[lbo-talk] Khomeini on Sodomy: a response

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On 9/26/07, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> [from the Debate list]
>
> From: "Tahir Wood" <twood at uwc.ac.za>
> Date: September 26, 2007 3:30:44 AM EDT
> To: "Debate" <debate at lists.kabissa.org>
> Subject: Re: [DEBATE] : Khomeini on Sodomy
> Reply-To: "debate: SA discussion list " <debate at lists.kabissa.org>
> List-Archive: <http://lists.kabissa.org/mailman/private/debate>
>
>
> > "Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages at gmail.com> 09/25/07 4:58 PM
> >
> > For instance, do you know Khomeini had a hilarious opinion about
> > sodomy?
> >
> >      Ayatollah Khomeini's 1947 manual, Risaleh-yi Towzih
> >      al-masa'il (Explanation of problems), is a case in point.
> >      Article 349 of this book states that "if a person has sex
> >      and [his organ] enters [the other person's body] to the
> >      point where it is circumcised [corona] or more, whether
> >      he enters a woman or a man, from behind or the front,
> >      an adult or pre-adult youngster, and even if no semen
> >      is secreted, both persons will become ritually polluted
> >      (najes)." But ritual impunity can always be cleansed
> >      away through the observance of rules stated in the
> >      same manual. (Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson,
> >      Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the
> >      Seductions of Islamism, University of Chicago Press, p. 159)
> >
> > Iranian men and women might amend the existing laws against sodomy,
> > which, if successfully prosecuted, entails harsh punishments, by
> > reinterpreting this 1947 Khomeini opinion: you may commit sodomy as
> > long as you are mature and clean yourself by ablution after your
> > enjoyment!
>
> There is so much misconception and ignorance parading as knowledge here
> that one is almost at a loss. Firstly, there is nothing here that is
> Khomeini's opinion; this is standard Islamic law, both Sunni and Shia.
> Secondly, this post grossly underestimates the analytical nature of such
> law. The latter makes subtle distinctions of logic which are quite lost
> in this discussion. Ritual impurity is not in the same category as
> sinful (haraam) acts. This means that you may well have regained your
> state of ritual purity (so you can pray), but you have not in any way
> removed your sin thereby. Conversely, as you should have been able to
> work out even from the above quote, if a man and his wife have sex they
> are in a state of ritual impurity even though their sex was halaal, i.e.
> they have not sinned. So there is nothing in traditional Islamic law
> there that will stand between you as an adulterer, whether homo- or
> heterosexual, and the stones. The only thing that can help with that is
> a radical revisionism in Islamic thought, something which has frequently
> been attempted but never with much success.
>
> Tahir

What legally stands between you and the stones is a stringent
requirement for witnesses for successful prosecution, laws against
false accusation that also entails harsh punishments, and so on
(Article 118: If less than four righteous men testify, sodomy is not
proved and the witnesses shall be condemned to punishment for Qazf
[malicious accusation]; Article 140: Punishment for Qazf [malicious
accusation] is 80 lashes for a man or woman).

In any case, the original laws of the Islamic Republic themselves,
especially their political and economic aspects, were the results of
what you call radical revisionism to begin with, very different from
the previous norms of Shi'ism; and many aspects of personal laws, such
as ones concerning women's rights, have been legally or practically
revised since the founding of the Islamic Republic; and I'm sure that
Iranians will continue to revise all of them further.
-- 
Yoshie