If ever there was an oxymoron, it would have to be the term “islamic scholar”. It’s a term that suggests great wisdom and knowledge, but the reality is usually anything but. A prime example of this tomfoolery is “islamic scholar” Sheikh Haitham al-Haddad who has become relatively famous, or rather infamous, for his comments about homosexuality.
Earlier this year al-Haddad referred to homosexuality as “a scourge” and “a criminal act”, neither of which are actually true. He justifies his homophobia and bigotry by announcing that “I am just vocal about anything I disagree with. My view about homosexuality is clearly stated in the Koran”, to which I reply, so what? I am not remotely interested in what the Koran, or any other religious book, says on the subject. In all probability, religious texts are all made up and anyway the law of the land is not, yet anyway, Sharia.
I am interested in what al-Haddad says, not because I share any of his backward views, but because what he says flies in the face of the society in which we live. He is, of course, entitled to his views on homosexuality, for so long as they do not stray into the realms of illegality, but I am also entitled to mine and they are that he’s an ill educated idiot with offensive views about a large number of our citizens. And anyway, it’s none of his business what other people do in their own lives. I respect and indeed would fight for his rights to follow his own personal “faith”, no matter how absurd it seems to me, but by the same token I will question the kind of things he says because of his theism.
As ever, I come back to the same old argument: if you don’t like homosexuality, then don’t practise it. No one is telling him he must have sex with someone he doesn’t want to, no one is saying he has to approve, but frankly it’s none of his business. What goes on behind his closed doors, when he presumably spends half his life praying to a god who in all likelihood never existed, is none of my concern at all. Live and let live.
I hate this retreat to “I believe in the good book” nonsense because if you do, literally (and why else would you believe in something if you didn’t believe in the literal word?) you will read about a god character who isn’t actually a very nice person, unarguably the one in the Old Testament is the most unpleasant character in all of fiction.
This “islamic scholar” has plenty of form in other subjects too, emphasising that there is “a proper way” of performing female genital mutilation (FGM). I am guessing that cutting off a girl’s clitoris with a rusty knife or a sharp stone is not the proper way. Now FGM is “a criminal act” so there is no “proper way” to remove a woman’s genitalia. Anyway, I thought that God/Allah was so perfect he – God is always a he – wouldn’t mess up assembling a girl’s bits, unless of course it fell on his day off (day of rest) and he had other things on his mind, like arranging for a famine or flood somewhere, in a fit of pique.
al-Haddad defends his “legitimately-held religious views which are shared by millions of other people of all faiths in Britain” and there you have it. I’ll bet the vast majority of those without supernatural religious beliefs could not care less about people’s private lives, but call someone a scholar or a priest or a vicar and your religious leader has to be respected. What?
Well, I don’t respect bigots of any sort and whilst I accept that al-Haddad has the right to hold his own ancient views on a subject he doesn’t understand on the basis of scripture alone I condemn him unreservedly. We don’t really know that God exists – he almost certainly doesn’t – but we do know that homosexuality does exist. I’d prefer to believe what’s true, thank you very much.
