Recordings › Monday Nights with Mufti #197 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth · 12 Jan 2021 › Segment 20 of 43
Does the Quran clearly forbid homosexuality?
shari'ah shariat sharee'ah muftis hukm ahkam hukum hukam ahkaam halal halaal lawful haraam forbidden koran quraan al-quran ayah aya ayat ayaat aayah aayat ulama ulema ulamaa nikah nikkah nikaah nikah nama nikahnamaDoes the Quran explicitly prohibit homosexuality?
Play from 1:20:42
The video loads from YouTube only when you press play. Click a time in the transcript to seek.
Watch the answer
Open on YouTube at 1:20:42The player starts at 1:20:42, where the answer begins.
This segment1:20:42 to 1:24:32 · 3 min 50 sGeneral teaching
The answer in brief
machinesummary, machine-writtenMufti Abu Layth says the Quran has no explicit prohibition of homosexuality, though most Muslims have held it haram; he thinks the aim was to push people into marriage.
In more detail
Answering the earlier super chat on whether a verse [?] on the story of Lut clearly prohibits homosexual acts, Mufti Abu Layth refers to his detailed video on the ruling. He says there is nothing in the Quran that explicitly prohibits homosexuality in the way it addresses the thief; it may be targeted implicitly under lewd or promiscuous acts, or indirectly through the story of Lut. He says most Muslims did and do understand it to be haram, while a minority disagreed, and that the homosexuality of the past was more a sexual fluidity alongside family life than today's identity. He says that in his understanding it was prohibited to push people into marriage and procreation, as part of prohibiting sexual liaisons generally, while noting many scholars cited sodomy.
Question as read aloud · questioner not identifiedDoes the verse [?] clearly prohibit homosexual acts, or is there another understanding of the verse and the story of Lut?
- Some terms in this segment are uncertain
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says there is nothing in the Quran that explicitly prohibits homosexuality, though it may target it implicitly.
“it is true there is nothing in the quran that um explicitly prohibits just targets homosexuality explicitly so it it may implicitly”
Category: teaching
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine1:20:42 to 1:24:32 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
you know we've revealed it that this book this you see kitab isn't you see because kitab in arabic means book so when the quran says kitab you automatically assume book but there it actually means scripture because it wasn't a book so this scripture we revealed it it's you who place it onto the on paper or write it down because there is this see when you lock something in it's this a part of the spirit evaporates i have a whole mind trap with dr khalil and on this do check it out
i go into much more detail i hope that helps this up okay i've answered that the homosexuality i have a video on it is on the ruling of homosexuality in islam do watch it i do in that video i do go through the detail it is true there is nothing in the quran that um explicitly prohibits just targets homosexuality explicitly so it it may implicitly
target it uh so either under you know lewd actions promiscuous actions just generic kind of headings or one may say it's an indirect prohibition narutologically by mentioning the story of luth now that's in its own place but if one was to say is there direct like the way allah says if a thief does this then do this you know chop the hand of the thief or is there a direct uh prohibition of homosexuality like that there isn't no explicit speech like that in the quran
most muslims did do did and do understand homosexuality to be haram some muslims did disagree with that minority but they did disagree and they felt that the quran didn't in fact they argued that um in fact their point was that the quran permitted homosexuality obviously they were a minority that said it was something that was quite widespread historically but not the homosexuality of today it was more the kind of sexual opportunity
stroke fluidity of the past so basically kind of like the every holder kind of philosophy that people had and so it wasn't kind of today it's more a lifestyle choice and it defines your identity and if a person is is gay he finds women rather detestable and or if a woman is lesbian you know she will oh my god men are discussed you know it's not it wasn't quite like this in the past um
it was just kind of fluid so they probably um did have homosexual relations but they also had families and had children and so it was a lot like that and i've got a whole detailed video explaining that um a diverse history so it's worth watching but for the most part muslims did as far as the sharia books were concerned they did prohibit it and it wasn't prohibited because so people say it was prohibited because of sodomy i suppose many scholars did say that and that's one way of getting out of it i suppose because they said well
sodomy is always prohibited it was prohibited in my understanding to kind of force people into marrying to procreate to set up a society because people weren't prepared to undertake the responsibility so in order to force them to undertake it it had to prohibit other opportunities and it obviously prohibited just general sexual liaisons and so on and this fell under that that's my understanding of it cool mufti would you recommend studying at darul mustafa
in yemen or al-azhar right so now is that the one in in tamim right so uh uh i'm sorry tanim uh right i i to be honest i'm so i haven't heard much about the that institute or these institutes in years so i don't really know what to advise you to study if you want to go to yemen yemen right now
Paragraphs overlapping 1:20:42 to 1:24:32. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2021-01-12-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/20/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2021, January 12). Does the Quran clearly forbid homosexuality? [Video, segment 2021-01-12-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/20/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2021. "Does the Quran clearly forbid homosexuality?" Video, segment 2021-01-12-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded January 12, 2021. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/20/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2021-01-12-S20, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Does the Quran clearly forbid homosexuality?}}, year = {2021}, month = {1}, date = {2021-01-12}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/20/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/20/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2021-01-12-S20, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
Something wrong here?
Tell us what is wrong and it will be checked against the recording. Nothing changes until a person has reviewed it.
Sending a note needs JavaScript, which is off or unavailable in this browser. Nothing has been sent.
No name, email address or account is asked for or stored, and the inbox does not store your IP address. For rate limiting it keeps an unreadable fingerprint of your connection for 48 hours, and our database provider's own logs record connections as every website's do. Only your note, its kind, the page and the moment in the recording are kept, for review.