Not Peace but a Sword: The Great Chasm Between Christianity and Islam by Robert Spencer

Author:Robert Spencer
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9781938983283
Publisher: Catholic Answers
Published: 2013-03-24T23:00:00+00:00

7

A Shared Sexual Ethic?

Indeed, in the area of sexual morality, the correspondence of Islamic statutes with Catholic teaching seems exact. The Qur’an instructs:

And approach not fornication; surely it is an indecency, and evil as a way. (17:32)

Fornication, adultery, the sanctity of marriage, the importance of bearing children—in all such areas, many Catholics believe that Catholic and Muslim moral teaching are essentially identical. Yet, there are serious differences that have up to now received far less attention than the similarities, although they are no less important. For although fornication and adultery are indeed forbidden in Islam as in Christianity, and there are other apparent moral similarities between the two religions, the Muslim understanding of marriage and sexual morality differs so greatly from the Christian understanding that it renders those similarities void of meaning.

What’s more, Islamic morality allows for practices that Catholicism abhors, including contraception, child marriage, polygamy, female genital mutilation, and even sexual slavery of non-believing women.

Contraception

Some modern Muslim scholars hold that Islam forbids contraception, framing the argument in terms that will be familiar to orthodox Catholics, and giving hope to those who dream of allying with Islam to fight the spirit of the age:

In general, most forms of contraception and birth control are forbidden. But since Islam is a complete religion, we have the benefit of the Quran, the hadith and traditions of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), the companions, and many learned scholars to help us come to an informed decision.

First, any sort of permanent birth control that is not for medical reasons is forbidden. So any medical procedure that leads to complete sterilization and is not medically required, is not allowed. This goes against the teachings of our Prophet Muhammad and if not done for medical reasons, is usually done for vain, selfish or impractical purpose.

For instance, some people have the foolish notion that the world is becoming overpopulated and the earth’s resources are running out. But Allah has made His earth bountiful, and if we trust in Him, there is certainly enough food and water and air to go around.

Wherever there is starvation in the world, there is needless gluttony and waste elsewhere. So the problem is not a lack of resource but a lack of compassion for those who are less fortunate than us.144

But in reality, Islamic teaching regarding birth control and artificial contraception is ambiguous. The hadith, the voluminous collections of Muhammad’s words and deeds, are full of contradictory material in which Muhammad appears to speak in favor of both sides of a disputed issue. This is because much of the hadith material was composed well over a century after Muhammad is supposed to have lived, at a time when competing factions attempted to gain support for the positions they espoused by inventing sayings of Muhammad.

Since the ninth century, Islamic scholars have attempted to isolate authentic sayings of Muhammad and accounts of his actions on the basis of the chain of isnad: the list of people who have passed on the tradition in question

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