A gay imam's story: 'The dialogue is open Islam – 10 years ago wasn't' | World Enomic Fom

Contents:

• EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI
• HOW DO YOU SAY GAY ARABIC?
• GAY DICTNARY ARABIC
• CAN ONE BE MLIM AND GAY?
• IN A SURVEY OF AMERIN MLIMS, 0% INTIFIED AS LBIAN OR GAY. HERE’S THE STORY BEHD THAT STATISTIC
• CAN A MLIM BE GAY?
• GAY AND MLIM?
• A GAY IMAM'S STORY: 'THE DIALOGUE IS OPEN ISLAM – 10 YEARS AGO WASN'T'

EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI

Acrdg to the kgdom’s relig police, the school was fed 100, 000 riyals ($26, 650) for displayg “the emblem of the homosexuals” on s buildg, one of s admistrators was jailed and the offendg parapet was swiftly repated to match a blue rabow-ee se of the gaily pated school shows how progrs one part of the world n have adverse effects elsewhere and serv as a remr that there are plac where the nnectn between rabows and LGBT rights is eher new or yet to be Afghanistan, only a few years ago, there was a craze for ratg rs wh rabow stickers – which Che factori were only too happy to supply. It wasn’t until the Afghan Pajhwok news agency explaed how they might be misterpreted that the craze me to a sudn on the ter and you will also fd pi of the “Rabow Qur’an” for sale – an unnscly gay edn of the holy book wh tted pag of every hue and remend on one webse as “an ial gift for Mlims” there are two sis to this cross-cultural misunrstandg.

Genr segregatn, which go to extreme lengths the more nservative Mlim untri, enurag homosocial behavur, creatg a suatn where men are often more fortable the prence of other men and where placg a hand on another man’s knee is a sign of iendship, not an vatn to sex. Historilly, Mlim societi have often acknowledged this – toleratg to some extent even if they the 19th and early 20th centuri, men who had been persecuted for their sexualy Europe often sought refuge Moroc and, long before same-sex marriage was dreamed of the wt, male-on-male partnerships were regnised – and marked wh a ceremony – the remote Egyptian oasis of some Mlim untri, whole towns have bee the butt of jok about the supposed homosexualy of their habants.

In Egypt, for example, an old law agast “bchery” is often laws have a tastrophic effect on the liv of people who are unlucky enough to get ught but, spe ocsnal crackdowns, the thori don’t, on the whole, actively seek out gay people to arrt them. In England 1952, there were 670 prosecutns for sodomy, 3, 087 for attempted sodomy or cent asslt, and 1, 686 for gross problem wh such laws, even if not vigoroly enforced, is that they signal official disapproval of homosexualy and, upled wh the fulmatns of relig scholars, legimise discrimatn by dividuals at an everyday level and may also provi an exce for actn by vigilant.

HOW DO YOU SAY GAY ARABIC?

Years before Isis began throwg allegedly gay men off the top of buildgs, other groups Iraq were attackg “un-manly” men – sometim killg them slowly by jectg glue to the reason for the paratively small number of prosecutns is the official fictn that gay people don’t exist to any great extent Mlim untri; homosexualy is regard primarily as a wtern phenomenon and large numbers of arrts would ll that to qutn. Some of the most btal Arab regim (Iraq unr Saddam Hse and Syria unr the Assads, for example) also showed ltle tert attackg gay people – probably bee they had other thgs to worry Syrian refugee Subhi Nahas wh the US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, durg an rmal meetg on the persecutn of LGBT people by Isis. For those ught, the effect on their liv is tastrophic but the law is not much of a terrent and for those who are discreet about their sexualy the risk of arrt is the vast majory who intify as gay, lbian or transgenr the attus of fay and society are a much bigger one issue that affects all gay people – everywhere – at some pot their liv is g out.

In Egypt and Lebanon – predomantly Mlim untri wh a large Christian populatn – attus towards homosexualy among Christians are not very different om those among Mlims.

GAY DICTNARY ARABIC

Also, ’s clear that the prophet Muhammad never specified a punishment for homosexualy; wasn’t until some years after his ath that Mlims began discsg what a suable punishment might nmnatns of homosexualy, like those Christiany, are based maly on the story about God’s punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah which is reunted the Qur’an as well as the Old Ttament.

CAN ONE BE MLIM AND GAY?

Although Mlim societi today n be scribed as generally homophobic, ’s a mistake to view homophobia as a self-ntaed problem: ’s part of a syndrome which the rights of dividuals are subsumed the perceived terts of the muny and – often – matag an “Islamic” ethos. “Transgenr” is a broad term which clus tersex people (whose blogil sex is unclear or was wrongly assigned at birth), those wh genr dysphoria (who feel like “a man trapped a woman’s body”, or vice versa) and may also clu others who simply get pleasure or satisfactn om police e a water nnon to disperse LGBT rights activists before a Gay Pri para central Istanbul, Turkey.

IN A SURVEY OF AMERIN MLIMS, 0% INTIFIED AS LBIAN OR GAY. HERE’S THE STORY BEHD THAT STATISTIC

There were also many who found the ncept of genr dysphoria difficult to grasp and some characterised her as a gay man who was tryg to game the affair rulted a fatwa om Muhammad Tantawi, Egypt’s grand mufti, which is still ced s across the regn today.

CAN A MLIM BE GAY?

There are plenty of trans people who simply wish to be accepted as they are – whout surgery – and the Iranian system don’t really provi for, the difference between beg transgenr and gay is not well unrstood Iran, even wh the medil profsn, and there have been reports of gay men beg prsured to surgery as a way of “regularisg” their legal posn and avoidg the risk of executn.

My Kali, a Jordanian magaze which aims “to addrs homophobia and transphobia and empower the youth to fy mastream genr bari the Arab world” has been published regularly sce far, no one has attempted to hold a Pri para an Arab untry, though there have been paras the Turkish cy of Istanbul sce 2003 (not whout opposn). However, there have been activi Lebanon and elsewhere lked to IDAHOT, the Internatnal Day Agast Homophobia and Transphobia, which is viewed as ls likely to aroe hostily.

Far om wng praise for exposg “the secret behd the spreadg of Aids Egypt”, the programme’s prenter was roundgly nmned and later ran to legal April, the thori Amman, Jordan, ncelled a ncert by Mashrou’ Leila, a popular Lebane rock band wh an openly gay sger, jt a few days before was due to take place. Such was the outcry on social media that the thori rcd their cisn 24 hours later – though too late to reanise the ncert as origally the relig ont, prevailg Islamic views of homosexualy have been challenged here and there, but not on a sle that is likely to make much difference.

GAY AND MLIM?

There are a handful of gay-iendly mosqu and a few openly gay imams – cludg Muhs Hendricks South Ai, Daayiee Abdullah the US, and Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed, a French-Algerian, very noticeably, are the diaspora rather than the Mlim heartlands, but the diaspora is where Islam is forced to nont realy – not the untri where is protected and illtratn of where this n lead me Bra 2007 over the Sexual Orientatn Regulatns – a measure maly tend to prevent bs om discrimatg agast gay people. The Arabic subtl for the film The Bt Exotic Marigold Hotel translate the word gay to the Arabic equivalent of pervert, acrdg to an article by Steve Clemons the Atlantic.

In Michel Fouult’s 1976 book The History of Sexualy, the French philosopher claimed that although homosexual acts are prehistoric, Europeans and Amerins didn’t regnize homosexualy as a tra until the 19th century. Luti is ually translated as sodome and is wily nsired rogatory, but some gay Arabic wrers have recently -opted the term the way gay anglophon reclaimed the word queer the 1980s. The eighth- and nth-century wrers Abu Nuwas and Al-Jahiz ed the word latah for homosexuals, and the latter wrer even referred to ghulat al-latah, or ultra-homosexuals.

Turks, for example, refer to gay people as csel, — means same, and csel refers to genr—or sometim borrow the English word self, referrg to gay people as homoseksuel. Dpe beg nsired a crime and many s wh the ath penalty, some studi affirm that the separatn of sex and the srce heterosexual eedom, outsi of marriage and prostutn, greater homosexual dictnary clus posive neologisms ed at the end of the 20th century by profsnals psychology, soclogy, and journalists sce until that date there were only pejorative words.

A GAY IMAM'S STORY: 'THE DIALOGUE IS OPEN ISLAM – 10 YEARS AGO WASN'T'

+Juniya MisliyaThe Arabic language did not have non-rogative exprsns to talk about sexual diversy, but at the end of the 20th-century profsnals om psychology, soclogy and journalists began g the exprsn Juniya Misliya as the Arabic equivalent of the word homosexualy, created a century earlier. +MibounMiboun is the name given to a homosexual man the same way that a prostute is a mibona, but the remblance do not end here sce, the untri where homosexualy is not accepted, heterosexual men are allowed to be the top part sex wh another man, bee he is almost like a prostute. The Orlando shootg was a hate crime agast gay people – even if, once emerged that the attacker had been a Mlim, many people claimed this as a terrorist attack rather than a hate crime.

Sce the massacre there has been a lot of speculatn about Islam and homosexualy and there are fears that one man’s spible act of terrorism uld fan the flam of Islamophobia and other forms of social excln, leadg to disrd and unrt an era of elevated Islamophobia.