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iris89 · Site Admin Joined: 05 Oct 2011 Posts: 4429

THIS IS VOL 709B – COMBINATION OF (1) INTERESTING VIDEO AND TALKING SHOWING WONDERS OF ALMIGHTY GOD’S CREATION, [2] THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY AND AN A VIDEO TO INTRODUCTION BOOK TO THE BOOK OF OBIDIAH, AND A LINK TO A BIBLE STUDY: [3] PART 2 OF ISLAM IS NOT CLEAN OF HOMOSEXUALITY AS SOME CLAIM, LEARN THE TRUTH:

(1) TO VIEW WAS IT DESIGNED OR CREATED, VIEW THE SHORT VIDEO, CLICK OR POST IN BROWSER THE FOLLOWING,
https://www.jw.org/en/library/videos/#en/mediaitems/VODBibleCreation/docid-502200134_1_VIDEO

NOW VIEW A TALKING VIDEO SHOWING, WAS IT DESIGNED? THE SEA OTTER’S FUR:
https://www.jw.org/en/library/magazines/awake-no3-2017-june/sea-otter-fur/

COMBINATION OF [2] THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY AND [3] MEMBERS OF ISLAM LIE AND POST MISS-INFORMATION COMPLETELY INAPPROPRIATE TO THE CONCEPT OF LEARNING AND EDUCATION:

COMBINATION OF [1] THE SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY AND [3] ISLAM IS NOT CLEAN OF HOMOSEXUALITY AS SOME CLAIM, LEARN THE TRUTH: PART 2

[2] SCRIPTURE OF THE DAY VOL [709B]

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. 6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. 7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. 8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. Revelation 18:4 – 8, [authorized King James Bible; AV]

In ancient times, Almighty God (YHWH) had His prophet Micah give warning of a future judgment for all of mankind at Micah 3:8 – 12, [AV] “But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin. 9 Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity. 10 They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. 11 The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us. 12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.”

And Jude at Jude 4 warns of evil men creeping into the Christian faith, [AV] “4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” He goes on to inform us of the fact that they are reserved up for judgment at Jude 5 – 7, [AV] “I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. 6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. 7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”

TO VIEW INTRODUCTION TO BOOK OF BOOK OF OBIDIAH, CLICK OR ENTER IN BROWSER, THE FOLLOWING:
https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/books/obadiah-introduction/

TO ENJOY AN ONLINE BIBLE STUDY CALLED “FOLLOW THE CHRIST”: CLICK OR POST IN BROWSER, THE FOLLOWING.
https://religioustruthsbyiris.createmybb4.com/thread-3.html

[3] PART 2 OF ISLAM IS NOT CLEAN OF HOMOSEXUALITY AS SOME CLAIM, LEARN THE TRUTH:
"I see Zaid on a golden bed in Paradise."

It is intriguing that in the Quran ( The Believers 023.005 - 023.006
) we read that Allah asks men to guard their modesty from all except
their wives and their slaves. A sexual relationship with a slave
such as Zaid would not have been seen as a sin like adultery as it
posed no threat to a marriage. However, we might speculate that once
Muhammad declared Zaid as his heir and implicitly freeing him from
slavery, then any sexual relationship would have had to have been
either terminated or in the unlikely event of it continuing, then it
would have had to have been well hidden from wider society.

RETURN TO A QUEER HISTORY OF EARLY ISLAM - CONENTS PAGE

Second item of four of some of the things said by GayEgypt with all 'rough' graphics stripped out.

MUHAMMAD'S COUSIN ALI IS HIS CONSTANT COMPANION AND SLEEPING PARTNER.

Two unknown lovers (left) are from a work typical of the Islamic
Mughal Empire. Ali probably shared a bed with the Prophet from his
late teens but there is no evidence of sexual intimacy, though it's
a little naive to imagine nothing ever happened. As one historian
wrote " [Muhammad] often made [Ali] sleep by his side, and Ali
enjoyed the warmth of Muhammad's body and inhaled the holy fragrance
of his breath." Indeed, there is not one of Muhammad's fifteen wives
who continuously shared the same living quarters with the prophet
for as long as Ali. From his youth, until the prophet's death, Ali
was always living either in the prophet's home or in an adjacent
apartment.

This chapter looks at the second reason we have for thinking that
the Prophet Muhammad may have been queer. It is his relationship
with young men and in particular his bond with Ali which was
arguably the most important in the Prophet's life. It was certainly
more intense and longer lasting than any of his ten marriages.

( This relationship takes place years after the Prophet Muhammad's
marriage to his man slave Zaid - see previous chapter. )

The prophet surrounded himself mostly, though there were a few
notable exceptions, with young male converts. Indeed, most of them
were much younger than him; men in their teens and early twenties.
This is intriguing. More mature men would have given his movement
much greater respect by virtue of their seniority. But by courting
almost exclusively the companionship of younger men Muhammad
deepened the suspicions of their parents and elder kinsmen. He also
embarrassed and alienated the city elders and even many of his own
companions in both Mecca and Yathrib [ Medina ].

For instance, late in his life, Muhammad was often seen in the
company of Usama ibn Zaid, his former servant's son. Sometimes they
even shared a camel together, Usama mounted behind. But Muhammad's
companions were astonished when he appointed this teenager ( he was
then just eighteen years old ) to head an expedition against Syria
in 10AH ( 632AD ). The planned campaign was considered so difficult
that only the original muhajirin and ansar were employed and these
veteran soldiers were severely critical of the Prophet for placing
them under the command of an inexperienced and beardless youth.
Muhammad responded that

"Your criticism of his leadership is just like your earlier
criticism of his father's appointment to command. Yet it was God who
gave his father all the qualities necessary to command and he was
one of my dearest and closest companions. His son is also someone I
love dearly." [ Ibn Kathir ]

Not surprisingly little is written about what happened to the
expedition beyond the claim that it returned with a few prisoners
taken from a Red Sea port.

There are also many examples from more everyday events. In one
instance ten years before, when the fifty two year old Messenger of
God first arrived in Yathrib, after his narrow and arduous escape
from his assassins in Mecca, he chose to place both himself and his
baggage in the care of a young man - Khalid ibn Zaid. This seems to
have frustrated many of his older followers who insisted he stay
with them. Muhammad struggled a little to justify his decision,
responding somewhat feebly that "A man should never be separated
from his baggage."

A few weeks earlier, it was a group of Meccan elders who had plotted
Muhammad's murder. Not only had Muhammad been denouncing their gods
but several of them had "lost" younger members of their families to
Muhammad's new faith.

The sheiks hired cutthroats to burst into Muhammad's appartment late
one night. The assassins discovered his twenty three year old
beloved cousin, Ali, lying on the prophet's bed. Muhammad himself
had disappeared just a few hours earlier.

Historians claim that Ali was sleeping in the Prophet's bed as part
of a deliberate ploy to buy time. Muhammad's enemies, who were known
to be observing the house, would be deceived. They would, it was
hoped, peer in through a window and see Ali and assume, naturally
enough, that it was Muhammad asleep.

Though this could be an explanation, it is surprising that Muhammad
should have chosen a man less than half his age to play his double,
especially as it would have put his nephew at risk. As a relative
and as Muhammad's most trusted follower, Ali might easily have been
killed by less discriminating assassins. Especially since his
father, Muhammad's uncle Abu Talib, had recently died and therefore
any threat of retribution would have been greatly reduced.

As a decoy Abu Talib's youngest son was also a poor choice. Ali was
a strikingly handsome youth who would not easily have been mistaken
for the middle aged prophet. He was muscular and broad shouldered
with a straight nose and a beautifully formed mouth. The prophet
himself confessed that

"Looking upon Ali is worship," [ Ibn Asakir on the authority of
Caliph Abubakr ] and that "Ali would appear [even] to the dwellers
of paradise as a morning star." [Sawai'q muhari'qa.]

But let us return to the scene which greeted the assassins. The idea
that Ali was lying in Muhammad's bed as a "decoy" seems a little far
fetched. Moreover it ignores the fact that Muhammad frequently
shared a bed with Ali. As one historian wrote -

"He [Muhammad] often made [Ali] sleep by his side, and Ali enjoyed
the warmth of Muhammad's body and inhaled the holy fragrance of his
breath."

Indeed, there is not one of Muhammad's ten wives who continuously
shared the same living quarters with the prophet for as long as Ali.
From his youth, until the prophet's death, Ali was always living
either in the prophet's home or in an adjacent apartment.

Enjoying such a close and continuous proximity to the Prophet and
quickly aquiring an authority above those much older than himself,
Ali soon provoked jealousy and anger among some of the Prophet's
companions. On several ocassions Muhammad had to warn his followers
against any inclination to conspire against the young man.

Just after completing what was to be his final pilgrimmage in 632,
at a place called Ghadir Khumm on the road between Mecca and Medina,
Muhammad addressed an assembled crowd of many thousands. Holding
Ali's hand and raising it high, he declared that "Anyone whose
Guardian I have been has Ali as his Guardian. Oh God protect anyone
who protects him and opose anyone who opposes him. Ali is of me and
I am of him," and according to one source [ Ibn Abu Bukayr ] even
told his listeners that "No one settles debts on my behalf except
myself or Ali." Clearly the Prophet wanted to make everyone aware
not only that there was no one he trusted as much as Ali, but that
he and Ali were so close spiritually that he thought of Ali and
himself as a single spirit occupying two bodies.

When, only a few months later, Muhammad died, it was in the arms of
Ali. It was Ali who emerged from under a blanket, which covered them
both, to announce that the Prophet was dead.

It is not surprising that some of Muhammad's followers suspected
that there was more to this relationship than mere bonds of
friendship and cousinly kinship. One such instance occurred during
the siege of Tayef which occupied a strategic position some sixty
miles to the south east of Mecca.

Ali was returning from an expedition into the surrounding
countryside. Muhammad greeted him effusively and they both
dissappeared into Muhammad's quarters. The prophet didn't allow
anyone to enter and as hour succeeded hour, those outside began to
wonder what was happening and murmur among themselves. When Muhammad
finally emerged they challenged him, but the prophet explained to
his somewhat incredulous listeners that

"God himself had inspired Ali with Divine Secrets, and that it was
for this reason that he was engaged in confidential discourse so
long."

Muhammad managed a more convincing eloquence when he confessed his
love for his younger cousin.

"Ali and I, fourteen thousand years before the creation of mankind,
were one light. When Allah created Adam, he split this light into
two, one of which I am and the other is Ali." [Salman]

This romantic vision of the past and present is fascinatingly
similar to that described a thousand years earlier by Plato when he
attempted to explain the origin of homosexuality. In Plato's
Symposium the reason for the power of all love, heterosexual and
homosexual, is the need to be reunited with one's "other half." At
the beginning of mankind each person was composed of two halfs -
either male-male, female-female or male-female - until the gods cut
them all into two; thereby creating the powerful desire to be
reunited, manifesting itself in either heterosexual or homoerotic
desire.

Though Muhammad adored Ali as his "other half," he did not try to
stop his beloved when Ali asked his permission to marry a woman.
It's not clear, however, whether Ali's desire to tie the knot was
motivated more by his love for his bride to be or his love for
Muhammad, for when he finally married, of all the possible partners
he might have chosen, he chose Fatima, the Prophet's daughter. The
balance of probability is that the marriage was born out of
formality rather than infatuation, and was designed as a ritualistic
cement for Muhammad's and Ali's long-standing, but still passionate,
partnership.

The marriage, though it involved close relatives, did not offend
Quraishi values and similarly the discreet homoerotic union between
Muhammad and his beloved cousin Ali did not bring either the Prophet
or Ali [who later became Caliph] into any disrepute.

RETURN TO A QUEER HISTORY OF EARLY ISLAM - CONTENTS PAGE

Third item of four of some of the things said by GayEgypt with all 'rough' graphics stripped out.

[3] THE QURAISH SUSPECTED A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PROPHET AND HIS OWN UNCLE.

The third reason we have for supposing that the Prophet Muhammad was
queer is the unusual fondness of his uncle Abu Talib [ who never
converted to Islam ] for the prophet which seems to have been
regarded by others in the Quraish as homoerotic.

Though there is no evidence of any physical relationship, Muhammad
was more than willing to rely continuously on his Uncle's protection
and seems to have held a great and strong affection for him. Nothing
surprising in that.

But when the Meccan elders challenged Abu Talib, who by virtue of
kinship acted as Muhammad's protector, and requested him to
relinquish his protection of his nephew who so mocked their religion
and practices, they offered him another man "as a son" - who they
claimed was the most handsome man of all the Quraish. In other words
Mecca's sheikhs who had for years been in daily contact with Abu
Talib, himself a senior and respected elder among the Quraish, felt
they had a chance of convincing the man to turn a blind eye to his
own nephew's assassination in return for the gift of the city's most
handsome young man !

There seems a strong hint here that this was an attachment which
others, rightly or wrongly, thought was homoerotic. Otherwise, why
did they make Abu Talib such an offer ? There's no indication,
however, that Muhammad reciprocated in any physical way. But Abu
Talib's high status in Mecca and the deference, atleast until his
death, which Muhammad's enemies showed the man in respecting his
publicly proclaimed protection of the Prophet, suggests that a
"homoerotic" inclination, even if well-known, was no hindrance to
social status. And this may explain how the Prophet himself was
later able to win so much deep respect and admiration, despite his
sexual orientation.

RETURN TO THE QUEER HISTORY OF EARLY ISLAM - CONTENTS PAGE

Fourth item of four of some of the things said by GayEgypt with all 'rough' graphics stripped out.

[4] WHY EARLY ISLAM NEEDED QUEER RELATIONSHIPS.

EXPLAINING THE EARLY ISLAMIC TOLERANCE OF SAME-SEX SEXUALITY - OR
HOW BOTH "QUEER"* RELATIONSHIPS AND "QUEER"* MEN WERE VITAL TO
ISLAM'S EARLY SURVIVAL

There were few laws to protect the individual in sixth century
Arabia from assault, theft, abduction or other crimes. Free men
depended on their relatives, and slaves on their slave masters for
protection.

Unfortunately the followers of Islam, by rejecting the traditional
Meccan polytheist religion, often found themselves alone. Father was
divided from son, brother from brother, nephew from uncle. Those
Muhajirin ( emmigrants ) who followed the Prophet to Medina found
themselves separated from their families spiritually by their new
faith and physically by the very real divide of the desert. The
distance between the two cities being some fourteen days by camel.

Many of the young Muhajirin could not look to older influential
family relatives for protection. For them it was essential to bond
closely with another man. And many of them announced publicly ties
of "brotherhood" with their chosen "companions". Even Muhammad, soon
after arriving in Medina, announced that Ali was to be considered as
his brother - even though he was infact a cousin. But he was an
exception. Most others made partnerships with men who were not
otherwise related by blood.

The new Islamic society born in Medina was, like the Spartans of
ancient Greece, a highly militaristic one. Not only was there a very
real threat of attack from the majority of Meccans who still
rejected Islam and who were suspicious about Muhammad's long term
aims, but the necessities of economic survival also required
Muhammad to launch piratic attacks against traders from Mecca and
other "unfriendly" tribes.

The size of Muhammad's military expeditions were small, generally
much smaller than those of his enemies. With hand to hand combat
always the crucial aspect of any battle, the loyalty of one's
immediate companions was vital. As with the outnumbered Spartans
whose army of three hundred gay lovers fought with legendary courage
and self-sacrifice against the Persian army at Thermopylae in 480BC,
there is considerable evidence that Muhammad's soldiers also fought
in pairs. With other Arabian tribal armies this might have meant two
brothers fighting together or perhaps a freed man alongside his
former master.

The battles of early Islam, however, witnessed brother opposing
brother, nephew battling uncle ( Ali ibn Abu Talib famously faced
his uncle Amr ibn Abd Wudd in a duel during the siege of Medina )
and sometimes slaves fighting their former masters. So, the only
real options were bonds built from either deep friendship or love.

It would be fanciful to assume that either of these types of bonding
existed entirely without the other. Certainly we know that the
camaraderie was intense and that Muhammad often gave instructions
for soldiers to be buried in pairs. According to Ibn Kathir "he
would join in the same grave two men who had been close friends."
The symbolism of such joint burials suggests that these friendships
were far stronger and deeper than the camaraderie of the modern
parade ground and it is difficult to refuse the notion that many of
these men could have been lovers.

This must have been especially true as Muhammad's armies were
comprised predominantly of youths and young men whose enthusiasm,
ocassionally bordering on the reckless, played a roll in both
Muhammad's military successes such as at Badr and in some costly
mistakes, such as at Uhud when many of the Muhajirin were too
impatient to attack.

It was an extremely youthful army by any historical standard. Boys
could become soldiers once they turned fifteen. The polytheist
Meccans were contemptuous of Muhammad's recruits, dismissing them as
"young gazelles." The Prophet's young soldiers in turn ridiculed
their Meccan opponents as "bald old women like camels bound for
sacrifice."

Any military man knows that at such a young age attachments with
other young men in the face of extreme danger often borders on the
homoerotic and almost inevitably on a friendship deeper than that of
most marital love. It seems likely that in such circumstances,
homoerotic relationships would have been tolerated as an accepted,
even indispensable aspect, of a tightly knit military society.

While such homoerotic relationships were vital to early Islam's
political and military survival, they did not preclude those
involved marrying women and setting up a family as soon as the
opportunity arose. In fact many such men may have been bisexual or
even heterosexual to the extent that they may have prefered women as
sexual partners given the freedom to chose. However there is also
evidence that individuals who we would now call "gay" and who showed
no signs of sexual attraction towards women, also played a
significant role in early Islam.

The prophet himself relied on eunuchs or mukhannathun, men who
lacked heterosexual desires, to guard his own harem. There is no
evidence that these men were usually castrated although this became
normal practise in later Islamic history. However it seems that at
the time of the Prophet most were considered to be mukhannathun by
nature. Muhammad himself told one man that it was not up to him or
any man, but to God, to decide who was and who was not a eunuch,
reminding him that " the ink is already dry. So be a eunuch for that
reason or leave it alone." [ ya Aba Horairata, jaffa al-qalam bimaa
anta laaq fa'akhtasi 'alaa dhalika au dhar ] ( Bukhari, LXII 8 ).

Muhammad gave such men a unique freedom. They were allowed into such
normally private spaces where another man's wife might be unveilled
but they were also allowed, like other men, to enter the "men only"
sections of the mosque.

This special place for eunuchs in society is recognized in the Quran
-

" Tell all believing women to lower their eyes, and maintain their
chastity. They should never reveal any part of their body, except as
absolutely necessary. They should cover their chests, and should
maintain this modesty in the presence of anyone other than their
....[ immediate family members ]..., children, other women and male
employees who lack the normal defining traits of men [ ie men who
lack heterosexual desires ]." ( Surah 24:31 )

Only if, as happened in one notorious instance, the mukhannath was
exposed as a pretender secretly harbouring heterosexual desires,
could he be deprived of such privileges. Ibn `Abd al-Barr, refering
to an account related by A`isha, the Prophet`s wife, declared that
"the Prophet did not prevent that mukhannath from being in the
company of his own wives until he heard him describing the daughter
of Ghaylaan and realized that he knew too much about women. Only
then did he issue instructions that the man be barred from being in
the company of his wives."

The mukhannathun were highly valued as household servants and as
arrangers of marriages. Since they were the only men allowed into
close proximity of women regardless of whether or not such women
were family members, they alone could act unhindered as messengers
carrying proposals from one private space to another.

They were also given the exclusive right of appointment to certain
prestigious positions banned to other men. We know, for instance,
that atleast as far back as the twelth century, that it was only
mukhannathun who were allowed to guard the prophet's grave. A
tradition that was maintained until the end of Ottoman rule in the
twentieth century.

All above provided to prove beyond doubt the nature of the site; to wit, a Muslim homosexual site.

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