Islam, homophobia and education: a reply to Michael Merry

Abstract

Focusing on the disagreements between Muslims and homosexuals over sexuality education, this article highlights the need in liberal societies for respectful dialogue between groups that hold diametrically opposed beliefs and values. The article argues that it should be possible for Muslims to set out a religious perspective that is critical of homosexual behaviour without being accused of homophobia, just as it is possible for homosexuals to criticise Islamic teaching about sexual behaviour without being accused of Islamophobia. It further argues that any attempt to force Muslims to accept Western attitudes towards sexuality might run the risk of becoming a new form of cultural domination. Genuine respect (which is a major goal of moral education) requires a willingness to listen to others and to accept people for what they are.

Notes

In this reply, as in previous articles, I am restricting my attention almost exclusively to male homosexuality.

The term ‘Muslim perspective’ should not be taken here to imply either that all Muslims share this view, or that no non‐Muslims do.

See, for example, Cohen (2004).

Indeed, my original purpose was to render Western homosexual views more comprehensible to orthodox Muslim believers as well as to interpret Muslim beliefs for Western homosexuals. The article was first offered to an Islamic publisher, but was turned down as too liberal. This illustrates that difficulties may be encountered on both sides when one tries to encourage dialogue between Muslims and homosexuals.

Of course it would be naïve to claim complete objectivity because one's own prejudices may be reflected subconsciously in a whole range of decisions that have to be made in the course of interpretation.

I have warned elsewhere of the dangers in reading too much into this. Similarly, there are many references to intoxication in Sufi poetry, but this does not imply moral or religious approval of the consumption of alcohol.

For example, in an article entitled ‘Sexuality, diversity and ethics in the agenda of progressive Muslims’, Kugle calls for a more ‘sexuality‐sensitive interpretation’ of the Qur'an (Kugle, 2003, p. 203).

See the range of articles reprinted in Ibn Warraq (2002), although since this author also wrote a volume entitled Why I am not a Muslim, this may not be a very good example.

In the Muslim world, homosexuals tend to be defined by their behaviour either as ‘men’ (the penetrator) or ‘non‐men’ (the penetrated), whereas in the West it is the matter of ‘orientation’ that is important and actual sexual behaviour is a private matter. The ‘men’ (whose behaviour is sinful but not unnatural) may themselves be sexually aggressive, but the ‘non‐men’ (shudhudh in Arabic, meaning unnatural or queer) may sometimes be victims rather than voluntary participants in sinful behaviour. The fact that there are more ‘men’ than ‘non‐men’ leaves boys and other weak and vulnerable persons (including Western gays with a different view of homosexuality) open to abuse. Women (biological women) are protected in Islam by all kinds of regulations and social customs, but ‘non‐men’ have no such protection—they only have the prohibition of homosexual acts to protect them.

Sometimes liberal tolerance exists more in rhetoric than in reality. For example, one may compare the willingness of British Muslims to sit down in dialogue with members of the Unification Church at a recent conference organised by the Islamic Academy, Cambridge, with the unwillingness of the ‘liberal’ British Home Secretary to allow an entry visa to the Rev Sun Moon.