God is a burning and consuming fire". Hippolytus claims that Simon used a similar description.


title: Demiurge

text: In "Pistis Sophia", Yaldabaoth has already sunk from his high estate and resides in Chaos, where, with his forty-nine demons, he tortures wicked souls in boiling rivers of pitch, and with other punishments (pp. 257, 382). He is an archon with the face of a lion, half flame, and half darkness.


title: Demiurge

text: In the Nag Hammadi text "On the Origin of the World", the three sons of Yaldabaoth are listed as Yao, Eloai, and Astaphaios.


title: Demiurge

text: Under the name of "Nebro" (rebel), Yaldabaoth is called an angel in the apocryphal "Gospel of Judas". He is first mentioned in "The Cosmos, Chaos, and the Underworld" as one of the twelve angels to come "into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld]". He comes from heaven, and it is said his "face flashed with fire and [his] appearance was defiled with blood". Nebro creates six angels in addition to the angel Saklas to be his assistants. These six, in turn, create another twelve angels "with each one receiving a portion in the heavens".


title: Demiurge

text: The most probable derivation of the name "Yaldabaoth" was that given by Johann Karl Ludwig Gieseler. Gieseler believed the name was derived from the Aramaic "yaldā bahuth", , meaning "Son of Chaos". However, Gilles Quispel notes:


title: Demiurge

text: "Samael" literally means "Blind God" or "God of the Blind" in Hebrew (). This being is considered not only blind, or ignorant of its own origins, but may, in addition, be evil; its name is also found in Judaism as the Angel of Death and in Christian demonology. This link to Judeo-Christian tradition leads to a further comparison with Satan. Another alternative title for the demiurge is "Saklas", Aramaic for "fool". In the "Apocryphon of John", Yaldabaoth is also known as both Sakla and Samael.


title: Demiurge

text: The angelic name "Ariel" (Hebrew: 'the lion of God') has also been used to refer to the Demiurge and is called his "perfect" name; in some Gnostic lore, Ariel has been called an ancient or original name for Ialdabaoth. The name has also been inscribed on amulets as "Ariel Ialdabaoth", and the figure of the archon inscribed with "Aariel".


title: Demiurge

text: According to Marcion, the title God was given to the Demiurge, who was to be sharply distinguished from the higher Good God. The former was "díkaios," severely just, the latter "agathós," or loving-kind; the former was the "god of this world", the God of the Old Testament, the latter the true God of the New Testament. Christ, in reality, is the Son of the Good God. The true believer in Christ entered into God's kingdom, the unbeliever remained forever the slave of the Demiurge.


title: Demiurge

text: It is in the system of Valentinus that the name "Dēmiurgos" is used, which occurs nowhere in Irenaeus except in connection with the Valentinian system; we may reasonably conclude that it was Valentinus who adopted from Platonism the use of this word. When it is employed by other Gnostics either it is not used in a technical sense, or its use has been borrowed from Valentinus. But it is only the name that can be said to be specially Valentinian; the personage intended by it corresponds more or less closely with the Yaldabaoth of the Ophites, the great Archon of Basilides, the Elohim of Justinus, etc.


title: Demiurge

text: The Valentinian theory elaborates that from Achamoth ("he kátō sophía" or lower wisdom) three kinds of substance take their origin, the spiritual ("pneumatikoí"), the animal ("psychikoí") and the material ("hylikoí"). The Demiurge belongs to the second kind, as he was the offspring of a union of Achamoth with matter. And as Achamoth herself was only the daughter of "Sophía" the last of the thirty Aeons, the Demiurge was distant by many emanations from the Propatôr, or Supreme God.


title: Demiurge

text: In creating this world out of Chaos the Demiurge was unconsciously influenced for good; and the universe, to the surprise even of its Maker, became almost perfect. The Demiurge regretted even its slight imperfection, and as he thought himself the Supreme God, he attempted to remedy this by sending a Messiah. To this Messiah, however, was actually united with Jesus the Saviour, Who redeemed men. These are either "hylikoí" or "pneumatikoí".


title: Demiurge

text: The first, or material men, will return to the grossness of matter and finally be consumed by fire; the second, or animal men, together with the Demiurge, will enter a middle state, neither Pleroma nor "hyle"; the purely spiritual men will be completely freed from the influence of the Demiurge and together with the Saviour and Achamoth, his spouse, will enter the Pleroma divested of body ("hyle") and soul ("psyché"). In this most common form of Gnosticism the Demiurge had an inferior though not intrinsically evil function in the universe as the head of the animal, or psychic world.


title: Demiurge

text: Opinions on the devil, and his relationship to the Demiurge, varied. The Ophites held that he and his demons constantly oppose and thwart the human race, as it was on their account the devil was cast down into this world. According to one variant of the Valentinian system, the Demiurge is also the maker, out of the appropriate substance, of an order of "spiritual" beings, the devil, the prince of this world, and his angels. But the devil, as being a "spirit" of wickedness, is able to recognise the higher spiritual world, of which his maker the Demiurge, who is only animal, has no real knowledge. The devil resides in this lower world, of which he is the prince, the Demiurge in the heavens; his mother Sophia in the middle region, above the heavens and below the Pleroma.


title: Demiurge

text: The Valentinian Heracleon interpreted the devil as the "principle" of evil, that of "hyle" (matter). As he writes in his commentary on John 4:21,


title: Demiurge

text: The mountain represents the Devil, or his world, since the Devil was one part of the whole of matter, but the world is the total mountain of evil, a deserted dwelling place of beasts, to which all who lived before the law and all Gentiles render worship. But Jerusalem represents the creation or the Creator whom the Jews worship. ... You then who are spiritual should worship neither the creation nor the Craftsman, but the Father of Truth.


title: Demiurge

text: This vilification of the creator was held to be inimical to Christianity by the early fathers of the church. In refuting the beliefs of the gnostics, Irenaeus stated that "Plato is proved to be more religious than these men, for he allowed that the same God was both just and good, having power over all things, and himself executing judgment."


title: Demiurge

text: Catharism apparently inherited their idea of Satan as the creator of the evil world from Gnosticism. Quispel writes,


title: Demiurge

text: Gnosticism attributed falsehood or evil to the concept of the Demiurge or creator, though in some Gnostic traditions the creator is from a fallen, ignorant, or lesser—rather than evil—perspective, such as that of Valentinius.


title: Demiurge

text: The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus addressed within his works Gnosticism's conception of the Demiurge, which he saw as un-Hellenic and blasphemous to the Demiurge or creator of Plato. Plotinus, along with his teacher Ammonius Saccas, was the founder of Neoplatonism. In the ninth tractate of the second of his "Enneads", Plotinus criticizes his opponents for their appropriation of ideas from Plato:


title: Demiurge

text: Of note here is the remark concerning the second hypostasis or Creator and third hypostasis or World Soul. Plotinus criticizes his opponents for "all the novelties through which they seek to establish a philosophy of their own" which, he declares, "have been picked up outside of the truth"; they attempt to conceal rather than admit their indebtedness to ancient philosophy, which they have corrupted by their extraneous and misguided embellishments. Thus their understanding of the Demiurge is similarly flawed in comparison to Plato’s original intentions.


title: Demiurge

text: Whereas Plato's Demiurge is good wishing good on his creation, Gnosticism contends that the Demiurge is not only the originator of evil but is evil as well. Hence the title of Plotinus' refutation: "Against Those That Affirm the Creator of the Kosmos and the Kosmos Itself to be Evil" (generally quoted as "Against the Gnostics"). Plotinus argues of the disconnect or great barrier that is created between the "nous" or mind's noumenon (see Heraclitus) and the material world (phenomenon) by believing the material world is evil.


title: Demiurge

text: The majority of scholars tend to understand Plotinus' opponents as being a Gnostic sect—certainly (specifically Sethian), several such groups were present in Alexandria and elsewhere about the Mediterranean during Plotinus' lifetime. Plotinus specifically points to the Gnostic doctrine of Sophia and her emission of the Demiurge.


title: Demiurge

text: Though the former understanding certainly enjoys the greatest popularity, the identification of Plotinus' opponents as Gnostic is not without some contention. Christos Evangeliou has contended that Plotinus' opponents might be better described as simply "Christian Gnostics", arguing that several of Plotinus' criticisms are as applicable to orthodox Christian doctrine as well. Also, considering the evidence from the time, Evangeliou thought the definition of the term "Gnostics" was unclear. Of note here is that while Plotinus' student Porphyry names Christianity specifically in Porphyry's own works, and Plotinus is to have been a known associate of the Christian Origen, none of Plotinus' works mention Christ or Christianity—whereas Plotinus specifically addresses his target in the "Enneads" as the Gnostics.


title: Demiurge

text: A. H. Armstrong identified the so-called "Gnostics" that Plotinus was attacking as Jewish and Pagan, in his introduction to the tract in his translation of the "Enneads". Armstrong alluding to Gnosticism being a Hellenic philosophical heresy of sorts, which later engaged Christianity and Neoplatonism.


title: Demiurge

text: John D. Turner, professor of religious studies at the University of Nebraska, and famed translator and editor of the Nag Hammadi library, stated that the text Plotinus and his students read was Sethian Gnosticism, which predates Christianity. It appears that Plotinus attempted to clarify how the philosophers of the academy had not arrived at the same conclusions (such as dystheism or misotheism for the creator God as an answer to the problem of evil) as the targets of his criticism.


title: Demiurge

text: Emil Cioran also wrote his "Le mauvais démiurge" ("The Evil Demiurge"), published in 1969, influenced by Gnosticism and Schopenhauerian interpretation of Platonic ontology, as well as that of Plotinus.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: Kevin Systrom (born December 30, 1983) is an American computer programmer and entrepreneur. He co-founded Instagram, the world's largest photo sharing website, along with Mike Krieger.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: Systrom was included on the list of America's Richest Entrepreneurs Under 40 2016. Under Systrom as CEO, Instagram became a fast growing app, with 800 million monthly users as of September 2017. He resigned as the CEO of Instagram on September 24, 2018.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: Meta Platforms (then Facebook, Inc.) bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, a large sum at that time for a company that had 13 employees. Instagram today has over one billion users and contributes over $20 billion to Meta Platforms's annual revenue.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: Systrom was born in 1983 in Holliston, Massachusetts. He is the son of Diane, a marketing executive at Zipcar, who also worked at Monster and Swapit during the first dotcom bubble, and Douglas Systrom, Vice President in Human Resources at TJX Companies.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: Systrom attended Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, where he was introduced to computer programming. His interest grew from playing "Doom 2" and creating his own levels as a child.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: Systrom attended Stanford University and graduated in 2006 with a bachelor's degree in management science and engineering. At Stanford, he was a member of the Sigma Nu fraternity. He turned down a recruitment offer from Mark Zuckerberg and instead spent the winter term of his third year in Florence, where he studied photography.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: He got his first taste of the startup world when he was chosen as one of twelve students to participate in the Mayfield Fellows Program at Stanford University. The fellowship led to his internship at Odeo, the company that eventually gave rise to Twitter.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: After graduating Stanford, he joined Google working on Gmail, Google Calendar, Docs, Spreadsheets and other products. He spent two years at Google as a product marketer; Systrom left Google out of frustration of not being moved into the Associate Product Manager program.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: He made the prototype of what later became Burbn and pitched it to Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz at a party. He came up with the idea while on a vacation in Mexico when his girlfriend was unwilling to post her photos because they did not look good enough when taken by the iPhone 4 camera. The solution to the problem was to use filters, effectively hiding the qualitative inferiority of the photographs. Subsequently, Systrom developed the X-Pro II filter that is still in use on Instagram today.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: After the first meeting, he decided to quit his job in order to explore whether or not Burbn could become a company. Within 2 weeks of quitting his job, he received US$500,000 seed funding round from both Baseline Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz. While in San Francisco, Systrom and Mike Krieger built Burbn, an HTML 5 check-in service, into a product that allowed users to do many things: check into locations, make plans (future check-ins), earn points for hanging out with friends, post pictures, and much more. However, recalling their studies in Mayfield Fellows Program, Krieger and Systrom identified that Burbn contained too many features and the users did not want a complicated product. They decided to focus on one specific feature, photo-sharing. The development of Burbn led to creation of Instagram. A month after launching, Instagram had grown to 1 million users. A year later, Instagram hit more than 10 million users.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: In 2010, Systrom co‑founded the photo-sharing and, later, video-sharing social networking service Instagram with Mike Krieger in San Francisco, California.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: In April 2012, Instagram, along with 13 employees, was sold to Facebook for US$1 billion in cash and stock. According to multiple reports, the deal netted Systrom US$400 million based on his ownership stake in the business. One of the key contributions to the acquisition was that Mark Zuckerberg stated Facebook was "committed to building and growing Instagram independently", allowing Systrom to continue to lead Instagram. Systrom stated in an interview with "Bloomberg" that the pros of becoming a part of Facebook were that "we got to pair up with a juggernaut of a company that understands how to grow, understands how to build a business, has one of the best, if not the best, management team in tech and we got to use them as our resource".


title: Kevin Systrom

text: In an interview with "Forbes", he stated that "Instagram is a new form of communication that's an ideal fit with the always-with-you iPhone in today's social media world. Instagram's a social network built around photos, where people can quickly comment on or 'like' photos and share them on Twitter or Facebook." Systrom identified Instagram as a media company, which explains the roll-out of video advertisement by big companies such as The Walt Disney Company, Activision, Lancôme, Banana Republic and CW in late 2014.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: On September 24, 2018, it was announced that Systrom resigned from Instagram and would be leaving in few weeks.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: Instagram has been accused on multiple occasions for copying various new functions from its closest competitor Snapchat. Regarding the issue, Systrom argued that all new services launched by tech companies nowadays are "remixes" of existing products, and that "all of these ideas are original when you remix them and bring your own flavour". Systrom also argued that 'you can trace the roots of every feature anyone has in their app, somewhere in the history of technology' and that this was simply 'just the way Silicon Valley works.'


title: Kevin Systrom

text: In 2016, the magazine ranked Systrom as a billionaire with an estimated net worth of US$1.1 billion. The fortune came about as a result of Facebook stocks rising more than 500%.


title: Kevin Systrom

text: In February 2016, Systrom met with Pope Francis at the Vatican, where they discussed the power of images in uniting people "across borders, cultures and generations".


title: Kevin Systrom

text: On October 31, 2016, Systrom married Nicole Systrom (née Schuetz), founder and CEO of clean-energy investment firm Sutro Energy Group, in Napa, California. The two met at Stanford and were engaged in 2014.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Attitudes toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and their experiences in the Muslim world have been influenced by its religious, legal, social, political, and cultural history. The Quran narrates the story of the "people of Lot" destroyed by the wrath of God because the men engaged in lustful carnal acts between themselves, but modern historians have concluded that the Islamic prophet Muhammad never forbade homosexual relationships outright, although he disapproved of them in line with his contemporaries. At the same time, "both the Quran and the "hadith" strongly condemn homosexual activity"; with some "hadith" prescribing the death penalty for those engaged in male homosexual intercourse.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: There is little evidence of homosexual practice in Islamic societies for the first century and a half of the early history of Islam (7th century CE), although male homosexual relationships were known and discriminated, but not sanctioned, in Arabia. Homosexual acts were legally forbidden in traditional Islamic jurisprudence and subject to punishment, including flogging, stoning, and the capital punishment, depending on the situation and legal school. At the same time, homosexual relationships were in practice generally tolerated in pre-modern Islamic societies, and historical records suggest that laws against homosexuality were invoked infrequently, and mainly in cases of rape or other "exceptionally blatant infringement on public morals". Homoerotic and pederastic themes were cultivated in poetry and other literary genres written in major languages of the Muslim world from the 8th century CE into the modern era. The conceptions of homosexuality found in classical Islamic texts resemble the traditions of Greco-Roman antiquity rather than the modern understanding of sexual orientation.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In the modern era, public attitudes toward homosexuality in the Muslim world underwent a marked change starting from the 19th century due to the global spread of Islamic fundamentalist movements such as Salafism and Wahhabism. The Muslim world was also influenced by the sexual notions and restrictive norms prevalent in Europe at the time, and today, a number of Muslim-majority countries retain the criminal penalties for homosexual acts first enacted under European colonial rule. As LGBT movements gained traction in Europe and the West, Islamic fundamentalist politicians associated Western civilisation with homosexuality and "ravaging moral decay". In contemporary society, prejudice, anti-LGBT violence and discrimination, including within law, persist in much of the Muslim world, exacerbated by socially conservative attitudes and the recent rise of Islamist movements in some countries. There are laws against homosexual sexual activity in a larger number of Muslim-majority countries, and it carries the death penalty in a limited number of them. In a few Muslim-majority countries, homosexual relations between men are illegal, but relations between women are legal.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Most Muslim-majority countries and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) have opposed moves to advance LGBT rights at the United Nations, in the General Assembly or the UNHRC. In 2008, 57 UN member nations, most of them having a Muslim majority, cosponsored a statement opposing LGBT rights at the UN General Assembly. In May 2016, a group of 51 Muslim majority states blocked 11 gay and transgender organizations from attending the 2016 High Level Meeting on Ending AIDS. There are also several organizations for LGBT Muslims which support LGBT rights, and others which attempt conversion therapy.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The Quran contains several allusions to homosexual activity, which has prompted considerable exegetical and legal commentaries over the centuries. The subject is most clearly addressed in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah (seven verses) after the men of the city demand to have sex with the (seemingly male) messengers sent by God to the prophet Lot (or Lut). The Quranic narrative largely conforms to that found in Genesis. In one passage the Quran says that the men "solicited his guests of him" (), using an expression that parallels phrasing used to describe the attempted seduction of Joseph, and in multiple passages they are accused of "coming with lust" to men instead of women (or their wives). The Quran terms this lewdness or fahisha () unprecedented in the history of the world:


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The destruction of the "people of Lut" is thought to be explicitly associated with their sexual practices. Later exegetical literature built on these verses as writers attempted to give their own views as to what went on; and there was general agreement among exegetes that the "lewdness" alluded to by the Quranic passages was attempted sodomy (specifically anal intercourse) between men. Some Muslim academics disagree with this interpretation, arguing that the "people of Lut" were destroyed not because of participation in homosexuality, but because of misdeeds which included refusing to worship one God, disregarding and disrespecting the authority of the Prophets and messengers, and attempting to rape the travelers, despite the fact the travelers were under Lut's protection and hospitality.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The sins of the "people of Lut" () subsequently became proverbial and the Arabic words for the act of anal sex between men such as "liwat" () and for a person who performs such acts () both derive from his name, although Lut was not the one demanding sex.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Both Western and Islamic scholars argue that in the course of the Quranic Lot story, homosexuality in the modern sense is not addressed, but that the destruction of the "people of Lut" was a result of breaking the ancient hospitality law and sexual violence, in this case they attempted rape of men.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Only one passage in the Quran prescribes a strictly legal position. It is not restricted to homosexual behaviour, however, and deals more generally with "zina" (illicit sexual intercourse):


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In the exegetical Islamic literature, this verse has provided the basis for the view that Muhammad took a lenient approach towards male homosexual practices. The Orientalist scholar Pinhas Ben Nahum has argued that "it is obvious that the Prophet viewed the vice with philosophic indifference. Not only is the punishment not indicated—it was probably some public reproach or insult of a slight nature—but mere penitence sufficed to escape the punishment". Most exegetes hold that these verses refer to illicit heterosexual relationships, although a minority view attributed to the Mu'tazilite scholar Abu Muslim al-Isfahani interpreted them as referring to homosexual relations. This view was widely rejected by medieval scholars, but has found some acceptance in modern times.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Some Quranic verses describing the Islamic paradise refer to perpetually youthful attendants which inhabit it, and they are described as both male and female servants: the females are referred to as "ḥūr", whereas the males are referred to as "ghilmān", "wildān", and "suqāh". The slave boys are referred to in the Quran as "immortal boys" (, ) or "young men" () who serve wine and meals to the blessed. Although the "tafsir" literature does not interpret this as a homoerotic allusion, the connection was made in other literary genres, mostly humorously. For example, the Abbasid-era poet Abu Nuwas wrote:


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Jurists of the Hanafi school took up the question seriously, considering, but ultimately rejecting the suggestion that homosexual pleasures were, like wine, forbidden in this world but enjoyed in the afterlife.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The hadith (sayings and actions attributed to Muhammad) show that homosexual behaviour was not unknown in seventh-century Arabia. However, given that the Quran did not specify the punishment of homosexual practices, Islamic jurists increasingly turned to several "more explicit" hadiths in an attempt to find guidance on appropriate punishment.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: While there are no reports relating to homosexuality in the best known and authentic hadith collections of "Sahih al-Bukhari" and "Sahih Muslim", other canonical collections record a number of condemnations of the "act of the people of Lut" (male-to-male anal intercourse). For example, Abu 'Isa Muhammad ibn 'Isa at-Tirmidhi (compiling the "Sunan al-Tirmidhi" around 884) wrote that Muhammad had indeed prescribed the death penalty for both the active and passive partners:


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Ibn al-Jawzi (1114–1200), writing in the 12th century, claimed that Muhammad had cursed "sodomites" in several hadith, and had recommended the death penalty for both the active and passive partners in homosexual acts.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Al-Nuwayri (1272–1332), writing in the 13th century, reported in his "Nihaya" that Muhammad is "alleged to have said what he feared most for his community were the practices of the people of Lot (he seems to have expressed the same idea in regard to wine and female seduction)."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Other hadiths seem to permit homoerotic feelings as long as they are not translated into action. In one hadith attributed to Muhammad himself, which exists in multiple variants, the Islamic prophet acknowledged homoerotic temptation towards young boys and warned his Companions against it: "Do not gaze at the beardless youths, for verily they have eyes more tempting than the "houris"" or "... for verily they resemble the "houris"". These beardless youths are also described as wearing sumptuous robes and having perfumed hair. Consequently, Islamic religious leaders, skeptical of Muslim men's capacity of self-control over their sexual urges, have forbidden looking and yearning both at males and females.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In addition, there is a number of "purported (but mutually inconsistent) reports" ("athar") of punishments of sodomy ordered by some of the early caliphs. Abu Bakr apparently recommended toppling a wall on the culprit, or else burning him alive, while Ali ibn Abi Talib is said to have ordered death by stoning for one sodomite and had another thrown head-first from the top of the highest building in the town; according to Ibn Abbas, the latter punishment must be followed by stoning.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Islam, the plural term "mukhannathun" (singular: "mukhannath") is used to describe gender-variant people, and it has typically referred to effeminate males. According to the Iranian scholar Mehrdad Alipour, "in the premodern period, Muslim societies were aware of five manifestations of gender ambiguity: This can be seen through figures such as the "khasi" (eunuch), the "hijra", the "mukhannath", the "mamsuh" and the "khuntha" (hermaphrodite/intersex)." Western scholars Aisya Aymanee M. Zaharin and Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli give the following explanation of the meaning of the term "mukhannath" and its derivate Arabic forms in the hadith literature:


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Moreover, within Islam, there is a tradition of the elaboration and refinement of extended religious doctrines through scholarship. This doctrine contains a passage by the scholar and hadith collector An-Nawawi:A mukhannath is the one ("male") who carries in his movements, in his appearance and in his language the characteristics of a woman. There are two types; the first is the one in whom these characteristics are innate, he did not put them on by himself, and therein is no guilt, no blame and no shame, as long as he does not perform any (illicit) act or exploit it for money (prostitution etc.). The second type acts like a woman out of immoral purposes and he is the sinner and blameworthy.The hadith collection of Bukhari (compiled in the 9th century from earlier oral traditions) includes a report regarding "mukhannathun", effeminate men who were granted access to secluded women's quarters and engaged in other non-normative gender behavior: This hadiths attributed to Muhammad's wives, a "mukhannath" in question expressed his appreciation of a woman's body and described it for the benefit of another man. According to one hadith, this incident was prompted by a "mukhannath" servant of Muhammad's wife Umm Salama commenting upon the body of a woman and following that, Muhammad cursed the "mukhannathun" and their female equivalents, "mutarajjilat" and ordered his followers to remove them from their homes.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Early Islamic literature rarely comments upon the habits of the "mukhannathun". It seems there may have been some variance in how "effeminate" they were, though there are indications that some adopted aspects of feminine dress or at least ornamentation. One hadith states that a Muslim "mukhannath" who had dyed his hands and feet with henna (traditionally a feminine activity) was banished from Medina, but not killed for his behavior.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Other hadiths also mention the punishment of banishment, both in connection with Umm Salama's servant and a man who worked as a musician. Muhammad described the musician as a "mukhannath" and threatened to banish him if he did not end his unacceptable career.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: According to Everett K. Rowson, professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University, none of the sources state that Muhammad banished more than two "mukhannathun", and it is not clear to what extent the action was taken because of their breaking of gender rules in itself or because of the "perceived damage to social institutions from their activities as matchmakers and their corresponding access to women".


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The paucity of concrete prescriptions to be derived from hadith and the contradictory nature of information about the actions of early authorities resulted in lack of agreement among classical jurists as to how homosexual activity should be treated.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Classical Islamic jurists did not deal with homosexuality as a sexual orientation, since the latter concept is modern and has no match in traditional law, which dealt with it under the technical terms of "liwat" and "zina".


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Broadly, traditional Islamic law took the view that homosexual activity could not be legally sanctioned because it takes place outside religiously-recognised marriages. All major schools of law consider liwat (anal sex) as a punishable offence. Most legal schools treat homosexual intercourse with penetration similarly to unlawful heterosexual intercourse under the rubric of "zina", but there are differences of opinion with respect to methods of punishment. Some legal schools "prescribed capital punishment for sodomy, but others opted only for a relatively mild discretionary punishment." The Hanbalites are the most severe among Sunni schools, insisting on capital punishment for anal sex in all cases, while the other schools generally restrict punishment to flagellation with or without banishment, unless the culprit is "muhsan" (Muslim free married adult), and Hanafis often suggest no physical punishment at all, leaving the choice to the judge's discretion. The founder of the Hanafi school Abu Hanifa refused to recognize the analogy between sodomy and "zina", although his two principal students disagreed with him on this point. The Hanafi scholar Abu Bakr Al-Jassas (d. 981 AD/370 AH) argued that the two hadiths on killing homosexuals "are not reliable by any means and no legal punishment can be prescribed based on them". Where capital punishment is prescribed and a particular method is recommended, the methods range from stoning (Hanbali, Maliki), to the sword (some Hanbalites and Shafi'ites), or leaving it to the court to choose between several methods, including throwing the culprit off a high building (Shi'ite).


title: LGBT in Islam

text: For unclear reasons, the treatment of homosexuality in Twelver Shi'ism jurisprudence is generally harsher than in Sunni fiqh, while Zaydi and Isma'ili Shia jurists took positions similar to the Sunnis. Where flogging is prescribed, there is a tendency for indulgence and some recommend that the prescribed penalty should not be applied in full, with Ibn Hazm reducing the number of strokes to 10. There was debate as to whether the active and passive partners in anal sex should be punished equally. Beyond penetrative anal sex, there was "general agreement" that "other homosexual acts (including any between females) were lesser offenses, subject only to discretionary punishment." Some jurists viewed sexual intercourse as possible only for an individual who possesses a phallus; hence those definitions of sexual intercourse that rely on the entry of as little of the corona of the phallus into a partner's orifice. Since women do not possess a phallus and cannot have intercourse with one another, they are, in this interpretation, physically incapable of committing zinā.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Since a "hadd" punishment for "zina" requires testimony from four witnesses to the actual act of penetration or a confession from the accused repeated four times, the legal criteria for the prescribed harsh punishments of homosexual acts were very difficult to fulfill. The debates of classical jurists are "to a large extent theoretical, since homosexual relations have always been tolerated" in pre-modern Islamic societies. While it is difficult to ascertain to what extent the legal sanctions were enforced in different times and places, historical record suggests that the laws were invoked mainly in cases of rape or other "exceptionally blatant infringement on public morals". Documented instances of prosecution for homosexual acts are rare, and those which followed legal procedure prescribed by Islamic law are even rarer.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Kecia Ali's book, she cites that "contemporary scholars disagree sharply about the Qur'anic perspective on same-sex intimacy." One scholar represents the conventional perspective by arguing that the Qur'an "is very explicit in its condemnation of homosexuality leaving scarcely any loophole for a theological accommodation of homosexuality in Islam." Another scholar argues that "the Qur'an does not address homosexuality or homosexuals explicitly." Overall, Ali says that "there is no one Muslim perspective on anything."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Many Muslim scholars have followed a "don't ask, don't tell" policy in regards to homosexuality in Islam, by treating the subject with passivity.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Mohamed El-Moctar El-Shinqiti, director of the Islamic Center of South Plains in Texas, has argued that "[even though] homosexuality is a grievous sin...[a] no legal punishment is stated in the Qur'an for homosexuality...[b] it is not reported that Prophet Muhammad has punished somebody for committing homosexuality...[c] there is no authentic hadith reported from the Prophet prescribing a punishment for the homosexuals..." Classical hadith scholars such as Al-Bukhari, Yahya ibn Ma'in, Al-Nasa'i, Ibn Hazm, Al-Tirmidhi, and others have impugned the authenticity of hadith reporting these statements.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Egyptian Islamist journalist Muhammad Jalal Kishk also found no punishment for homosexual acts prescribed in the Quran, regarding the hadith that mentioned it as poorly attested. He did not approve of such acts, but believed that Muslims who abstained from sodomy would be rewarded by sex with youthful boys in paradise.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Faisal Kutty, a professor of Islamic law at Indiana-based Valparaiso University Law School and Toronto-based Osgoode Hall Law School, commented on the contemporary same-sex marriage debate in a 27 March 2014, essay in the Huffington Post. He acknowledged that while Islamic law iterations prohibits pre- and extra-marital as well as same-sex sexual activity, it does not attempt to "regulate feelings, emotions and urges, but only its translation into action that authorities had declared unlawful". Kutty, who teaches comparative law and legal reasoning, also wrote that many Islamic scholars have "even argued that homosexual tendencies themselves were not haram [prohibited] but had to be suppressed for the public good". He claimed that this may not be "what the LGBTQ community wants to hear", but that, "it reveals that even classical Islamic jurists struggled with this issue and had a more sophisticated attitude than many contemporary Muslims". Kutty, who in the past wrote in support of allowing Islamic principles in dispute resolution, also noted that "most Muslims have no problem extending full human rights to those—even Muslims—who live together 'in sin'". He argued that it therefore seems hypocritical to deny fundamental rights to same-sex couples. Moreover, he concurred with Islamic legal scholar Mohamed Fadel in arguing that this is not about changing Islamic marriage (nikah), but about making "sure that all citizens have access to the same kinds of public benefits".


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Some modern day Muslim scholars, such as Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle, argue for a different interpretation of the Lot narrative focusing not on the sexual act but on the infidelity of the tribe and their rejection of Lot's Prophethood. According to Kugle, "where the Qur'an treats same-sex acts, it condemns them only so far as they are exploitive or violent." More generally, Kugle notes that the Quran refers to four different levels of personality. One level is "genetic inheritance." The Qur'an refers to this level as one's "physical stamp" that "determines one's temperamental nature" including one's sexuality. On the basis of this reading of the Qur'an, Kugle asserts that homosexuality is "caused by divine will," so "homosexuals have no rational choice in their internal disposition to be attracted to same-sex mates." Kugle argues that if the classical commentators had seen "sexual orientation as an integral aspect of human personality," they would have read the narrative of Lot and his tribe "as addressing male rape of men in particular" and not as "addressing homosexuality in general." Kugle furthermore reads the Qur'an as holding "a positive assessment of diversity." Under this reading, Islam can be described as "a religion that positively assesses diversity in creation and in human societies," allowing gay and lesbian Muslims to view homosexuality as representing the "natural diversity in sexuality in human societies." A critique of Kugle's approach, interpretations and conclusions was published in 2016 by Mobeen Vaid.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In a 2012 book, Aisha Geissinger writes that there are "apparently irreconcilable Muslim standpoints on same-sex desires and acts," all of which claim "interpretative authenticity." One of these standpoints results from "queer-friendly" interpretations of the Lot story and the Quran. The Lot story is interpreted as condemning "rape and inhospitality rather than today's consensual same-sex relationships."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In their book "Islamic Law and Muslim Same-Sex Unions", Junaid Jahangir and Hussein Abdullatif argue that interpretations which view the Quranic narrative of the people of Lot and the derived classical notion of "liwat" as applying to same-sex relationships reflect the sociocultural norms and medical knowledge of societies that produced those interpretations. They further argue that the notion of "liwat" is compatible with the Quranic narrative, but not with the contemporary understanding of same-sex relationships based on love and shared responsibilities.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Abdessamad Dialmy in his 2010 article, "Sexuality and Islam", addressed "sexual norms defined by the sacred texts (Koran and Sunna)." He wrote that "sexual standards in Islam are paradoxical." The sacred texts "allow and actually are an enticement to the exercise of sexuality." However, they also "discriminate . . . between heterosexuality and homosexuality." Islam's paradoxical standards result in "the current back and forth swing of sexual practices between repression and openness." Dialmy sees a solution to this back and forth swing by a "reinterpretation of repressive holy texts."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Societies in Islam have recognized "both erotic attraction and sexual behavior between members of the same sex". However, their attitudes about them have often been contradictory: "severe religious and legal sanctions" against homosexual behavior and at the same time "celebratory expressions" of erotic attraction. Homoeroticism was idealized in the form of poetry or artistic declarations of love from one man to another. Accordingly, the Arabic language had an appreciable vocabulary of homoerotic terms, with dozens of words just to describe types of male prostitutes. Schmitt (1992) identifies some twenty words in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish to identify those who are penetrated. Other related Arabic words includes "mukhannathun", "ma'bûn", "halaqī", and "baghghā".


title: LGBT in Islam

text: There is little evidence of homosexual practice in Islamic societies for the first century and a half of the Islamic era. Homoerotic poetry appears suddenly at the end of the 8th century CE, particularly in Baghdad in the work of Abu Nuwas (756–814), who became a master of all the contemporary genres of Arabic poetry. The famous author Jahiz tried to explain the abrupt change in attitudes toward homosexuality after the Abbasid Revolution by the arrival of the Abbasid army from Khurasan, who are said to have consoled themselves with male pages when they were forbidden to take their wives with them. The increased prosperity following the early conquests was accompanied by a "corruption of morals" in the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and it can be inferred that homosexual practice became more widespread during this time as a result of acculturation to foreign customs, such as the music and dance practiced by "mukhannathun", who were mostly foreign in origin. The Abbasid ruler Al-Amin (809–813) was said to have required slave women to be dressed in masculine clothing so he could be persuaded to have sex with them, and a broader fashion for "ghulamiyyat" (boy-like girls) is reflected in literature of the period. The same was said of Andalusian caliph al-Hakam II (915–976).


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The conceptions of homosexuality found in classical Islamic texts resemble the traditions of classical Greece and those of ancient Rome, rather than the modern understanding of sexual orientation. It was expected that many mature men would be sexually attracted to both women and adolescent boys (with different views about the appropriate age range for the latter), and such men were expected to wish to play only an active role in homosexual intercourse once they reached adulthood. However, any confident assessment of the actual incidence of homosexual behavior remains elusive. Preference for homosexual over heterosexual relations was regarded as a matter of personal taste rather than a marker of homosexual identity in a modern sense. While playing an active role in homosexual relations carried no social stigma beyond that of licentious behavior, seeking to play a passive role was considered both unnatural and shameful for a mature man. Following Greek precedents, the Islamic medical tradition regarded as pathological only this latter case, and showed no concern for other forms of homosexual behavior.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Everett K. Rowson, professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University remarks that, from a Western point of view, the conception of homosexual love in pre-modern Muslim societies cannot be considered as a relationship of reciprocal affection and mutual consent, but rather a "one-sided and asymmetrical affair" which involved older, adult men having sexual intercourse with younger, adolescent boys or children; citing various poems as examples of this kind of relationships from Persian literature, Rowson states:


title: LGBT in Islam

text: During the early period, growth of a beard was considered to be the conventional age when an adolescent lost his homoerotic appeal, as evidenced by poetic protestations that the author still found his lover beautiful despite the growing beard. During later periods, the age of the stereotypical beloved became more ambiguous, and this prototype was often represented in Persian poetry by Turkic slave-soldiers. This trend is illustrated by the story of Mahmud of Ghazni (971–1030), the ruler of the Ghaznavid Empire, and his cupbearer Malik Ayaz. Their relationship started when Malik was a slave boy, "At the time of the coins’ minting, Mahmud of Ghazni was in a passionate romantic relationship with his male slave Malik Ayaz, and had exalted him to various positions of power across the Ghazanid Empire. While the story of their love affair had been censored until recently — the result of Western colonialism and changing attitudes towards homosexuality in the Middle East — Jasmine explains how Ghazni's subjects saw their relationship as a higher form of love."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Other famous examples of homosexuality include the Aghlabid Emir Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya (ruled 875–902), who was said to have been surrounded by some sixty catamites, yet whom he was said to have treated in a most horrific manner. Caliph al-Mutasim in the 9th century and some of his successors were accused of homosexuality. The Christian martyr Pelagius of Córdoba was executed by Andalusian ruler Abd al-Rahman III because the boy refused his advances.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The 14th-century Iranian poet Obeid Zakani, in his scores of satirical stories and poems, has ridiculed the contradiction between the strict prohibitions of homosexuality on the one hand and its common practice on the other. Following is just an example from his Ressaleh Delgosha: “Two old men, who used to exchange sex since their very childhood, were making love on the top of a mosque’s minaret in the holy city of Qom. When both finished their turns, one told the other: “shameless practices have ruined our city.” The other man nodded and said, “You and I are the city’s blessed seniors, what then do you expect from others?”


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Mehmed the Conqueror, the Ottoman sultan living in the 15th century, European sources say "who was known to have ambivalent sexual tastes, sent a eunuch to the house of Notaras, demanding that he supply his good-looking fourteen-year-old son for the Sultan's pleasure. When he refused, the Sultan instantly ordered the decapitation of Notaras, together with that of his son and his son-in-law; and their three heads … were placed on the banqueting table before him". Another youth Mehmed found attractive, and who was presumably more accommodating, was Radu III the Fair, the brother of the famous Vlad the Impaler, "Radu, a hostage in Istanbul whose good looks had caught the Sultan's fancy, and who was thus singled out to serve as one of his most favored pages." After the defeat of Vlad, Mehmed placed Radu on the throne of Wallachia as a vassal ruler. However, some Turkish sources deny these stories.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Whatever the legal strictures on sexual activity, the positive expression of male homoerotic sentiment in literature was accepted, and assiduously cultivated, from the late eighth century until modern times. First in Arabic, but later also in Persian, Turkish and Urdu, love poetry by men about boys more than competed with that about women, it overwhelmed it. Anecdotal literature reinforces this impression of general societal acceptance of the public celebration of male-male love (which hostile Western caricatures of Islamic societies in medieval and early modern times simply exaggerate).


title: LGBT in Islam

text: European travellers remarked on the taste that Shah Abbas of Iran (1588–1629) had for wine and festivities, but also for attractive pages and cup-bearers. A painting by Riza Abbasi with homo-erotic qualities shows the ruler enjoying such delights.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: "Homosexuality was a key symbolic issue throughout the Middle Ages in [Islamic] Iberia. As was customary everywhere until the nineteenth century, homosexuality was not viewed as a congenital disposition or 'identity'; the focus was on nonprocreative sexual practices, of which sodomy was the most controversial." For example, in "al-Andalus homosexual pleasures were much indulged by the intellectual and political elite. Evidence includes the behavior of rulers . . . who kept male harems." Although early Islamic writings such as the Quran expressed a mildly negative attitude towards homosexuality, laypersons usually apprehended the idea with indifference, if not admiration. Few literary works displayed hostility towards non-heterosexuality, apart from partisan statements and debates about types of love (which also occurred in heterosexual contexts). Khaled el-Rouayheb (2014) maintain that "much if not most of the extant love poetry of the period [16th to 18th century] is pederastic in tone, portraying an adult male poet's passionate love for a teenage boy".


title: LGBT in Islam

text: El-Rouayheb suggests that even though religious scholars considered sodomy as an abhorrent sin, most of them did not genuinely believe that it was illicit to merely fall in love with a boy or expressing this love via poetry. In the secular society however, a male's desire to penetrate a desirable youth was seen as understandable, even if not lawful. On the other hand, men adopting the passive role were more subjected to stigma. The medical term "ubnah" qualified the pathological desire of a male to exclusively be on the receiving end of anal intercourse. Physician that theorized on "ubnah" includes Rhazes, who thought that it was correlated with small genitals and that a treatment was possible provided that the subject was deemed to be not too effeminate and the behavior not "prolonged". Dawud al-Antaki advanced that it could have been caused by an acidic substance embedded in the veins of the anus, causing itchiness and thus the need to seek relief.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In mystic writings of the medieval era, such as Sufi texts, it is "unclear whether the beloved being addressed is a teenage boy or God." European chroniclers censured "the indulgent attitudes to gay sex in the Caliphs' courts." Mustafa Akyol writes that "The Ottoman sultans, arguably, were social liberals compared with the contemporary Islamists of Turkey, let alone the Arab World."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The 18th and 19th centuries saw the rise of Islamic fundamentalism such as Wahhabism, which came to call for stricter adherence to the Hadith. In 1744, Muhammad bin Saud, the tribal ruler of the town of Diriyah, endorsed ibn Abd al-Wahhab’s mission and the two swore an oath to establish together a state run according to true Islamic principles. For the next seventy years, until the dismantlement of the first state in 1818, the Wahhabis dominated from Damascus to Baghdad. Homosexuality, which had been largely tolerated in the Ottoman Empire, also became criminalized, and those found guilty were thrown to their deaths from the top of the minarets.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Homosexuality in the Ottoman Empire was decriminalized in 1858, as part of wider reforms during the Tanzimat. However, authors Lapidus and Salaymeh write that before the 19th century Ottoman society had been open and welcoming to homosexuals and that by the 1850s via European influence they began censoring homosexuality in their society. In Iran, several hundred political opponents were executed in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and justified it by accusing them of homosexuality, and homosexual intercourse is declared a capital offense in Iran's "Islamic Penal Code", enacted in 1991. Though the grounds for execution in Iran are difficult to track, there is evidence that several people were hanged for homosexual behavior in 2005–2006 and in 2016, mostly in cases of dubious charges of rape. In some countries like Iran and Iraq the dominant discourse is that Western imperialism has spread homosexuality. In Egypt, though homosexuality is not explicitly criminalized, it has been widely prosecuted under vaguely formulated "morality" laws, and under the current rule of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi arrests of LGBT individuals have risen fivefold, apparently reflecting an effort to appeal to conservatives. In Uzbekistan, an anti-sodomy law, passed after World War II with the goal of increasing the birth rate, was invoked in 2004 against a gay rights activist, who was imprisoned and subjected to extreme abuse. In Iraq, where homosexuality is legal, the breakdown of law and order following the Second Gulf War allowed Islamist militias and vigilantes to act on their prejudice against gays, with ISIS gaining particular notoritety for the gruesome acts of anti-LGBT violence committed under its rule of parts of Syria and Iraq. Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle has argued that, while "Muslims commemorate the early days of Islam when they were oppressed as a marginalized few," many of them now forget their history and fail to protect "Muslims who are gay, transgender and lesbian."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: According to Georg Klauda, in the 19th and early 20th century, homosexual sexual contact was viewed as relatively commonplace in parts of the Middle East, owing in part to widespread sex segregation, which made heterosexual encounters outside marriage more difficult. Klauda states that "Countless writers and artists such as André Gide, Oscar Wilde, Edward M. Forster, and Jean Genet made pilgrimages in the 19th and 20th centuries from homophobic Europe to Algeria, Morocco, Egypt, and various other Arab countries, where homosexual sex was not only met without any discrimination or subcultural ghettoization whatsoever, but rather, additionally as a result of rigid segregation of the sexes, seemed to be available on every corner." Views about homosexuality have never been universal all across the Islamic world. With reference to the Muslim world more broadly, Tilo Beckers writes that "Besides the endogenous changes in the interpretation of scriptures having a deliberalizing influence that came from within Islamic cultures, the rejection of homosexuality in Islam gained momentum through the exogenous effects of European colonialism, that is, the import of Western cultural understandings of homosexuality as a perversion." University of Münster professor Thomas Bauer points that even though there were many orders of stoning for homosexuality, there is not a single proven case of it being carried out. Bauer continues that "Although contemporary Islamist movements decry homosexuality as a form of Western decadence, the current prejudice against it among Muslim publics stems from an amalgamation of traditional Islamic legal theory with popular notions that were imported from Europe during the colonial era, when Western military and economic superiority made Western notions of sexuality particularly influential in the Muslim world."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In some Muslim-majority countries, current anti-LGBT laws were enacted by United Kingdom or Soviet organs and retained following independence. The 1860 Indian Penal Code, which included an anti-sodomy statute, was used as a basis of penal laws in other parts of the empire. However, as Dynes and Donaldson point out, North African countries under French colonial tutelage lacked anti-homosexual laws which were only born afterwards, with the full weight of Islamic opinion descending on those who, on the model of the gay liberationists of the West, would seek to make "homosexuality" (above all, adult men taking passive roles) publicly respectable. Jordan, Bahrain, and-more recently-India, a country with a substantial Muslim minority, have abolished the criminal penalties for consensual homosexual acts introduced under colonial rule. Persecution of homosexuals has been exacerbated in recent decades by a rise in Islamic fundamentalism and the emergence of the gay-rights movement in the West, which allowed Islamists to paint homosexuality as a noxious Western import.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: While friendship between men and boys is often described in sexual ways in classical Islamic literature, Khaled El-Rouayheb and Oliver Leaman have argued that it would be misleading to conclude from this that homosexuality was widespread in practice. Such literature tended to use transgressive motifs alluding to what is forbidden, in particular homosexuality and wine. Greek homoerotic motifs may have accurately described pederastic practices in ancient Greece, but in their Islamic adaptations they tended to play a satirical or metaphorical rather than descriptive role. At the same time, many miniatures, especially from Ottoman Turkey, contain explicit depictions of pederasty, suggesting that the practice enjoyed a certain degree of popularity. A number of pre-modern texts discuss the possibility of sexual exploitation faced by young boys in educational institutions and warn teachers to take precautions against it.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In modern times, despite the formal disapproval of religious authority, the segregation of women in some Muslim societies and the strong emphasis on male virility leads some adolescent males and unmarried young men to seek sexual outlets with boys younger than themselves—in one study in Morocco, with boys in the age-range 7 to 13.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: "Liwat" can therefore be regarded as "temptation", and anal intercourse is not seen as repulsively unnatural so much as dangerously attractive. They believe "one has to avoid getting buggered precisely in order not to acquire a taste for it and thus become addicted." Not all sodomy is homosexual: one Moroccan sociologist, in a study of sex education in his native country, states that for many young men, heterosexual sodomy is considered better than vaginal penetration, and female prostitutes likewise report the demand for anal penetration from their male clients.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In regards to homosexual intercourse, it is the enjoyment that is considered bad, rather than simply the penetration. Deep shame attaches to the passive partner. Similar sexual sociologies are reported for other Muslim societies from North Africa to Pakistan and the Far East. In 2015, "The New York Times" reported that U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan were instructed by their commanders to ignore child sexual abuse being carried out by Afghan security forces, except "when rape is being used as a weapon of war". American soldiers have been instructed not to intervene—in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records. But the U.S. soldiers have been increasingly troubled that instead of weeding out pedophiles, the U.S. military was arming them against the Taliban and placing them as the police commanders of villages—and doing little when they began abusing children.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: According to the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) seven countries still retain capital punishment for homosexual behavior: Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, Mauritania, northern Nigeria, and the United Arab Emirates. In Qatar, Algeria, Uzbekistan, and the Maldives, homosexuality is punished with time in prison or a fine. This has led to controversy regarding Qatar, which is due to stage the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Human rights groups have questioned the awarding in 2010 of the right to host the competition, due to the possibility that gay football fans may be jailed. In response, Sepp Blatter, head of FIFA, joked that they would have to "refrain from sexual activity" while in Qatar. He later withdrew the remarks after condemnation from rights groups.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Chad since 1 August 2017 under a new penal code. Before that, homosexuality between consenting adults had not been criminalized ever prior to this law.<ref name="Penal Code 2017/1"></ref><ref name="Penal Code 2017/2"></ref>


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Egypt, openly gay men have been prosecuted under general public morality laws. (See Cairo 52.) "Sexual relations between consenting adult persons of the same sex in private are not prohibited as such. However, the Law on the Combating of Prostitution, and the law against debauchery have been used to imprison gay men in recent years." An Egyptian TV host was recently sentenced to a year in prison for interviewing a gay man in January 2019.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The Sunni Islamist militant group and Salafi-jihadist terrorist organization ISIL/ISIS/IS/Daesh, which invaded and claimed parts of Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2017, enacted the political and religious persecution of LGBT people and decreed capital punishment for them. ISIL/ISIS/IS/Daesh terrorists have executed more than two dozen men and women for suspected homosexual activity, including several thrown off the top of buildings in highly publicized executions.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In India, which has the third-largest Muslim population in the world, and where Islam is the largest minority religion, the largest Islamic seminary (Darul Uloom Deoband) has vehemently opposed recent government moves to abrogate and liberalize laws from the colonial era that banned homosexuality. As of September 2018, homosexuality is no longer a criminal act in India, and most of the religious groups withdrew their opposing claims against it in the Supreme Court.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Iraq, homosexuality is allowed by the government, but terrorist groups often carry out illegal executions of gay people. Saddam Hussein was "unbothered by sexual mores." Ali Hili reports that "since the 2003 invasion more than 700 people have been killed because of their sexuality." He calls Iraq the "most dangerous place in the world for sexual minorities."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Jordan, where homosexuality is legal, "gay hangouts have been raided or closed on bogus charges, such as serving alcohol illegally." Despite this legality, social attitudes towards homosexuality are still hostile and hateful.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Pakistan, its law is a mixture of both British colonial law as well as Islamic law, both which proscribe criminal penalties for same-sex sexual acts. The Pakistan Penal Code of 1860, originally developed under colonial rule, punishes sodomy with a possible prison sentence and has other provisions that impact the human rights of LGBT Pakistanis, under the guise of protecting public morality and order. Yet, the more likely situation for gay and bisexual men is sporadic police blackmail, harassment, fines, and jail sentences.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Bangladesh, homosexual acts are illegal and punishable according to section 377. Due to the traditional mentality of the predominantly conservative Bangladeshi society, negative attitudes towards those in the LGBT community are high. In 2009 and 2013, the Bangladeshi Parliament refused to overturn Section 377.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Malaysia, homosexual acts are illegal and punishable with jail, fine, deportation, whipping or chemical castration. In October 2018, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad stated that Malaysia would not "copy" Western nations' approach towards LGBT rights, indicating that these countries were exhibiting a disregard for the institutions of the traditional family and marriage, as the value system in Malaysia is good. In May 2019, in response to the warning of George Clooney about intending to impose death penalty for homosexuals like Brunei, the Deputy Foreign Minister Marzuki Yahya pointed out that Malaysia does not kill gay people, and will not resort to killing sexual minorities. He also said, although such lifestyles deviate from Islam, the government would not impose such a punishment on the group.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Indonesia, the country do not have a sodomy law and do not currently criminalize private, non-commercial homosexual acts among consenting adults, except in the Aceh province where homosexuality is illegal for Muslims under Islamic Sharia law, and punishable by flogging. While not criminalising homosexuality, the country does not recognise same-sex marriage. In July 2015, the Minister of Religious Affairs stated that it is difficult in Indonesia to legalize Gay Marriage, because strongly held religious norms speak strongly against it. According to some jurists, there should be death stoning penalty for homosexuals. While another group consider flogging with 100 lashes is the correct punishment.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Turkey, homosexuality is legal, but "official censure can be fierce". A former interior minister, İdris Naim Şahin, called homosexuality an example of "dishonour, immorality and inhuman situations". Turkey held its 16th Gay Pride Parade in Istanbul on 30 June 2019.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: As the latest addition in the list of criminalizing Muslim countries, Brunei's has implemented penalty for homosexuals within "Sharia Penal Code" in stages since 2014. It prescribes death by stoning as punishment for sex between men, and sex between women is punishable by caning or imprisonment. The sultanate currently has a moratorium in effect on death penalty.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In 2020, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) released its most recent "State Sponsored Homophobia Report". The report found that eleven countries or regions impose the death penalty for "same-sex sexual acts" with reference to sharia-based laws. In Iran, according to article 129 and 131 there are up to 100 lashes of whip first three times and fourth time death penalty for lesbians. The death penalty is implemented nationwide in Brunei, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen, northern Nigeria, United Arab Emirates, Mauritania and Somalia. This punishment is also allowed by the law but not implemented in Qatar, and Pakistan; and was back then implemented through non-state courts by ISIS in parts of Iraq and Syria (now no longer existing).


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Due to Brunei's law dictating that gay sex be punishable by stoning, many of its targeted citizens fled to Canada in hopes of finding refuge. The law is also set to impose the same punishment for adultery among heterosexual couples. Despite pushback from citizens in the LGBTQ+ community, Brunei prime minister's office produced a statement explaining Brunei's intention for carrying through with the law. It has been suggested that this is part of a plan to separate Brunei from the western world and towards a Muslim one.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In the Chechen Republic, a part of the Russian Federation, Ramzan Kadyrov has actively discriminated against homosexual individuals and presided over a campaign of arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killing.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: It has been suggested that "to counteract popular support for an Islamist insurgency that erupted after the Soviet breakup, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has granted wide latitude to [Kadyrov] to co-opt elements of the Islamist agenda, including an intolerance of gays."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Algeria, Bangladesh, Chad, Morocco, Aceh, Maldives, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, and Tunisia, it is illegal, and penalties may be imposed. In Kuwait, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, homosexual acts between males are illegal, but homosexual relations between females are legal.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The Ottoman Empire (predecessor of Turkey) decriminalized homosexuality in 1858. In Turkey, where 99.8% of the population is officially registered as Muslim, homosexuality has never been criminalized since the day it was founded in 1923.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Same-sex sexual intercourse is legal in Albania, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, Djibouti (de jure), Guinea-Bissau, Iraq (de jure), Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Niger, Tajikistan, Turkey, West Bank (State of Palestine), Indonesia, and in Northern Cyprus. In Albania and Turkey, there have been discussions about legalizing same-sex marriage. Albania, Northern Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo also protect LGBT people with anti-discrimination laws.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Same-sex relations between females are legal in Kuwait, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, but homosexual acts between males are illegal.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Lebanon, courts have ruled that the country's penal code must not be used to target homosexuals, but the law has yet to be changed by parliament.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In 2007, there was a gay party in the Moroccan town of al-Qasr al-Kabir. Rumours spread that this was a gay marriage and more than 600 people took to the streets, condemning the alleged event and protesting against leniency towards homosexuals. Several persons who attended the party were detained and eventually six Moroccan men were sentenced to between four and ten months in prison for "homosexuality".


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In France, there was an Islamic same-sex marriage on 18 February 2012. In Paris in November 2012 a room in a Buddhist prayer hall was used by gay Muslims and called a "gay-friendly mosque", and a French Islamic website is supporting religious same-sex marriage.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The first American Muslim in the United States Congress, Keith Ellison (D-MN) said in 2010 that all discrimination against LGBT people is wrong. He further expressed support for gay marriage stating:


title: LGBT in Islam

text: I believe that the right to marry someone who you please is so fundamental it should not be subject to popular approval any more than we should vote on whether blacks should be allowed to sit in the front of the bus.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In 2014, eight men were jailed for three years by a Cairo court after the circulation of a video of them allegedly taking part in a private wedding ceremony between two men on a boat on the Nile.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In the late 1980s, Mufti Muhammad Sayyid Tantawy of Egypt issued a "fatwa" supporting the right for those who fit the description of "mukhannathun" to have sex reassignment surgery; Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued similar "fatwas" around the same time. Khomeini's initial "fatwa" concerned intersex individuals as well, but he later specified that sex reassignment surgery was also permissible in the case of transgender individuals. Because homosexuality is illegal in Iran but gender transition is legal, some gay individuals have been forced to undergo sex reassignment surgery and transition into the opposite sex, regardless of their actual gender identity.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: While Iran has outlawed homosexuality, Iranian thinkers such as Ayatollah Khomeini have allowed for transgender people to change their sex so that they can enter heterosexual relationships. It is regarded as a cure for homosexuality, which is punishable by death under Iranian law. The government even provides up to half the cost for those needing financial assistance and a sex change is recognized on the birth certificate.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: On 26 June 2016, clerics affiliated to the Pakistan-based organization Tanzeem Ittehad-i-Ummat issued a fatwa on transgender people where a trans woman (born male) with "visible signs of being a woman" is allowed to marry a man, and a trans man (born female) with "visible signs of being a man" is allowed to marry a woman. Pakistani transgender persons can also change their (legal) sex. Muslim ritual funerals also apply. Depriving transgender people of their inheritance, humiliating, insulting or teasing them were also declared haraam.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Pakistan, transgender people make up 0.005 percent of the total population. Previously, transgender people were isolated from society and had no legal rights or protections. They also suffered discrimination in healthcare services. For example, in 2016 a transgender individual died in a hospital while doctors were trying to decide which ward the patient should be placed in. Transgender people also faced discrimination in finding employment resulting from incorrect identity cards and incongruous legal status. Many were forced into poverty, dancing, singing, and begging on the streets to scrape by. However, in May 2018, the Pakistani parliament passed a bill giving transgender individuals the right to choose their legal sex and correct their official documents, such as ID cards, driver licenses, and passports. Today, transgender people in Pakistan have the right to vote and to search for a job free from discrimination. As of 2018, one transgender woman became a news anchor, and two others were appointed to the Supreme Court.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Lebanon, transgender women are not given any rights. Discrimination starts from their own family members when trans women are forced to leave their house. After that, trans women are not allowed to have any connections with their family members or with their neighbors. Trans women can't access educational institutions and medical services. Moreover, trans women face employment discrimination due to their wrong identity cards that are not being corrected by the government agencies. To support themselves financially, the only option often open to trans women is sex work, which is not safe for them either. Doing sex work, trans women are at higher risk of sexual abuse and violence. No laws are in existence to protect trans women. Instead, trans women are being arrested and put in jail for up to one year for having same-sex intercourse.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Although it prohibits homosexuality, Iran is the only Muslim-majority country in the Persian Gulf region that allows transgender people to express themselves by recognizing their self-identified gender and subsidizing reassignment surgery. Despite this, those who do not commit to reassignment surgery are often seen as freaks, and due to their refusal to conform they are treated as outcasts.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The Muslim community as a whole, worldwide, has become polarized on the subject of homosexuality. Some Muslims say that "no good Muslim can be gay", and "traditional schools of Islamic law consider homosexuality a grave sin". At the opposite pole, "some Muslims . . . are welcoming what they see as an opening within their communities to address anti-gay attitudes." Especially, it is "young Muslims" who are "increasingly speaking out in support of gay rights".


title: LGBT in Islam

text: According to the Albert Kennedy Trust, one in four young homeless people identify as LGBT due to their religious parents disowning them. The Trust suggests that the majority of individuals who are homeless due to religious out casting are either Christian or Muslim. Many young adults who come out to their parents are often forced out of the house to find refuge in a more accepting place. This leads many individual to be homeless or even attempt suicide.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In 2013, the Pew Research Center conducted a study on the global acceptance of homosexuality and found a widespread rejection of homosexuality in many nations that are predominantly Muslim. In some countries, views were becoming more conservative among younger people.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: There are a number of Islamic ex-gay organizations, that is, those composed of people claiming to have experienced a basic change in sexual orientation from exclusive homosexuality to exclusive heterosexuality. These groups, like those based in socially conservative Christianity, are aimed at attempting to guide homosexuals towards heterosexuality.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: One of the leading LGBT reformatory Muslim organization is StraightWay Foundation, which was established in the United Kingdom in 2004 as an organization that provides information and advice for Muslims who struggle with homosexual attraction. They believe "that through following God's guidance", one may "cease to be" gay. They teach that the male-female pair is the "basis for humanity's growth" and that homosexual acts "are forbidden by God". NARTH has written favourably of the group. In 2004, Straightway entered into a controversy with the contemporary Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, and the controversial Islamic cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi. It was suggested that Livingstone was giving a platform to Islamic fundamentalists, and not liberal and progressive Muslims. Straightway responded to this by sending Livingstone a letter thanking him for his support of al-Qaradawi. Livingstone then ignited controversy when he thanked Straightway for the letter.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The coming together of "human rights discourses and sexual orientation struggles" has resulted in an abundance of "social movements and organizations concerned with gender and sexual minority oppression and discrimination." Today, most LGBTQ-affirming Islamic organizations and individual congregations are primarily based in the Western world and South Asian countries; they usually identify themselves with the liberal and progressive movements within Islam.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In France there was an Islamic same-sex marriage on February 18, 2012. In Paris in November 2012 a room in a Buddhist prayer hall was used by gay Muslims and called a "gay-friendly mosque", and a French Islamic website is supporting religious same-sex marriage. The Ibn Ruschd-Goethe mosque in Berlin is a liberal mosque open to all types of Muslims, where men and women pray together and LGBT worshippers are welcomed and supported. Other significant LGBT-inclusive mosques or prayer groups include the El-Tawhid Juma Circle Unity Mosque in Toronto, Masjid an-Nur al-Isslaah (Light of Reform Mosque) in Washington D.C., Masjid Al-Rabia in Chicago, Unity Mosque in Atlanta, People's Mosque in Cape Town South Africa, Masjid Ul-Umam mosque in Cape Town, Qal'bu Maryamin in California, and the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Sufi Community in New York City.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Muslims for Progressive Values, based in the United States and Malaysia, is "a faith-based, grassroots, human rights organization that embodies and advocates for the traditional Qur'anic values of social justice and equality for all, for the 21st Century." The Mecca Institute is an LGBT-inclusive and progressive online Islamic seminary, and serves as an online center of Islamic learning and research.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The Al-Fatiha Foundation was an organization which tried to advance the cause of gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims. It was founded in 1998 by Faisal Alam, a Pakistani American, and was registered as a nonprofit organization in the United States. The organization was an offshoot of an internet listserve that brought together many gay, lesbian and questioning Muslims from various countries.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In 2001, Al-Muhajiroun, an international organization which sought the establishment of a global Islamic caliphate, but which is now a banned and defunct, issued a "fatwa" (ruling) declaring that all members of Al-Fatiha were "murtadd" (apostates), and condemning them to death. Because of this threat and their conservative familial backgrounds, many Al-Fatiha members chose anonymity to protect their identity. Al-Fatiha had fourteen chapters in the United States, as well as offices in Great Britain, Canada, Spain, Turkey, and South Africa.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: The Al-Fitrah Foundation, previously known as The Inner Circle was one of the first queer Muslim organizations founded in 1996 when its founder Imam Muhsin Hendricks publicly revealed his sexual orientation. Imam Muhsin Hendricks is also considered as the world's first openly queer Imam. His activism grew since then and the organization became public in 1998. It soon grew into an international organization with annual international retreats of up to 120 international delegates meeting annually in Cape Town to discuss issues pertaining to LGBTIQ Muslims. In 2018 after having served the organization for 20 years her resigned after detecting corruption in the organization and being maliciously and wrongfully accused of mismanagement of funds. He, along with other queer Muslims who left the old Al-Fitrah Foundation founded a new organization in 2018 called Al-Ghurbaah Foundation. Imam Muhsin Hendricks also administers the Compassion-centred Islamic Network (CCI Network) which is a global network that seeks to connect and create a stronger voice for queer Muslims amongst activists, academics, Islamic scholars and religious leaders (Imams). Currently, the organization's main focus is working with religious leaders (Imams) while serving the needs of the queer Muslim community globally. Al-Ghurbaah Foundation also runs an inclusive mosque called Masjidul Ghurbaah which is open to anyone who wants to connect spiritually regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, religion or belief.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: There are numbers of Muslim LGBT activists from different parts of the world. Some of them are listed below:


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In 2010, an anthology "Islam and Homosexuality" was published. In the Forward, Parvez Sharma sounded a pessimistic note about the future: "In my lifetime I do not see Islam drafting a uniform edict that homosexuality is permissible." Following is material from two chapters dealing with the present:


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Rusmir Musić in a chapter "Queer Visions of Islam" said that "Queer Muslims struggle daily to reconcile their sexuality and their faith." Musić began to study in college "whether or not my love for somebody of the same gender disgusts God and whether it will propel me to hell. The answer, for me, is an unequivocal "no". Furthermore, Musić wrote, "my research and reflection helped me to imagine my sexuality as a gift from a loving, not hateful, God."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Marhuq Fatima Khan in a chapter "Queer, American, and Muslim: Cultivating Identities and Communities of Affirmation," says that "Queer Muslims employ a few narratives to enable them to reconcile their religious and sexual identities." They "fall into three broad categories: (1) God Is Merciful; (2) That Is Just Who I Am; and (3) It's Not Just Islam."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In Chapter Eight of the 2003 book, "Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender, and Pluralism", Professor Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle asserts "that Islam does not address homosexuality." In Kugle's reading, the Quran holds "a positive assessment of diversity." It "respects diversity in physical appearance, constitution, stature, and color of human beings as a natural consequence of Divine wisdom in creation." Therefore, Islam can be described as "a religion that positively assesses diversity in creation and in human societies." Furthermore, in Kugle's reading, the Quran "implies that some people are different in their sexual desires than others." Thus, homosexuality can be seen as part of the "natural diversity in sexuality in human societies." This is the way "gay and lesbian Muslims" view their homosexuality.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In addition to the Qur'an, Kugle refers to the benediction of Imam Al-Ghazali (the 11th-century Muslim theologian) which says. "praise be to God, the marvels of whose creation are not subject to the arrows of accident." For Kugle, this benediction implies that "if sexuality is inherent in a person's personality, then sexual diversity is a part of creation, which is never accidental but is always marvelous." Kugle also refers to "a rich archive of same-sex sexual desires and expressions, written by or reported about respected members of society: literati, educated elites, and religious scholars." Given these writings, Kugle concludes that "one might consider Islamic societies (like classical Greece) to provide a vivid illustration of a 'homosexual-friendly' environment." This evoked from "medieval and early modern Christian Europeans" accusations that Muslim were "engaging openly in same-sex practices."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Kugle goes a step further in his argument and asserts that "if some Muslims find it necessary to deny that sexual diversity is part of the natural created world, then the burden of proof rests on their shoulders to illustrate their denial from the Qur'anic discourse itself."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Kecia Ali in her 2016 book "Sexual Ethics and Islam" says that "there is no one Muslim perspective on anything." Regarding the Quran, Ali says that modern scholars disagree about what it says about "same-sex intimacy." Some scholars argue that "the Qur'an does not address homosexuality or homosexuals explicitly."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Regarding homosexuality, Ali, says that the belief that "exclusively homosexual desire is innate in some individuals" has been adopted "even among some relatively conservative Western Muslim thinkers."100 Homosexual Muslims believe their homosexuality to be innate and view "their sexual orientation as God-given and immutable." She observes that "queer and trans people are sometimes treated as defective or deviant," and she adds that it is "vital not to assume that variation implies imperfection or disability."


title: LGBT in Islam

text: Regarding "medieval Muslim culture," Ali says that "male desire to penetrate desirable youth . . . was perfectly normal." Even if same-sex relations were not lawful, there was "an unwillingness to seek out and condemn instances of same-sex activity, but rather to let them pass by . . . unpunished." Ali states that some scholars claim that Islamic societies were 'homosexual-friendly' in history.


title: LGBT in Islam

text: In an article "Same-sex Sexual Activity and Lesbian and Bisexual Women" Ali elaborates on homosexuality as an aspect of medieval Muslim culture. She says that "same-sex sexual expression has been a more or less recognized aspect of Muslim societies for many centuries." There are many explicit discussions of "same-sex sexual activity" in medieval Arabic literature. Ali states there is a lack of focus in medieval tradition on female same-sex sexual activity, where the Qur'an mainly focuses male/male sex. With female same-sex sexual activity there is more focus on the punishment for the acts and the complications with the dower, compare to men where there is a focus on punishment but also the needs to ablutions and the effect of the act on possible marriage decisions.


title: Bryan Ferry

text: Bryan Ferry CBE (born 26 September 1945) is an English singer and songwriter. His voice has been described as an "elegant, seductive croon". He also established a distinctive image and sartorial style: according to "The Independent", Ferry and his contemporary David Bowie influenced a generation with both their music and their appearances. Peter York described Ferry as "an art object" who "should hang in the Tate".


title: Bryan Ferry

text: Born to a working-class family, Ferry studied fine art and taught at a secondary school before pursuing a career in music. In 1970 he began to assemble the rock band Roxy Music with a group of friends and acquaintances in London, and took the role of lead singer and main songwriter. The band achieved immediate international success with the release of their eponymous debut album in 1972, containing a rich multitude of sounds, which reflected Ferry's interest in exploring different genres of music. Their second album, "For Your Pleasure" (1973), further cultivated the band's unique sound and visual image that would establish Ferry as a leading cultural icon over the next decade.


title: Bryan Ferry

text: Ferry began a parallel solo career in 1973 by releasing "These Foolish Things", which popularized for the first time the concept of a contemporary musician releasing an album covering standard songs and was a drastic departure from his ongoing work with Roxy Music. His second album, "Another Time, Another Place" (1974), featured as its cover image Ferry posing by a pool in a white tuxedo and represented one of his most impactful fashion statements. Over the next two years, Roxy Music released a trilogy of albums, "Stranded" (1973), "Country Life" (1974) and "Siren" (1975), which broadened the band's appeal internationally and saw Ferry take greater interest in the role of a live performer, reinventing himself in stage costumes ranging from gaucho to military uniforms.


title: Bryan Ferry

text: Ferry disbanded Roxy Music following the release of their best-selling album "Avalon" in 1982 to concentrate on his solo career, releasing further singles such as "Slave to Love" and "Don't Stop the Dance" and the UK no. 1 album "Boys and Girls" in 1985. Including his work with Roxy Music, Ferry has sold over 30 million albums worldwide.


title: Bryan Ferry

text: As well as being a prolific songwriter, Ferry has recorded many cover versions, including standards from the Great American Songbook, in albums such as "These Foolish Things" (1973), "Another Time, Another Place" (1974), "Let's Stick Together" (1976), "Taxi" (1993) and "As Time Goes By" (1999), as well as "Dylanesque" (2007), an album of Bob Dylan covers. In 2019, Ferry was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Roxy Music.


title: Bryan Ferry

text: Ferry was born in Washington, County Durham, son of Mary Ann and Frederick Charles Ferry. His parents were working-class: his father was a farm labourer who also looked after pit ponies. He attended Washington Grammar-Technical School (now called Washington Academy) on Spout Lane from 1957.


title: Bryan Ferry

text: As a child he had a job as a paper boy and bought jazz records with his earnings. He studied fine art at Newcastle University from 1964 until 1968, under Richard Hamilton for one year, and some of his paintings were displayed at the Tate Gallery in 1970. His contemporaries included Tim Head and Nick de Ville. During this period, Ferry was a member of the bands the Banshees, City Blues, and the Gas Board, the latter of which featured his university classmates Graham Simpson and John Porter. He then moved to London in 1968 and taught art and pottery at Holland Park School while pursuing a career in music.


title: Bryan Ferry

text: Ferry formed Roxy Music with a group of friends and acquaintances, beginning with bassist Graham Simpson, an art school classmate, in November 1970. The line-up was expanded to include saxophonist/oboist Andy Mackay and Brian Eno, an acquaintance who owned tape recorders and played Mackay's synthesiser. Other early members included timpanist Dexter Lloyd and ex-Nice guitarist David O'List, who were replaced respectively by Paul Thompson and Phil Manzanera before the band recorded its first album.


title: Bryan Ferry

text: Released on 16 June 1972, Roxy Music's self-titled debut album reached no. 10 on the UK albums charts and immediately established the band's presence in the British music scene. Later that summer the band made its television debut on Top of the Pops, performing their first hit single "Virginia Plain", marking one of the first electronic music performances on a mainstream television show. The first two Roxy Music albums were written solely by Ferry; the debut contained a pastiche of musical styles, representing Ferry's wide-ranging interests, while the second album, "For Your Pleasure" (1973), pursued a darker, more determined mood.


title: Bryan Ferry

text: Ferry met women's fashion designer Antony Price at a party in Holland Park in 1972, and later that year enlisted him alongside other friends including Nick de Ville to create the cover for Roxy Music's debut album. Featuring model Kari-Ann Muller splayed on the floor in a dress designed by Price, the cover image captivated the attention of the general public and according to writer Richard Williams was, "nothing less than a challenge, bold and direct, to the prevailing complacency." Ferry would continue art-directing each Roxy Music album cover to follow.


title: Bryan Ferry

text: Ferry began a parallel solo career in 1973, performing cover versions of old standards on his debut studio album "These Foolish Things" (1973) and his second album "Another Time, Another Place" (1974), both of which reached the UK top 5. Ferry's interest in the Great American Songbook represented a stark departure from Roxy Music, and the success of these two albums created a template which would be followed later by other artists including Joni Mitchell, Rod Stewart and Bob Dylan. Embarking on his first solo tour in support of these albums, in 1973 Ferry was notably denied his request for a show at the Royal Albert Hall due to a ban on rock concerts before ultimately being granted his first performance a year later, in December 1974. Ferry's debut at the Royal Albert Hall was recorded and later released as "Live at the Royal Albert Hall, 1974" in 2020. Contemporary reviews of this period of Ferry's live performances noted his "actor’s instinct for understatement" and praised his novelty and command on stage, concluding "to be Bryan Ferry in 1974 was like being Bob Dylan in 1965, Clark Gable in 1939, and Oscar Wilde in 1895."


title: Bryan Ferry

text: Between 1972 and 1974, Ferry's creative output was prolific, as he released a total of six studio albums between his solo career and Roxy Music. The third Roxy Music album, "Stranded" (1973), saw the departure of Brian Eno and the recruitment by Ferry of violinist and keyboardist Eddie Jobson, a contributor to Ferry's first solo album. "Stranded" became Roxy Music's first UK no. 1 album, dominating the charts for four months, and its supporting world tour saw Ferry wear a white tuxedo and move out from behind the keyboard to take center stage. The Rake notes, "the suit became the lynchpin of his onstage persona, buoyed by iconic, ostentatious tailoring by the likes of Anthony Price." After the concert tour in support of their fifth studio album "Siren" (1975), Roxy Music temporarily disbanded in 1976, though band members Paul Thompson, Phil Manzanera and Eddie Jobson took part in recording Ferry's subsequent solo material. He released three solo albums during this period, "Let's Stick Together" (1976), "In Your Mind" (1977) and "The Bride Stripped Bare" (1978), all of which charted in the UK top 20.