A video, reportedly shot by an Israeli drone over the war-torn Gaza Strip has been circulating on various social networks. The footage shows several Hamas fighters, decked out in kuffiya headscarves, having sexual intercourse with a goat or a sheep.

Stunningly revolting, but hardly surprising. After all, zoophilia was always quite common, if not widespread in Islamic societies from the Maghreb to Central Asia. Numerous non-Muslims from Uzbekistan told me about the rife practice of bestiality by young Uzbeks in villages and small towns.

Robert Fisk, a journalist known for his pro-Islam sympathies, wrote in his book The Great War for Civilization about seeing an Afghan man, standing on boxes and sodomizing a camel in broad daylight on the side of the road in Kandahar. Also in Afghanistan, a soldier was arrested after having been caught having intercourse with a donkey, explaining that he did not have enough money to get married. Apparently, this was a good enough excuse for the local police who promptly released him without charge.

University of Stockholm professor Ishtiaq Ahmed, a native of Pakistan, wrote in Pakistan’s Daily Times:

In southern Punjab, much of NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan sodomy and bestiality are common among rural youths. In fact, he caught two boys trying to rape a goat in the vicinity of the mazar of Hazrat Sultan Bahu. The punishment meted out to them was 10 blows with a chhittar (shoe) each on their butts. They protested however that in many rural areas having sex with an animal was considered a rite of passage on the way to becoming full members of the male society!

The News International newspaper, also in Pakistan, reported a few years ago that a donkey was killed by its owner in an “honor killing” after being raped by another villager who managed to escape the owner’s wrath. The poor donkey was declared a kari (“adulterous female”) and shot dead. The zoophile was fined 110,000 Pakistani rupees (a little over $1,100).

An entry on Morocco in the International Encyclopedia of Sexuality is authored by four Arab Muslim medical doctors – Nadia Kadiri, Abderrazak Moussaid, Abdelkrim Tirraf, and Abdallah Jadid who can hardly be accused of “Islamophobia” or anti-Arab prejudice. This is what the four Muslim doctors have to say about bestiality in their country:

In the rural world, zoophilia is still very widespread and not blameworthy. With     masturbation, it constitutes an obligatory passage in the adolescent male’s apprenticeship of sexuality.

Notably, as the doctors point out, zoophilia has not been mentioned in the Koran, unlike the Pentateuch where it is harshly denounced (Leviticus 18:23 and Deuteronomy 27:21). A curious omission, wouldn’t you say?