الحمد لله رب العالمين، وصلى الله وسلم وبارك على نبينا محمد وعلى آله وصحبه أجمعين
وبعد السلام عليكم و رحمة الله
In recent years, I found myself having been required to clarify a specific aspect of the declaration of takfir (excommunication of Islam) over the issue of homosexuality on a number of occasions. I felt it more pertinent and feesible to collate this matter into a simple and retrievable article rather than having to type up an almost article each time I find myself having to discuss the topic, which usually ends up being a long drawn out bickering of which I have no time for.
Believe it or not, I swear by the Lord of the Worlds, a range of many Muslims, including alleged "salafis" somehow have invented a bid'a theory that homosexuality itself (whether its affection for the same gender, or liwat [the act of penetration]) is a nullifier of Islam. I have literally argued with Muslims who have argued that one cannot be Muslim and gay at the same time.
First, lets directly address two fundamental matters and their clear Islamic ruling, as this may serve to help clear some ambiguity
1. Does homosexuality negate a person's Islam? If a Muslim were to become homosexual, do they leave Islam and become a kaafir on account of this alone?
The answer, the hukm of Islam, is an EMPHATIC NO.
2. Is viewing homosexuality as something that Islam and the shariah have no problems with true or false? Is viewing homosexuality as acceptable in Islam valid or not?
The answer is an EMPHATIC FALSE and INVALID. Whoever views that homosexuality is legal and acceptable in Islam is an absolute apostate guilty of kufr of istihlaal.
Now lets break this down!!
Some Muslims have the idea that to merely be a homosexual entails that you have lost your Islam. This is false from a plethroa of angles
Firstly, in the chapters of kufr and apostasy in the books of fiqh from any madhab, there is nothing outlining that homosexuality itself is a nullifier of Islam.
Secondly, lets take this notion further and include, for arguments sake, the Najdi conceptions to those matters that nullify Islam. If one completely were to absorb the Najdi inderstanding of eman and kufr, even shaykh Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhab never outlined in his book "Nawaqidul-Islam" (Nullifiers of Islam) the issue of homosexuality as a nullifier. I must report here that homosexuality existed in his time and for centuries before and it was not as uncommon as one would think in arab society.
Thirdly. The classical view from the salaf and the medieval view are all united upon the concept that homosexuality, like any other sin, is from the kabaa'ir, the major sins but which does not make someone a kaafir (disbeliever).
There is not a single shred of evidence, no scholarly ruling in existence that has suggested, from what I have seen, that homosexual acts or the desire, alluded to apostasy in all of Islamic history.
There is no proof likewise in the sources of law of the Qur'an or Sunnah. The ignorants will always quote Allah's ayat defaming the horrendous act of evil of homosexuality as a proof and justification for their kufr.
The problem is that the same texts has nothing to do with homosexuality as a sin. What the people of Lut were guilty of, is performing these acts WHILE DENYING AND REJECTING the Prophet of Allah sent to them to warn them of their error. They disbelieved in his message. One could even argue and agree that this punishment Allah gave these criminals was PERFECT JUSTCE and befitting for the crimes they were guilty of i.e. Homosexual indencency.
However there is nothing in the sunnah that suggests that homosexual acts, constitute outright kufr that negates Islam. It mentions hudood punishments. In other words, in Islam, homosexuality is a crime punishable through the Islamic penal code similar to adultry, fornication, or robbery. But it does not mean the commital of these crimes is tantamont to apostasy or kufr in the technical sense.
Likewise, as usual with all dialectics, there are always two polarizing extremes that tend to be successful in pushing their narrative to the point of making the minority, the people of balanced approaches, towards the enemies side.
And the opposite extreme of this matter are the liberal (murji) faction of Muslims who tend to view homosexuality as perfectly legal and fine in Islam. They say "its fine to be gay" which is equally errant, if not more so than the first extreme view. For this view actually is a view of kufr, for it plays with the platform of istihlaal, to declare what Allah made haram as legal and to declare what Allah made acceptable and legal as "immoral" and prohibited.
They usually form their arguments as if by merely believing in the morality Allah outlined on the topic, that being that
1. this act is a reprehensible sin
2. that is an insideous corruption towards society
3. Punishable by the methods prescribed by His Prophet or his rightly guided companions (let us omit this third piece for muslims living in the west sonce this can only be done under Islamic rulership anyway, and its something that the sunnah generally tries hard to acert punishments, no matter what the sin was)
That somehow viewing your thought in sync with Allah's viewpoint on it is somehow being judgmental, homophobic, and against "free humanity" (freedoms), and human rights.
This sloganeering is just as absurd and ridiculous as other extremist factions and their attempts to demonize Muslims. I don't even feel the need to directly respond to these claims outside of the basic point that these claims are patently false and not from the basis for which conservatively inclined Muslims generate their views from.
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