When Shariah is taken seriously, homosexual acts are not just sins; they are crimes that can demand execution. In Islamic law, same-sex intimacy is treated as an attack on the moral order and a challenge to Allah’s authority. The response is not compassionate counseling or a call to repentance. It is the sword, the stone, the noose, or the rooftop.

This is not simply the position of fringe extremists. It flows from hadith, classical jurists, and centuries of legal consensus in major schools of Shariah. Modern regimes that hang men from cranes, throw them from buildings, or flog them publicly for homosexual acts are not inventing a new Islam. They are following texts that many scholars regard as authoritative.

From a biblical perspective, this is another point where Islam’s law diverges sharply from Jehovah’s revealed will. Scripture does call homosexual practice sin and condemns it. But it does not command the congregation of Christ to execute those who commit it. The New Testament responds with a call to repentance, not legal killing. Shariah’s treatment of homosexuals reveals a system that uses death to preserve outward conformity instead of heart transformation.

Hadith Prescriptions: Stoning, Burning, or Throwing From Heights

The Quran refers to the story of Lot and the people of Sodom, condemning their actions, but it does not lay down explicit earthly penalties for homosexual acts. The concrete punishments come from hadith and the juristic tradition built on them.

In several narrations attributed to Muhammad and his companions, homosexual acts are treated as capital crimes. Some hadith report Muhammad as saying that whoever you find doing the deed of the people of Lot, kill the one who does it and the one to whom it is done. Others quote early Muslim leaders prescribing stoning, burning, or throwing offenders from high places. The exact method differs, but the common element is death.

Classical jurists in the major Sunni schools debated the technical details, not the principle. Many held that the active and passive partners in a male homosexual act should be killed, whether by stoning like adulterers or by another severe method. Some allowed the ruler to choose between beheading, burning, or throwing from a height and then pelting with stones. Others argued that the hadd penalty is identical to that for zina when committed by a married person: stoning to death.

These debates were not academic. They shaped courts and punishments in Islamic states. Manuals of fiqh present the rulings soberly alongside other hudud crimes, treating them as settled law derived from revelation and prophetic example. Homosexual acts are not merely frowned upon; they are classified as offenses against Allah that demand the harshest response.

From a Christian standpoint, this is a distortion of the seriousness of sin and of the role of human government. The Bible does condemn homosexual practice, but the New Testament does not institute a legal code in which the congregation or state must execute people for such acts. The focus is on preaching the Gospel, calling sinners of all kinds—heterosexual and homosexual—to repentance, and trusting Christ as Savior. Shariah jumps from moral condemnation straight to lethal punishment, bypassing mercy and the patient work of the Word in the heart.

Muhammad’s Silence or Approval After Execution Reports

The hadith corpus does not only present abstract commands about killing those who engage in homosexual acts. It also records reports of specific executions where Muhammad’s response is either approving or at least non-condemning. These narratives were crucial for jurists who wanted to show that killing homosexuals is rooted in the Prophet’s own judgment.

Some reports describe companions bringing cases to Muhammad’s attention, asking what should be done with men who have committed the act of the people of Lot. The responses attributed to him vary—sometimes he gives a direct command to kill them, other times he is reported to have recommended the harshest possible treatment, such as burning or throwing from a height. Where the incident involves an early caliph or companion ordering the punishment, Muhammad’s lack of rebuke is taken as tacit approval.

In Islamic legal theory, the Prophet’s silence in the face of a known action can be treated as endorsement. If something happened in his presence and he did not object, many jurists conclude that it must be permissible or praiseworthy. When his closest followers order the execution of homosexuals and the recorded tradition preserves no condemnation from him, scholars see this as confirming the legitimacy of such punishments.

Over time, this combination of explicit hadith and assumed approval formed a strong consensus. The idea that a Muslim ruler could tolerate homosexual acts without imposing lethal penalties seemed unthinkable to many jurists. To do so would appear to them to be opposing the Prophet’s Sunnah and endangering the moral fabric of the community.

From a Christian perspective, this stands in stark contrast with the Lord Jesus Christ. During His earthly ministry, Jesus encountered sexual sinners of various kinds. He never minimized sin, but He did not order their execution. He forgave the repentant, confronted hypocrisy, and pointed to the coming final judgment where He Himself will judge every secret thing. The One who could truly have commanded immediate death for sin did not do so. He instead bore the penalty for sin in His own body for those who put faith in Him. Islam’s prophet, as portrayed in its own sources, does the opposite: he orders the death of sinners and gives no atoning sacrifice that can truly cleanse them.

Modern Enforcement: Iran, Taliban, Brunei, ISIS

The legacy of Shariah’s rulings on homosexual acts is visible today in a number of regimes and movements that explicitly claim to apply Islamic law. While not every Muslim-majority country enforces these penalties, those that do are following a legal path laid down centuries ago.

In Iran, male homosexual acts are criminalized and can carry the death penalty. Courts have sentenced men to hanging after trials that rely heavily on confessions or accusations. Public executions have taken place where men accused of sodomy are hoisted on cranes before crowds. Officials justify these punishments by appeal to Shariah and the protection of public morality.

Under the Taliban in Afghanistan, homosexual behavior has been treated as a capital crime. Past and present Taliban statements and actions include punishments such as wall-toppling or other brutal methods drawn from classical rulings. Their courts, run by religious scholars, do not view such sentences as extreme; they view them as obedience to Allah’s law.

Brunei introduced a Shariah-based penal code that, at one stage, included stoning to death for consensual homosexual acts between adults. After international outcry, authorities claimed a de facto moratorium on such penalties, but the law’s presence on the books shows the enduring influence of classical fiqh: when Islamic law is implemented fully, death for homosexual acts appears among the hudud crimes.

ISIS, in its short-lived “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria, made this doctrine horrifyingly visible. Videos circulated of men accused of homosexual behavior being thrown from the roofs of tall buildings and then stoned by crowds if they survived the fall. The group’s propaganda justified these punishments by quoting traditional jurists and hadith, making clear that they saw themselves as reviving authentic Shariah rather than inventing something new.

All of these examples show a continuum, not a break, from the legal heritage of Islam. Where Shariah’s influence is strongest and least restrained by secular law, homosexual acts tend to carry severe penalties, sometimes including death. Where governments are more secularized, penalties may be reduced to imprisonment or flogging, but the underlying view of the act as a grave crime remains.

From Jehovah’s standpoint, the use of state violence to eliminate those who commit homosexual acts is a tragic misuse of authority. While the Bible affirms that governments bear the sword to punish evil, the New Testament does not hand them a list of religiously defined sins for which they must kill. Instead, it calls rulers to promote good, restrain chaos, and allow the Gospel to be preached. Legal codes that prioritize killing sinners rather than protecting victims of real crimes—murder, theft, oppression—show that they are driven by a different spirit than the one revealed in Scripture.

No Distinction Between Orientation and Act

In contemporary discussions, many people distinguish between homosexual orientation (attraction) and homosexual behavior (acts). Some argue that a person may struggle with same-sex desire while choosing to live in obedience to God by abstaining from sinful acts. In Shariah’s classical formulations, such a distinction is largely absent. The focus is on acts, but the way the community reacts blurs the line so thoroughly that those with any known or suspected inclination can become targets.

Because Shariah treats the act as a capital crime and views the people who commit it as corruptors, social stigma extends to anyone perceived as “effeminate,” “deviant,” or too different from traditional gender expectations. Men who do not conform to rigid masculine norms may find themselves under suspicion. Accusations of homosexual behavior can be used to settle personal scores, discredit opponents, or justify harassment, even when there is no evidence of acts.

The law itself does not provide room for pastoral care of those struggling against temptation. There is no concept of a believer confessing same-sex attraction, seeking help to resist, and being supported in holiness. Instead, a climate of fear surrounds the entire topic. People keep silent or hide, knowing that if their feelings become known, they may be assumed guilty of acts, not merely battling desires.

From a Christian perspective, this is spiritually destructive. The Bible makes clear that all people experience distorted desires because of sin, whether sexual or otherwise. The call of the Gospel is not to pretend those desires do not exist, but to bring them into the light, confess them, and seek strength from Jehovah through His Word to resist them. Christians recognize a vital difference between temptation and practice. Jesus Himself was tempted in all points yet did not sin; temptation alone is not guilt.

Shariah’s conflation of orientation and act drives sin underground instead of exposing it to the healing light of truth. A young Muslim man who feels same-sex attraction has little safe space to confess it and ask for help to live chastely. The law that claims to guard purity becomes a barrier to honest repentance and change.

Hatred Codified Into Law

At the heart of Shariah’s treatment of homosexuals lies a deeper problem: it turns hatred into legal righteousness. Killing or brutalizing those who commit homosexual acts is not merely allowed; it is portrayed as zeal for Allah, defense of His boundaries, and protection of society from corruption. In this way, an emotion that the New Testament consistently condemns—malicious hatred—is dressed up as piety.

When the law tells believers that executing homosexuals earns divine approval, it invites ordinary people to harden their hearts. Instead of seeing homosexual sinners as neighbors who need truth and mercy, they learn to see them as enemies who must be erased. They are encouraged to rejoice when they hear of executions. Children are taught that those thrown from rooftops or hanged from cranes got what they deserved and that the community is purer for it.

This legal hatred also distorts the conscience. People begin to think that their disgust or rage toward certain sinners is a mark of faithfulness. Compassion is suspect; anyone who questions the severity of the punishment is accused of loving sin more than Allah’s law. In this climate, even Muslims who personally feel uncomfortable with killing homosexuals may be afraid to speak, lest they be seen as weak or apostate.

Jehovah’s Word offers a very different pattern. The Bible condemns homosexual practice clearly, yet it never licenses hatred toward those who commit it. Believers are commanded to love their neighbors, to speak truth in love, and to remember that they themselves were once slaves to various passions until God showed mercy. The Apostle Paul reminded Christians that among the sins that once characterized them were sexual immorality, idolatry, and greed—and then he said, “But you were washed, you were sanctified.” Sin is serious; grace is greater.

Legal hatred short-circuits this grace. If sinners are killed before they hear the Gospel, they cannot become the “washed” and “sanctified.” When societies treat certain sins as unforgivable and punish them with death in Allah’s name, they reveal a god who does not truly save but only destroys. That god is not the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For Christian apologetics, the point is not to affirm homosexual practice. The Bible does not do so, and faithful believers cannot either. The point is to show that the way Shariah responds to this sin exposes its nature. A system that prides itself on killing sinners is far from the heart of the God who sent His Son to die for sinners.

Those who live under Shariah’s shadow and struggle with same-sex attraction need to hear a different message. They need to know that Jehovah sees them, that He calls them to repent of sin, but that He also offers real forgiveness and power to change. They need to know that the Church of Christ is not called to be an execution squad but a spiritual hospital, telling the truth about sin and extending the hope of the cross.

Until Islam’s followers turn from a law that commands them to kill homosexuals and instead bow before the Lord Jesus, who died for every kind of sinner, hatred will continue to be codified into law and celebrated as obedience. Only the Gospel can break that chain, teaching people that the true mark of holiness is not how much they hate others, but how willingly they obey God in love and extend His mercy to those still in bondage.

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