Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed has risked anger and jury to further the e of gay Mlims. Ten years after he tablished Europe's first clive mosque, he explor what has changed.
Contents:
- CAN A MLIM BE GAY?
- IN A SURVEY OF AMERIN MLIMS, 0% INTIFIED AS LBIAN OR GAY. HERE’S THE STORY BEHD THAT STATISTIC
- WHAT DO ISLAM SAY ABOUT BEG GAY?
- 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
CAN A MLIM BE GAY?
For many LGBT Mlims, g out of the closet to their fai and relig muni n be a ght cisn. One Mlim lear says she receiv lls regularly om young gay and lbian Mlims who are aaid to reveal their sexual inty. * islamic gay *
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. It is difficult to fe the “Islamic posn” on homosexualy, as a monolhic phenomenon, simply bee Islam is a very diverse fah group wh some 1.
They tend to draw on the story of Lot the Koran (also the Old Ttament) which reunts the stctn of the tribe of Lot allegedly due to their engagement homosexual acts as “evince” for God’s nmnatn of homosexualy. Theologil and legal nmnatns of homosexualy n engenr perceptns at a social level that homosexualy is wrong and that should not be permted. The rults found that 18% of the Brish Mlim rponnts agreed that homosexualy should be legal Bra while the majory (52%) disagreed.
IN A SURVEY OF AMERIN MLIMS, 0% INTIFIED AS LBIAN OR GAY. HERE’S THE STORY BEHD THAT STATISTIC
* islamic gay *
Furthermore, 47% of the Brish Mlim rponnts dited that they did not believe that was acceptable for a gay person to bee a teacher. In my rearch to attus ncerng homosexualy among sampl of first and send-generatn Brish Mlims of Pakistani scent, I found that attus tend to be largely negative. Although rearch to attus towards homosexualy the general populatn pots to mographic variabl, such as age and level of tn, as key termants of the nature of attus, this has not been the se my own work wh Brish Mlims.
Mlims of var ag, tn levels and soc-enomic backgrounds have participated my studi and generally perceive homosexualy negative terms.
Moreover, there was a fundamental rejectn of sentialist arguments ncerng the origs of sexual orientatn – that people are born gay and that they do not “choose” to be gay – and terviewe often argued that people had “chosen” to be gay. Ined, prev rearch has shown that believg the sentialist argument regardg homosexualy is rrelated wh ls discrimatn and greater acceptance. Although many Brish Mlims may disapprove of the ncept of homosexualy, several dividuals reported posive first-hand experienc of ntact wh LGBT people.
WHAT DO ISLAM SAY ABOUT BEG GAY?
Some people spoke fondly of their LGBT iends, neighbours and acquatanc, suggtg that first-hand ntact may challenge homophobia which exists at an abstract, nceptual level. In view of the generally negative attus towards homosexualy Mlim muni and the silence that n surround discsns of sexualy, most of my Mlim gay terviewe have manifted a poor self-image and low psychologil well-beg. I know that dog gay thgs is evil but I hope I’ll change my ways and take the right path soon … It’s all about temptatn, really.
Those gay Mlims who nceptualise their sexualy as immoral and wrong n unrstandably stggle to rive self-teem, which is key to well-beg.
It is easy to see how belief the negativy of homosexualy om the perspective of one’s fah (which, untls studi has emerged as an important inty among Brish Asian Mlims) uld e some gay Mlims to velop ternalised homophobia and, some s, to doubt the thenticy of their Mlim inty. Maybe I’m not bisexual bee I’ve never been wh a woman but I n’t ll myself gay eher … I refe to do that bee I jt don’t feel gay. Ccially, makg sense of the “” unrlyg their sexual orientatn, some gay Mlims were of the view that they had “bee” gay as a rult of their social environment and nsequently blamed Brish society:.
A GAY IMAM'S STORY: 'THE DIALOGUE IS OPEN ISLAM – 10 YEARS AGO WASN'T'
I’m gay bee I was brought up here [ Bra] but I reckon if I’d been brought up Pakistan then I would have turned out straight bee this don’t happen that much there. Many dividuals of relig fah stggle to accept homosexualy given the centraly of heterosexualy to fah life, acrdg to most fah groups. So there needs to be much more discsn of homosexualy Mlim muni – which will admtedly be difficult given the cultural taboo around sexualy.
EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI
As I’ve wrten elsewhere, the Eastenrs storyle ncerng Syed Mehmood, a gay Mlim character who stggl to e out to his parents, generated some discsn the Brish Mlim muny and led some dividuals to acknowledge the existence of homosexualy wh their muny. In my rearch, I’ve also found that gay Mlims n face Islamophobia on the gay scene, which n hr their sense of belongg the spac.