Mercy of Passions
\r\n An-Naml (The Ant) Chapter 27: Verses 54, 55
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"And [remember] Lot, when he said to his people, 'How dare you commit such abomination while you can see? Do you indeed approach men with lustful desires instead of women? Nay, you are a people whose conduct shows every sign of jahl (tajhaluna)."
In this passage we see that the people of Lot, that is, the people of Sodom described as behaving in a characteristically jahil way, 'approaching' as they do 'men lustfully rather than women', which is an 'abominable sin' fahishah. Jahil is a man who goes to any extremes at the mercy of his own passions, and that not ignorantly, 'while you can see,' i.e. being fully aware that by acting in this way he is committing an abominable sin. This shows clearly that jahil has essentially nothing to do with 'ignorance' though it implies the act of ignoring wilfully the moral rule.
\r\nCompiled From:
\r\n "Ethico Religious Concepts in the Quran" - Toshihiko Izutsu, p. 32