Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal within the country. The law of Saudi Arabia is uncodified; a Wahhabist interpretation of sharia , derived from the Quran and the Sunnah , is the basis of the law and justice system. Saudi Arabia has no criminal code. The primary source of law in Saudi Arabia is the Sharia Islamic law , which is derived from the Quran.
Specifically, prohibition of same-sex sexual acts is based on the Quranic story of the prophet Lut and traditions of the teachings of Muhammad contained in the Sunnah. Qiyas , or analogical reasoning applied to the principles of the Quran, Sunnah and ijma is used: [ 18 ] Judges apply their personal interpretation of sharia to any particular case ijtihad and are not bound by any previous decisions, sometimes resulting in divergent judgements even in apparently identical cases.
Reformers have often called for codified laws to be instituted, and there appears to be a trend in the country to codify, publish and even translate some Saudi criminal and civil laws. Liwat sodomy is to be:. Sodomy is proven either by the perpetrator confessing four times or by the testimony of four trustworthy Muslim men, who were eyewitnesses to the act. If there are fewer than four witnesses, or if one is not upstanding, then they are all to be chastised with 80 lashes for slander.
In the s, Saudi King Khaled issued numerous royal decrees designed to secure support among religious fundamentalists in the aftermath of an uprising of religious extremists in , known as the Grand Mosque seizure. In addition to law enforcement, a second royal decree formally established the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice CPVPV and gave this committee the power to arrest and detain people who violate the traditional teachings of Islam, including acts of homosexuality and cross-dressing.
Combating homosexuality remains one of the major goals of the CPVPV, along with its campaign against the consumption of alcohol and the practice of magic. In September , it was announced that all Gulf Cooperative Countries had agreed to discuss a proposal to establish some form of, yet unknown, testing in order to ban gay foreigners from entering any of the countries.
