Progressive Muslims: On Justice, Gender and Pluralism (45 page)

To see clearly how the jurists’ treatment of this story perverts its deeper message, we can compare Lut’s story with that of Salih. Allah sent Salih to the people of Thamud as their Prophet. Like the people inhabiting the Cities of the Plains, the people of Thamud were wealthy, powerful, and arrogant. While the issue with Lut was giving hospitality and protection to travelers, the issue with Salih was the protection of a consecrated camel. Salih announced to his people that a certain camel was made sacred and should be allowed to wander freely, eat and drink on anyone’s land, and be respected by all. The camel stood symbolically for the weak and vulnerable members of society; if the people could care for the sacred camel, they might have the spiritual insight and ethical strength to care for the needy in the midst of their society and at its margins. Clearly, there are deep thematic parallels between the story of Lut and that of Salih. The people of Thamud rejected Salih as their Prophet and ridiculed his exhortations to live up to an ethic of care and justice. When he urged them to

protect the consecrated camel, the arrogant nobles of their community hamstrung her, tied her up, and slaughtered her. As a consequence, their city with all its inhabitants was destroyed by Allah (with an earthquake and choking clouds from what appears to be a volcanic eruption). Why did they kill the camel? To repudiate their Prophet, lower his dignity in the eyes of their fellows, and reject the belief in the One God which was the foundation of his ethical message.

Nobody would take seriously a commentator who presents the people of Thamud as being obsessed by a hatred of camels or a perverted lust for camel blood that corrupted their innermost dispositions. Nobody would take seriously a jurist who argued that slaughtering another’s camel is a capital crime, based on the example of the people of Thamud who were destroyed after killing a camel. Nobody would argue that anyone who slaughters an animal that does not belong to him should be punished by asphyxiation, in a rough human approximation of how Allah razed the people of Thamud by a volcanic eruption. Anyone suggesting these interpretations would be laughed out of the mosque, and would be gently reminded that he or she had missed the basic point of Salih’s story.

The same is true for those who miss the point of Lut’s story. The Qur’an tells these stories in a series; they are always grouped together. Further, they are told in specific contexts that encouraged Muhammad to have patience and perseverance in the face of rejection, repudiation, and oppression at the hands of the rich and powerful of the pre-Islamic Quraish nobles in Mecca.
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So what can the Muslim community deduce as ethical principles from the story of Lut, once the story is freed from the jurists’ narrow and obsessive attention to anal sex? Lut was exemplary in revealing the challenge of hospitality, generosity, and protection of the vulnerable. He struggled with his community to get them to support the needy, the poor, and those who appeared as strangers. He challenged their arrogance, their inhuman exertion of power over vulnerable people, and their creation of a coercive system out of trade and economic relations. These are certainly challenges that Muslims face in their personal lives and collective societies. We have not lived up to Lut’s basic challenge yet.

As part of this fundamental ethical challenge, it is clear that Lut also confronted his society’s exploitative use of sex. He condemned its use of sexual acts as a form of coercion. This is the prohibitive side of his message. The positive side would enjoin upholding consensual agreement, reciprocity, mutuality, and care in sexual acts and relationships. For Muslims to live up to Lut’s challenge would mean categorically opposing rape, whether it be men raping men or men raping women. Lut’s story clearly shows that rape is only sexual on the most crass level (in that it has to do with sexual organs). It reality, rape is motivated by desire for domination, not by sexual desire or the desire for pleasure. It is a form of coercion, control, and punishment that can have no place in a society that respects the message of the Prophets.

This is important to keep in mind when we confront contemporary fundamentalist movements, like that fostered in Pakistan under General Zia ul-Haqq. The clever General declared himself ruler in a military coup and executed the democratically elected Prime Minister. To court the support of Islamist parties, like the Jama‘at-i Islami, among others, General Zia ul-Haqq justified his military coup by claiming to institute
Shari‘ah law
through the “Hudud Ordinances.” These ordinances allowed legal prosecution and punish- ment for gay and lesbian consensual sex acts, while erasing any punishment for male rapes of women. In Zia ul-Haqq’s Hudud Ordinances there is no term for “rape,” which is simply conflated with adultery, leading to the blatantly unjust situation of a women who is raped not only finding no protection under the law but actually being prosecuted for adultery with a possible punishment of execution.
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Lest the reader consider such blatant hypocrisy to be concentrated in only one nation state, consider recent developments in Egypt. In 2001, police there arrested fifty-two allegedly “gay men” at a nightclub and tried them in Cairo’s State Security Court, not under the national legal code but under emergency executive courts that had been set up to try “fundamentalist terrorism.”
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In order to justify trial in extra-constitutional courts (that were designed to try fundamentalists and terrorists) and to completely avoid discussing the issue of sexuality, sexual diversity, and ethics, the Egyptian government charged the men for “contempt for religion,” “false interpretation of the Qur’an,” and “obscene behavior.” Almost half of the fifty-two men convicted were sentenced to five years of hard labor; some of those incarcerated subsequently reported having been tortured or raped. On the educational and legal levels, many Muslim communities vociferously denounce homosexuals or acts associated with them (regardless of whether these are consensual), while maintaining a silence around men who coerce others (women, men, or children) through sexual acts in homes, schools, or work places. This silence, coupled with homosexual scapegoats, actually protects men who engage in rape and sexual abuse, guarding their

patriarchal privilege to use sex as a weapon to maintain their position of power over others.

What kind of society would denounce consensual sexual activity while protecting violent sexual abuse? Such a society could never be considered to uphold high ideals of justice. Will Muslims allow their societies to be counted among such as this? Will progressive Muslims allow such injustice to be legitimized through simplistic interpretation of scriptural sources? This problem highlights the interconnectedness of social ethics with sexual ethics. Muslims with a keen sense of justice should not let sexual relations be judged by the surface component of the gender of the partners, but should look rather to the content of the relationship. We judge any sexual relationship by examining its ethics and intent, in accord with the Prophet Muhammad’s teaching that “Acts are according to the intentions behind them.”
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We must be honest in acknowledging that patriarchy existed before the Qur’anic revelation, persisted in the early Islamic community, and continued to exist centuries later during the formative period of Islamic law. The Qur’anic revelation and the Prophet Muhammad’s creation of a new community seriously challenged many of the patriarchal practices that were routine in Arab societies. The young community, especially after the death of Muhammad, often did not live up to the initial challenge. It fell back on patriarchal norms in hopes of social stability and in the creation of a new Islamic elite ruling class.
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With the advent of modernity (for all its newly introduced forms of violence and imbalance), perceptions of human nature and social organization change, and the practice of religion changes with it. This is not just a reality; it is an ethical challenge and is also potentially a blessing. Modernity gives us the chance of thinking differently and freeing ourselves from the shackles of patriarchal power.

For most of the history of Islam, Muslims assumed that the Qur’an demanded the political rule of a monarch, whether conceived as a khalifa, sultan, or king. This was true despite plenty of evidence of dissent in the earliest community, since many early followers of the Prophet rejected authoritarian rule.
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Monarchal rule by an all-powerful male is one facet of patriarchy that is deeply woven into Islamic society and religion. This is so even though monarchy is not explicitly sanctioned by the Qur’an. In previous centuries, to be a Muslim who questioned the right of monarchs to rule was largely unthinkable. If one acted upon a critique of monarchs, one would be branded an apostate. Today, most Muslims do not live under monarchies, and most Muslims think this is a good thing. Their Islam is not less faithful because they live without monarchies; in fact it might be stronger for that reason.

For most of the history of Islam, Muslims have taken for granted that slavery was a legal and useful social institution. Islamic law adapted to the practice of owning human beings as slaves, a practice that existed before Islam and continued after Islam’s advent. Rights of ownership by a wealthy male is one facet of patriarchy that is deeply woven into Islamic society and religion. This was true despite the Qur’an’s clear emphasis on freeing slaves and the Prophet’s example in this matter. Yet today, most Muslims do not own and sell fellow human beings. Most Muslims would consider this a good thing, and consider slavery a clear form of oppression.

For most of the history of Islam, Muslims have assumed that women were inferior to men. Some might limit this inferiority to realms of physical constitution and legal privilege, while others would extend the inferiority to piety and even rationality. The superiority of gendered males is one facet of patriarchy that is deeply woven into Islamic society and religion. This was true despite the Qur’ran’s empowerment of women in many fields. Islamic law adapted to this basic assumption of patriarchy, and encoded it in all manner of

legal norms and authoritative interpretations. Yet many Muslims today assert the fundamental equality of women and men in economic, social, religious, educational, and political spheres of life. Their Islam is not less faithful because they live without gender segregation and tribal honor codes; in fact their Islam might be stronger with their commitment to gender justice.

Many Muslims today cannot imagine that Islam could be a religious practice that acknowledges and respects diversity in sexuality and sexual practices. They may not even recognize the aspects of patriarchy that oppress people characterized by same-sex desire and erotic longing. This is no different from other forms of oppressive prejudice in the past that, with struggle (that is, with
jihad
and
ijtihad
), Muslims have managed to overcome with positive results for our understanding of our faith. As progressive Muslims, we have focused our sense of justice demanded by radical
tawhid
on the fields of political organization, economic ownership, or gender norms. Why stop there? Why not continue to extend this challenging focus on justice into the more intimate spaces of our sexual lives, in order to think more clearly about how our erotic lives intersect with our spiritual lives?

Many lesbian and gay Muslims who read this study will support the challenge articulated above. However, many will wonder whether any purpose is served by focusing on classical jurists and Qur’an commentators. Can there be any rapprochement with the
Shari‘ah
and the authorities that support it? Or is any discussion of the
Shari‘ah
a capitulation to authority that is hopelessly prejudiced against the very possibility of thinking that homosexuality is about anything beyond misplaced lust? This is a crucial question. The Islamic legal scholar Abdullahi Ahmed an-Na‘im has addressed this question directly in its widest form by asking whether there is any possibility of “reforming” the
Shari‘ah
in contemporary times to revive its underlying principles so that it protects civil liberties and human rights rather than suppressing them. He concludes that this is possible, but is complicated by the neo-colonial struggles of nations inhabited by Muslims for the long-deferred promises of political and cultural “self-determination.”

We have Muslim demands for self-determination by the application of Islamic law in public life. Yet such Islamic law cannot possibly be Shari‘a as historically established. The only way to reconcile these competing imperatives for change in the public law of Muslim countries is to develop a version of public law which is compatible with modern standards of constitutionalism, criminal justice, international law, and human rights . . . We can then proceed to resolve the conflict and tension within the framework of Islam as a whole, albeit not necessarily within the framework of the historical Shari‘a.
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An-Na‘im is arguing for the disengagement of the
Shari‘ah
as historically formed from Islam as a whole. The
Shari‘ah
in its historical development is not Divinely

ordained: it is the creation of many generations of commentators, jurists, and
hadith
scholars who lived long after the Prophet Muhammad died and in a completely different political and cultural milieu. Radical
tawhid
demands that Muslims let nothing created by human beings stand in for Allah, the Single and the Unique.
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From a critical point of view, it is a kind of icon worship to imagine the
Shari‘ah
to be infallible, unchanging, or somehow Divine. Just as building the
Shari‘ah
was a historical process, the creation of human (and fallible) minds, hands, and hearts, so the
Shari‘ah
should be open to continual reform and re-creation.