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wa-lūṭan ʾidh qāla li-qawmihī ʾinnakum la-taʾtūna l-fāḥishata mā sabaqakum bihā min ʾaḥadin mina l-ʿālamīna
And Lot, when he said to his people, ‘You indeed commit an indecency none in the world has ever committed before you!
— Ali Quli Qarai
Surah Al-‘Ankabut - Verses 28-30
28. “And (remember) Lot when he said to his people: ‘Verily you commit a lewdness which none of the people of the worlds has ever done before you’.”
29. “Do you approach males and cut the way (of natural matrimony), and you commit dishonour in your assemblies? But his people gave no answer except that they said: ‘Bring us the chastisement of Allah if you are of the truthful (ones)’.
30. “He (Lot) said: ‘My Lord! Help me against the mischievous people!’”
The religious leaders should note the corruptions, evils, and public dangers of the society and try to remove them. After stating a part of life story of Abraham, in this verse the Qur’an refers to a part of life story of his contemporary prophet, Lot (as), when it says:
The Arabic word /fahišah/ (lewdness), as was mentioned before, is derived from /fuhš/ which originally means: any word or saying which is very ugly, sharp and biting, and here it ironically means ‘sodomy’. It is clearly understood from the Qur’anic sentence, saying:
that this ugly and shameful action, at least in the public and general form, had not been done among no nation and group. Around the qualities of the people of Lot (as) it has been recorded that one of the main factors of their pollution in this action was that they were some miser people. Their cities were on the way of caravans of Syria and, by this action unto some of their guests and travelers, they caused them to become hateful to them, but the desire of sodomy strengthened among them and they were accustomed to it.
However, they carry both the burden of their own sin and the burden of the sin of those who will follow their action in the future (without that their sin may be decreased anything), because they were the founders of this ugly and evil deed; and we know that whoever creates a tradition he will share the acts of those who commit it. Through the next verse, the Qur’an implies that Lot, this great prophet, stated his purpose more clearly, when he said:
The Arabic word /nadi/ is derived from /nada’/ in the sense of ‘public meeting’, and sometimes it is used with the sense of ‘a pleasure center’ and ‘to call’ since the people there usually call each other. The Holy Qur’an has not explained here that what kind of lewdnesses they used to commit in their meetings, but without saying it is evident that they were some deeds consistent to their own ugly action, and as some records written in history books indicate that they used to exchange some abuses and ugly biting words between them.
They used to beat at the backs of each other with their palms; they gambled; they had some childish plays, in particular that they threw pebbles to each other and to the wayfarers; they played kinds of musical instruments; and even at the presence of public they committed indecent exposure and sometimes they showed their pudenda. A tradition from ’Umm-i-Hani from the Prophet (S) indicates that in answer to the question about
he (S) said:
“They used to throw pebbles toward whoever passed by and mocked them.” 16
Now we are going to see what the answer of this astray and shameful people was to the logical words of Hadrat Lot (as). The Qur’an says:
Yes, those sensual persons, who had not enough intellect and comprehension, said this saying with mockery in answer to the logical invitation of Lot. It is understood from this answer of theirs that, besides his reasonable words, Lot also threatened them by the painful chastisement of Allah if they continued their own way. But they left all and took only this one mockingly. Something similar to this meaning has also been mentioned in Surah Qamar, No. 54, verse 36.
It says:
This statement of the astray people shows that they wanted to take result from the lack of descent of chastisement and say that Lot was a liar, while it is from the mercy of Allah that He gives respite to the most polluted people in order to study, review, and return to the truth. The next verse implies that it was here that Lot could do nothing and turned to Allah and, with a heart full of sorrow and grief, asked Him as follows:
A people who have made mischief on the earth, have ignored morals and piety, have set aside chastity and modesty, have trodden the social justice, have often mixed paganism and idolatry with immorality, injustice, and cruelty, and have threatened the generation of man to extinction and destruction. So he asked Allah to make him victorious against these astray mischief-mongers. At the end, sodomy, whether among men (lawat) or among women, (lesbianism), is of the worst ethical deviations which can he the origin of many corruptions in the society.
In principle, the nature of woman and man has been created in such a way that they find their tranquility and sound satiation in being attached to opposite sex (by the way of sound marriage); and, otherwise, any kind of sexual inclination is deviation from the safe nature of man, and it is a kind of psychic disease that, in case of continuation, it intensifies a day after another, and its result is dislike to the ‘opposite sex’ by unsafe satiation with homosexuality.
These kinds of unlawful relations have some destructive effects on the limbs of man’s body and even they are effective in the nervous system and spirit. They change man from being a complete man and woman from being a complete woman in a way that such women and men who are accustomed to homosexuality will be entangled with an intensive sexual weakness and they will not be able to be a good parents for their future children, and sometimes they lose utterly the ability of producing offspring.
Those who practise homosexuality may gradually tend to reclusion and also alienation from society and then alienation from themselves, and also involve the psychotic complicated contradiction, and if they do not improve themselves they may be afflicted with various psychotic sexual sicknesses. For this reason and for other ethical and social reasons, Islam has intensively banned the practice of homosexuality in any form and manner, and has appointed a serious punishment that sometimes it is nigh to execution.
The important matter here is that libertinism and seeking miscellaneousness of the material civilized world draw the boys and girls toward this great ugly deviation. At first, it encourages boys to wearing frivolous woman clothing with special ornamentation, and invites girls to wear boy clothing, and from this point deviation and the practice of homosexuality begins so far that the most shameful shapes of deeds in this field are legally approved, in some countries, and are free from any punishment so impudently that pen shames to explain them.17
Some Traditions Upon Sodomy and its Punishment
1- The Messenger of Allah (S) said:
“The thing I fear for my Ummah most of all is the act of the people of Lot (Sodomy).” 18
2- The Prophet (S) said:
“If you find someone who does the act of the people of Lot, do know that its punishment in Islam is execution.” 19
3- Imam Rida (as) said:
“The reason of banning men for men and women for women is the structure of women and the nature of men (that each of them has been created for the opposite sex), and that going men to men and women to women causes the cut of generation (of mankind) and also disturbance of the order of management (in the society) and wasting the world.” 20
4- In answer to the reason of banning of sodomy, Imam Sadiq (as) said:
“If the act of sodomy were lawful, the men would be needless of women, and the generation (of mankind) might be cut, women remained without husband, and there would exist many corruptions in the authorization of sodomy.
And Allah created women for men so that they associate with them and gain tranquility by them, and women are the site of men’s lust and mothers of their children.” 21
Footnotes