Relatives Ibrahim Parents Haran Uncles Abraham, Nahor | Died Bani Na'im Children Raitsa, Zaghrata Grandparent Terah | |
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Cousins Ishmael, Midian, Bethuel, Isaac, Shuah Similar Ishmael, Lot, Ibrahim, Idris, Jonah | ||
Lut ibn Haran (Arabic: لوط, Lūṭ), known as Lot in the Old Testament, is a prophet of God in the Quran. He also appears in the Bible, but the biblical stories of Lot are not entirely accepted within Islam. According to Islamic tradition, Lot lived in Ur and was the son of Haran and nephew of Abraham. He migrated with Abraham to Canaan. He was bestowed as a prophet to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He was commanded by God to go to the land of Sodom and Gomorrah to preach to his people on monotheism and to stop them from their lustful and violent acts. According to both the Quran and the Hebrew Bible, Lot's messages were ignored by the inhabitants and Sodom and Gomorrah were subsequently destroyed. Their sites cannot be exactly located, but it may be supposed that they were somewhere in the plain east of the Dead Sea or underneath its current limits. Lot's story is traditionally presented as an Islamic view against rape and homosexual acts.
Contents
Lot's people are the people to whom he is sent on a mission. He was not one of their own brethren, as was Salih or Shu'aib. But he looked upon his people as his "brethren". The Quran says that Lot is a prophet, and holds that all prophets were examples of moral and spiritual rectitude, so the report of Lot's drunkenness and incest is considered to be false.
Context in the Quran
The narrative of Lot occupies a relatively large space in the Quran. Most of these passages place the narrative of Lot in a line of successive prophets including Nuh, Hud, Salih and Shuayb. In the past, scholars have stated that these particular prophets represent the early cycle of prophecy as described in the Quran. The prophet would be sent to his community; the community would pay no attention to his warning and would instead threaten him with punishment; after years of preaching, God would ask the prophet to leave his community and his people would be subsequently destroyed in a punishment. Scholars interpret the listing of the five prophets to be chronological, with Noah being the only prophet in the list who preached before the Great Flood. Lot is also mentioned alongside Ismael, Elisha and Jonah as men whom God favored above the nations.
Narrative in Islam
According to the Quran, Lot was a prophet and a nephew of Abraham. A group of angels visited Abraham as guests and gave him glad tidings of a son "endowed with wisdom"; they told him that they had been sent by God to the "guilty people" of Lot to destroy them with "a shower of stones of clay" and deliver Lot and those who believed in him, except his wife saying "she is of those who lag behind". The Quran also draws upon Lot's wife as an "example for the unbelievers" as she was married to a righteous man but cheated him by not believing in his message and was thus condemned to Hell.
The people of Sodom and Gomorrah, the twin cities which Lot was sent to with God's message, transgressed consciously against the bounds of God. Their avarice led to inhospitality and robbery, which in turn led to the humiliation of strangers by mistreatment and rape. It was their abominable sin of sexual misconduct which was seen as symptomatic of their attitudes, and upon Lot's exhorting them to abandon their transgression against God, they ridiculed him, threatening with dire consequences; Lot only prayed to God to be saved from doing as they did.
Then two angels in the disguise of handsome young boys came to Lot, who became distressed knowing the character of the people, and feeling himself powerless to protect the visitors; he said, "This is a distressful day." When the people – overjoyed at the news of new young boys in the village – came to snatch them away from Lot, he tried to convince them to refrain from practising their lusts on the visitors, and offered his own daughters to them (to marry, according to the translation of Abdullah Yusuf Ali) in return for the boys' free release, but they were unrelenting and replied "we have no need of your daughters: indeed you know quite well what we want!" The Quran remarks "they moved blindly in the frenzy of approaching death".
Lot was powerless to protect the boys, but they revealed to him that they were indeed angels sent by God to punish the people for their transgressions. They advised Lot to leave the place during the night and not look back, informing him that his wife would be left behind on account of her sinful nature and that they "were about to bring down upon the folk of this township a fury from the sky because they are evil-doers". Keeping his faith in God, Lot left his home and the cities during the night with his family and others who believed in him, and only his wife stayed behind. When morning came, God turned the cities upside down, and rained down on them stones hard as baked clay, putting an end to the lives of the people of Sodom and Gomorrah once and for all.
Homosexuality
Lot's story is traditionally used to demonstrate Islam's disapproval of rape and homosexuality. Lot's struggle with his tribe is seen as concerning the question of homosexuality in general or more specifically male-to-male anal penetration, specifically. These interpretations have sometimes widened to condemn homosexuality as a whole, including psychological and social dispositions. However, some scholars dispute these interpretations. They also point out that Quranic narrative is ambiguous as to whether Lot's tribe was punished because of homosexual acts in the first place or because of infidelity vis-à-vis God.
Monument
Bani Na'im in Palestine houses the tomb of Lot in the center of the town. The tomb is located within a rectangular mosque with an inner court and minaret. Lot's tomb is first mentioned by catholic scholar Jerome in the 4th century CE. The tomb of his daughters are on an opposite hill nearby. To the southeast of Bani Na'im is a shrine dedicated to Lot, known as Maqam an-Nabi Yatin ("Shrine of the Truthful Prophet"). Local legend claims Lot prayed at the site and imprints of his feet in a rock there are visible.