Lut: Difference between revisions

The story of Lut is told in many different places in the Qur'an, which can be read [[Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Homosexuality|here]]. According to the Qur'an, Lut was a righteous prophet who was sent to preach the word of Allah to the sinful people of Sodom and Gomorrah. They repeatedly rejected his message and threatened him, until angels from Allah turned up at Lut's house. They bring him tidings of the destruction of the twin cities. The wicked people of Lut's cities then also show up at his house, demanding to rape the angels they believe are foreigners. Lut offers them his daughters in lawful Islamic marriage to them instead (which the mufassirun read as being the daughters of his nation, id est the females of the cities) but they refuse. In their drunkenness and blindness Lut is able to escape, and Allah destroys the cities with brimstone. The outline of the story is in some ways similar to the biblical original, but the story has some salient points which mark its importance in Islamic theology and separate it from its biblical progenitor:  

1. Scientifically it is highly unlikely that all the men in Lut's city, Sodom, would be homosexuals, as homosexuality exists only in low percentages, from 2-7%. These numbers are based on many scientific studies:

These studies prove conclusively that the number of homosexuals in a society will not under normal circumstances exceed 7%. The idea that all of the men of Lut's cities were homosexuals is totally implausible.  

Although confirmed by multiple Islamic scholars such as Tabari and ibn Kathir, the claim that the People of Lut were the first to experience homosexuality is completely without basis in history or biology. Homosexuality has been recorded in ancient cultures far before the time of Lut and Abraham (1948–2123 BC). For example the ancient Egyptians who existed 6000 years before Christ knew of the practice, as did Chinese and Indian cultures back to 7000 BCE. There are many recorded tales which portray homosexuality in the literature of these civilizations, such as the story between Seth and Horus. It is also known from biology that human male homosexuality, and to a lesser degree female homosexuality, will occur in any large enough population, so again this claim is completely without merit.

Lut's wife is accused by the Qur'an of complicity in the sin of his people. In the tafsir of ibn Kathir it is written:  

 

 

 

The Most High (Allah) tells of his servant Lut, peace be upon him, warned his people of Allah's coming wrath upon them for their disgusting actions that had never been done before by on of the sons of Adam (id est by any human before), and that was the practice by men of sexual relations (with eachother) without women, and this is greatly disgusting, the men were satisfied with men, and the women with women}}

 

Thus it can be assumed that she like the rest of the women of her people was engaged in homosexual behavior with women on a regular basis, thus justifying her destruction. This shows how parts of the story were not conveyed in the Islamic tradition; in the biblical original, Genesis 19:17 and 19:26, Lot's wife is destroyed because she looks back at the city being destroyed in contravention of the Angels' orders.   

Allah destroys Lut's people, which is seen as justified in the Islamic tradition, as homosexuality is viewed in this tradition as a sin deserving of death. This is further used to justify the penalty of death for homosexuals in [[Islamic Law]]

The detail of Lut offering up his two daughters to the crowd of rapists ({{Quran-range|15|67|71}} and {{Quran-range|11|77|79}}) is a detail from the original story (the Bible, Genesis 19:8) which has survived the Islamification of the text and story. In the original story, the angels sent by YHVH to Lot's houses are Lot's guests, and Lot as a good Middle Eastern host is required to offer them good hospitality and protection, while the wicked men of Sodom and Gomorrah accost their house demanding to rape them, which is not a very hospitable thing to do. Although to later readers and listeners the salient point of the story appeared to be the lust of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah to rape other men, in fact a close reading of the original text of Genesis appears to cast their prime sin as inhospitality to guests and foreigners: Lot offers his daughters because he is a righteous man who takes care of foreign visitors as a good guest should, even at the cost of his own daughters' precious virginity. His willingness to sacrifice his daughters to the rapist mob is proof of his good hospitality, while the mob's insistence on raping these guests while they had perfectly good virgin daughters available for rape points to their wickedness and total lack of any morals whatsoever. In the Qur'anic version, though, by which time the homosexuality of the people of Lut has evolved into their prime sin, this gesture makes little sense since purely homosexual rapists would theoretically have no interest in his daughters (and the offering up of the daughters to be raped likely appeared as strange to the first generations of Muslims as it does to modern readers). It survival shows its salience in the original story, even if devoid of context here.

 

 

 

[[Category:Islam and Homosexuality]]