In many conservative cultures, sex is seldom talked about publically. Within the Muslim community, this is often the case as well. Human sex, however, is of central importance in understanding salvation in almost any religious tradition.  

In Christianity, and in the New Testament in particular, we are taught how sexual deviance alters our intellects and warps our conceptions of morality. In an identical manner, Islam also teaches us the same message.  

In Islam, halal intimate relations can lead to closeness to God. Plenty of hadiths talk about how married couples are blessed by God’s angels when they are intimate with one another. Haram relations have the opposite effect.  

They darken and corrupt the human soul. They remove Allah’s saving grace from one’s life. Sexual sins open up spiritual wounds through which demons can enter our being and make us even more prone to their evil suggestions.  

In this lesson, we look at two sexual vices in Islam: 

Zina and Liwat 

Zina is illicit sex. The two English words that are often used for zina are fornication and adultery, both of which are applicable. In our current modern context, zina can refer to illicit sex outside of marriage, such as premarital sex or adultery. 

Liwat refers to sodomy between men. It is the classical term for homosexual acts. In Islam, homosexual orientation is not a sin, homosexual acts are sinful. So here it doesn’t really matter whether one was born a homosexual or not, the sin is the ACT, not the ORIENTATION.  

To learn more, please tune into the full version of this lesson.