the husband—or thinks that this is permissible when travelling, after forty days, or the like. Such a person is a disbeliever by the consensus of Muslims.

Allah may punish such people as He punished the people of Lot, and they may be resurrected alongside them, because their religion is the same. By contrast, someone who acknowledges that this is forbidden is a Muslim.

As for making this a religious practice, that is graver than regarding it as lawful. Those who do so rarely make the actual act of gross indecency a religious practice; rather, they do this with its preliminaries: gazing and taking pleasure in it, intimate physical contact, and passionate love for non-mahram women and boys. They claim that this purifies their souls and spirits and raises them to lofty ranks. Some claim that they are addressed from that form, and that secrets and spiritual knowledge descend upon them. Others go further, saying that realities are unveiled to them in it. A person may even claim that Allah dwells within it—glorified and exalted is He, far above what the wrongdoers say! They may even prostrate themselves before it.

Some of these people claim that Dihyah al-Kalbī was a beardless youth, that Gabriel used to come to the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, in the form of a beardless youth, and that the Prophet would say to him, “I would like you to come to me only in the form of a beardless youth.”

Some of them interpret his saying, peace and blessings be upon him, “I saw my Lord in