TresPuertas said:canadiaggie said:TresPuertas said:
While interesting, I don't think you can extrapolate your experience in Istambul to the Islamic perception of homosexuality. What you experienced was certainly the outlier and not the norm. Which, if I'm reading correctly is the point you were trying to make
That said, I'd agree that the way homosexuality and even pedophilia have been handled within the Islamic religion is inconsistent. Regardless of what the Quran says, or don't address as you pointed out, there is rampant homosexuality in the tribals and rural areas. Similarly, pedophilia called bacha bazi is practiced all throughout the Muslim world.
As with any religion, Hypocrisy is fully present by its followers, but very few practice it like the Muslims do.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/25/middle-east-child-abuse-pederasty
Bacha bazi is an Afghan cultural practice and it predates Islam. Actually an interesting anthropological point (looking past the tragedy of child exploitation) - it's believed to be introduced to the region by the pederast Greeks. We know this because there are poems and songs about bacha bazi in Afghanistan that date back to its Hindu/Buddhist period, which indicates it may have gone as far back as the Greco-Bactrian kingdom.
cool history lesson. you want to know whats most interesting? Civilized society abandoned this practice hundreds of years ago, and yet it still exists in parts of the Muslim world. Herein lies the problem with Islam. At some point in time, it stopped evolving for the better.
The vast majority of the Muslim world has about an equivalent rate of tolerance for pederast pedophiles as the rest of it, with Afghanistan as the sole outlier. Not sure how Afghanistan is the torch bearer for Islamic norm here