Navigating Differences: Clarifying Sexual and Gender Ethics in Islam

Last week, a group of Muslim scholars released a statement outlining a reasoned and reasonable response to the growing challenge the LGBTQIAP+ movement presents to the Muslim community. The statement is timely owing to growing confusion in the community resulting from the rapid spread of queer ideology, the Democratic Party’s embrace of the LGBTQIAP+ agenda, the eradication of parental control over some of the most important and defining decisions in their children’s lives, the postmodernist domination of higher education and its concomitant systematic “disruption” of traditional mores, values, and institutions, and the war on Abrahamic religions. These developments have led some Muslims to eagerly support a dangerous agenda that threatens human society as we have known it.

As a result, we find many of our young folks demanding that their traditional Muslim families accept their same-sex boyfriends, girlfriends, or spouses. Muslim children, not old enough to know what sex is, are increasingly being introduced to the idea of sex changes, or “gender-affirming surgery” by authority figures functioning as their teachers or “guidance” counselors. In some states, Muslim children in elementary schools are exposed to pornographic cartoons depicting explicit homosexual actions or coerced, without their parents’ knowledge or consent, to state whether they want to be a boy or a girl on a particular day. The ensuing state of confusion is exacerbated by the appearance of homosexual masjids, gay Imams, and woke Muslims whose intersectional consciousness leads them to an allyship that apparently creates more sympathy for the right of drag queens to sit with kindergarteners for story hour, biological men identifying as women to compete against actual women in high school and college athletics, or to use female restrooms and other formerly all-female public facilities, than for Muslims on the receiving end of an attempt to radically redefine what it means to be a man or a woman.

It was only a question of time before representatives of the mainstream, majoritarian Muslim community responded. The statement they have crafted, linked to below, should be widely supported, and disseminated. Why? Not because it necessarily says anything new, but because it reaffirms, in the context of gender and sexuality, what Islam demands of us in terms of our commitment to the Lord of the Worlds. It also suggests how we should approach those members of our community struggling to overcome various sexual and gender-related challenges. We pray that the statement will be followed by further efforts, be they conferences, symposia, workshops, or other measures to educate, uplift and inspire our community towards the preservation and advancement of traditional Muslim family values.

There are those who will argue that homosexuality has always existed in the Muslim community just as it has been present in most human societies. While that is true, Muslims have never been confronted with a state sponsored effort to normalize sinful actions such as sodomy. Muslim children have never been exposed to mind-altering, soul-snatching pornographic material in their schools. Muslim parents have never been criminalized for attempting to be the final arbiters of their children’s sexual education. Muslims have never confronted divisive, invasive, and in some instances job-threatening demands such as “stating our preferred pronouns.” To expect enduring silence in the face of this situation is unrealistic.

Is a statement from representatives of the clerical community enough to alter the disturbing trends mentioned above? Certainly not. I do feel it is step in the right direction that will hopefully help to start a difficult yet long overdue conversation between believers of goodwill, regardless of where they stand on this very difficult and contentious issue. Finally, I emphasize that the views expressed above are solely mine and may not reflect those of the drafters or signatories of the following statement. May Allah help us all.

Clerical Community Statement: https://navigatingdifferences.com/clarifying-sexual-and-gender-ethics-in-islam/