Reply #6: Here's a good link [View All]

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_isla.htm

The main place in the Qur'an where homosexuality is condemned is in the story of Sodom and Gommorah, where the Qur'an links male sex to the destruction of the city. Some Muslims have argued that this was the first time male homosexuality appeared. Remember, the Qur'an was "written" (i don't want to get into that debate) 600 years after Christ, in a different culture, and the stories of the Old Testament had been floating around for centuries longer in oral and written form.

The article mentions hadith, but doesn't explain what these are. Shortly after Muhammad died, people began collecting his sayings and either writing them down, or reciting them orally. Soon there were more of these sayings than could have possibly come from the Prophet, so the different Muslim schools of thought began trying to determine which were really the Prophet's and which were not. They used several methods: first, the saying had to have a clear chain of connection to someone who knew the Prophet. In other words, if someonce claimed "Jimmy told me that Eric heard this straight from Mohammad," it had to be proven that Jimmy knew Eric and that Eric knew the Prophet. Second, it had to be consistent with what the Prophet would say and what the Qur'an says. So in the end, a narrow set of hadith was accepted as being legitimately from the Prophet, and, as I understand it (though I could be wrong), various schools had different hadith they accepted as valid.

The words of Muhammad are venerated, and since Muhammad is the most perfect example of how a person should live, the hadith are considered infallible, when they are proven. As the article above shows, there are different degrees of acceptance amongst Muslims of the Hadith. Some believe they are fundamentally acccurate, some believe that many of them are bogus.

Sorry for the lecture. Get back to work now.