Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (42 page)

Al-Kisa’i interprets the Qur’anic verses about Lut by telling Lut’s story. He arranges all the verses about Lut in a narrative sequence, buttressed by what the Islamic tradition had preserved of historical and sociological knowledge about “the Cities of the Plain” and the society that thrived there. Let’s listen to his interpretation as an example of a thematic analysis of the Qur’an.

There were five cities known as the “Cities of the Plain” and the chief among them was named Sodom. The cities were each surrounded by high walls of iron and lead. In each lived thousands of inhabitants. The king of the realm was called “Sodom son of Khariq” and was from the family of Nimrod. The people of this realm were more skilled than any in the whole world in cheating in accounts and shooting at thrown clay targets. They were well-known for sins like clapping their hands, playing sports with pigeons, lining up fighting birds, playing with tooth-picks, chewing gum, setting up dog-fights and cock-fights and worshiping graven idols. Their king established special temples for the idols which were intricately sculpted and set up. Special seats for the idols were bedecked and decorated.

The people of these cities took to building gardens within the walls of their houses to avoid the public. In this privacy, they would retire to partake of beautiful and pleasant pass-times. Then a famine came and they fell into poverty. Iblis the accursed took this opportunity to come to

them, saying, “This famine has befallen you all because you prevented other people from entering your homes but did not prevent them from entering your orchards which are outside your homes!” They had gardens inside their homes that were hidden from the public, and gardens and orchards outside their homes which they left open for the rest of the people who might be travelling through and need to stop at night to take rest and provision.

So the people asked the Tempter [Iblis], “How can we guard against strangers and travelers entering these public orchards?” Iblis replied, “Make it your custom that if any strangers come and enter the orchards of your land you will fuck them from behind and steal all their belongings! If you do that, nobody will dare stop there in their travels to spend the night!”

On hearing this, the people went outside the city walls, searching for people whom they could debauch [
yafjuruna bihi
]. Iblis then appeared to them in a different form: the form of a young man, handsome and richly- dressed. The people overtook him, stole all his belongings, and fucked him. The people all decided this was a good thing. It became a habitual custom for them with any stranger who wandered onto their lands. Corruption spread among them.

Then Allah revealed to Ibrahim that his cousin, named Lut, has been chosen as a warner and a messenger to those corrupt and degenerate people.
47

At this point, the apostlehood of Lut begins in earnest. Into this narrative re- construction, al-Kisa’i embeds the verses from the Qur’an that mention Lut. The Qur’anic words are rendered here in italics, to make clear how he quotes scripture interspersed with commentary.

So Lut set off and traveled until he came to the cities [of the plain]. He stopped just outside the area, not knowing in which city he should begin. Then he entered the city of Sodom since it was the largest city and the residence of the king.

When he reached the market place, he raised his voice and announced, “Oh people, stay conscious of Allah and obey! Restrain yourself from these transgressions [
fawahish
, in the plural] that no other people has practiced like this before you! And quit worshipping idols! For indeed, I am the messenger of Allah sent to you!” It is as Allah said in the Qur’an
, And [remind them of] Lut, when he said to his people: Do you come to the transgression that nobody in the universe has before you?
And Allah also said,
Do you come to the men in your lust disregarding the women? Indeed you are a heedless and headstrong people!
(Al-A‘raf 80–1 and al-Naml 27:55).

His people simply answered him by retorting,
Let us expel Lut and his family from this city of ours, for they are people who pretend to be purer
! (Al-Naml 27:56). They meant purer than them by abstaining from these transgressions [
fawahish
]. These are the things Allah indicated in the verse:
Indeed you come upon men and rob wayfarers and practice reprehensible things in your gatherings
(Surat Al-‘Ankabut 29:29) meaning short-changing and cheating people, clapping their hands [
tasfiq
], playing sports with pigeons, wearing clothes dyed scarlet [luxurious clothes].
Then the people answered Lut immediately, saying
“Bring on the punishment from Allah if you are a sincere speaker of truth!” (Surat Al-‘Ankabut 29:29).

News of this confrontation reached their king, who demanded that Lut be brought before him. Lut came into his presence and the king asked, “Who are you? Who sent you here? And why?” Lut answered “Surely it is Allah the Exalted who sent me to you as a messenger that you might put an end to these transgressions [
fawahish
] and return to obedience to Allah.”

Hearing this, the King’s heart was struck with fear. He said to Lut, “I am one with my people – as they answer you so I answer you.” So Lut left the king and went out to the people. He beseeched them to return to obedience to Allah and forbade them from continuing their rebellious ways, warning them about the punishment of Allah and preaching to them about the destruction of former nations who were oppressive.
48
The people rushed upon him from every side,
shouting If you don’t desist, Lut, you will surely be driven out!
(Surat al-Shu‘ara 26:167) meaning driven out of their land. So Lut rebuffed them,
saying I am surely of those who stands above what you practice!
(Surat al-Shu‘ara 26:168) meaning that he was one of those who find what they do reprehensible. [Lut prayed]
My Lord, save me and my family from what they are doing.
(Surat al-Shu‘ara 26:169).

In al-Kisa’i’s interpretation of the story, Lut is helpless. He lives among the people of the cities for twenty years, during which time his first wife dies (who had come with him from outside). He marries a new wife from among the people of Sodom. Now partly integrated into their society,

He persisted in preaching to them, but they heaped insults on him and beat him while continuing their ugly behavior. This continued until he had lived among them forty years. They continued to ignore him and refused to follow him and never desisted from their custom. This continued until the earth beneath them rose in tumult because of their awful deeds. So Allah revealed these words to the earth: “I am most restrained and patient and I never rush against those who rebel against

me, until their appointed time comes about” (echoing the phrasing of Surat al-Dhariyat 51:30). Yet still the people persisted in deeming this messenger of Allah as trivial and not heeding his call to return to obedience to Allah.
49

The solution to this troublesome situation comes from outside the Cities of the Plain. Lut had an integral connection to the Prophet Ibrahim (Abraham). Lut was related by family ties to Ibrahim, and their prophetic missions were similar in opposing idol worship and espousing an ethic of care for vulnerable, weak, and marginalized people of their societies. As if to assert this integral connection between the two Prophets, the four angels who are sent to destroy the Cities of the Plain first stop at the camp of Ibrahim, in the form of human beings. Ibrahim welcomes them as his guests, “For it was his custom not to eat except with guests with whom to share his food, and he had not had any guests for three days in a row.”
50
He greets them by saying
,
“Peace be upon you, strangers from an unknown people” (Surat al-Dhariyat 51:24). He invites them to stay with him and eat of his food. He grows suspicious and frightened when the guests do not eat, fearing that the risk he took to help them would be repaid by their intending harm against him (Surat Hud 11:69–70).

This sets up a narrative tension that explains the story in more depth. The hospitality, generosity, and care for the poor, strangers, and travelers that was exhibited by Ibrahim and Lut contrasts vividly with the “practices of the people of Lut” in the Cities of the Plain. They do not host strangers; they chase them away. They do not feed travelers; they rob them. They do not take care of guests and the needy; they rape them sexually by force as an operation of power over them.

Thematic analysis of the Qur’an has the goal of finding the deep structural motifs of the Qur’an and relating individual images or verses to these deeper motifs. In this way, thematic analysis of the Qur’an tries to make clear the most basic and profound ethical principles expounded in the Qur’an. At its deepest and most meaningful level, the Qur’an argues that humane values come from belief in one God while inhumane values come from idolatry. Belief in one God is the basis for generosity, hospitality, and an ethic of care for the needs of others. On the contrary, belief in idols is the basis for pride, hoarding wealth, denying the rights of others and exploiting their weakness in every way possible (through wealth, property, coercion, objectifying others, and using them). Sexual relations are not exempt from this ethical dynamic. They can express care for others or abuse of others, depending on the ethical situation, the moral intention and the social context in which they are practiced. Clearly the sexual acts of the people of Sodom are only one expression of their overall ethical corruption. Their acts are not important as sexual acts (as expressions of sexuality) but rather as expressions of their disregard for the ethical care of others and most specifically their rejection of the prophethood of Lut.

This is the repeated message of the Qur’an, which becomes clearer as al-Kisa’i re-constructs a narrative context for the story. It is the message that comes across clearly even as the angels enter the cities and Lut tries to take responsibility for hosting and protecting them as strangers and wayfarers.

Then the angels left Ibrahim and traveled to the cities where Lut lived. They arrived just before evening. The eldest daughter of Lut, named Rabab, spotted them approaching as she was irrigating the fields. When she saw how beautiful and attractive they were, she approached them and said, “What are you doing coming to these corrupt people? Especially when there is nobody to give you hospitality and protection except that old man over there. He is their Prophet, against whom they are remorselessly cruel in their opposition.”
51

This narrative commentary does not interpret the verses against their literal meaning; it places them in a social and historical context in which their literal pronouncements make sense. This context focuses not on sex acts as expressions of sexuality that might be called “homosexuality” or could be judged as “unnatural.” Rather the context of the narrative focuses on acts of greed, selfishness, and inhospitality, which are taken to the extreme of violence against strangers. The sexual acts of the narrative are acts of violence more than acts of sexual pleasure; they are contiguous with acts of coercion and robbery. Worse, all these incidents of violent inhospitality are concentrated in rejecting the prophethood of Lut and disbelieving in the God whom Lut claims to represent. The narrative is clearly about infidelity through inhospitality and greed, rather than about sex acts in general or sexuality of any variation in particular.

One possible critique of this narrative style of commentary on the Qur’an is that it frames the Qur’anic verses in a “fictional” story. Critics might rush to point out that al-Kisa’i does not cite any reports from the Prophet or the early Companions to authenticate the elements of this story. However, other scholars who wrote narratives of the Prophet Lut in Stories of the Prophets have presented similar narratives in the form of reports from the Prophet and early Companions with an authenticating record of transmission (
isnad
). One example is the book by al-Rawandi, written in the late twelfth century
CCEE
.
52
He quotes a series of
hadith
attributed to the Prophet Muhammad, with full
isnad
, which support elements of the narrative framework presented by al-Kisa’i. For

instance, one
hadith
presents Muhammad asking Jibra’il why and how the people of Lut were destroyed. Jibra’il answers,

The people of Lut were a people who did not clean themselves after excreting, and did not wash after sexual ejaculation. They were stingy and covetous in refusing to share food generously with others. Lut stayed among them for thirty years, living amid them without ever becoming like them, entering into intimate terms with them or establishing a family

among them. Lut called them to follow Allah’s command but they never heeded his call or obeyed him as their Prophet.
53

This
hadith
stresses that the sinful nature of the people of Lut was greed, avarice, covetousness, and a cruel lack of generosity. It supports the basic framework of al-Kisa’i’s narrative interpretation of the Qur’an.

This is even more explicit in another
hadith
quoted by al-Rawandi. The report has Abu Ja’far asking the Prophet Muhammad to describe the consequences of stinginess in refusing to share with others (
bukhl
). The Prophet is reported as reciting the Qur’an – “And those who protect their souls from stinginess, they are the spiritually successful” (Surat al-Hashr 59:9) – and then he answers,

I will tell you about the consequences of miserliness. The people of Lut were inhabitants of a city that refused to share its food with others. This miserliness consequently became a disease that had no cure that infected their sexual organs [
furuj
] . . . Their city was on the main highway between Syria and Egypt, so caravans and travelers used to halt there and stay as their guests. This situation increased until their means were stretched to the limits and they grew dissatisfied. Greed and miserliness bid them follow its call, to the extent that if any strangers stopped to ask for their hospitality, they would rape them [
fadahahu
] without sexual need, in order to dishonor them. They persisted in this behavior until they began to search out men and force themselves on them.
54