The late Taher Jaber al-Alwani (d. March, 2016), trained at Al-Azhar University, founded in 973 C.E., and Sunni Islam’s most prestigious religious teaching institution since the mid-13th century, till now. Receiving his Ph.D in Islamic Law from Al-Azhar in 1973, al-Alwani subsequently taught Islamic Law at the Imam Muhammad b. Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Al-Alwani participated in the founding of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT) in the United States in 1981. He was also a founding member of the Council of the Muslim World League in Mecca, a member of the international Organization of Islamic Cooperation Islamic Fiqh [Islamic Jurisprudence] Academy in Jeddah, since 1987, and President of the Fiqh Council of North America from 1988, till his recent death. In short, al-Alwani was a highly trained, greatly respected, mainstream Muslim authority on Islamic Law, internationally, and within the US.
Al-Alwani’s June 18, 2003 “fatwa” on homosexuality—an Islamic “legal” ruling per Islam’s theo-political totalitarian “legal” system, the Sharia, merits careful consideration in the wake of pious Muslim jihadist Omar Marteen’s mass murderous attack on an Orlando gay night club early yesterday, Sunday, June 12, 2016.
Citing precedent from the Koran itself, and the most trusted hadith or “traditions” of Muhammad, Islam’s prophet, and human behavior prototype, al-Alwani makes plain homosexuality is a “moral atrocity,” punishable by death in the corporeal world, and eternal torment in the hereafter.
[I]t should be clear that homosexuality is sinful and shameful. In Islamic terminology it is called ‘Al-Fahsha’ or an atrocious and obscene act. Islam teaches that believers should neither do the obscene acts, nor in any way indulge in their propagation. Allah says, “Those who love (to see) obscenity published broadcast among the Believers will have a grievous Penalty in this life and in the Hereafter: Allah knows, and you know not.” (Al-Nur [chapter 24]: 19)