# Should Muslims campaign against LGBTQ people, and is homosexuality unnatural?

*Leave LGBTQ people alone; homosexuality is not 'unnatural'*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/j6pxwgpnwd0/s/3/
- Date: 2019-08-04 · Kind: discussion · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Thoughts on Muhammad Hijab's talk on Liberalism & Islam | Mufti Abu Layth (12:43–19:02)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6pXWGpnWd0&t=763s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/j6pxwgpnwd0/

**Topics:** Sexuality and orientation; Islam and modernity

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Muslims should leave LGBTQ people alone, since fighting them will only deface Islam. Calling homosexuality unnatural is inaccurate, as it is widely found in nature, unlike incest.

**Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says he feels Muslims should really leave LGBTQ people alone and let them be.

**Evidence, his words at 13:21:** “I feel that we as Muslims should really leave the LGBTQ people alone” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6pXWGpnWd0&t=801s)

## Longer summary

Responding to the lecture's claim that homosexuality is unnatural, Mufti Abu Layth says he feels Muslims should leave LGBTQ people alone and let them live their lives: this is not a fight Muslims will win, since the LGBTQ community is at the centre of today's civil rights movement and has won the culture wars, and the stubborn resistance will deface Islam. He also says Muslims should stop calling homosexuality unnatural, which he says is inaccurate because most species are bisexual and it is heavily found in nature. Against Mohammed Hijab's comparison with incest, he cites studies on genetic sexual attraction and the Westermarck effect, which he says Jared Diamond discusses in The Third Chimpanzee, showing that animals prefer mates resembling their siblings but avoid actual siblings, so incest, unlike homosexuality, is generally not found in nature.

## Sources and names cited

- Mohammed Hijab
- Jared Diamond
- The Third Chimpanzee

## Transcript (machine tier, 12:43–19:02)

[12:42] do during the lecture Mohammed hijab makes reference to many people they will say today things like oh if you claim to be a liberal so he says that look many people will say today that look oh okay but I still have concerns what's wrong with homosexuality what's wrong with these things you know why don't we you know people in causing harm they're not doing anything and he says well you know we say to these people these are unnatural istic and so on I just want to make a I'd like to make a point here let me see I don't

[13:21] I don't like really making these points time and time again reason being one I've got a detailed clip explaining this but two I feel that it just lonely kind of pigeon-holed a person because but just to clarify the point I feel that we as Muslims should really leave the LGBTQ people alone okay stop making this about you this is

[13:58] a look let them be right their sexuality their lives just let it be this is not a fight that you're going to win okay now I'm just being very real and in your failure you will drag down the religion and that's something you have no right to do so my point isn't your standpoint okay my point is that you will in this obstinate kind of or stubborn form of resistance let's say you will

[14:35] deface Islam because this is not a fight that you're going to win let's just be honest this the the civil rights movement today in this in our day right now is centered on the LGBTQ community so and they've won the cultural wars so just let people be look whatever is is there right it's day people not whoever wants to do whatever they want to do stop forcing religion in me because

[15:14] unfortunately it's just it's making a fight out of something that didn't need to be like that okay so that's my that's that's a kind of word of advice that I would like to give people I don't people may not listen to me and that's fine but I would say look let people be so he gave this example saying look we explain to people that homosexuality is unnatural another thing we need to stop saying is that in my understand that it's unnatural because that isn't actually accurate that is not

[15:52] an accurate description of homosexuality if we're going to be if we want to be precise and accurate because if you're saying it's unnatural that means it's not found in nature now the truth is by and large most species of creatures are bisexual most species so it's actually heavily found in nature contrary to Mohammed the jibes argument of incest so if you see the studies presented that

[16:27] many species do like to mate with with the opposite sex that is of a close genetic resemblance so the genetic GS a genetic sexual attraction TV shows that for example mice or other things when they found certain let's say mice that shade strong resemblance a strong kind of smell and things like that to their own family they have wanted to mate with them so they've got loads of studies and we can

[17:05] google them and this in fact Diamond Jarrod brings it also in his the third chimp he brings a set of studies near as well in his book it's a it's a great book by the way if you haven't been through it now but you will see that when the mice or these other these subjects whenever they were presented in these in these observations with their actual siblings so a mouse was presented with the actual sister as opposed to somebody related to him even when he'd

[17:45] never met I'm using the term here sister in that sense even when he had never met that sibling before ever he would not mate with the actual sibling but he would choose a mate that resembles her over other mates that don't resemble her so the genetic sexual attraction theory is there but the Westermarck effect will the other effects that people or not sorry this wasn't just people creatures do not choose their actual siblings to mate with

[18:24] so this incest rule is not found nate I'm not saying it's never found and hence it's found in humans as well but it's not it's not generally found so if you were to use the term it's not natural that's fine it's not commonly or not generally found in nature it may be found as a kind of odd occurrence and that's fine so this was another point that that Muhammad hijab had kind of made heavily relying on this the other thing I'd like to clarify is you see

[19:01] there is an over-reliance on removing agency from people in kind of assuming that human beings don't think of things for themselves so I'm at hijab kept referring throughout this lecture to people that look when you say this your rules your laws are based in religion without that you wouldn't have had a morality and it is true that look most laws throughout the world are archaically you're classically based on some kind of religion that is true like

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment j6pXWGpnWd0/s/3. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/j6pxwgpnwd0/s/3/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.