LGBTQ people and Islam

Within the Muslim world, sentiment towards LGBTQ people varies and has varied between societies and individual Muslims. While colloquial and de facto official acceptance of at least some homosexual and gender variant behaviors were commonplace in pre-modern periods, later developments, starting from the 19th century, have created a predominantly hostile environment for LGBTQ people.

There are differences in how the Quran and later hadith traditions (orally transmitted collections of Muhammad's teachings) treat homosexuality, with the latter being far more explicitly negative. This has caused rifts in legalistic opinion, as while all major schools of jurisprudence broadly agreed that liwat—anal sex between men—was haram, opinions varied in terms of the legality and severity of punishment, as well as the legal situation of women's same-sex relations. Furthermore, these formulations largely remained theoretical, as historical evidence from the pre-modern period shows de facto tolerance of homosexual relationships. Historical records also suggest that in the event that laws against homosexuality were invoked in the pre-modern period, they were done so mainly in cases of rape or other "exceptionally blatant infringement on public morals". These factors allowed themes of homoeroticism and pederasty to be cultivated in Islamic poetry and other Islamic literary genres from the 8th century CE into the modern era.

In the modern era, Muslim public attitudes towards homosexuality underwent a marked change beginning in the 19th century, largely due to the global spread of Islamic fundamentalist movements, namely Salafism and Wahhabism whose adherents believe in rigid and literalist version of Shariah. The Muslim world was also influenced by the sexual notions and norms that were prevalent in the Christian world at the time, particularly with regard to anti-LGBTQ legislation prevalent throughout European societies; a number of Muslim-majority countries that were once colonies of European empires retain colonial criminal penalties against homosexuality.

As Western culture eventually enabled a platform for the flourishing of many LGBTQ movements, many Muslim fundamentalists came to associate the Western world with "ravaging moral decay" and rampant homosexuality.