A Living Lesson for Homosexuals

Dead Sea: A Living Lesson for Homosexuals

82 kilometers in length and 18 kilometers wide Dead Sea is thousands of foot deep and exists 1300 foot below the sea level in between Palestine and Jordan. Due to the salt ratio which is 8 times more than the other oceans in the world, the density of water in Dead Sea is enormously high. So much so that a person floats on the surface and is not drowned in it.

 

Around four thousand years from now Prophet Looth - nephew of the Biblical Prophet Abraham was sent by the Almighty Allah as His Messenger to Sodom, a town 55 kilometers to Amman, the capital of Jordan in the Middle East. Quran has described the historical accounts of Prophet Looth and his folks in Surah Al-Ankaboot and Surah Hud with much details. People of Sodom indulged in homosexuality, a habit unheard of till then. Quran describes their unnatural act in these words:

 

“And recall Looth who said to his folks, you commit the lewdness such as no creature did before you.”

(Surah Al-Ankaboot, Ayah 28)

 

Prophet Looth tried hard so as to refrain them from indulging in homosexuality. However they declined to fall in line. Their insistence on lewdness invited the wrath of the Almighty Allah. Quran says:

 

“We are about to bring down upon folks of this township a fury from the sky because they are evil-livers.”

(Surah Al-Ankaboot, Ayah 34)

 

Before finally destroying the people of Sodom, Allah sent three Angels in the town, who were in juvenile human form. They knocked at Prophet Looth as guests. Prophet Looth, aware of the habit his folks were involved in, was distressed and helplessly tried to find ways to protect them. Quran describes the incidence as this:

 

“And his people came unto him, running towards him – and before then they used to commit abominations. He said: O my people! Here are my (native) daughters! They are purer for you. Beware of Allah and degrade me not in (the presence of) my guests. Is there not among you any upright man?”

(Surah Hud, Ayah 78)

 

At this point the Angels disclosed to Prophet Looth that they were actually Angels of Allah and had been descended to destroy the town. They advised Prophet Looth to leave the town with his companions. Once the believers abandoned the town, the Angels destroyed the whole town. Describing the incident Quran says:

 

“So when Our commandment came to pass, We overthrew (that township) and rained upon it stones of clay, one after another.”

(Surah Hud, Ayah 82)

 

The idea that homosexual intercourse was involved as at least a part of the evil of Sodom arises from the story in Genesis 19. It notes:

 

Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house. They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."

 

Moreover, under Hebrew references Wikipedia notes, many times in the Pentateuch and Prophets, writers use God's destruction of Sodom to demonstrate His awesome power.

 

Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had arrogance, abundant food and careless ease, but she did not help the poor and needy. Thus they were haughty and committed abominations before Me.

(Ezekiel 16.49-50)

The New Testament like the Old Testament also references Sodom as a place of God's anger against sin.

 

And angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, He [God] has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way these men, also by dreaming, defile the flesh, and reject authority, and revile angelic majesties.

(Jude 1:7, New American Standard Version)

 

Interestingly English word 'Sodomy', commonly used for homosexuality is derived from Sodom, the name of the town where Prophet Looth was sent as the Messenger. Describing Sodomy, Wikipedia notes, it is a term used today predominantly in law (derived from traditional Christian usage) to describe the act of anal intercourse, oral intercourse, or bestiality.

 

Majority of narrators believe that Dead Sea is exactly the place and the town that was earlier known as Sodom where Prophet Looth had been sent as the Messenger thousands of years before. After describing the accounts of Prophet Looth and his unfortunate folks, Allah concludes the whole incidence terming it a lesson for the mankind.

 

“And verily of that We have left a clear sign for people who have sense.”

(Surah Al-Ankaboot, Ayah 35)