Sexual
Misconduct

You know,

we see sex everywhere these days.

The human urge to procreate is so deep within us

and so strong,

that the physical and emotional responses to it

can sometimes seem completely overwhelming.

We may need to eat and drink

at an earlier stage of our lives,

but when the sex drive comes along

it can certainly more than compete for our attention,

at least in the short term.

And those who want to sell us things know this.

In the movies, on television, in newspapers and magazines,

on the internet, and of course in advertising,

sex is everywhere

trying to grab our attention

and gain access to our finances.

And in the years of our youth,

when those urges are explosive,

it is hard to resist the idea of a holiday in the sun

with unlimited fornication involved.

And why not?

Why does sex have to be regulated?

Why do we have to regulate any of our urges?

Well,

from the start of life we learn to control our urges,

not to excrete whenever we get the urge,

not to help ourselves to whatever we want

even if it belongs to someone else,

not to annoy other people,

and not to try to kill other people who annoy us.

The requirement for moral self-control

is what separates us from the animals.

We need self control for the sake of our society,

but also for ourselves.

Setting rules,

restrictions on our behaviour,

strangely enough actually enables us to do more.

Hitting random notes on a keyboard makes sounds

but it doesn't make music.

Writing whatever we want to say in an unrestrained way may have meaning

but doesn't make poetry.

Working within rules can bring beauty.

And it's not just beauty but practicality.

Science doesn't work without the discipline of numbers,

and no engineer would be able to build a bridge or a plane

without working within the limits of what loads materials will tolerate.

And it is fairly well known

that eating whatever we want

whenever the urge takes us

is unlikely to be good for us,

and is more likely to damage our health.

And getting whatever we want

has a strange habit of not satisfying our needs in the way that we imagined.

It seems that we often end up just wanting more,

or something else.

The urge to consume,

to own, to try, to taste,

always seems to remain,

and self-indulgence,

lack of self-restraint,

leads us to gluttony, selfishness, and miserliness,

all traits that are neither good for society, nor good for ourselves,

as they bring neither satisfaction nor happiness.

So why should sex be any different?

Some of the most powerful ayats of the Message

concern unregulated sex, underhand sex, and sexual infidelity.

How come?

Well, for a start, relationships have to be controlled for the sake of offspring.

There are genetic reasons for restricting how close

a member of the family a sexual partner can be,

and in our more remote communities it's easy to see

the unfortunate results when these restrictions are ignored.

But we have birth control nowadays,

so why would the risk of pregnancy matter?

Well, typical condom use has a 12% failure rate,

and even in the very best of cases,

when they are perfectly used,

the failure rate is 2%,

so that's quite a risk.

And there may be virtually no risk of pregnancy with the birth control pill,

but that still leaves the ever present possibility

of sexually transmitted diseases,

some more lethal than others.

Things pass from one person's body fluids to another,

so it is hardly surprising that it is important

to keep relationships traceable and under control.

But with sex on display almost everywhere nowadays,

what reasons would anyone have for keeping it secret,

underhand sex, not wanting others to know?

Is there for some reason an element of shame involved?

That's surely not the best kind of relationship.

What's the problem with formalising this choice of partner?

Perhaps,

like Romeo and Juliet,

it is a family matter.

Possibly it's because the relationship involves

infidelity on the part of one or more of those involved,

and that is the worst situation possible.

Infidelity involves breaking the most personal and intimate trust we can have in another person,

and in the worst case running the risk of bringing a child into the world

and assigning it to the wrong father.

What happens to tracking genetic lineage there?

The severity of the strictures on infidelity

are to do with the breaking of that intimate trust.

Like the severity of punishment for the breaking of trust with regard to ownership of property,

namely theft,

infidelity is a breaking of trust in the exclusive nature of a sexual relationship,

an exclusivity that guarantees paternity,

an exclusivity that also prevents the transmission of sexual diseases

from spouse to spouse,

and ultimately through the community.

So these are the main issues with regard to sexual misconduct between men and women,

though clearly there are other issues that need to be considered.

One is prostitution,

known as the oldest profession,

and still clearly in evidence in the time of the Messenger.

On this point the Qur'an makes clear

that the believers should not force their slave girls into prostitution.

This was obviously a common enough practise

to warrant its mention in the Qur'an,

but nothing is said about men's use of those prostitutes that were already there.

This omission means that in modern times

some muslim men have often felt able to circumvent the restrictions on sexual misconduct

by exploiting the Qur'anic permission for sex with

'what your right hands own',

while others have treated the relationship as one of 'temporary marriage'.

So as is often the case,

some people find ways of interpreting texts and legal opinions

to make it permissible to do

what other people consider to be totally forbidden.

And the same applies to another approach to sexual relations

that has been treated in very different ways in muslim countries over the centuries.

Homosexuality,

mainly considered as an act between men,

not one between women of the harim,

which receives a similar variety of legal and cultural opinions.

It is not uncommon to read or hear muslim scholars

who might in other areas of thought show compassion and tolerance

giving as their opinion that the punishment for homosexuality is death.

Yet in days not so very long ago,

when homosexuality was an imprisonable offence in the UK,

a number of muslim countries were seen as havens of tolerance.

Gay men would take their holidays there.

Nowadays, as a more narrow-minded, intolerant approach to Islam

is put forward in a well-funded spread around the muslim world

as the only permitted way to think,

more stories are heard of severe repression of those with homosexual inclinations.

Nonetheless,

in the same way that there has been

a reappraisal of the law concerning this in the west,

gay muslims in the west are making their voices heard.

So it is now possible to see an alternative

to the restraint, apostasy or death, opinions

that they are likely to hear from so many imams.

By re-evaluating the story of Lot

and its traditionalist interpretation,

gay muslims in the west now feel more free

to explore their sexuality in the light of Islam

without the need for complete rejection of the community,

and support groups and discussion forums

are now readily available on-line.

If Islam is once more to be understood as a living religion,

vibrant and interacting with the cultures and communities with which it comes in contact,

surely such free and open discussion of challenging and controversial topics is essential.

The alternative would seem to be

a rigid, ossified, and antiquated view of Islam,

a kind of 'Church of Islam'

with ulema acting like priests

defining rules to be imposed upon everyone else.

The variety to be found in humanity

is one of the signs of God mentioned in the Qur'an,

and it would seem to be impossible to do as we are guided

and learn from each other,

without tolerance and openness to different opinions.

Legal opinions need more than an extensive knowledge of

books of legal opinions from previous centuries.

They also require a familiarity with

the present-day world God has created

in which we live.

When we are defining regulations and limitations on human behaviour as part of the Deen,

we need more than ancient books of law if we are to

see the Deen as a way of giving meaning and understanding to who we are,

channelling and directing our energies in the best directions possible

in the service of our Creator.

For in the end we face our Maker,

and fortunately,

unlike flawed humanity,

God is the Fount of All Mercy

and the Most Wise and Most Just of Judges.