Strange bedfellows: Qurʾan interpretation regarding same-sex female intercourse

ABSTRACT

Some twentieth-century interpreters assert that the Qurʾan forbids same-sex female intercourse. Neo-traditional Shiʿi and Sunni interpreters converge on this point, even as they diverge from their respective traditions in tafsir, innovate in interpretive strategies, and ignore Arabic grammar. Their assertions raise questions about the nature of the Qurʾan, methods of interpreting it, and its status as scripture in contradistinction to hadith and opinion of early authorities. This article compares neo-traditional interpretation of Qurʾan 4:15–16 by Ayatollah Khui and Rashid Rida with a range of tafsir texts to reveal the contradictions between answers offered by a variety of scholars, modern and medieval, female and male, Shiʿi and Sunni.

KEYWORDS:

• Lesbian
• homosexuality
• Qurʾan
• punishment
• interpretation (tafsir)
• Ayatollah Khui (1899–1992)
• Rashid Rida (1865–1935)
• Abu Muslim al-Isfahani (died 934)
• Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (died 1209)
• Abrogation (naskh)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Note on contributor

Scott Siraj al-Haqq Kugle is Associate Professor of South Asian and Islamic Studies at the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, Emory University, USA. His fields of expertise include Sufism, Islamic society in South Asia, and issues of gender and sexuality. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including Sufis and Saints’ Bodies: Mysticism, Corporeality and Sacred Power in Islamic Culture (2007), Homosexuality in Islam: Critical Reflection on Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Muslims (2010), and Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims (2014).

Notes

1 Kugle and Hunt, “Masculinity, Homosexuality and the Defense of Islam,” 254–79.

2 Seedat, “Beyond the Text: Between Islam and Feminism,” 138–42.

3 Shaikh, “A Tafsir of Praxis,” 70.

4 Kugle, Living Out Islam, 44–52, 56–78 and 171–85; see also Siraj, “The Influence of Religion on the Lives of Muslim Lesbians” and Siraj, “British Muslim Lesbians.”

5 Bauer, Gender Hierarchy in the Qurʾan.

6 Rowson, “Homosexuality,” vol. 2: 445.

7 Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam, 81.

8 Habib, Female Homosexuality in the Middle East, 60–1.

9 Jahangir and Abdullatif, Islamic Law and Muslim Same-Sex Unions, 48–52.

10 Kazemzadeh, Islamic Fundamentalism, Feminism and Gender Inequality, 31; Ghareeb, Historical Dictionary of Iraq, 136.

11 On naskh or abrogation, see Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law.

12 Khui, Prolegomena to the Qurʾan, 207.

13 Ibid.

14 Ibid., 209–19.

15 Ali, Sexual Ethics and Islam, 80.

16 Rida, Tafsir al-Manar, vol. 4: 438–9.

17 Ibid., 439.

18 Mujahid, Tafsir Imam Mujahid ibn Jabr, 269.

19 Kugle, Homosexuality in Islam, 134–9.

20 Rida, Tafsir al-Manar, vol. 4: 440.

21 Jaffer, Razi: Master of Qurʾanic Interpretation.

22 al-Razi, al-Tafsir al-Kabir, vol. 9: 230–1.

23 Ibid., 231.

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 al-Huvaizi, Tafsir Nur al-Thaqalayn, vol. 1: 345.

28 Fudge, Qurʾanic Hermeneutics; Pierce, Twelve Infallible Men, 34–6; and Abdul, “The Unnoticed Mufassir Shaykh Tabarsi” and “The Majmaʿ al-Bayan of Tabarsi,” 95–105 and 106–20.

29 Zamakhshari, al-Kashshaf ʿan Haqa’iq Ghawamid al-Tanzil.

30 Massad, Islam in Liberalism, 213–74.