As for Allah’s statement, “And those who guard their private parts, except from their wives or those whom their right hands possess, for then they are free from blame” [al-Mu’minun], some people say: This verse is general in meaning. We say: If you interpret the permission of sexual enjoyment with one’s wives in a general sense, then interpret sexual enjoyment with those whom one’s right hand possesses in the same general sense, and say that it is permissible for a man to have intercourse with his camel because it is among those whom his right hand possesses! What is stated without qualification must be understood according to what is customarily known and recognized. Thus, His statement, “except from their wives,” means: in those forms of enjoyment that have been permitted to them, not without restriction. Just as you do not interpret His statement, “or those whom their right hands possess,” in a general sense, even though both occur in the same verse.

Therefore, anal intercourse is forbidden. Whoever is tempted by his own soul and commits it incurs no expiation, but he is sinful.

If someone were to say: Do you not hold that it is analogous to intercourse during menstruation?

The answer is: Yes; but equality in the ruling does not necessitate equality in the required expiation. Expiation is a new and independent ruling, and analogy cannot be applied to it. For this reason, the scholars of legal theory explicitly state that there is no analogy in matters of expiation.

His statement, “He may compel her to perform the ghusl for menstruation”: for example, a woman becomes pure from menstruation after sunrise and tells her husband that she will not bathe until noon. Her husband is eagerly waiting for her to become pure and bathe so that he may enjoy intimacy with her, but she says: “I am not required to bathe unless I intend to stand for prayer, for Allah, Exalted is He, says: ‘O you who believe, when you rise for prayer…’”