Comparing Dr. Kecia Ali's Sexual Ethics And Islam

Dr. Kecia Ali’s book, Sexual Ethics and Islam, provides a comparative study comparing the idea of Muslim gender relations both in classical and contemporary legal discourse. Through case studies and various literary sources, Ali is able to show how classical Islamic legal culture has come to affect modern Muslim communities both in America and the Middle East. Legal traditions pulled from the Qur’an have historically been engrained in Muslim societies are still prevalent today, so much that the these regulations still govern Muslim practices concerning topics such as slavery, marriage, homosexuality, divorce, unlawful forms of sex and rules pertaining the to the female body. Ali argues that individuals in modern Muslim communities should

Ali highlights common features found in pre modern Islamic marriages where men are entitled to full control over their wives in regard to sexuality, mentioning that if a woman is unable to satisfy her husband’s sex drive she will be cursed until she is able to fulfill her duty. The husband is entitled to sexual rights over women upon paying the bride’s dowry. Ali then goes on to discuss the idea of divorce in Islam, stating that legally it is defined as a ‘legal contract’ and forbid divorce unless there is a legitimate cause. In some extremely conservative schools, a wife is strictly forbidden from requesting divorce. Overall, these chapters question the pre-modern connotations associated with Islamic divorce and marriage in regard to women’s roles in both society and the

While men were allowed multiple licit partners, women were only allowed one; either their husband or master. Chapter five then goes on to define illicit sex in regards to homosexuality. Again, even a patriarchal scale is evident in these instances which occur in historical writing detailing the existence of homoerotic male desire in the Qur’an. Women are seldom mentioned on the basis that their homoerotic experience cannot even legally be considered sex since there is not male penetration. The main concern in Muslim societies would surround the idea that accepting these other sexualities as the norm would create a sphere of non-hierarchal marriages, therefore no gender distinction between the married