The First Gays[Sodom & Gomorrah] people of Prophet Lut ...

how Allah capsized them

“And[We had sent] Lot when he said to his people, “Do you commit such immorality as no one has preceded you with from among the worlds [i.e., peoples]? Indeed, you approach men with desire, instead of women. Rather, you are transgressing people.” But the answer of his people was only that they said, “Evict them from your city! Indeed, they are men who keep themselves pure.” So We saved him and his family, except for his wife; she was of those who remained[with the evildoers.] And We rained upon them a rain[ of limestone and baked clay]. The see how was the end of the criminals.”

--- Qur’an chapter 7, verses 80-84

Prophet Lut bun Haran bun Tarakh was a cousin of Prophet Ibrahim, and was sent to the people of Sodom who were deeply rooted in idolatry and immorality. Sodom was one of the five villages such as Sa’atu, Sa’ratu, ‘Amarah and Dumah, that were located between Urdun[Jordan] and Palestine. Allah blessed them with flourishing business and trade and they used to criss-cross Makkah and Syria between morning and night in the course of their trade missions. But they however invented a strange sexual practice of sleeping with men- homosexuality.

So when he prayed to Allah to help him get them on the right track, by refraining from this practice, Allah sent angels; Jibril and Meekaheel . And according to some Qur’anic commentators, the angels came in the image of handsome men to the city of Sodom. This was intended for Allah to test his people so that he would use that as a proof against them when he would send them his punishment.

According to a companion of Prophet[PBUH], Qatadah, when the angels reached a river in Sodom, they met the daughter of Prophet Lut fetching some water for her family and asked her, “O young girl do you know of any guest house?” She took them to her father’s house and asked them to wait outside until she consults her father first. She feared that their deviant and pervert people would harass them and reminded her father that his people have won him not to host any guest, but he defied them and told her to let them in.

However, upon allowing them in, without nobody knowing but only him and his family, his wife went out and informed the people saying: Some men came into the house of Lut[they are so handsome] that I have never seen men like them. So these gays and homosexuals rallied themselves at the house of Prophet Lut.

They all of a sudden began climbing on the walls of his house in order to indulge in sexual intimacy with these men. Narrating the story to the Prophet[PBUH] says in Qur’an chapter 11 verse 77 to 80: “And when Our[Allah’s] messengers, [the angels], came to Lot, he was anguished for them and felt for them great discomfort and said, “This is a trying day.” And his people came hastening to him, and before[this] they had been doing evil deeds. He said, “O my people, these are my daughters; they are purer for you. So fear Allah and do not disgrace me concerning my guests. Is there not among you a man of reason?” They said, “You have already known that we not concerning your daughters [i.e., women] any claim[i.e., desire], and indeed, you know what we want.” He said, “If only I had against you some power or could take refuge in a strong support.”

And obviously, this people invented filthy acts that had never existed before. Which was gay and homosexual acts. As mentioned earlier, he warned them against it and they never listened and heeded to his caution. And none of his people embraced his missioned except his family.

So when the time was due for their destruction, Allah sent angel Jibril and capsized or turned the city upside down and rained on them heavy stones in the form of violent tornadoes with the stones landing and hitting on each one of them without missing. And his wife was part of those who were destroyed, because she had rebelled against him.

Historians further revealed that: When Allah sent angel Jibril to them, he lifted all their five villages with just an edge of his wing, with all their inhabitants numbering four hundred thousand[400,000] people, including their animals and all the surrounding areas. So he took these entire villages with their inhabitants up the sky, until the angels could hear the yelling, screaming, peeping, tweeting and barking of their people, with their birds and dogs and then torpedoed them all or turned them upside down.

To this Allah stated in Qur’an chapter 15 verses 72-77, that: “Verily, by your life[O Prophet], in their wild intoxication they[the people of Lot] were wandering blindly; But the[mighty] blast overtook them before the sunrise; And We[Allah] turned the cities [town of Sodom] upside down, and rained down on them stones of hard baked clay; Behold! In this are signs for those who by tokens do understand; And verily they [the cities] are on the highroad; Behold! In this is a sign for those who believe”.

In his analysis of this narrative account, Abdallah Yusuf Ali said: Lut is Lot of the English Bible. His story is biblical, but freed from some shameful features which are a blot on the biblical narrative. He was a nephew of Abraham, and was sent as a Prophet and warner to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, cities utterly destroyed for their unspeakable sins. They were somewhat in the plain east of the Dead Sea. The story of their destruction is told in the 19th chapter of Genesis. Two angels in the shape of handsome young men came to Lot in the evening and became his guests by night. The inhabitants of Sodom in their lust for...men invaded Lot’s house but were repulsed. In the morning, the angels warned Lot to escape with his family. “Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the heaven; and He overthrew those cities, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground. But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.”

Discovery of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah vindicated the authenticity of the holy Qur’an

The ruins of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah mentioned in the verses above was recently discovered near the Dead Sea. Geographers have found this area to be covered by a heavy amount of sulfur. As a result, the whole area is totally devoid of any form of life, whether animal or plant. The whole area stands as a symbol of total destruction. As such, it is an evident sign of Allah’s punishment for all the ages to come. It is also interesting how the Qur’an gives a more specific location of ruins of these cities. It states that, they are present on the highroad. Geographers have now discovered these cities are situated on a highroad from Makkah to Syria – southeast of the Dead sea…Needless to say that Prophet Muhammad[PBUH] never visited this site, nor had any means to have the knowledge of the destruction of these cities…And by no standard[have Muhammad] knew geography, yet this verse speaks of a fact that modern geographers have only recently discovered. Then who doubts the authenticity of the holy Qur’an?

Archeological Analysis of the site of Sodom & Gomorrah by a German archaeologist, Werner Keller

According to a German archaeologist, Werner Keller: Together with the base of a mighty fissure, which runs precisely through this area, the Valley of Siddim, including Sodom and Gomorrah, plunged one day into the abyss. Their destruction came about through a great earthquake which was probably accompanied by explosions, lightning, issue of natural gas and general conflagration.

As a matter of fact, the Lake of Lut, or the Dead Sea as it is otherwise known, is located right on the top of an active seismic region, that is, an earthquake zone: The base of the dead sea is located with a tectonic rooted downfall. This valley is located in a tension stretching between the Taberiye Lake in the north, and mid of Arabah Valley in the south.

The event was expressed as “we rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay, spread, layer on layer” in the last part of the verse. This is in all probability meant to be the volcanic explosion that took place on the banks of the Lake of Lut, and because of which the rocks and stones that erupted were in a “baked form”. (The same event is related in the 173rd verse of Surat ash-Shuara as “We rained down on them a shower (of brimstone): and evil was the shower on those who were admonished (but heeded not)!”)

In relation to this subject, Werner Keller further writes;

The subsidence released volcanic forces that had been lying dormant deep down along the whole length of the fracture. In the upper valley of the Jordan near Bashan there are still towering craters of extinct volcanoes; great stretches of lava and deep layers of basalt have been deposited on the limestone surface.

These lava and basalt layers constitute the greatest evidence that a volcanic explosion and earthquake had once taken place here. The catastrophe depicted in the following expression as “we rained down on them brimstones hard as baked clay, spread, layer on layer” in the Qur’an most probably points to this volcanic explosion. The expression “When Our Decree issued, We turned (the cities) upside down” which occurs in the same verse, must be referring to the earthquake which caused volcanoes to erupt over the surface of the earth with devastating impact, and to the fissures and debris brought by it.

The “obvious signs” conveyed by the Lake of Lut are indeed very interesting. In general, the events which are related in the Qur’an take place in the Middle East, the Arabian Peninsula and Egypt. Right in the middle of these lands, is the Lake of Lut. The Lake of Lut, as well as the incidents that have taken place around it, deserves attention geologically. The Lake is approximately 400 meters below the surface of the Mediterranean. Since the deepest place in the Lake is 400 meters, the bottom of the Lake is 800 meters below the surface of the Mediterranean.

The incident of Lut’s people, which is recounted in the Qur’an, occurred around 1800 B.C. according to estimates. Based on his archaeological and geological researches, the German researcher Werner Keller further noted that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were in fact located in the Siddim Valley which was the region at the furthers and lowest end of the Lake of Lut, and that there were once big and widely inhabited sites in those regions.

The most interesting structural characteristic of the Lake of Lut is an evidence showing how the disaster incidence recounted in the Qur’an took place;

On the eastern shore of the Dead Sea the peninsula of el-Lisan protrudes like a tongue far into the water. El-Lisan means “the tongue” in Arabic. Unseen from the land the ground falls away here under the surface of the water at a prodigious angle, dividing the sea into two parts. To the right of the peninsula the ground slopes sharply down to a depth of 1200 feet. On the left of the peninsula the water remains remarkably shallow. Soundings taken in the last few years established depths of only fifty to sixty feet. That extraordinary shallow part of the Dead Sea, from the peninsula el-Lisan to the southernmost tip, was the Valley of Siddim.

Werner Keller noted that this shallow part, which was discovered to have formed subsequently, was the outcome of the aforementioned earthquake and the massive collapse this earthquake had caused. This was the place where Sodom and Gomorrah were situated, that is, where Lut’s people lived.

Once, it was possible to cross this region by walking. However, now, the Vale of Siddim, where Sodom and Gomorrah were once situated, is covered by the flat surface of the lower part of the Dead Sea. The collapse of the base as a result of the dreadful catastrophe that came to pass in the beginning of the 2nd. millennium B.C., caused salt water from the north to flow into this recently formed cavity and filled the basin with salty water.

The traces of the Lake of Lut are visible…When one takes a rowing boat across the Lake of Lut to the southernmost point, if the sun is shining in the right direction, one sees something quite fantastic. Some distance from the shore and clearly visible under the surface of the water, there are the outlines of the forests which the extraordinarily high salt content of the Dead Sea preserved.

Reflecting on the current and contemporary life of this world, it is obvious to conclude that the so-called advanced world have now gone back and adopted this strange none straight way of life of the people of Lut, in the name of freedom, liberty and ‘civilization’. One would ask if those medieval generation were completely annihilated [as the Qur’an mentioned above and the various discoveries approved of it], why is it that, gays and lesbians of our generation are not being destroyed?

But the answer is that, unlike, all the ancient and earlier generations who would be destroyed instantly and instantaneously by Allah Almighty, whenever they commit heinous crimes, our generation is always given respites by virtue of the honor, dignity and nobility of the holy Prophet[PBUH]. Who, unlike the earlier prophets that came before him was sent as “A Mercy to Mankind”.

And because of this mercy of the Prophet[PBUH] Allah’s delays his punishments and releases them in piecemeal. These are usually in the form of natural disasters, such as volcanoes, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes[that do not necessary affect the perpetrators of this immoral act] etc., including economic meltdown that is continuously destabilizing our world economies. But Allah waits to see if the gays and lesbians would repent and embrace the natural ways, without which they would not have been born.

One only hopes that those practicing this none straight way of life would render a sober reflection on what happened to our medieval ancestors above, and change a new leaf of life before the inevitable death engulfs them to leave this earth and move to the eternal world and thereby face the unpardonable wrath of Allah Almighty. The url link below can enable readers’ mind travel back to the ancient time and see the reality of the destruction of the first people who invented homosexuality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUbKwvB1I4o

Husseini Yushau BabalWaiz, is the Research & Outreach Coordinator at the Center for Media & Peace Initiatives Inc. New York, Author of three books, including "Islam Promotes Tolerance & Prohibits Terrorism-Reviving the Islamic Advocacy of Mercy and Magnanimity to Mankind" & Tutor in Arabic & Islamic Studies in New York, babalwaiz71@gmail.com.

NB: Folks, this is the eleventh in the new series entitled: "Delving Deep Inside the Islamic Historic Memory Lane", which will be running for months, even years, aimed at showcasing the amazing historical phenomena that happened in the pre and post Islamic world. Next week, our series will focus on the people of Prophet Shuib, who were also destroyed. .

So please read, comment, forward and share to as many people as possible on social media.

References:

Asbaabul Halakul Umamul Salifati-Kamaa Waradat fil Qur'anil Kareem[Reasons for the Destruction of the Earlier/Ancient Societies- As it Appears in the Holy Qur'an] by, Saeed Muhammad Baba Seela

Al-Muntazam-Fii Tareekhil Umam Wal-Mulook, [Periodicals on the History of [medieval] Societies & Kingdoms] by, Abil Faraj, Abdul Rahman Bun Aliyi Bun Muhammad Ibnil Jawzi. vol. [1] of [10] vols.

Qisasil Qur'an-Min Adam Alihi Salamu Ilaa Ashabul Feel[Tales of the Qur'an- From Adam Peace be upon Him to the Companions of the Elephants], by, Dr. Muhammad Bakr Ismael

Qisasil Anbiyah,[Tales of the Prophets] by Abil Fadah, Imam Hafiz Ibn Kathir

160 Mysteries & Miracles of the Holy Qur'an, by Dr. Mazhar Qazi

The Holy Qur'an-English Translation of Meaning & Commentary, by Abdallah Yusuf Ali.

The pictures here illustrate the location of the Dead Sea, which was the specific site of the great destruction of the first gays and homosexuals as well as their ruins and remains.