What 's like to be gay and a Mlim

Contents:

• 'BRISH VALU UNRMED' BY ISLAMIC SCHOOL'S ANTI-GAY BOOK
• GAY AND MLIM: FAY WANTED TO 'MAKE ME BETTER'
• WHAT'S LIKE BEG A GAY MLIM?
• I WANT YOUNG GAY MLIMS TO KNOW THAT YOU ARE ENOUGH, NO MATTER HOW HARD IS
• EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI
• CAN A MLIM BE GAY?
• LONDON'S LANDMARK BUILDG DOTTED WH STRIP CLUBS, GAY VENU TO TURN TO MOSQUE

'BRISH VALU UNRMED' BY ISLAMIC SCHOOL'S ANTI-GAY BOOK

Brish Mlims are more likely to feel a stronger nnectn to Bra than the populatn at large, acrdg to pollg, which also found that more than half thk that homosexualy should be illegal.

Extensive pollg nducted by ICM suggts that most s attus held by the Brish Mlim populatn do not broadly differ om those held by the populatn at large, but there are signifint differenc when to some issu such as homosexualy and women’s Phillips, the former head of the Equaly and Human Rights Commissn, said the fdgs were “extremely worryg” as they suggted on many issu Mlims were “natn wh a natn” lled for a more “mcular approach” to rearch suggts that 86% of Brish Mlims feel a strong sense of belongg Bra, which is higher than the natnal average of 83%. However, when asked to what extent they agreed or disagreed that homosexualy should be legal Bra, 18% said they agreed and 52% said they disagreed, pared wh 5% among the public at large who disagreed. Almost half (47%) said they did not agree that was acceptable for a gay person to bee a teacher, pared wh 14% of the general a seri of qutns on the terror threat Bra, 4% said they sympathised wh people who took part suici bombgs (1% said they pletely sympathised and 3% said they sympathised to some extent), and 4% said they sympathised wh people who mted terrorist actns as a form of polil prott a quarter (23%) supported the troductn of sharia law some areas of Bra, and 39% agreed that “wiv should always obey their hbands”, pared wh 5% of the untry as a whole.

She said that although any prejudice agast gay people was unacceptable, the fact that nearly 50% of Mlims did not thk homosexualy should be illegal was a sign that attus were shiftg. Image source, GoogleLears of a Mlim boardg school "unrmed Brish valu" by allowg s library to stock a book llg for homosexual people to be book, Islam on Homosexualy, was found by Ofsted durg a vis to the Islamic Instute of said clud "appropriate ntent" unsuable for Dewsbury-based school said all books s library were now nsistent wh s "unequivol mment to Brish valu". When Asad me out as gay 2020, some fay members discsed takg him to see an imam to make him "better" the months that followed, his mental health cled and he had suicidal thoughts.

GAY AND MLIM: FAY WANTED TO 'MAKE ME BETTER'

They discsed their experienc and the need for better support for gay people g out relig by Michael BBC Actn Le for rmatn and support on mental Newsbeat on Instagram, Facebook, Twter and to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here. “While we unrstand the tratns of the CEMB wh regard to the perceived stance of mastream Mlims on homosexualy, Imaan feels that the banners that the group marched wh serve only to epen divisns between muni. Imaan noted that the east London Mosque which was sgled out by the CEMB s prott had reacted wh posive ments agast homophobia – assertg that Islam do not promote hatred or homophobia and that the mosque had mounted mpaigns to to nmn ‘gay-hate’ stickers Tower Hamlets.

“We’d like to formally ve east London mosque to a meetg to discs ways which together we n bat the surge of gay-phobia, lbian-phobia, bi-phobia and transphobia – perhaps at a jot event for Eid al Adha at east London Mosque. After googlg “Is OK to be gay and Mlim” and skippg past the first 9 rults sayg no, a lucky few eventually fd , and we support our members through the difficult moments.

In fact, a growg number of Mlim lears and scholars dispute the terpretatn of the Qur’anic story of the Prophet Lut as a blanket nmnatn of homosexualy.

WHAT'S LIKE BEG A GAY MLIM?

Would we acce whe English Christians who are unfortable wh gay rights or multiculturalism as vert supporters of the Islamophobic Norwegian mass murrer Anrs Breivik? Akhtar, the chair of Imaan, an anisatn for lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr Mlims, advised the BBC on the storyle the hope that the character of Syed Masood would help tackle the double discrimatn of homophobia and Islamophobia that many gay Mlims Mlim theologian Amanullah De Sondy said recently that the vast majory of Mlims were "eply homophobic", and a survey rried out this summer among Brish Mlims reported that 0% of those qutned thought homosexualy was "morally acceptable". I'm out to all of my iends and most people who know me, but spe beg chair of an anisatn for lbian, gay, bisexual and transgenr Mlims, I have never intified myself terviews before bee I have tried to be rpectful of my fay's relig and cultural sensibili.

I was brought up wh a narrow terpretatn of Islam om a tradnal, workg-class Pakistani perspective and believed, like everyone else, that beg gay was wrong. After 9/11, we experienced Islamophobia cludg om wh the gay muny – at Gay Pri, some of the crowd heckled , and even a Pri steward referred to as terrorists.

I WANT YOUNG GAY MLIMS TO KNOW THAT YOU ARE ENOUGH, NO MATTER HOW HARD IS

I've seen Mlim men sent to the US for electric shock treatment to "cure" them of their homosexualy; I know of gay men who have been murred "honour killgs" – fact, the police often ntact our sexual health anisatn if there is an unexplaed ath of a young Mlim man to check if he is on our database. The imams I have said this to agree wh me, but say they n't say that fay know I'm gay; we don't talk about , but they have always known – probably before I did. Then I spoke to scholars, imams and amics and I learned that there's no word for homosexualy the Qur'an, but do teach you to rpect the diversy the world and be hont – which is what I am dog.

EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI

So now I'm lookg for a partner for life, who will accept me and my Akhtar, 30, Unn worker and lol uncillorI really wele the gay character EastEnrs bee I want people to engage the discsn. Mlims Bra have zero tolerance towards homosexual acts pared to their unterparts France and Germany, acrdg to a survey published Gallup poll featur the rults of telephone and face-to-face terviews wh Mlims and non-Mlims the UK, France and Germany and is signed to measure global attus towards people om different fah shows that Brish Mlims hold more nservative opns towards homosexual acts, abortn, viewg pornography, suici and sex outsi marriage than European Mlims, pollg markedly lower when asked if they believed the thgs were morally most dramatic ntrast was found attus towards homosexualy. Zakariyya Bori, an ambassador for LGBTQ+ chary Jt Like Us, is sharg his experienc as a young gay Mlim to help other queer people on the road to self-acceptance.

Readg the book A Dutiful Boy by Mohs Zaidi also helped me fd self-acceptance by showg his first-hand acunt of g out to his Mlim fay and yet still gog on to achieve credible personal succs – a ncept that as a 14-year-old gay Mlim om Manchter I didn’t que believe was possible. When I fally accepted myself – after movg to a new cy, London, where I was surround by people who were unapologetilly embracg their inti – beg gay sudnly transformed om an overwhelmg unspoken shame to simply jt a small element of my inty. Beg able to go to schools and share my experience of beg gay, a person of lour, and raised wh a fah background was an opportuny that I knew uld help other LGBTQ+ youth.

CAN A MLIM BE GAY?

Bee that’s exactly what I need to hear when I was growg up – someone else who had siar fears about g out and siar challeng that fah n brg when g to terms wh beg gay.

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.

LONDON'S LANDMARK BUILDG DOTTED WH STRIP CLUBS, GAY VENU TO TURN TO MOSQUE

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.