This is in reply to entry number 4.

I feel that your avoidance of accepting ‘orientation’ stems from a belief that if we treat it as ‘nature’ then we have to automatically proclaim it as acceptable. I will try to argue that not all natural is good and not all good is natural.

Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) once said: I was sent to perfect good condut. Islam, as you know, is a message of strict discipline and one of its core principles is to encourage us to bring our lowly tendencies into rein to achieve an ‘ideal way’.

So it is recognised that humans do have a tendency to go astray unless they follow a divine message. Sometimes it is Iblees sometimes it is just ‘shahawat’. These shahawat are not necessarily evil unless we over-indulge in them (e.g sex, wealth, food)

So in a very strict sense Islam is not a ‘natural’ way but it is system to align our natural tendencies with the ideal pathway intended by God (swt). Man was made “weak” and if his natural tendencies always led to good we would not have needed divine intervention.

On the other hand giving your soul in sacrifice to God (swt) is not natural at all yet it is encouraged and praised in Islam. It may indeed not be good to the family of the martyr (in the dunya, especially if he/she has dependents) but reward is reserved for the hereafter. Thus it may not always appear to be ‘good’.

I hope I am making myself clear but there is no major problem with proclaiming that homosexuality is another perfectly natural tendency that simply needs taming.

I found that pitying myself for being homosexual is inversely related to my state of ‘faith’. When I am remote from religion I seem to perceive a different side to the homosexuality debate. A side that says that, unless one is persuaded that homosexuality is wrong, there is no reason to pity oneself for feeling this way at all. The reasoning doesn’t change in your head but the way you feel about it does.

The point is that homosexuality does not automatically invite self-pity. It depends on the depth of your committment to accepting a world view suggested by religious doctrine.

Salam

In short, and in reply to your specific question, I would say that in such a case, a person may say “I’m choosing to act against my nature.” I’m uncomfortable with taking such a description and considering it virtuous from an Islamic perspective. Islam is the “natural way”, even if some aspects don’t seem natural automatically to us all.

Can’t you have a sexual orientation that you choose not to act upon? The notion of orientation does not always imply that the person acts out whatever they feel. So why do you feel so strongly about the concept of an ‘orientation’ in principle?

Salam

One point I’d like to add is regarding the excellent refutation above of the following people:

There is a vast difference between admitting that we are not responsible for our desires…and making the claim that we are therefore somehow blameless for what we do as a result! Oddly, there are people who attempt to make this point. They link the two aspects of “being homosexual”, namely feeling and doing, in an attempt to legitimise following their lusts. At best, this is self-delusion.

A more sophisticated (but still wrong) argument is that because a person has these same-sex attractions, he is naturally a ‘homosexual’. That means he should accept himself for who he is, and act according to his nature. Therefore, any action he carries out is fine so long as it is in line with these “natural” lusts.

This is the big problem I have with the idea of “orientations”! It is a fatalist (or determinist) argument, which the creed of Islam rejects outright. If we are merely to act according to what we suppose has been written for us (i.e. predestination), then why did Allah reveal to us His commands and prohibitions? It is upon us to live according to these revelations.

We cannot blame Allah for what we do, even though He is the Creator of all. No man can really deny that he makes choices about what he does, even if he likes to use pseudo-theological arguments to justify choosing evil desires over patient obedience.

People often forget that this life is not for fun and enjoyment. It is about trials, tests and difficulties.

SSA is a test from Allah (SWT). Will we obey Him and avoid giving in to our lusts and desires? Or will we follow the path that leads to His pleasure?