Hope exists for LGBT Muslims

Junaid Jahanagir, Opinion Writer Wednesday, 2 April 2008

Edmonton, despite Alberta’s redneck fame, is home to both the oldest North American mosque and the first North American Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT)youth camp. Both the Pride Centre and Muslim Community act to support their respective members; however, it’s nearly impossible to bring elements of both together owing to intransigence on the Muslim side, the limited resources of the LGBT, and the unwillingness of Muslim LGBT to reconcile the diametrically opposed facets of their existence.

It’s not news to say that both sides are subject to discrimination and sterotypes. The American Muslim community has, at times, been wrongfully portrayed as potentially abetting heinous acts of terrorism, and on other occasions, you’ll find messages that paint all queers as disease-infected child molesters.

Naturally, queer practicing Muslims weave a cocoon of restrictive pretence. Whereas the hijab or a beard expose them to the scrutiny of the general public, their refusal to marry unleashes the wrath of forbidding cultural traditions. But despite the barriers they face, there’s still hope.

Western LGBTs have made great strides toward the integration and cementing of their rights in the post-2005 era of same-sex marriage. Affirming United Churches wed same sex couples, libraries have sections on queer literature, support groups provide resources to LGBT parents, and academia works on cutting-edge queer theory. However, such achievements aren’t shared by their Muslim peers, in whose lives words like “sodomy” overpower those like “heteronormativity.”

Though the LGBT community has accomplished much, these successes mean little to practicing Muslim LGBT. The language of a tradition based on civic rights can’t simply be used to address other cultural norms that employ the language of Classical Islamic jurisprudence.

Fortunately, an alternative, yet mainstream, Muslim discourse exists that can be summoned to address the status quo in a firm yet respectful manner so that future generations of Muslim LGBTs won’t face freezing silence from their faith-based family.

Indeed, a whole school of Muslim scientists deemed homosexuality as an inherited trait hundreds of years before the revolutionary American Psychological Association statements. Moreover, the strong opinions of revered scholars like Ibn Hazm and Abu Hanifa on the Qur’anic verses on the people of Lot (Sodom) who oppose the use of these verses for injunctions on homosexual conduct. Their opinions lend support to the alternate belief that the divine addressed violent rape as wrong, not loving same-sex unions.

Furthermore, in Islamic scriptures, there’s an absence of any express directives in regard to same-sex unions. And if you begin to consider rules of Classical Islamic jurisprudence—such as “necessity trumps prohibitions” and “general rules always allow for exceptions”—they can be seen to form a strong counterweight against the rigid traditions, which scholarly work has estimated to be weak and concocted.

Given the above, one wonders if it would be too much to ask the mainstream clergy to address the plight of Muslim LGBTs. Perhaps this is why some mainstream Imams like the late Zaki Badawi have gone so far as to encourage gay Muslims to form chaste civil unions with their same-sex partners under British law. However, no North American Muslim scholar has as yet effectively addressed the subject—perhaps due to the more pressing concerns of a community that finds itself under duress from the Islamophobic generalizations within society at large.

Hope lies in the efforts of fringe queer Muslim groups like Salaam Canada, openly gay Imams like Daayiee Abdullah, and alternative groups like the Muslim Canadian Congress. Paradoxically, hope also lies in statements coming from religious discussions in Muslim countries like Indonesia. Recently, some moderate Muslim scholars have boldly stated that homosexuals and homosexuality are natural and created by God, and thus permissible within Islam.

Classical Muslim thought has within it the capacity for a discourse that is tolerant and respectful of queerness. And with more work, more voices, and above all the determination of Muslim LGBTs, it will only be a matter of time before mainstream Islam will support same-sex unions.

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