Addressing the LGBT Challenge and the right to believe in Islamic morality

It has become impossible in this month of June

that we aren't subjected

to this question of LGBTQ

not just subjected to it, but rather challenged by it.

Not knowing how to navigate

against it with our faith. How do I navigate in my workplace? How do I navigate my child's school.

Just recently, there was audio released of a teacher here in Canada, berating a young Muslim child,

for daring to not attend pride events at school.

And while this movement and its constant evolution

of rapidly changing sexual and gender mores and norms are

all based on very particular theories,

cooked up by gender theory, professors in Western academia

is pushed on us.

It becomes incredibly important that Muslims center themselves first and foremost

on the Quranic understanding of morality,

of the Quranic understanding of gender and sexual ethics.

As we know, in the Quran, Allah subhanaw taala gives us the stories of many prophets. And each of these prophets came with a mission,

their mission, first and foremost, to call the people to the worship of Allah alone, that either hang Allah to worship none besides God.

But every prophets also came

to rectify the morality of his people.

prophet shall I evaluate his Salam came to people who had cheats.

So he called them to the worship of Allah alone,

and to change their immorality when it came to cheating.

Prophet Musa called for the island to the worship of one God, but also stood up against the effects of tyranny and racism, and the enslavement of vinius Rahim. And our Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam also addressed the ills of his society,

the abandonment of the worship of God, but the other ills in their society,

the burying of female babies, the drinking of alcohol, and the gambling and the usury.

And so the prophets were not only sent to correct their beliefs about God, but to reform their morality. And of course, the two are connected.

But there is a prophets mentioned in the Quran

in more than 100 verses,

that we often don't speak about him.

Prophet Musa alayhis salam was sent to correct the moral ills of your society.

He was addressing the sexual immorality, which was the main issue of his time.

And realize the intimacy

is mentioned in the Quran in many places, but often in a very respectful and honorable way.

And this shows us because I know there are children here

that sheltering our kids completely from this topic. Until they reach an age of adulthood is not a good idea.

We just have to approach it in a way that is wise and in a way that is age appropriate.

Profit Luther it has Sanam

was addressing fornication, which is having a relationship outside of marriage.

But not only fornication, but a very specific type

of perversion and relationships that they were having.

So what's the Prophet Musa alayhis salam say in the Quran?

What does he criticize? Allah subhanaw taala mentioned to us what often is called and they call me here tonight fast shutter masa Combi had a minute I mean,

he said to his people, we sent Lou to say to his people do commit such an immoral act that no one before you from amongst the world has done.

Maybe there were individuals who did this action before the people of loop. But never before had there been a home a nation to do this action.

him and to celebrate it.

He tells them in the community tuner region, Russia what I've been doing in this

bill and

he said you are going to men with desire rather than to women.

Rather you are a people who are transgressing. Meaning there are limits and you are transgressing the limits, what are these limits? Allah subhanaw taala is defined for us, how a person fulfills the shadow that they may have. It has to be within the definition that Allah gives us which is the marriage between a man and a woman

but Anton Coleman misophonia rather you are people going beyond the pale of what Allah has permitted. Now, some people try to reinterpret these verses because of the societal pressure.

All of the scholars have agreed that These verses show us that homosexuality is haram.

And these people try to reinterpret these verses and say, no, no, this is about rape.

But read the first is attempt to enter the Jana Shang Watson mean doing an ISA? Are you going to the men in desire rather than to the women? Is profit notes telling them don't read the men rape the women?

And another verse he says, how would I even it, these are my daughters, meaning marry the daughters. It is explicitly clear what he is saying in these verses. And that Allah subhanaw taala is condemning this action

attached to another Koran I mean Allah Allah meaning he tells them are you going to the men? Are you approaching the men?

What are the own and are hot up

and leaving behind those whom Allah has created for you to be your mates, to be your wives. But Anton Coleman is doing rather you are transgressing people. He's explaining that there is something wrong with what they are doing,

that it is immoral.

And Allah Subhana Allah destroys that people as he has destroyed other people who rejected their profits.

There is a clear edge of mass consensus in our religion, that these verses are explicit in their prohibition of homosexual behavior. In Joomla, is a consensus a gem out is a form of Divine Law. Allah has given us the Quran He's given us the Sunnah. He's also given us a huge amount of the consensus of the scholars and theists analogies, and the form of analogies that Allah teaches us in the Prophet teaches us through the Quran and Sunnah. These are sources of divine law.

So what do we have an explicit consensus from the time of the companions in our scholarly tradition and someone tries to negate this.

They are negating something that is explicit in our faith.

A religion that does not have a book that is protected. We have the Quran that is protected and established context for that book, which is the sunnah of our Prophet sallallahu where it was setting up a mechanism to entrench the consensus of its scholars and particularly of its early Muslims, which is in Jamal. A religion that does not have these mechanisms is nothing. It's a religion without boundaries.

Yes, there is scope, ability to have difference of opinion on certain matters of our religion. Yes, there is st laughs that happens in our religion for sure, but there has to be clear boundaries of what is inside the religion and what is outside of the religion. And if you do not have those boundaries, guess what, you don't have a religion, because the religion can be anything.

And this is why the Scholars speak about a concept called and Matlin Mina de Mina, Dean de Bora, that which is known in the religion by necessity, that which is axiomatically true,

meaning it is necessary. In order for someone to accept the Quran, you must accept certain premises. For example, Salah is legit,

is that cat is wajib. Zina is haram, drinking Congress haram and amongst that also that homosexuality is wrong.

These are not matters that are acquired by deduction. These are matters that are understood by necessity. And to deny these matters is to deny the premise of the Quran to begin with,

and to reject

the revelation ultimately.

And this is very important because this challenge is unique. We've always had Muslims for example,

drunk alcohol, Muslims who don't practice their faith, Muslims will sell alcohol.

But it's incredibly rare that someone says this action of drinking or selling alcohol is halal. And let us radically reinterpret the Quran to make it halal immoral.

Yeah, this is a movement that seeks to change

all religious traditions not even just to snap and to radically reinterpret them to fit into their notions of what they believe to be correct and moral.

The story of Prophet Musa alayhis salam, it has sets the stance of our religion when it comes to homosexuality in three ways one, that it is explicitly haram it is prohibited to that it is Linkara

whatever you want, if you know the common monka he tells them you are doing Moncada that which is immoral and rejected in your clubs.

And that three this is not how Allah intends for us to live our lives.

This is one aspect of this LGBTQ movement. And another aspect of it is what is called Gender nonconformity.

This is when a man wants to be a woman and vice versa. And our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said

many different Hadith one of them died on us with Allah He said, look where it was salam, and moto shall be hard to men and Nisa, if you redial, when we shall be here in a minute Aegiali Benissa that the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam cursed, the women who imitate the men, and the men who imitate the women. And imitation here means when it comes to their dress, their way of speech, their way of talking and walking their gates. This is an authentic hadith and there are many a hadith similar to this. What is the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam saying

he is prohibiting the imitation of the opposite gender? Why does this happen? There's different reasons. Sometimes people would do this cross dressing in order to be funny.

As a joke, this should happen in this society going back to maybe the 1950s and 60s.

And this is haram in our religion.

But also there is this concept of gender dysphoria, where there are people

who legitimately think that they are in the wrong body,

that they are born male, and they think that they are female, or they're born female, they think that they are male.

And a popular example of this is someone by the name of Bruce Jenner, who was an Olympic athletes. And then he says, No, I'm actually a woman, and calls himself Caitlyn Jenner, and did surgery into her hormones and all of these things.

And they go even beyond this. And they say you have the gender of male and female and then you have non binary. People who don't have a gender they are neither male nor female.

And the Quran tells us what they said that cattle can ferment men are not like women.

Yeah, he really made a shallow enough and we believe that was the core, Allah gives to whom He wills, males and gives to whom He wills, females. Very clear in our religion, that there are two genders.

There is men and women. And so it's odd that in today's day and age, we have to state the obvious, there's only two genders. They claimed there are 72 genders, 84 genders, even more than that. Some have said every individual has their own gender

is a type of hyper individualism, the hyper focus on the neffs, we talked about the neffs, centering the neffs in our lives and the other hotspot.

And the problem with this is many.

Number one, it is on Islamic. Number two, it is unscientific. And number three, it is unhealthy for society.

And there are peer reviewed studies by the way, who show that those who have gender gender dysphoria, love this idea that they are in the wrong body. They suffer extremely high levels of psychiatric comorbidity, meaning they're also suffering from extreme depression, anxiety, self harm, many of them, a very large percentage of them are on the autism spectrum disorder.

But they never talk about these issues.

And the fact that this also exists.

One example is a man by the name of James Shoop. He was a man who lived as a woman for two years.

Then he lived as non binary for another three years. He was the first American who fought against the government until they changed his ID, his driver's license his passport, to change his gender to become non binary.

In 2019,

he reverted back to being a man

him and said, I am the man and I can only be a man. And this entire movement to tell people to transition to another gender is wrong.

And that it affected him physically on a major stage. And he's not alone. There are many people like this. They just never speak about this in the mainstream. But this is a reality. Many people are suffering a psychological problem where they think they're in the wrong body. And this society is telling them go and have irreversible surgery destroy your body.

There are some common questions that arise when we talk about this topic.

The first question is same sex attraction natural.

Are people born this way?

And the short answer is, it actually doesn't matter.

Because this life is a test. And Allah subhanaw taala can test us with whatever he wants,

including the desires within us.

So if Allah subhanaw taala decreed that someone has tested with this, this is your test in the dunya.

They used to push in the 80s in the 90s, the idea of a gay gene that a person is born with in their DNA, that they are gay.

And of course, all the latest studies say there is no such gene.

But even if they could prove this,

so what does it change the hook?

Does it change what the Quran is saying about this? No, it is not.

And if you wanted to go down that road, you might be able to prove that people are just this, you know, born with a disposition to a variety of different behaviors.

Some people may be predisposed to have arguments and fights, but some people might be predisposed to get divorced. Some people may be predisposed to steal, some people might be predisposed to many different characters and behaviors. That doesn't mean anything. And the end of the Quran is clear. And if Allah chooses to cause someone to be tested in this form in their life, this is the decree of Allah subhanaw taala as Muslims, we know that everything is in the hands of Allah azza wa jal. But here's the more important question is having these feelings how long

and here we have to be very clear

how having an attraction

in and of itself is not necessarily wrong.

Having a desire to do something is not necessarily haram. What is haram is acting upon it is the action is the behavior.

In our religion, if you want to drink alcohol, if you want to do it, but you don't do it, Allah is not going to hold you accountable. If you want to commit Zina, and you have the desire to do so and you don't do so Allah is not going to hold you accountable for it. And in fact, if you resist that attraction, Allah subhanaw taala reward you for resisting that desire.

The Prophet sallallahu I do send them send them to him, maybe say yes, for them. Yeah, mela Kitab Allahu Ando. Haselton cannula. If somebody desires to do an evil and does not do so Allah will record it as a full good deed for this person.

And so every time you're tempted to do something and you stop, you're actually getting rewards for it. So some people might have the attraction.

But if they overcome it, and if they resist it, they're actually being rewarded for it.

And what Allah is counted as made Haram is acting upon it. And what is worse than even acting upon it is what we talked about earlier, those who tried to change the religion to make it had.

This quote was difficult to prepare, because I think many people often are afraid to talk about this topic.

Allah subhanaw taala mentioned to us in the story of Luke from Acana Joab hakomi ilang call to actually do an ottoman Korea, in the homeowners don't yet have

the answer of the people of loot, to his dalla was only expel the family of loot from your city, and D there are people who want to be pure. They insult him mock him for his morality, and they threatened him with banishment kicking him out.

And the truth is that now there's a lot of fear talking about these topics as well. And I want to mention a few points. Number one.

Some Muslims, as we said, want to reinterpret Islam and say that there's nothing wrong with homosexuality or cross dressing, or transitioning genders. This is completely wrong and our religion does not give room to it. It's like saying eating pork is not

haram, when it was explicit in the Quran,

a person the other day actually accepted Islam. When I asked him, Why did you accept Islam, he had a very interesting phrase. He said Islam is the last religion.

Because if religion is always reinterpreted to fit into whatever society wants, the not religion has no meaning.

He said Islam is the last religion, because it has its principles. And Muslims are obliged to stick to that no matter how popular or unpopular it is.

The second point, there is a statement signed by over 300, imams and scholars in North America, called navigating differences on sexual and gender ethics.

And it explicitly explains the Islamic position on sexual and gender ethics, and the intent of the statement and crafting it was to help people, particularly parents, and employees, when they feel like they're being forced to participate in celebrating products, celebrating pride, and going against their faith. And so I want to encourage you, those of you who are parents, and you have your children in the public school system, where they're exposed to these things,

to go and speak with the school, and to speak to teachers, and be respectful, but also be clear about what your Faith says, and what is best for your child. And inshallah we're planning on organizing a town hall here with some lawyers, where we can talk about some of these topics, and what you can say, what is legal, what is not legal, what is the best approach, inshallah we'll be doing so soon, and I'll announce the dates once we have.

The third point, we do need to show sympathy. And some Muslims don't like to hear this, but it is important. There are Muslims who struggle with feelings. They struggle with the feelings of same sex attraction, they struggle with the feelings of gender dysphoria, they don't want these feelings. They don't know why it happens to them. They're not responsible for these feelings.

Right. And so we have to understand that we have to have some sympathy for these Muslims. There's actually a discord channel with over 100 members called straight struggle, go straight struggle.com

where they're all Muslims, trying to support each other to help each other through having these feelings.

They're not changing the religion. They're not saying this is halal. And they're supporting each other to not act upon these feelings.

There's a popular podcast as well called a way beyond the rainbow by a Muslim brother named Jorge Jensen. It's a fake name, but he has this podcast. He himself says I have these feelings. And he was gonna go down that road of saying this is actually highlighted. But he changed and he realized, no, this is wrong.

And it's a very good podcast for others who are struggling with this feeling as well. And they released the statement as well. And they wrote a letter and released the statement as well supporting the statement that the scholars have put out.

And they said one of the things that they mentioned, as they said, the LGBTQ movement says that this act of sex is an identity. It's quote unquote, who we are. They say we reject this. We reject even the terms gay and queer.

Because we say this action is an action. It's not an identity. That's a very fundamental difference.

It's a difference in ideology and how we see the world. Basically, this action is who we are. We say no, I as a Muslim, I commit sins. I've committed sins before. Am I my sin? Is my identity my sin? No, our the biller? So they say we reject this American recommend for people to check out that podcast. These are Muslims. Yes, they have same sex attraction, but they recognize it as haram to act upon it. And they struggle against it and some of them preach 100 Every night, and some of them fast every Mondays and Thursdays. They are our Muslim Brothers and Sisters in Islam. We love them for the sake of Allah. Right?

We ask Allah subhanaw taala to help them and to help us and that we have empathy for Muslims who are struggling and we ask Allah subhanaw taala to make us firm and steadfast upon his religion Felco nobody has stuck for Lottie Widdecombe Sofitel in the hole or for Rocky?

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah, who are the ad he was so happy woman voila.

There are three important points that we can take from the story of Prophet Lu.

The first is what it looked like he said I'm saying to his people, he said in the American middle colony, I am of those who strongly disapprove of your action

He condemns their action. He says he strongly disapproves of it. He doesn't attack them physically. He doesn't threaten them physically. He just says firmly what his position is, what his morality is that those actions are immoral. So what did they say to him? The inland center he? Yeah, Ruth. That's a Coonan dominant ma Mahajan. If you don't stop although to be of those we kick out

and we see that when the angels came to visit Luca Adi, his Sanam they said to him, I want him then haka and Ireland mean, didn't we forbid you from dealing with all of the other people? They had a rule against nobody has said and you're not allowed to speak to anyone. How dare you speak to strangers who are not from our city.

They put these draconian laws upon Duta de Sena.

More often, more and more, we are seeing that the LGBTQ movement as a political movement is becoming tyrannical in a lot of ways. Even the slightest resistance to this movement.

They will consider you a bigots and a hate monger.

I'll give you one story. I'm Muslim who actually comes to this Masjid.

He's an executive at a large Canadian company.

He told me this story. He said,

they asked all the executives of the company to participate in the Pride event they were doing in their company. So he went and he participated. And he carried the flag and everything. He didn't ask me, you told me afterwards, if he asked me, I would have told them that.

He did this. Then they came to him. And they said, We want you to write a post on social media, on your personal social media, on your LinkedIn, write a post about you attending pride at our company, and post your picture, carrying the flag and write it for everyone to see. He said, No, I don't want my mother and my brothers and my family to see this. And then I have to explain all of this. So he said, No, I'm not going to do that.

Someone in his company then raised a complaint against him, and said that he's being hateful, because he's not posting on his own personal social media that he attended a pride event. This is somebody who went and carried the flag, and they're still calling him a bigots. They're still calling him hateful. And he's an executive, imagine if it was someone who was junior.

The slightest disagreements, and they call you a bigot. And this is a reminder for us something to think about. Because the more we allow this narrative to continue, the more difficult it is to push against. We have to be able to say that we can live our faith, we should be able to live our faith in this society.

And even more, they're seeking to teach little kids this, instructing little kids to draw rainbow pictures and things along these lines.

We saw like I mentioned the beginning of the hutzpah teacher yelling at a Muslim child for not attending pride activities at school telling them if you don't believe this believe, if you don't believe this, you're not a Canadian. You can't be Canadian. And I mean it That's what she said.

This is a forced religion to believe you have to believe in in your hearts

then them tend to hear a lot that Hakuna Matata and if you don't stop, although to be of the people will kick you out exactly what she's telling us this child, we're gonna kick you out of this country, you can't be Canadian. You can't be here. If you don't believe exactly in our conception of morality.

This contravenes this concept of pluralism of diversity. They keep saying we believe in diversity. But it seems like they only want a diversity of appearance.

That we appear diverse, we have different skin colors. We wear different funny hats. That's okay. But you can't believe anything different. We can't have a diversity of beliefs.

We can't even say that our conception of morality is different.

And to us, we say that kind of diversity is not for us.

We have to be able to live our faith.

We treat people as human beings. We don't attack people physically.

We don't even insult them. We have to be able to say what our faith is.

All of us I'm sure have seen gay people before even interacted with them maybe had colleagues at work.

We can do that society where people do many things that are immoral.

But you can't force us to celebrate the actions that they do.

I will not ever march in a Pride Parade, I will never wear a rainbow badge. And that will never teach my children that this is healthier moral behavior.

Another point in the story of loot is the example of his wife, who is punished when she looks back and sympathy towards them. Why? Because in her heart, she thinks that they are morally incorrect, even though she never did the action that they did. But she believes that what they are doing is correct. And that profit booth and the revelation from Allah is incorrect. So Allah subhanaw taala Punisher. And this is a huge warning for the Muslim community. Because many Muslims are following the path of the wife of Ruth Annie has said

that they are sympathizing with people who are committing the sin, even changing the religion in order to support them.

The wife of Luther Allison and tells us we cannot support sin, her storytellers we cannot support sin, we cannot ally in support of sin, and we cannot celebrate the act of sin.

And it's important for us, because the wife of Luke comes from his own home. And this representative very difficult tests for Prophet Musa alayhis salam. The most difficult test is what comes from inside of our homes. It's important for us to own the conversation with our children, to talk to our children about this, we can't close the door on this conversation. Because then who's talking to your kids about these topics in society, maybe their teachers, maybe their cousins who are hearing things, we have to have the conversation with our kids, we have to tell them the story of profit booth at Instagram in a way that they can understand.

So that when they have questions about these topics related to sex and gender, they know they can come and talk to you

that you're not going to get angry and say How dare you talk to me about this? No, you're going to have a reasoned conversation with them. So that you can be the educator, not someone else.

And the third thing

is that our Allah subhanaw taala in the Quran, he swears an oath by many things. He swears an oath, by the stars by the New Moon by the Knights by the day by time, but only once in the Quran does Allah swear an oath by the life of a human being?

And it's the life of our prophets of Allah wherever he was. And he does so when he is speaking about the people of Luther is no longer okay now in known Luffy. Socrates, we are known, Allah says, by your life, oh Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, they are indeed

in third blind intoxication, and intoxication, wandering blindly. And Allah is not speaking about intoxication of drinking alcohol, but their intoxication of thought and of desires, overwhelming them.

And that's what society has become. People who believe their god is their desires, their identity is their desires, who they are is their desires. And they're blinded by this.

And this is why the morality of the society is constantly changing, constantly shifting over and over what they are saying today. If you took it just 10 years ago, and said it in the mainstream people would laugh at you.

And in 10 years, it shifts so quickly. 50 years ago, they saw homosexuality as something that was immoral.

Now they see it as something to celebrate.

And we are likely to see things in the next 1020 years that will make

what we think today seem irrelevant and minor.

And that's because there is a sacrifice, there is an intoxication when the person becomes overwhelmed by their desires. And that's why our religion is so, so so much of a guidance for us, and that it keeps us grounded. Doesn't matter what is popular or unpopular in society. This religion keeps us grounded. This book that Allah has power data center centers, keeps us grounded, keeps our morality grounded, we don't shift and change. What we believe today to be moral is the same that the first Muslims believe 1400 years ago. May Allah Subhana Allah keep us upon this religion. And not to be of those who are like the drunk person who was wandering blindly as Allah subhanaw taala

explains. In Aloma Deck, there was some going on in the VA somewhere and he was sending with steam out