Abdullah Sameer

أَلَا يَعْلَمُ مَنْ خَلَقَ وَهُوَ اللَّطِيفُ الْخَبِيرُ Does He who created not know, while He is the Subtle, the Acquainted? (67:14)

Letter from a Gay Muslim

Abdullah Sameer

A friend of mine who is gay sent me a letter anonymously telling me about his struggles being gay.  His life is difficult because of his feelings towards the same sex.  Despite this he managed to get married to a woman and he ignores his feelings for the same sex and tries to live life as a good Muslim. He does not act on his urges and feels that Allah will forgive him for whatever feelings he has in his heart.
Now, I presume God knew what he was doing when he made people gay.  Clearly this guy did not choose to be gay, and clearly none of us choose to be straight.  If Islam (and Christianity and Judaism) are from God, why would God do such a cruel thing of making people gay and then making them suffer by saying they cannot act on their feelings.  If homosexuality is a private matter and does not hurt anyone, why does God need to forbid it.  If its so horrible, why are people born this way?  Rather it’s a natural thing that among the variety of people, sometimes people are born gay.   Sometimes people are even born with both male and female sexual organs.  It happens.  These people deserve to live happy lives just like us straight people do.

As far as we know there is no way to cure ‘gayness’.  No known method – shock treatment or otherwise seems to work.

The fact that the American Psychological Manual DSM-IV used to classify it as a mental disorder but no longer shows that we have learned from our errors.   You cant pick and choose and say “look it was a disorder” but ignore the fact that science makes progress over time and we know better now.

Responding to Hitting Women Thats Messed Up By Noman Ali Khan

Abdullah Sameer

Responding to a video called “Hitting Women – That’s Messed Up by Nouman Ali Khan”

Why did he make such a video – Because the Quran mentions hitting women and it’s actually embarrassing for Muslims now.  Especially with the narrative that Islam brought women more rights.  As well, it’s a real issue among Muslims that the Quran is used as a justification for hitting women.

 

(more…)

Academic Criticisms of Islamic History

Abdullah Sameer

In this fantastic summary, What Is the Koran? Toby summarizes many orientalist (ie western academic) historic arguments against the mainstream islamic history.  He mentions criticisms of the idea that the Quran was preserved intact, criticisms about the origin of Islam by many western scholars, and other great things worth reading.  At the very least gives you a high level understanding of some of the arguments against mainstream Islamic history.

It discusses the Yemeni transcripts of the Quran that they found that don’t match the original. Patricia Crone and her “Hagarism”.  The criticism of how Makkah doesn’t exist on any trade routes (The Arabian Spice argument), some modern freethinkers such as Abu Zayd.

What Is the Koran?
Researchers with a variety of academic and theological interests are proposing controversial theories about the Koran and Islamic history, and are striving to reinterpret Islam for the modern world. This is, as one scholar puts it, a “sensitive business”

Here is a video summary of some of the orientalist arguments against Islam, but I would recommend you read the above in full.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzMEgGwBGIk

Further reading: