Just like others in this thread I am not a big fan of the label "homosexuality". Historically its a very new word, which did not exist when the Quran was written. The Quran talks about the action of having sex with someone of the same gender. It does not say that these actions define these people and turn them into "homosexuals".

However, I saw that you defined homosexuality as "the state of being sexually attracted to people of their own sex". So from this definition we can discuss whether it is a sin or not.

It is not a sin to feel sexually attracted to people of your own sex! I have even had sunni scholars tell me clearly that this is not a sin. You can not control who you feel attracted to, so there is no sin. You are right that it is not a personal choice, just like a socalled "heterosexual" (another word I dont like) can not decide which women he wants to be attracted to.

I dont understand your need to find out if its a personal choice or not. The Quran does not say that its a sin to feel sexually attracted to someone of the same gender, and as mentioned even many sunni scholars agree with this. You seem to meet the wrong kind of religious people.

However, the Quran is very clear that THE ACTION of having sex with someone of the same gender as yourself is a sin! That is what is a sin. It is not the feeling of being attracted, or the desire that is a sin - it is the action. Having sex with someone of the same gender is a sin.

This is clearly written in the Quran. It should also not come as a surprise to us, since it is in general clear in the Quran that sex is only allowed when you are married, and a man can only be married to a woman. A marriage is a "permission to have sex" and 2 men can not get this permission.

"Homosexuals" are normal people, and just like other people they have a personal choice in what actions they do. If they have sex with someone of the same gender, then that is a choice they have made (unless they have a brain tumor...). And it is a sin.

It is not different than a "heterosexual" man who feel attracted to his neighbours wife. If he chooses to have sex with her he has committed a sin. If he choose not to, then he has done a good thing. When we abstain from those of our desires that go against Allahs rules, we do a good deed.

There is no scientific data in this post. Because the thing that is not a personal choice (the attraction) is not a sin, and the thing that is a personal choice (the action) is a sin. So I dont see why you need to discuss whether the first is a personal choice or not. It has nothing to do with the ruling that the action is a sin.

There is evidence showing that homosexuality has existed long, long before the people of Lot.

Can you please provide this evidence?

Salam Alaykum Alkitab,

As you can see the word " Bayt " in all the verses you mentioned is without the definite article "AL " , in the other hand the word "Al-Bayt" in all the verses member Pazuzu mentioned is with the definite article "AL ",

Not true. I wont go through every verse seeing which is written with an "al", and which is not (since it doesnt mean what you claim it mean anyway). But just to give one example the word bayt is written without "al" in the second occurence in 2.125 (quoted by Pazuzu), but still refers to God's house.

is it a coincidence!!! ?? , surely not

Of course the adding of "al" is not a coincidence. It brings the meaning of making a word definite. However this does not mean that everytime bayt is written in its definite form it refers to the SAME bayt.
Its just like putting "the" in front of a word in english. However we don't mean the SAME house everytime we talk about "the house" in english

Will give you some basic arabic teaching here
Bayt = A house
Al-Bayt = The house

So if we talk about

• a house belonging to a man
• a house belonging to a woman
• a house belonging to God
  = it will be Bayt and not al-Bayt

But if we talk about

• the house belonging to a man
• the house belonging to a woman
• the house belonging to God
  = it will be al-Bayt.

As you can see, whether or not the house belongs to God does not affect whether we write it with al or not. The grammatical context does.

However what you claim is that
bayt = house
al-bayt = sanctuary
= and thats just wrong! You are not even close.

It would be the same as claiming that the first "house" in these sentences is a normal house, while the second is refering to the house of God "Peter had a house. The house was huge". Thats basically what you just claimed.

Adding "al" to a word simply makes it definite, it does not change its meaning any other way.

Not sure I see the relevance of this very basic grammatical discussion. Ahlul Bayt still means household, and it doesnt mean that there is a sanctuary close to the people it refers to.

First I was merely telling you that your argument didnt make much sense towards that sunni - and you should be happy he didnt check your translation.
Therefore it makes little sense when you write this.

I don't care what the Sunnis or the Shias believe, because they DO NOT FOLLOW THE QURAN. It's as simple as that. To them, the Quran is simply eloquent poetry printed in fancy books of caligraphy, to be recited in funerals or over the dead.

I know you dont care. But I guess the sunni you were debating with do care. That is what I was saying. Had the sunni known, that you were asking him where the "sanctuary" in "Ahlul Bayt" were, he would not have given up the discussion so easily

@Miggo

OK. Let's go back to the Free-Minds translation but this time, leaving the term "Al Bayt" as it is, and irrespective of the other errors in their translation.

Take a close look at the following verses, and you tell me what the blue word means

.......

So which BAYT is it talking about?

Bayt means house or home in all of those instances, and not sanctuary a single time.

Now you are asking me WHICH house they are talking about...? Well that of course depends on the context. You quote a lot of verses. Well... the word Bayt is mentioned in other verses too. Does it always mean sanctuary?

Lets pretend to use that translation you like. How should Bayt be translated here (Hint in the translation you like it is translated as home, eventhough its the same word as is translated to sanctuary in other verses)

4.100 Whoever emigrates in the cause of God will find in the earth many spoils and a bounty. And whoever leaves his BAYT emigrating to God and His messenger, then is overcome by death; his recompense has fallen to God, and God is Forgiving, Merciful.

Now is this also the sanctuary of Ahlul Bayt??

8.5 As your Lord made you go out from your BAYT with the truth, but a party from among the believers disliked this.
(translated as home in the translation of your choice)

Look! Yusuf was being seduced in the sanctuary!!

12.25 And the woman, in whose BAYT he was staying, attempted to seduce him away from himself. And she closed the doors and said ?I have prepared myself for you.? He said ?I seek refuge with God, He is my Lord, He has made good my stay; the wicked do not succeed.?

17.93 ?Or that you have a luxurious BAYT , or that you can ascend into the heavens. And we will not believe in your ascension unless you bring for us a book that we can read.? Say ?Glory be to my Lord. Am I anything other than a human messenger!?
(again mysteriously translated to home...)

29.41 The example of those who take allies besides God is like the spider how it makes a BAYT; and the weakest BAYT is the BAYT of the spider, if only they knew.
(one of the bayth is in pluralis, but all are translated to the same singular word home)

And of course. In the verse you quote yourself about the Prophets wifes, the word BAYT is also mentioned in its pluralis form at the start of the verse. But in the start of the verse it means "homes" in the end it means "sanctuary"!!

But lets just stop the examples of this for now. Bayt means home or house. You are right, when God is talking about His Bayt then it is the Bayt of God!! Of course! But when He is talking about someone elses Bayt, then it is NOT the Bayt of God!

The thing this biased translation does is to mistranslate Bayt to sanctuary everytime the translator believes it is the house of God (why not just translate it to home or house as in all other verses? As you just proved, it can be read in the context that its the house of God. Why didnt the translator trust that the reader could see this for himself??).
So house is translated to sanctuary when it is Gods house AND when talking about "the people of the house"
To the unknowing reader this creates the impression that there is a connection between these 2. Oh, they both talk about a sanctuary. It must be the same sanctuary! Ohhh!
The translator of "A monotheist translation" got you to think what he wanted.
Tell me... Why not just translate it to house in all situations? And leave it to the reader to think if there is a connection between "Gods house" "her house", "his house", "your house", "the people of the house" etc. Instead of mistranslating 2 of these examples to sanctuary?? Creating the wrong impression, that the original Quran uses 2 different words!

But Im not done with the surprises. Because in the translation that you like to use, there is one instance where AHL BAYT is not translated to "People of the sanctuary" but as..... "Household".

We are at the time of Moses

28.12 And We forbade him from accepting all the nursing mothers. Then his sister said ?Shall I lead you to a household (AHL BAYT!) that can nurse him for you, and take good care of him??

Why why why why is it not a sanctuary here? Ohh, because it dont make sense of course!

Talk about a biased translation. When we talk about Ibrahims household we mistranslate to "People of the sanctuary", when we talk about Musas household we translate to... household
BECAUSE THATS WHAT IT MEANS!!

Anyway, since we mentioned the "guests" of Abraham, I was having a comical discussion with a Sunni about 10 days ago, and towards the end, I asked him about the following verses

{And his wife was standing, so she laughed when We gave her the good news of Ishac, and after Ishac, Yaqoub * She said "O my! Shall I give birth when I am an old woman, and here is my husband an old man? This is indeed a strange thing!" * They said "Do you wonder at the decree of Allah? The mercy of Allah and blessings are upon you O People of the Sanctuary. He is Praiseworthy, Glorious."}...

Q Who is the wife who was given tidings that she would bear Isaac?
A Sarah.
Q Where did Sarah live?
A In Palestine
Q Really? If she was in Palestine, then why did the malai'ka salute her and her husband as "People of the Sanctuary"? Which "Sanctuary" is being mentioned here?

His face turned purple, and he stormed out of the room, and I haven't seen or heard from him since then.

Salam Alaykum,

Honestly I am not very impressed with your argumentation there, and I guess you should be lucky the sunni didn't check your translation.

The word sanctuary is not in the text. The words translated to "People of the sanctuary" is "Ahlul Bayt". Ahl being the people. Bayt is an everyday arabic word, still used nowadays and it simple means "house" or "home" (or more generally "residence&quot. I just checked several translations, and the only one that translates it to sanctuary, is the one Layth has made. In his book "Natural Republic" he needs the word sanctuary to be there, to argument for his idea that "The Ahlul Bayt are the guardians of the Restricted Sanctuary of Pilgrimage".

As I think you know, Layths ideas about this (Yemen, Jews, Jerusalem) are quite opposite to yours. Its therefore interesting that you rely on a translation, that he has deliberately made so that it corresponds to his arguments. If you find a mistake between the "traditional" story and this translation of the Quran - the mistake might as well be in the translation as in the traditions.

Also. To a sunni (and even more a shia) the term "Ahlul Bayt" has a whole meaning of its own, and a sunni would therefore never start looking for a sanctuary if he heard that term.

In Collins English-Arabic Dictionary (the dictionary closest to me right now) "Ahl al-Bayt" is simply translated as "household".
If you translate "Ahlul Bayt" in the quoted verse as "household" then suddenly the "sanctuary" is nowhere to be seen (because it was never there).

The following image shows that person in city 180 degree apart of KabhaS !

https//fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/314571_311746885518754_100000503349273_1292774_325885893_n.jpg

Assalamu Alaykum,

Did you make that image yourself? It is based on a mistake. It gives the impression that the antipode of Mecca is somewhere in South America. In reality it is somewhere in the Pacific Ocean - close to French Polynesia. I doubt anyone has ever prayed there, since that would be a very wet experience.

Wa Salam