More Lies of Nahiem Ajmal: On Yaḥyā b Aktham & Homosexuality

A Note about Nahiem Ajmal’s Slanders against Me

After having been exposed several times for his lies, distortions and misrepresentations, Nahiem Ajmal has proceeded to slander myself.

Having no meaningful response to the above (and other) exposés and being the vile and narcissistic character that he is, Nahiem Ajmal naturally resorts to such slanders.

To recap the latest lies, Nahiem Ajmal falsely claimed that Yaḥyā ibn Aktham “openly argued” for the permissibility of homosexual behaviour and did so from two specific verses of the Qur’ān (which Nahiem cited). As mentioned, these are fabrications, slanders and lies, with no truth to them. Nahiem did not contest that these were things he simply made up.

Instead, his response – to use Nahiem’s language – was to spew hatred.

These are his words:

“This Molvi Zameel that you (i.e. Mufti Abdul Raheem Limbada) got going round trying to write articles just about me, they know the same things (i.e. sexual abuse cases in madrasas), even worse. These people are nothing, I’m telling you, this cult what they’re spreading is just hatred and a disease for this part of the world. Molvi Limbada has this, what is it, this Zameel, writing these things about me. This Zameel, by the way, all he does is share stuff from Ulama of South Africa. There’s a place, he encourages the teachings of this, there’s a thing called the Majlis and other institutes, not all institutes, but the Majlis primarily and others from South Africa, openly, this is no secret, openly pledge their allegiance to ISIS, openly. They’re not even shy about it. They say that al-Baghdadi is our caliph. Zameel that he’s got shares his stuff all the time. This is the kind of Islam that they’re bringing back in the UK. These kind of people are a joke. This person, check this out, his own teacher in Birmingham, his own teacher; he lives in Birmingham, refuses to meet me because I’m an apostate in Islam, his own teacher from Birmingham, world-renowned Shaykh Saqib Shami, right, Shaykh Saqib Shami who’s very well-known, you can say more from the Barelwi background, he was a teacher of this guy, Molvi Zameel, before he became a hard line super Deobandi cult member. Today he has no respect for his own teacher, he considers him a mushrik and a mubtadi‘. That was his first, amongst his early teachers in Islam. Like what do you expect, these people just spew hatred in Islam, that’s all they do. Right so, anyway, and he has these people coming...”

It is not true I share Majlis articles, while according to Nahiem this is “all I do”.

It is not true that I - or Majlis - have links with ISIS, let alone having “openly” pledged allegiance to them. In fact, the Majlis has written several articles against ISIS.

I have never considered Saqib Shami to be a “mushrik”. (Although it is true that I regard Nahiem Ajmal to be an apostate zindīq).

Whilst at madrasa, I never heard of a case of sexual abuse.

These are all lies/slanders.

He has also made out I am writing in collaboration with/under instructions from Mufti Abdul Raheem Limbada. This is another falsehood. I have never in my life communicated with Mufti Abdul Raheem Limbada.

These lies and slanders however do not bother me (nor other Muslims) as much as Nahiem’s lies and slanders against Islam, the Prophet of Islam, the Salaf and the scholars.

Nahiem’s claim that I belong to a cult appears to be a classic case of projection. Nahiem has all the signs of a narcissistic cult leader, impervious to clear demonstrations of the falsity of his claims, “rewarding” those who suck up to him by heaping praise on them and “punishing” those who directly refute him by spewing hatred against them, and attracting a following of halfwits who are equally impervious to truth and a clear demonstration of their cult leader’s failings.

Finally, to quote Mawlana Hasan Khan: “It may dampen Nahiem Ajmal’s fetish for fame to know this, but people who refute him aren’t obsessed with him. They do a lot more than sit on Facebook once a week and mislead people. Part of their duty towards the community is to warn of charlatans, and with that spirit, they very easily denude the academic cover people like Nahiem Ajmal lurk under. Let’s just say they want people to see a spade for what it is and not fall for lies in the name of God.”*

* www.basair.net/nahiem-ajmal-abu-layth-prophet-isa-cradle/

Īmān is the unflinching, unwavering and firm belief that a) Allāh alone is deserving of worship as He alone is Creator and the One in complete control, and b) that the Prophet Muḥammad (ṣallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) is His messenger to us who has left behind guidance in the form of Qur’ān and Sunnah. If someone rejects these beliefs or doubts* them, he or she does not have īmān. If someone rejects or distorts a teaching categorically established from the Prophet (ṣallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) in the Qur’ān or Sunnah, after being shown the evidence, he or she does not have īmān.

Nahiem Ajmal has said he does not have full certainty in the basic propositions of religion.** According to him, full certainty is found only in science. Any form of doubt or uncertainty in the basic propositions of religion is incompatible with īmān. Hence, he has admitted that he does not have īmān.

Secondly, he has rejected teachings categorically proven from the Prophet (ṣallallāhu ‘alayhi wasallam) in the Qur’ān or Sunnah, despite knowing the evidence, like: ‘Īsā (‘alayhissalām) having spoken miraculously as a baby, Mūsā (‘alayhissalām)’s staff turning into a real snake, ‘Īsā (‘alayhissalām)’s return and the obligation of implementing ḥudūd when they are clearly proven under Islāmic rule.

Thirdly, repeatedly selecting lax juristic views condemned by the vast majority of scholars or contriving new ones, when it results from taking religious laws lightly, is tantamount to disbelief. (See: ahlussunnah.boards.net/thread/497/avoid-abu-layth). 

Hence, Nahiem Ajmal is a disbeliever claiming to be a Muslim – which is what a Zindīq is.

* Passing thoughts are not the same as doubt. For example, one can have a passing thought that earth is flat, but this would not necessarily negate his absolute certainty that it is round. Doubt is a lack of certainty or surety in a proposition.

** In response to the question, “How do we get certainty then?” Nahiem Ajmal said, “Certainty is to do with things like belief-concepts, faith concepts, but once again, faith ironically is always something in which there is no utter certainty about. There’s a certain level we can get to and that’s it, if we’re gonna be honest with ourselves…I think the whole purpose of faith is having good enough to go by, as opposed to this concrete [belief]…Wanting faith to be like that would not be faith then; then it would just be science.”

The claim made by Nahiem Ajmal that Yaḥyā ibn Aktham allowed homosexuality and attempted to interpret some verses in that meaning can only be found (based on my reading) in shī’ah sources. The major biographical dictionaries do mention conflicting reports regarding Yaḥyā ibn Aktham’s personal sexuality, but there is clear evidence to state that he was free from these allegations.

The only evidence provided with reference from a Sunnī source was the poem written by Aḥmad ibn Mītham ibn Abī Nu’aym, the grandson of the famous Faḍl ibn Dukayn. The incident, with the poem, is reported by al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī where al-Ma’mūn cites the poem of Ibn Abī Nu’aym which was aimed at Yaḥyā ibn Aktham


The clear problem here is that Yaḥyā is not himself stating that he believes in its permissibility, but rather is being accused of it. Furthermore, Yaḥyā’s response to al-Ma’mūn demonstrates his displeasure. He asks al-Ma’mūn ‘do you not know who said this [poem]? Al-Ma’mūn responds in the negative, to which Yaḥyā states ‘the fājir (the immoral) Ibn Abī Nu’aym said so’ (al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (2002) Tarīkh Baghdād, Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī 16/282). Referring to someone as a fājir is very offensive and only referred to a person when something seriously evil is found in them. Another point of interest, which is linked to what will be discussed below, is that Ibn Abī Nu’aym was a shī’ī who was classified as a weak transmitter by the likes of Ibn Ḥibbān and al-Dāraquṭnī (Ibn Ḥajar (1971) Lisān al-Mīzān, Beirut: Mu’assasat al-A’lamī 1/316). His being a shī’ī is affirmed from shī’ah sources, the famed shī’ī scholar, Abū Ja’far al-Ṭūsī (d.460) refers to Ibn Abī Nu’aym as being from ‘our companions’ (Abū Ja’far al-Ṭūsī (n.d.) al-Fihrist, Najaf: al-Maṭba’at al-Murtaḍawiyyah, p.25-26). So the only referenced evidence provided to support this claim (that Yaḥyā ibn Aktham believed in the permissibility of homosexuality) is from an allegation provided by a ḍa’īf shī’ī opponent which actually offended Yaḥyā. The purpose behind this poem will be explained at the end.

As for the other shī’ah sources then Ibn Shu’bah al-Ḥarrānī (contemporary of Shaykh al-Ṣudūq [d.381]) in ‘Tuḥaf al-‘Uqūl’ narrates an incident where Mūsā ibn Muḥammad ibn Riḍā (d.266) apparently meets Yaḥyā ibn Aktham and the latter asks him about verses of the Qur’ān which imply strange rulings. Mūsā unable to reply, takes these questions to Abū al-Ḥasan al-Thālith (d.252) who then responds. If we are to assume that these shī’ī sources are historically accurate and that we can attribute positions to Sunnī Imāms not found in any Sunnī sources, nowhere in these supposed questions from Yaḥyā ibn Aktham does he claim that homosexuality is permissible. Rather the supposed relevant question is regarding the verse in the Qur’ān أَوْ يُزَوِّجُهُمْ ذُكْرَانًا وَإِنَاثًا, where the verse implies that a man could be married off to a man despite a group (referring to the people of Lūṭ ‘alayhissalām) being punished for it (al-Ḥarrānī, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan (1996) Tuḥaf al-‘Uqūl ‘an Āl al-Rasūl, Beirut: Mu’assisat al-‘A’lā li al-Maṭbū’āt, p.352).

Now, a lay person can read the verse in context and clearly see what it is referring to, so to assume someone of the caliber of Yaḥyā ibn Aktham would ask such a question is baffling. But even so, the apparent question itself confirms its prohibition! As for the claim that he stated that homosexuality is ḥalāl via quoting certain verses, then I have found this mentioned in a very late shī’ī source. Taqī al-Dīn al-Tustarī’s (d.1415/1995) Qaḍā’ Amīr al-Mu’minīn claims that Yaḥyā ibn Aktham had relations with some 400 young boys (amrad). One should note that the amrad was a young boy who has yet to grow real facial hair, so if one wants to apply modern terms then this would not only be classified as homosexuality but probably also pedophilia. Based on this there is no consensus on homosexuality as well as pedophilia!! Al-Tustarī then claims that Yaḥyā ibn Aktham argued using the above-mentioned verse of the Qur’ān to justify these actions. (Qaḍā’ Amīr al-Mu’minīn, Najaf: al-Maṭba’at al-Ḥaydariyyah, p.45-46). None of this is sourced or provided a chain of transmission for. What appears to have happened is Tustarī utilized the incident mentioned in Tuḥaf al-‘Uqūl and took those questions by Yaḥyā as affirming that interpretation. This would then be a clear misquotation as even if we are to assume that Yaḥyā did ask those questions, he did not say homosexuality is permissible. Safe to say that this is a lie on Yaḥyā ibn Aktham.

Tustarī only claims that Yaḥyā ibn Aktham utilized the verse وْ يُزَوِّجُهُمْ ذُكْرَانًا وَإِنَاثًا but the claim that Yaḥyā ibn Aktham quoted the verse المال والبنون زينة is not mentioned in any of these sources. Rather this can be found in a contemporary book of another shī’ī, al-Khaṭīb al-‘Adnānī. He places a section in his book refuting those figures who have apparently claimed that homosexuality is permissible. Al-‘Adnānī quotes al-Tustarī’s book for the alleged arguments made by Yaḥyā ibn Aktham and misquotes Tustarī by adding the verse المال والبنون amongst those arguments. This seems to be the source of Naheim Ajmal, as he has followed al-‘Adnānī in this error (al-Khaṭīb al-‘Adnānī (1999) al-Zinā wa al-Shudhudh fi al-Tarīkh al-‘Arabī, Beirut: al-Intishār al-‘Arabī, p.137).

That being said, Naheim Ajmal adds a third verse which Yaḥyā ibn Aktham allegedly used to justify homosexuality زين للناس حب الشهوات من النساء والبنين which basically means that the want for women and male children is something beautified for man. Nahiem claims that ‘male children’ was interpreted by Yaḥyā as meaning young boys, so just as women are permitted for a man so are young boys. Here, the text of al-‘Adnānī has been misread, as he does not claim Yaḥyā utilized this verse, but some other unknown figures.

A final question to answer is what was the reason for this opposition from the shī’ah to Yaḥyā ibn Aktham. Tustarī explains that the purpose behind Ibn Abī Nu’aym's poem was Yaḥyā ibn Aktham’s opposition to the shī’ah practice of mut’ah (temporary marriage). As there were allegations against Yaḥyā ibn Aktham of homosexuality, this was played on to say that you are harsh towards mut’ah (which is ḥalāl according to the shī’ah) and you yourself are a homosexual.

How any serious student of knowledge, let alone a scholar, can utilize the above sources and attribute opinions to reputable Imams is beyond me. Slandering any Muslim, especially great scholars, is a grave matter. So, Nahiem should openly retract and repent or provide us with a credible source for his claim.