Yet pederasty is forbidden by the Koran.  In chapter iv. 20 we read:  “And if two (men) among you commit the crime, then punish them both,” the penalty being some hurt or damage by public reproach, insult or scourging.  There are four distinct references to Lot and the Sodomites in chapters vii. 78; xi. 77-84; xxvi.  I60-I74 and xxix. 28-35.  In the first the prophet commissioned to the people says, “Proceed ye to a fulsome act wherein no creature hath foregone ye?  Verily ye come to men in lieu of women lustfully.”  We have then an account of the rain which made an end of the wicked and this judgment on the Cities of the Plain is repeated with more detail in the second reference.  Here the angels, generally supposed to be three, Gabriel, Michael and Raphael, appeared to Lot as beautiful youths, a sore temptation to the sinners and the godly man’s arm was straitened concerning his visitors because he felt unable to protect them from the erotic vagaries of his fellow townsmen.  He therefore shut his doors and from behind them argued the matter:  presently the riotous assembly attempted to climb the wall when Gabriel, seeing the distress of his host, smote them on the face with one of his wings and blinded them so that all moved off crying for aid and saying that Lot had magicians in his house.  Hereupon the “Cities” which, if they ever existed, must have been Fellah villages, were uplifted:  Gabriel thrust his wing under them and raised them so high that the inhabitants of the lower heaven (the lunar sphere) could hear the dogs barking and the cocks crowing.  Then came the rain of stones:  these were clay pellets baked in hell-fire, streaked white and red, or having some mark to distinguish them from the ordinary and each bearing the name of its destination like the missiles which destroyed the host of Abrahat al-Ashram.[FN#385] Lastly the “Cities” were turned upside down and cast upon earth.  These circumstantial unfacts are repeated at full length in the other two chapters; but rather as an instance of Allah’s power than as a warning against pederasty, which Mohammed seems to have regarded with philosophic indifference.  The general opinion of his followers is that it should be punished like fornication unless the offenders made a public act of penitence.  But here, as in adultery, the law is somewhat too clement and will not convict unless four credible witnesses swear to have seen rem in re.  I have noticed (vol. i. 211) the vicious opinion that the Ghilman or Wuldan, the beautiful boys of Paradise, the counter parts of the Houris, will be lawful catamites to the True Believers in a future state of happiness:  the idea is nowhere countenanced in Al-Islam; and, although I have often heard debauchees refer to it, the learned look upon the assertion as scandalous.