Islam

Islam and homosexuality: All viewpoints

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Speaking generally, religious beliefs within the world's major faith groups are based on four main foundations: revelation in the form of a holy text; religious tradition; logic & reason; and personal experience.

More liberal movements within these religions often tend to stress logic, reason, and personal experience. This includes scientific findings. It is only since about 1950 that homosexuality has been seriously studied by human sexuality researchers. Liberal individuals and groups within Christianity, Islam and other religions have been quick to incorporate scientific findings within their ethical and religious beliefs. They generally regard homosexuality as a sexual orientation which is ethically neutral, fixed, unchosen, and is normal and natural for a minority of adults.

More conservative movements tend to stress revelation and tradition. Their beliefs are anchored to the past, particularly the pre-scientific tribal culture as described in the Hebrew Scriptures (a.k.a. Old Testament). Their beliefs are much less amenable to rapid change. They generally regard homosexuality as a deviate and disordered behavior, which is immoral, changeable, chosen, abnormal and unnatural.

A person's beliefs about homosexuality tend to be determined less by their specific religion, and more by where their faith lies on the liberal-conservative divide. For this reason, conservative Christians and Muslims tend to have similar beliefs about the nature and origin(s) of homosexuality, as well as God's attitude towards homosexuals.

According to the International Lesbian and Gay Association ILGA there are at least seven countries today which still retain capital punishment for homosexual behavior. All are predominately Muslim countries. They are: Afghanistan, Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen. The situation with regard to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is unclear. The government of Uganda -- a predominately Christian country -- was considering a genocidal bill that would make certain types of same-sex sexual behavior capital offenses. However, they may have shelved the bill as of 2011-MAR.

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Topics covered in this section:

Introduction:

	References to homosexuality in the Qur'an and Hadith; Differences between the Qur'an and the Bible;
	Punishment for homosexuality in some Muslim countries. Book resources