Abstract

This paper will construct a new Qur’anic rhetoric on homosexual disposition one that is counterintuitive to current mainstream Islam’s attitude towards homosexuality. This approach, inspired by the Muhammad Abduh’s and Rashid Redā’s Tafsīr al-Manār, will argue that the positions of Qur’anic verses which make reference to the People of Lot, can be derived from Qur’anic wisdom behind the divine creation of homosexual disposition, thus creating a relatively new Islamic attitude towards the latter. This new approach will transform and progress debate on the Qur’anic attitude towards homosexuality, and on the Qur’anic distinction between the act of sodomy and same-sex disposition. This new attitude could then potentially be a springboard for future discourse, particularly ethical discourse, on Islam’s relationship with homosexuality.