Clerical Errors
Shocking quotes from Islamic clerics
A clerical error is a harmless slip: a typo, a wrong date, a misplaced decimal point. The errors collected here are of another kind. They come from imams, muftis, ayatollahs and preachers, and they call for the death of apostates, the stoning of adulterous women, the sale of captives and the killing of Jews.
These are not words from the fringe. Alongside a few small-time preachers, you will find two Grand Muftis of Saudi Arabia, a Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the head of Turkey’s state religious authority and two Supreme Leaders of Iran. Each quote comes with its source. Check them: that is what they are for.
We do not target believers, who are often the first victims of these sermons. We target the men who speak in God’s name from a pulpit, a ministry or a television studio. Most of them are not misreading their scriptures: they quote them chapter and verse. Clerical errors usually get corrected. These ones get applause. Their critics have the floor in Unforgivable Sentences.
Filter by category LGBTQ+ repression 4 quotes
- Incitement to Hatred and Violence15
- Jihad and the establishment of a global caliphate14
- Violation of women's rights9
- Death penalty8
- Antisemitism7
- Superiority of Islam and Muslims6
- Prohibition of freedom of thought and expression5
- Slavery5
- Hatred of non-Muslims4
- LGBTQ+ repression4
- Obscurantism4
- Dress code for women3
- Apostasy2
- Ban on blasphemy2
- Forced conversions2
- Marriage of underage girls2
- Persecution of minority communities2
- Physical and psychological abuse of children2
- Domestic violence1
- Extramarital sexual relations1
- Flogging, Stoning and Other Corporal Punishments1
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(about gays) Some say that we should throw them from a high place, as God did with the inhabitants of Sodom. Some say that we should burn them, etc. There is disagreement... The important thing is to treat this act as a crime.
Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi World-renowned Egyptian Islamic theologian and preacher. A major spiritual guide for the Muslim Brotherhood. Source -
[Homosexuality] brings illnesses and corrupts generations. […] Hundreds of thousands of people a year are exposed to HIV caused by this great haram, which passes as adultery in the Islamic literature. Let’s come and fight together to protect people from this kind of evil.
Ali Erbaş President of the Diyanet, Turkey’s state religious authority, from 2017 to 2025 · Friday sermon on the first day of Ramadan, April 24, 2020 Source -
Sodomy, homosexuals, gays and lesbians in Islamic law are forbidden and [it] is a vile act that is punishable by the death penalty. […] It doesn’t matter that they love each other, [sharia] law still prohibits it.
Hasanuddin AF Head of the fatwa commission of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) · Remarks on the MUI fatwa on homosexuality, March 2015 Source -
In Iran we don’t have homosexuals like in your country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon, I don’t know who has told you that we have it.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad President of Iran · Speech at Columbia University, New York, September 24, 2007 Source
