Islamic View of Lot

Islamic View Of Lot

Lot (Arabic: لوط‎ Lūṭ) is an apostle and 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 in Palestine. He was commissioned as a prophet to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. His story is used to demonstrate Islam's disapproval of rape and homosexuality. 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 Qur'an and the Hebrew Bible, Lot's messages were ignored by the inhabitants and Sodom and Gomorrah were subsequently destroyed. They cannot be exactly located, but it may be supposed that they were somewhere in the plain cast 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 unnatural crime invaded Lut's house but were repulsed. In the morning, the angels warned Lut to escape with his family. "Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and He overthrew those cities, and all the plain, 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." (Gen. 19:24–26). Note that Lut'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 (50:13), as a man of God always does. The Qur'an says that Lot is a prophet, and holds that all prophets were examples of moral and spiritual rectitude. Though it is not altogether clear in the Bible story that Lot consented to his action, in Islam these stories of incest are considered to be false.