Bacha Bazi

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It is written:

Isaiah 1:17-Learn to do good; Seek justice, Rebuke the oppressor; Defend the fatherless, Plead for the widow.

Within Islam, there is a practice known as “bacha bazi.” It roughly translates as “boy play,” and has reference to sexual abuse of boys. Derek Gilbert describes this barbaric practice:

“One of the most disturbing episodes of America’s seemingly never-ending war in Afghanistan was revealed by the New York Times in 2015. In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base. “At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,” the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture.”[ 351] The Times went on to reveal that a former Special Forces captain had been relieved of his command for beating up a US-backed militia commander “for keeping a boy chained to his bed as a sex slave.”[ 352] The soldier had left the military by the time of the article’s publication. Worse, the Army tried to forcibly retire a second soldier, a decorated Green Beret sergeant, who assisted his captain in that thrashing,[ 353] presumably to make sure the message was received: Rape the boy again and things will not go well for you. Maybe the war in Afghanistan is still simmering after more than seventeen years as of this writing because our so-called allies treat the locals worse than the Taliban did. It’s not like this has been a secret. Less than five months after the United States invaded Afghanistan, the Times reported that it was this homosexual abuse of young boys that actually helped the Taliban come to power. Back in the 19th century, ethnic Pashtuns fighting in Britain’s colonial army sang odes talking of their longing for young boys. Homosexuality, cloaked in the tradition of strong masculine bonds that are a hallmark of Islamic culture and are even more pronounced in southern Afghanistan’s strict, sexually segregated society, has long been a clandestine feature of life here. But pedophilia has been its curse. Though the puritanical Taliban tried hard to erase pedophilia from male-dominated Pashtun culture, now that the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is gone, some people here are indulging in it once again.… An interest in relationships with young boys among warlords and their militia commanders played a part in the Taliban’s rise in Afghanistan. In 1994, the Taliban, then a small army of idealistic students of the Koran, were called to rescue a boy over whom two commanders had fought. They freed the boy and the people responded with gratitude and support.[ 354] In January 2018, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) published the results of an investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse in Afghanistan launched after the 2015 article in the New York Times. The report was released internally in June 2017, but it had been considered so toxic that it was originally classified SECRET/ NOFORN (“ No Foreign”), with a recommendation that it not be declassified until 2042.[ 355] While the report released to the public is heavily redacted, it does reveal that SIGAR found “no evidence that U.S. forces were told to ignore human rights abuses or child sexual assault.”[ 356] Further, SIGAR reported: On 5,753 occasions from 2010 to 2016, the United States military asked to review Afghan military units to see if there were any instances of “gross human rights abuses.” If there were, American law required military aid to be cut off to the offending unit. Not once did that happen.[ 357] What a relief. We’d hate to think the seventy-one billion dollars we’ve given to Afghan security forces forces[ 358] was being misused. Or maybe the Inspector General decided there weren’t any “gross human rights abuses” because “it’s their culture.” The practice is so widespread that a powerful CIA-backed warlord ran for president in Afghanistan’s 2014 election even though many believe he’s a pedophile.[ 359] The practice is called bacha bazi. Roughly translated, it means “boy play.” It is exactly what your imagination tells you it is—the enslavement and rape of young boys.[ 360] It’s difficult to say with absolute authority, but a culture that prevents men from ever seeing anything but the feet of wives or close female relatives might have something to do with it. How did this culture come about? Well, there are well-known verses in the Quran hint at “boy play” as one of the rewards for the faithful in paradise. There will circulate among them [servant] boys [especially] for them, as if they were pearls well-protected. (Surah At-Tur 52: 24, Sahih International) There will circulate among them young boys made eternal. When you see them, you would think them [as beautiful as] scattered pearls. (Surah Al-Insan 76: 19, Sahih International) While those verses don’t specifically say what the young boys are for, they’re ambiguous enough to keep good lawyers employed for years. To be fair, the Bedouin culture that produced Muhammad and his companions was very similar to the Amorite milieu that surrounded Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,[ 361] or the people of Midian with whom Moses sought refuge when he had to get out of Egypt.[ 362] While Bedouins protect the honor of young ladies, the old custom of allowing wealthy and powerful older men to take multiple wives and concubines makes it more difficult for single young men to find available female partners. You can see how this might encourage the practice of homosexuality in early Muslim society.[ 363] Scholars of literature have noted “an unusually rich and varied body of homosexual love poetry” from the early years of Islam.[ 364] This culture endures to the present day. It’s not unique to Afghanistan. Several news organizations have reported that sexual abuse of boys is common in Pakistan, especially among professional truck drivers. Boys employed as truck cleaners in Pakistan told researchers that sexual abuse by truckers is “part of the job.”[ 365] A 2014 British documentary, Pakistan’s Hidden Shame, revealed the shocking extent of the practice; it’s estimated that 90 percent of the street children in Pakistan, most of them boys (parents, not surprisingly, tend to keep little girls at home), have been victims of sexual abuse. A survey of eighteen hundred Pakistani men found that one-third believe that raping young boys isn’t even immoral.[ 366] No less an authority than the would-be Mahdi of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, advised his followers via a fatwa posted to Twitter that “it is permissible for the mujahid [jihadi] to enjoy young boys in the absence of women.”[ 367]”. (Derek P. Gilbert, Bad Moon Rising: Islam, Armageddon, and the Most Diabolical Double-Cross in History, 267-273 (Kindle Edition); Crane, MO: Defender Publishing)

Islam has long used homosexuality and pedophilia as recruitment tools for jihadists:

“Sexual enticements play an integral element in recruiting Jihadists. The late author and journalist Muhammad Galal Al-Kushk wrote; “The men in Paradise have sexual relations not only with the women who come from this world and with ‘the black-eyed,’ but also with the serving boys.” According to Kurum, Al-Kushk also stated, “In Paradise, a believer’s penis is eternally erect.” 69” (Walid Shoebat with Joel Richardson, God’s War On Terror: Islam, Prophecy, And The Bible-A fresh understanding of Biblical prophecy from an Eastern perspective as viewed by an ex-Muslim terrorist, 2123 (Kindle Edition))

In stark contrast, the Bible reminds us that sex was a gift that God gave to humanity to be enjoined within the confines of marriage between husband and wife.

1 Corinthians 7:2-4-Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. 3  Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. 4  The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Sexual activity outside of the God-approved marriage is described in Scripture with words like “fornication” and “sexual immorality” within God’s Word, and homosexuality and pedophilia are condemned within the definition of these words (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

How much we need to return to the Word of God in our country and around the world!

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Amen.