morals". There is little evidence of homosexual practice in Islamic societies for the first century and a half of the Islamic era. Homoerotic themes were cultivated in poetry and other literary genres written in major languages of the Muslim world from the eighth century into the modern era. The conceptions of homosexuality found in classical Islamic texts resemble the traditions of Graeco-Roman antiquity rather than the modern understanding of sexual orientation. Public attitudes toward homosexuality in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere in the Muslim world underwent a marked change to more negative starting from the 19th century with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism such as Wahhabism and with the influence of the restricted sexual notions and norms prevalent in Europe at that time. A number of Muslim-majority countriesbuilt 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 "abomination" 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 Lot were destroyed not because of participation in same-sex acts, but because of misdeeds which included refusing to worship one God, disregarding the authority of the Prophets, and attempting to rape the travelers, a crime made even worse by the fact that the travelers were under Lot's protection and hospitality.

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