for intercourse, even though the natural aversion to anal intercourse is greater than the aversion to touching.

According to most scholars—including Mālik, Ahmad and others—the invalidation of ablution through touching depends on the actual presence of the underlying rationale: namely, that the touching is motivated by desire. The same consideration applies to ihrām, devotional retreat and other matters. According to this view, wherever touching with desire occurs, the ruling applies. Thus, even if a man touches his daughter, sister or mother with desire, his ablution is invalidated. The same therefore applies to touching a beardless youth.

Al-Shāfi‘ī, and Ahmad according to one report from him, consider instead the presumed presence of desire: women are presumed to be objects of desire, so touching them invalidates ablution, whether with desire or without it. For this reason, touching women whom one is permanently forbidden to marry does not invalidate ablution. Yet if he touches such women with desire, the underlying rationale is actually present. The same applies if he touches a beardless youth with desire.

Taking pleasure in touching a beardless youth—by shaking his hand or the like—is forbidden by the consensus of the Muslims, just as taking pleasure in touching women one is permanently forbidden to marry or a non-mahram woman is forbidden. Likewise, the majority hold that the punishment for sodomy is more severe than the punishment for unlawful intercourse with a non-mahram woman. Both the active and passive partners must therefore be put to death, regardless of either party’s marital status and regardless of whether one is the other’s slave. This is reported from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the Sunan collections, and his Companions acted upon it, with no known disagreement among them.

Execution is by stoning, just as Allah destroyed the people of Lot. The revealed law likewise prescribes stoning as the means of executing the adulterer: “The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stoned Mā‘iz ibn Mālik, the Ghāmidī woman and the two Jews