Stances of Faiths on LGBT Issues: Islam
The beliefs of the approximately 6 million Muslims in the United States on issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people cannot be easily summarized, because so much depends on how individual Muslims and Islamic sects interpret the Holy Quran and other theological sources. Many Muslims, however, have very negative ideas about LGBT people.
Teachings on LGBT Issues
According to Al-Fatiha, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advocates for the rights of LGBT Muslims, most traditional scholars of Islam consider same-sex acts to be sinful, and many believe that having a gay or lesbian sexual orientation is unnatural. Al-Fatiha’s website states:
“There is a general consensus amongst the scholars of Islam (both past and present) that homosexuality is a deviation of man's true (heterosexual) nature. Thus the act of homosexuality is sinful and is viewed with contempt in most Muslim societies and countries.”
However, only a few passages in the Quran and several hadith (sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad) refer to sex between two males. The Quran, which mentions gay sex in the story of Lot (or Lut in Arabic), does not call for a specific punishment for this behavior. Yet one hadith reads: “When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shakes.”
Another hadith, discussing the punishment for two men caught having intercourse, says, “Kill the one that is doing it and also kill the one that it is being done to.” Still another appears to condemn lesbian sex: “Sihaq [lesbian sexual activity] of women is zina [illegitimate sexual intercourse] among them.”
The “Shari’ah,” or Islamic law, equates same-sex intercourse to “zina” or “fornication” between unmarried heterosexual couples, and says they should be put to death. Some Islamic legal historians, however, do not believe that these hadith actually came from Muhammad. They argue that because Muhammad did not face any legal cases on homosexuality as a religious and governmental leader, the ruling about gay sex was derived after Muhammad’s death.
Islamic religious schools of thought vary in their views on LGBT issues. Some scholars in the United States have argued that there is no definitive basis in the Quran or other theological texts for the condemnation of gay and lesbian people. They also argue that at certain points in history, Muslim societies have recognized people in same-sex relationships as legitimate.
Those scholars, however, are in the minority. Many others have spoken out against LGBT people. According to Al-Fatiha, every major school of Islamic legal thought considers sex between two men a violation of Islamic law. Some believe it merits severe physical punishment, including stoning to death. Others would sentence it with imprisonment or banishment from the state. Today, most governments that follow Islamic law defer on the punishment used for offenders. But there have been cases where men convicted of having gay sex have been killed.
While physical punishments of those convicted of gay sex are limited to predominantly Muslim countries, LGBT Muslims in the United States have often faced verbal persecution from Muslim leaders. In response to a question on the IslamOnline Internet community about how Muslims should interact with “homosexuals,” the former president of the Islamic Society of North America, Muzammil Siddiqi, said in 2003:
"Homosexuality is sinful and shameful. … But nowadays this act has become a phenomenon. There are agencies and lobby groups that are working hard to propagate it and to make it an acceptable and legitimate lifestyle. For this reason it is important that we should speak against it. We should warn our youth and children from this devilish lifestyle. We should make it very clear that it is Haram, absolutely forbidden and that it kindles the wrath and anger of Allah. … We should deal with [homosexuals] in the same way we deal with any people who are involved in alcoholics, gambling or adultery.
“We should have deep repugnance to their acts and we must remind and warn them. Those who insist on this lifestyle, consider it legitimate and feel ‘gay pride,’ we should not associate with them and should not take them as friends. We should certainly avoid those people.”
Al-Fatiha’s website argues, however, that as women have brought change to mainstream Islam’s views of women’s rights, the acceptance of LGBT people in the Muslim community will slowly spread, and it will minimize the misconceptions that are common in much of the Muslim community today. It states:
“Although mainstream Islam officially condemns homosexuality, there is a growing movement of progressive-minded Muslims, especially in the Western world, who see Islam as an evolving religion that must adapt to modern-day society. It is within this movement that Al-Fatiha Foundation works to enlighten the Muslim and outside world that Islam is a religion of tolerance and not hate, and that Allah (God) loves His creations, no matter what their sexual orientations might be.”
Transgender Issues
While transgender issues have not been explicitly addressed by most major Islamic institutions, there is information concerning cross-dressing, those transgressing traditional gender roles and sex-reassignment surgery.
One hadith appears to condemn cross-dressing, stating: “Cursed are those men who wear women’s clothing and those women who wear men’s clothing.” Another condemns “the hermaphrodites among the men and the over-masculine women.” On the other hand, hermaphrodites, and men who had no sexual desire toward women, were allowed in the company of Muhammad’s wives, although no other men were allowed to see them.
In 1988, sex-reassignment surgery was declared acceptable under Islamic law by scholars at the world’s oldest Islamic university, Al-Azhar, in Egypt. The highest-ranking religious leader of the Republic of Egypt issued an official decree, entitled “Fatwa on Sex-Change Operation,” which called transgender identity a disease and sex-reassignment surgery permissible if it had proven that it was impossible for the patient to live according to his or her biological sex and the patient was not consciously choosing to be transgender. It stated:
“As for the condemnation of [men] who by word and deed resemble women, it must be confined to one who does it deliberately, while one who is like this out of a natural disposition must be ordered to abandon it. … The rulings derived from these and other noble hadiths on treatment grant permission to perform an operation changing a man into a woman, or vice versa. … It is, however, not permissible to do it at the mere wish to change sex from woman to man, or vice versa.”
The Islamic government of Malaysia has for a number of years recognized transgender people and will re-issue their official legal documents to reflect their new gender identities.
In 2004, Al-Fatiha learned that the Islamic government of Iran also recognizes transgender people. It allows them, in some cases, to have sex-reassignment surgery and obtain new birth certificates, and sometimes even covers part of the surgery expenses. In addition, many people from predominantly Muslim countries — including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt — have reported having sex-reassignment surgeries by renowned medical surgeons and experts in the field of reconstructive surgery.
Al-Fatiha
In the United States, Al-Fatiha, which was founded in 1998, has made great strides toward equality for LGBT Muslims. It organizes retreats and conferences, provides educational materials on issues related to Islam and LGBT people, and advocates on issues of immigration, asylum and human rights. It recently initiated its outreach to the larger mainstream Muslim communities throughout the Muslim and non-Muslim world.
Al-Fatiha has received some backlash and been condemned and even threatened by some anti-gay Muslims.
“In many ways, Al-Fatiha exactly parallels where gay Catholics were 25 to 30 years ago,” said Marianne Duddy, former executive director of the LGBT Roman Catholic group Dignity USA, in The Washington Post in April 2000. “Our first five years were all about just putting the words ‘gay’ and ‘Catholic’ together. Al-Fatiha and [its founder, Faisal Alam] really are pioneers. I pray that they will have very deep faith.”
Resources for LGBT Muslims
- Al-Fatiha is an international organization working to advance LGBT equality in Islamic society, with seven chapters in the United States.
- Huriyah is a magazine for the LGBT Muslim community, with news, articles, poems and personal reflections from LGBT Muslims.
- Safra Project is a resource project working on issues relating to lesbian, bisexual and/or transgender women who identify as Muslim religiously and/or culturally.
- American Islamic Fellowship provides an open forum and spiritual community based on Islamic principles for the diverse voices of people of faith.
- Muslims for Progressive Values is an inclusive community rooted in the traditional Qur’anic ideals of human dignity and social justice.
