Homosexuality, Once Again, Highlights the Contrast Between the Traditional Version of Islam and the Quranic View

بِسْمِ اللَّـهِ الرَّحْمَـٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

أَتَأْتُونَ الذُّكْرَانَ مِنَ الْعَالَمِينَ

" Do you approach males among the worlds" 26:165

وَتَذَرُونَ مَا خَلَقَ لَكُمْ رَبُّكُم مِّنْ أَزْوَاجِكُم ۚ بَلْ أَنتُمْ قَوْمٌ عَاد

"And leave what your Lord has created for you as mates?
 But you are a people transgressing." 26-166

وَأَمْطَرْنَا عَلَيْهِم مَّطَرًا ۖ فَسَاءَ مَطَرُ الْمُنذَرِينَ

"And We rained upon them a rain [of stones], and evil was the rain of those who were warned."173

أَئِنَّكُمْ لَتَأْتُونَ الرِّجَالَ شَهْوَةً مِّن دُونِ النِّسَاءِ ۚ بَلْ أَنتُمْ قَوْمٌ تَجْهَلُونَ

"Do you indeed approach men with desire instead 

of women? Rather, you are a people behaving ignorantly."27-55

إِنَّكُمْ لَتَأْتُونَ الرِّجَالَ شَهْوَةً مِّن دُونِ النِّسَاءِ ۚ بَلْ أَنتُمْ قَوْمٌ مُّسْرِفُونَ

Indeed, you approach men with desire,"  
7-81 "instead of women. Rather, you are a transgressing people.

صدق الله العلي العظيم

from Quran.com with Sahiheh Int. translation

In the above verses God directly addresses the topic of homosexuality. There might be more verses that I have not found besides 29:28-34 in which God referrers to the Lot and his people. 

From these wordings it is clear that God explicitly forbids men from using other men instead of women as the people of "Lot" did. Consequently, they were punished and wiped out of the earth by divine retribution. 

The important lesson to learn for our time, is the fact that according to these verses God does not order his prophet of the time (Lot or Abraham) to go and fight them or to stop them by any means they could.  It is left to God to deal with them in anyway necessary.  This is the lesson we should learn from Quran. That is, in many cases such as homosexuality despite being strictly forbidden, we are not to harm the doer's of such actions or prevent them doing so by force.   

This is one of the many occasions when the Quranic view is not supporting the traditional Islamic punishment system which are mostly derived from "Hadith"(The bonafide wordings of the prophet) or "Sunna"(The way prophet acted upon different situations).   The contrast between the Quran's position, which is leaving such sinful actions to God, with sever punishments imposed in Islamic tradition seems to be of immense significance since there are examples for which "Sharia" laws do not make sense in our age, to say the least. 

That is not to say we should totally abandon "Hadith" and deprive ourselves from the precious teachings of our dear "Prophet Mohammad", but rather we should not hold them as sacredly as Quran which instructs us to hear all the ideas and choose the best (39-18).

"Who listen to speech and follow the best of it. Those are the ones Allah has guided, and those are people of understanding."

In this manner we can open-mindedly look at Prophet's tradition and learn from what he did or said bearing in mind that all prophet's wordings and actions (except for Quran) have meant for the time of the prophet and the specific circumferences of the time. Obviously, our time requires different measures and different lifestyle compared to 1400 years ego.  

I however, strongly believe that content of Quran is universally applicable and true while the "Hadith" and tradition of Islam are certainly limited in their scope of time and context. If the tradition of Islam, as unfolded at time of prophet, was supposed to be held true for all times then Quran should have included all those laws in details.  Whereas in reality, Quran has contained eternally true principals and universally comprehensible concepts leaving the details to humans to work out as deemed most suitable for the specific conditions they are living in.  This could potentially be one of the main reasons God has clearly stated that he will protect Quran himself (15-9), which is needless to prove that is very much the case.

It might seem an unsupported statement at this stage, but it appears to me (once again here) that Quranic version of Islam is very much viable all over the world while the traditional Islam may not.   I understand that even in Quran there are some punishments that seem inappropriate for our time, yet, the fact of the matter is they are set so meticulously that if we consider their subtle conditions seriously these punishments make perfect sense.  I will discuss them one by one over the future posts.

One of the unnoticed delicacies is the fact that Quran never instructs the believers to interfere in other people's life in order to implement God's commands unless someone is being hurt physically, emotionally and/or financially.  Otherwise, no mater how sever one's wrong doing is, it is only left to God to deal with him. That is, the prophet or the righteous have nothing to do in such cases except for reminding the wrong doers of what they are doing and invite them to the right path.

Finally, I believe it is time for Muslims to believe that: it is possible to truly love God and his greatest messenger, to have a Quranic life in modern time and at the same time use their logic and reason to handle their worldly affairs in line with God's satisfaction (to the best of their collective understanding) looking to the future instead of past in order to live happily and peacefully with the rest of the world.    

Consciousness in Quran

بِسْمِ اللَّـهِ الرَّحْمَـٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

اللَّـهُ يَتَوَفَّى الْأَنْفُسَ حِينَ مَوْتِهَا وَالَّتِي لَمْ تَمُتْ فِي مَنَامِهَا ۖ فَيُمْسِكُ الَّتِي قَضَىٰ عَلَيْهَا الْمَوْتَ وَيُرْسِلُ الْأُخْرَىٰ إِلَىٰ أَجَلٍ مُسَمًّى ۚ إِنَّ فِي ذَٰلِكَ لَآيَاتٍ لِقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ

"Allah takes the souls at the time of their death, and those that do not die [He takes] during their sleep. Then He keeps those for which He has decreed death and releases the others for a specified term. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought." 39:42

صدق الله العلي العظيم

In a previous post this verse was mentioned when attempting to put pieces of information together in order to find out human's nature described in Quran as "Nafs".  Yet this single "Ayeh" provides us with invaluable clues on one of the most complicated problems in metaphysics, that is how our soul ( Nafs in Quran or mind/ conscientiousness in philosophy) is related to our body.  

Generally speaking, the nature of interaction between the metaphysical side of the world and the material side appears to have always been a dead end in human's intellectual endeavor throughout the history especially in today's heated discussions around the subject of mind-body problem.  I believe it is one of the secrets of the world that we would not be able to figure out without God's guidance. 

Please note that I do not claim that Quran has given a clear explanation on this challenging question (or any other) but rather, it provides sings to be followed by personal inspiration which can lead us to a new insight on how the world works as a whole. Therefore, any understanding we may reach will, like always, be a fallible human attempt toward seeing the ultimate truth of the world and as such is inevitably relative and uncertain.  Theoretically, it might be basically impossible for us as an infinitesimal member of the cosmos to acquire a comprehensive view of the whole world (material and immaterial section combined).                                                

That said, what is explicitly stated in the above verse of Quran is: when we die God takes away our soul and if we are sleeping and not dead our soul is separated but it will be return to the body if our time of death has not come yet.  And what we can infer is: 

A dead body and a asleep body they both lack consciousness and since Quran says God takes away your "Nafs" when we are asleep or dead, we can therefore, claim "Nafs" has the same meaning as consciousness which are equivalent to soul or mind. The is why I will use these words interchangeably. 

We can also note that every time we go to sleep our soul is separated from our body according to Quran. This is very interesting as the traditional view might be we only lose our soul once we die. Moreover, it shows that our physical body can be biologically alive (in sleeping state) while its soul is away. This would mean that although being conscious is not a necessary condition for being alive biologically, it is essential to be a human functionally. 

Above all, this verse proves that our identity, our personality or what make us a human in general sense, is in fact our "Nafs" ( our consciousness, soul or mind) without which no lover will have any feeling for a dead body or for an unconscious body long asleep. 

Furthermore, as we ,most of the time, have similar experiences of happy, sad, fearful feelings while sleeping, due to the events happening in our dream, we can deduce that our soul can, independent of our body, experience mental states and at the same time reflects them on the asleep body either in terms of a brain activity and/or in form of moving parts of our body.  That is to say, as result of a scary situation that we are perceiving in our dream we see our self screaming out of fear and feel as if our heart is squeezed. At the same time these feelings are reflected on our body which is seemingly asleep and unconscious.  Consequently, we may suddenly wake up to find our-self actually screaming or moving a leg with our heart pounding.

Another reason that may show our soul can learn and experience autonomously is when we dream our-self in a situation that is in line with our wishes and desires (which are of immaterial nature) projected onto a future event, something that we wish to happen or it can be a completely unexpected circumstances.  In such cases, we never hesitate the authenticity of our experience while dreaming because we live these experiences as real as they can get in real (awaken) life.  As a matter of fact, these dreams can potentially have the same impact on us as any daily life experience we go through. 

It may be argued that our dreams are the result of some chemical activity in this and that specific location of the brain in the first place.  The counter argument would be firstly, the brain is always stimulated by the data (or neurons) it receives from the five senses namely sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste.  In the absence of any signal from the physical senses in sleeping, if the brain shows activity it has to be a reflection from mind actually or better say from the soul's independent journey. Secondly, the nature of human's perception including good, bad, right, wrong , thoughts and conceptions are in fact abstract and absolutely immaterial. This follows that no material interaction can lead beyond the physical world unless they have an impact (of unknown mechanism) on the immaterial mind which perceives them beyond the material domain.  This argument may refute the recent movement in philosophy in which the origin of all mental stats ( all feelings and thoughts) are merely the result of some biological process in the brain. 

This is not to say that our body does not have any effect on the soul (mind).  It certainly has as we may have a bad dream as result of a specific condition associated to our body as everyone has experienced this.  Soul and body clearly have a mutual interrelation.  Nevertheless, these physical impacts on our soul during sleep time account for only a small portion of our dreams.  Our mind (soul) seems to be working nonstop as our thinking state continues while we are sleeping. 

There are also many other physical experiences in our daily life that have noticeable effect on our soul such as eating, physical contact with others and so on.  In fact, what Quran pictures for us is we actually shape our "Nafs" (soul or mind) through these worldly actions considering the fact that whatever we do will affect our soul permanently.  The point however, is that it is the soul that has the superiority over the body and is our identity, our self and our humanity.  It is also our soul that is independent of the material world and will ultimately survive our physical death.  To some extent, the association of a soul to a body can be regarded as a driver to a car. 

We can further understand that when we sleep and we lose our consciousness, our body takes a rest and feels refreshed after waking up. This tells us when the soul is engaged with our body it physically exhausts our body. Hence the body needs to take a break from this connection. Perhaps, we can say that the biological body can not contain the soul for as unlimited time as we can understand from our sleeping pattern.  This time limit for the soul and body entanglement might actually be a valuable clue in understanding the mechanism by which the two sides affect one another. 

Probably, this discussion gives rise to more questions than it answers concerning soul-body interaction over sleeping time such as what happens in "sleep-walking", in the medical condition "coma" or when we are chemically put to sleep for a surgery. I hope we can look into them in future

Finally, I do admit that, at this stage, we are still in dark as to how exactly the soul (mind) interact with our body which boils down to the interaction of mind with cells, molecules, atoms and .... . At least, we now know where to focus and on what question exactly we need God's intervention.  

How Does God Speak to Us?

At some point in life all of us feel desperate for hearing God one way or another.   Here is how God speaks to us according to Quran: 

بِسْمِ اللَّـهِ الرَّحْمَـٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ

وَمَا كَانَ لِبَشَرٍ أَن يُكَلِّمَهُ اللَّهُ إِلَّا وَحْيًا أَوْ مِن وَرَاءِ حِجَابٍ أَوْ يُرْسِلَ رَسُولًا فَيُوحِيَ بِإِذْنِهِ مَا يَشَاءُ ۚ إِنَّهُ عَلِيٌّ حَكِيمٌ

"And it is not for any human being that Allah should speak to him except by revelation or from behind a partition or that He sends a messenger to reveal, by His permission, what He wills. Indeed, He is Most High and Wise." 42:51

 صدق الله العلي العظيم

This verse has immense significance as it explicitly rules out the possibility of  humans ( Even prophets) being directly addressed by God.  On the other hand, it clarifies that God does speak to us indirectly in three ways:

1. Trough revelation ("VAHY" in Quranic terms) 
2. Sending his messages to us in disguise
3. Sending a prophet (messenger)

Subsequently,  there are three questions that come to mind.  Firstly, why God chooses not to speak to us directly. Secondly, what is the nature of God's communication with us and thirdly, how do we differentiate God's message from other potential sources.  

In order to reach a conceivable answer to the first question, perhaps it helps if we consider our relationship with a creation of ours such as a painting or a mechanical machine made of steel parts.  Simply speaking, if we want to communicate with the individual shapes in our painting or with the metal components of the machine we have made, there would be no way but through the means within the realm of each creation.  

That is to say, we can only speak to a three or any other forms in our painting via the paint we have made them from. It can also be said that we can only alter the shape of any thing in our painting only by the paint itself which is the very nature of that object. In other words, we as a creator are always limited to talk to our creations by their nature.  Similarly, if we want to fix or change a piece in the machine we have made, it is only plausible to use tools (means) of the same nature, metal in this case.   

The painting and the machine as two examples of human creation are limited by their nature. They do not have the capability of a human language or  the intelligence for that matter.  By the way of analogy, we can conclude that God-human relation is, in principle, no different than any other creator-creation relationship in which the creation is inferior in terms of its capabilities to its creator.  

We can therefore, deduce from our empirical knowledge from the world that a creation can never be identical to its creator with respect to its abilities and its intelligence, otherwise it is not his/her creation.  This would explain why no creator can covert itself into the nature of his/her creation as it would be contradictory (since it will no longer be a creator once it has reduced its qualities to the level of its creation) and therefore impossible. Furthermore, from the causality point of view, in the material world nothing can be the cause of itself, so it would not make sense for that reason either. By the same reasoning, we can perhaps understand why it is inconceivable for God to reduce himself to a human form (his creation) or to speak to mankind directly.

It may be argued though that our children are ,in a way, our creation and in the meantime they possess exactly the same qualities which constitute every human being. The answer to this argument could be, the main distinction between a creator and a creation is the fact that the existence of a creation depends on the will of the creator, which is not the case for our children.

The existence of a painting or of a machine in my earlier examples are completely in our hand while this is not true about our children.  On the contrary, when it comes to our children we will do our best to protect them from any potential harm, which clearly shows their fate is not entirely in our control.

Therefore, the right view regarding our role in creating our children appears to be mostly an exclusive and substantial influence in determining their material features as well as in shaping their initial spiritual identity. I believe the physical expression of a child is less representative of the parents' spiritual endeavor towards God in their life time than it is for the impact parents leave on a child's heart (soul or mind) when they co-create a human with God.  This is mainly due to the fact that children inherent their genes naturally from their parents and parents can hardly do any thing to improve or change their appearance.  Whereas, parents' beliefs and their life style consequently, will greatly influence who their children will be in most cases.

On the second question of the nature of God's communication with us, it is important to pay attention to the fact that in all the three forms that is stated in this verse, ultimately there is a message conveyed to our heart which is the only human's faculty to differentiate good from evil and feel the divine with certainty, as explained in a recent post.

Bearing this in mind, it makes no difference from this perspective, whether God's message is transferred to a human by a revelation directly to his/her heart or by an indirect message in disguise or through the words of a prophet. The message will ultimately reaches our heart which is to recognize its source and is to follow.  It actually does not matter if it is perceived through senses or not.

It is also equally important to note that our heart needs to be fine tuned in order to hear God's directions. More importantly, our heart has to be in a state that would willingly surrender itself to the truth no matter what hardships it may entail in the material world.  In other words, it is our heart that decides which way to go based on what feels right or wrong.  

It would be logical then to assume that if we choose the wrongdoing despite the findings of our heart and ignore how it feels we will intentionally lose its capacity to hear the truth and to recognize good from evil gradually.  Conversely, if we follow the path of the light, our heart becomes more skillful in tracing God's words, filtering out the noise (our personal desires and interests) effortlessly. This is corroborated by numerous verses in Quran including the amazing verse 24:35 in which God beautifully describes him self as the light of the skies and the earth ( it also implies God's words are always there to guide us).

That said, we humans can freely choose the path of ignorance to the degree that we would even deny an obvious miracle in the material world as some did in the past at the time of Moses, Jesus and other prophets, according to Quran.  My point is, no mater how clear and undeniable the message or the sign is, it is ,at the end of the day, up to us to willingly take it as God's or not.

Thirdly, how do we distinguish between God's message and Evil's ? In case of revelations I presume, the message will appear so clear and so strong in a human's heart that there will be no doubt about its origin.  Same is true about the message that is delivered by a true prophet.

The challenging case however, is when we are hearing some inspirations inside our heart or when the message appears in shape of an event or a sing in the context of daily life. This is the time we are required to use our mental processing to highlight and recognize God's message.  Practically speaking, whenever in doubt, perhaps, it helps if we ask our self which choice would be the most satisfactory to God and the implications of which decision will be more in line with a Godly action.  I believe, if we can always keep our heart in a status that we can properly converse with in these situations, we can surely detect the rays of light even in the darkest times.  As a matter of fact, we may finally come to the realization that we can only commune with God through our heart.