Global InformationLGBT people and Islam information
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Within the Muslim world, sentiment towards LGBT people varies and has varied between societies and individual Muslims, but is contemporarily quite negative.[1][2][3][4] While colloquial, and in many cases, de facto official acceptance of at least some homosexual behavior was commonplace in pre-modern periods, later developments, starting from the 19th-century, have created a generally hostile environment for LGBT people. Most Muslim-majority countries have opposed moves to advance LGBT rights and recognition at the United Nations (UN), including within the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council.[1]
Meanwhile, contemporary Islamic jurisprudence generally accepts the possibility for transgender people (mukhannith/mutarajjilah) to change their gender status, but only after surgery, linking one's gender to biological markers.[5] Trans people are nonetheless confronted with stigma, discrimination, intimidation, and harassment in many Muslim majority societies.[6] Transgender identities are often considered under the gender-binary,[6] although some pre-modern scholars had recognized effeminate men as a form of third gender, as long as their behaviour was naturally in contrast to their assigned gender at birth.[5]
There are differences between how the Qur'an and later hadith traditions (orally transmitted collections of Muhammad's teachings) treat homosexuality, with many Western scholars arguing that the latter is far more explicitly negative. Using these differences, these scholars have argued that Muhammad, the main Islamic prophet, never forbade homosexual relationships outright, although he disapproved of them in line with his contemporaries.[7] There is, however, comparatively little evidence of homosexual practices being prevalent in Muslim societies for the first century and a half of Islamic history;[8] male homosexual relationships were known of and discriminated against in Arabia, but were generally not met with legal sanctions.[9][7] In later pre-modern periods, historical evidence of homosexual relationships are more common; and show de facto tolerance of these relationships.[2][7][9][8][10] Historical records suggest that laws against homosexuality were invoked infrequently — mainly in cases of rape or other "exceptionally blatant infringement on public morals" as defined by Islamic law.[8] This allowed themes of homoeroticism and pederasty to be cultivated in Islamic poetry and other Islamic literary genres, written in major languages of the Muslim world, from the 8th century CE into the modern era.[7][8][11][10] The conceptions of homosexuality found in these texts resembled the traditions of ancient Greece and ancient Rome as opposed to the modern understanding of sexual orientation.[7][8][12]
In the modern era, Muslim public attitudes towards homosexuality underwent a marked change beginning in the 19th century, largely due to the global spread of Islamic fundamentalist movements, namely Salafism and Wahhabism.[13] The Muslim world was also influenced by the sexual notions and restrictive norms that were prevalent in the Christian world at the time, particularly with regard to anti-homosexual legislation throughout European societies, most of which adhered to Christian law. A number of Muslim-majority countries that were once colonies of European empires retain the criminal penalties that were originally implemented by European colonial authorities against those who were convicted of engaging in non-heterosexual acts.[13] Therefore, modern Muslim homophobia is generally not thought to be a direct continuation of pre-modern mores, but a phenomenon that has been shaped by a variety of local and imported frameworks.[3][13] As Western culture eventually moved towards secularism and thus enabled a platform for the flourishing of many LGBT movements, many Muslim fundamentalists came to associate the Western world with "ravaging moral decay" and rampant homosexuality.[14] In contemporary society, prejudice, anti-LGBT discrimination and/or anti-LGBT violence — including within legal systems — persist in much of the Muslim world,[1] exacerbated by socially conservative attitudes and the recent[when?] rise of Islamist ideologies in some countries;[13][15][16] there are laws in place against homosexual activities in a larger number of Muslim-majority countries, with a number of them prescribing the death penalty for convicted offenders.[17]
- ^ a b c Rehman, Javaid; Polymenopoulou, Eleni (2013). "Is Green a Part of the Rainbow? Sharia, Homosexuality, and LGBT Rights in the Muslim World" (PDF). Fordham International Law Journal. 37 (1). Fordham University School of Law: 1–53. ISSN 0747-9395. OCLC 52769025. Archived from the original on 21 July 2018. Retrieved 30 October 2021.
- ^ a b Schmidtke, Sabine (June 1999). "Homoeroticism and Homosexuality in Islam: A Review Article". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 62 (2). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London): 260–266. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00016700. eISSN 1474-0699. ISSN 0041-977X. JSTOR 3107489. S2CID 170880292.
- ^ a b Murray, Stephen O. (1997). "The Will Not to Know: Islamic Accommodations of Male Homosexuality". In Murray, Stephen O.; Roscoe, Will (eds.). Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature. New York and London: NYU Press. pp. 14–54. doi:10.18574/nyu/9780814761083.003.0004. ISBN 9780814774687. JSTOR j.ctt9qfmm4. OCLC 35526232. S2CID 141668547. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2021-11-06.
- ^ Polymenopoulou, Eleni (18 May 2020). "Forum: LGBTQ+ Issues in International Relations, Human Rights & Development – Same-Sex Narratives and LGBTI Activism in the Muslim World". Georgetown Journal of International Affairs. Washington, D.C.: Walsh School of Foreign Service at the Georgetown University. ISSN 1526-0054. Archived from the original on 20 October 2020. Retrieved 7 December 2021.
- ^ a b Yusuf, Nasruddin, et al. "Islamic Legal Status on Hajj for Transgender People according to Muslim Scholars in North Sulawesi." Mazahib 21.1 (2022): 29-62.
- ^ a b Zaharin AAM, Pallotta-Chiarolli M. Countering Islamic conservatism on being transgender: Clarifying Tantawi's and Khomeini's fatwas from the progressive Muslim standpoint. Int J Transgend Health. 2020 Jun 16;21(3):235-241. doi: 10.1080/26895269.2020.1778238. PMID 34993508; PMCID: PMC8726683.
- ^ a b c d e Murray, Stephen O.; Roscoe, Will; Allyn, Eric; Crompton, Louis; Dickemann, Mildred; Khan, Badruddin; Mujtaba, Hasan; Naqvi, Nauman; Wafer, Jim; Westphal-Hellbusch, Sigrid (1997). "Conclusion". In Murray, Stephen O.; Roscoe, Will (eds.). Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature. New York and London: NYU Press. pp. 307–310. doi:10.18574/nyu/9780814761083.003.0004. ISBN 9780814774687. JSTOR j.ctt9qfmm4. OCLC 35526232. S2CID 141668547. Archived from the original on 2023-04-19. Retrieved 2021-04-20.
- ^ a b c d e Cite error: The named reference
iranica-lawwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
autogenerated1983was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
ia601301.us.archive.orgwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Khaled El-Rouayheb. Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World 1500–1800. pp. 12 ff.
- ^ Ali, Kecia (2016). Sexual Ethics And Islam. Oneworld Publications (Kindle edition). p. 105.
- ^ a b c d Ibrahim, Nur Amali (October 2016). "Homophobic Muslims: Emerging Trends in Multireligious Singapore". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 58 (4). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press: 955–981. doi:10.1017/S0010417516000499. ISSN 1475-2999. JSTOR 26293235. S2CID 152039212.
- ^ "How homosexuality became a crime in the Middle East". The Economist. ISSN 0013-0613. Archived from the original on 2019-07-03. Retrieved 2022-12-05.
- ^ Siraj, Asifa (September 2012). ""I Don't Want to Taint the Name of Islam": The Influence of Religion on the Lives of Muslim Lesbians". Journal of Lesbian Studies. 16 (4: Lesbians, Sexuality, and Islam). Taylor & Francis: 449–467. doi:10.1080/10894160.2012.681268. PMID 22978285. S2CID 22066812.
- ^ Zaharin, Aisya Aymanee M.; Pallotta-Chiarolli, Maria (June 2020). "Countering Islamic conservatism on being transgender: Clarifying Tantawi's and Khomeini's fatwas from the progressive Muslim standpoint". International Journal of Transgender Health. 21 (3). Taylor & Francis: 235–241. doi:10.1080/26895269.2020.1778238. ISSN 1553-2739. LCCN 2004213389. OCLC 56795128. PMC 8726683. PMID 34993508. S2CID 225679841.
- ^ Ghoshal, Neela, ed. (26 January 2022). ""Even If You Go to the Skies, We'll Find You": LGBT People in Afghanistan After the Taliban Takeover". www.hrw.org. New York: Human Rights Watch. Archived from the original on 7 February 2023. Retrieved 21 February 2023.