The Cambridge History of Gay and Lbian Lerature - November 2014
Contents:
GAY PEOPLE ARE RECLAIMG AN ISLAMIC HERAGE
20 years and many difficult nversatns later, most of Merchant's fay has e to accept his sexualy, though he says some of his relativ still stggle to fully embrace him as a gay LGBT Mlim Amerins have not gotten nearly the kd of support Merchant has worked so hard to enjoy, and stead rema closeted for fear of social stigma and faial seems to have been the se wh Omar Mateen, a Mlim man, who killed 49 people when he opened fire on a gay nightclub Orlando last month. The attack may have been motivated by ner turmoil, acrdg to Mateen's ex-wife who said that he had "gay tennci.
Merchant never felt that his fah was at odds wh his sexualy, part bee of a long tradn of acuntg for homosexual and homoerotic relatnships by the 13th and 14th century Islamic mystil poets Rumi and Hafiz, whose work he was exposed to om an early Rumi, Right: Hafiz"Rumi was always lurkg the background, " Merchant said. "It exprs so betifully, so simply, so eternally what I feel about Islam and homosexualy, " Merchant said.
A week after the Orlando shootg, Merchant read that poem at a board meetg for the Mlim Public Affairs Council, a civil rights anizatn, after talkg about his own experienc as a gay him, the attack was a ll to redouble his missn "to nvce gay people that Mlims are not the enemy and to nvce Mlims that gay people are not the enemy. Dpe fears that his sexual orientatn might e his loved on to feel shame, Merchant said he has never felt that beg gay was at odds wh beg a Mlim. "Given the prevalence of such queer perspectiv and homosexual referenc by poets like Bulleh Shah and Rumi who are often revered as sats, 's hugely ironic that LGBTQ Mlims around the world stggle to live out their sexual and genr some level, many Mlims accept that there was a ep love exprsed om one man to another--few women wrote this sort of poetry-- Islamic mysticism.