Muhammad Jalal Kishk (; 1929–1993) was an Egyptian Islamist journalist and writer who was noted for his anti-leftist political views, and thoughts on sex and

homosexuality Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or Human sexual activity, sexual behavior between people of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexu ...

in Islam, with connections to the

Salafi The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a fundamentalist revival movement within Sunni Islam, originating in the late 19th century and influential in the Islamic world to this day. The name "''Salafiyya''" is a self-designation, claiming a retu ...

Muslim Brotherhood The Society of the Muslim Brothers ('' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar, Imam and schoolteacher Hassan al-Banna in 1928. Al-Banna's teachings s ...

. Kishk wrote for the weeklies '' Akhbar al-Yawm'' and '' Ruz al-Yusuf'' and the periodical '' al-Risala'' until 1965. According to the ''Middle East Record'', Kishk's "anti-leftist stand" may have led to his being "prevented from continuing his career in journalism". But actually it was his anti-

Nasser Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 a ...

writings that led to his removal from these journals and eventual exile to

Beirut, Lebanon Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

in 1968. Kishk gained some notoriety for his ideas concerning

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

and sexuality in Islam. In his book ''A Muslim's Thoughts about the Sexual Question'', (1984), which was initially banned in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

, he examined contemporary Western scholarship about Christianity and Islam in relation to sex, with special attention to homosexuality.The book was discussed in ''Desiring Arabs'' By Joseph Andoni Massad Kishk was concerned with the danger of

"the enemies of Islam and ... our civilization avingthe opportunity to publish their ideas and plant their poisons in the minds and hearts of our Muslim youth, who no longer follow an Islamic conduct nor are directed by Islamic thought."

While Kishk disapproved of sexual relations between same sex couples, he noted that there was no prescribed punishment for it in Islam. He also analyzed those parts of the

Quran The Quran, also Romanization, romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a Waḥy, revelation directly from God in Islam, God (''Allah, Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which ...

that described

Jannah In Islam, Jannah (, ''jannāt'', ) is the final and permanent abode of the righteous. According to one count, the word appears 147 times in the Qur'an. Belief in the afterlife is one of the Iman (Islam)#The Six Articles of Faith, six article ...

and concluded that "sex with youthful boys will be the reward for Muslim men who control their desires in this world by not practicing sodomy."

Works

* ''Al-Ghazw al-Fikri'' (The Intellectual invasion), Cairo: Sar al-Urubah, 1966 * ''Al-Naksa wa al-Ghazw al-Fikri (The Naksa and the Intellectual Invasion)'' (The setback and cultural invasion), Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, 1969 * ''al-Sa'udiyyun wa al-Hall al-Islami'' (The Saudis and the Islamic solution), West Hanover, MA: Halliday, 1981 * 'thawrat ulyu al-amrikiyya (The American July Revolution: The Relationship of Nasser with the American Intelligence Services, 1988)

References

1929 births 1983 deaths Egyptian Islamists Egyptian non-fiction writers 20th-century non-fiction writers {{Egypt-writer-stub