I am a believer and I am in love with a believer. We are both women and have
already had children who we are taking good care of, but their fathers have
deserted us . We both want to live as good muslims, but we love each other so
much . We have been told culturally that our love is an abomination, however we
cannot find anything in the Qur'an which condemns us or our actions. We are
hurting no one. We are employed. We are educating our children and nurturing
our families. We know the passage in the Qur'an about Soddem and Gommorah,
but that appears to deal with the rape of men by men. It does not speak to
monogamous love between two women. We love Allah and want to do his will.
We need more information about our situation.
Just as illicit sexual relations can occur between men, they can also occur between women. The
Muslim fuqahaa call this sihaaq (lesbianism), which they define as sexual relations between one
woman and another (al-Mufassal fi Ahkaam al-Marah by Zaydaan, 5/450), and state that it is a
punishable offence (the punishment is a form of discipline for disobedience; no specific
punishment is given in the Quraan, so the punishment is to be set by the Qaadi according to
the circumstances of the crime and the one who commits it). The lesbians testimony is
unacceptable because she is a evildoer (al-Mawsooah al-Fiqhiyyah, 24/253).
Ibn Qudaamah, may Allaah have mercy on him, said: "If two women masturbate one another,
then they are cursed fornicators" (al-Mughni 10/162). Some of the scholars, like al-Izz ibn Abd
al-Salaam say that a lesbian is not permitted to look at a Muslim woman, and that a Muslim
woman is not permitted to uncover (take off her hijaab) in front of a lesbian, because she is an
evildoer who cannot be trusted not to describe her to others.
If what is described above is the nature of the relationship between the two women mentioned
in the question, then they must repent sincerely to Allaah and stop their evil actions. If their
being together in one place will lead to them committing this sin, then they must never meet, so
as to avoid this wrongful act. Their husbands desertion of them may be one of the reasons for
them falling into this kind of perversion, because they have no legitimate way in which to fulfil
their desires and so they have resorted to this haraam way. So they must think seriously of
finding Muslim husbands with whom they can live in the way prescribed by Islaam.
As for love, this is a different kind of sin, which need not necessarily be associated with
physical desire. It is dangerous because it leads to the lover worshipping the beloved, so that
he thinks only of the one he loves, cannot bear to be parted from him by day and dreams about
him at night; he lives and dies for his sake, and may change when he sees him and become sick
when he is absent. This kind of relationship destroys a persons mental health and destroys his
relationship with his Lord, because it makes the lover worship his beloved and it is haraam to
worship anything other than Allaah.
The solution to this disastrous situation is total separation, so that one will never see that
person, or hear news of him again.
Islam Q&A
Sheikh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid