Here is an attempt to shore up the Leftist/Islamic alliance that, not surprisingly, founders on the facts.
Amrou Al-Kadhi writes: “Prophet Muhammed once said, ‘Islam began as something strange and will return to being something strange, so give blessings to those who are strange.’ Amen Muhammed! ”
Yeah, but Muhammad is also depicted as saying this: “The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said, ‘Whoever you find doing the action of the people of Loot, execute the one who does it and the one to whom it is done.’” (Sunan Abu Dawud 4462)
Also, the Qur’an contains numerous condemnations of homosexual activity: “And [We had sent] Lot when he said to his people, ‘Do you commit such immorality as no one has preceded you with from among the worlds? Indeed, you approach men with desire, instead of women. Rather, you are a transgressing people.’…And We rained upon them a rain [of stones]. Then see how was the end of the criminals.” (Qur’an 7:80-84)
Amrou Al-Kadhi doesn’t mention any of this. It doesn’t fit his narrative. But unfortunately for him, many of his coreligionists are well aware of these passages and others like them.
“why islam is inherently queer,” by Amrou Al-Kadhi, Vice, October 3, 2019 (thanks to Paul):
…Prophet Muhammed once said, “Islam began as something strange and will return to being something strange, so give blessings to those who are strange.” Amen Muhammed! If you replace the world Islam with “people”, the sentence could feasibly be the slogan for a queer sex-positive disco in Berlin. As I had learnt from first-hand experience, the West has limited most people’s perceptions of what a Muslim looks like – we’re either terrorists, terrifying, or terrified. Cultural representation has a lot to answer for here; pretty much every Arab actor will tell you that since 9/11, they’ve been in business, but for the wrong reason. American networks, in particular, are hooked on narratives where white male soldiers gun down Arabs like we’re vermin. So it’s unsurprising that most people would find the idea of the Quran having pockets of queerness as ludicrous as Katy Perry’s claims to cultural authenticity (the right-wing media has made a particular meal out of positioning Islam as a complete threat to Western civil rights) – but ideas about Islam are limited, and mask the subatomic complexities hidden deep inside the faith.
On my rereadings of the Quran, I came across this passage about Allah. It says that Allah is the “One who shapes you in the womb as He Pleases.” (Quran 3:6), and that “of His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth and the differences of your tongues and colours” (Quran 30:22). When I came across this, it was the first time in my life that I felt connected to the Quran without an urge to repel it. I could just hold the book as though it was meant to be in my hands, like a calm, sleeping kitten. There it was, in this ancient “evil” text, the idea that variance and difference among human bodies was all part of Allah’s plan. Perhaps Allah views human beings in the same way I used to think about marine aquatics – as a collection of ever-changing, different bodies, all coexisting as a formless mass unified by light and love. I had only ever pictured Allah as a fascistic punisher who built the world on strict rigid lines – but the more I discovered about Islam, the less this seemed to be the case….