Gay Muslim working to dispel stereotypes

Gay Muslim working to dispel stereotypes

Tania Branigan, Guardian News Service, London

"The first thing that comes into people's minds when you
mention Islam is terrorism," Adnan Ali says wearily. "The second
is fundamentalism. Muslims are always presented just as these
bearded old men. And they're always really badly dressed."

Adnan (and clean-shaven to boot) is doing his best to dispel
those stereotypes as the founder of the British branch of Al-
Fatiha, an organization for gay and lesbian Muslims -- categories
that many gay people, and indeed many Muslims, would have thought
mutually exclusive.

His efforts are not helped by Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, head
of the fundamentalist group Al-Muhajiroun, which has just issued
a fatwa condemning Al-Fatiha members as apostates.

"Never will such a group be tolerated in Islam," he told
followers.

But despite the dramatic headlines in UK gay weekly The Pink
Paper ("Holy war declared on out gay Muslims"), Adnan, 29, is
remarkably sanguine. For one thing, he points out, westerners
forget that a fatwa is simply a scholar's opinion: "Just because
the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa to kill Rushdie doesn't
mean that all fatwas involve killing someone."

For another, Adnan has grown used to intimidation since he set
up Al-Fatiha 18 months ago as an off-shoot of the U.S. group
which has spawned numerous international branches since its own
birth in 1997.

Scotland Yard insisted on heavy police protection at its
inaugural conference after fundamentalist threats but he has
grown immune to the abusive e-mails and calls. They are the price
he pays for being available to genuine callers -- often teenagers
and almost always isolated, scared, even suicidal.

"There's so much depression and shame," Adnan says. "The fact
we exist is the greatest support for most people. There are a lot
of people who don't come to meetings or even ring us up -- but
knowing there are gay Muslims is a support in itself.

"When I was growing up in Pakistan, I thought I was the only
one on earth. I feel very proud to be gay and Muslim, but it has
taken me years. I thought at first I was Muslim so I could not be
gay. Then I thought I was gay so I could not be a Muslim.

"All my first affairs of course were with people who were gay
and Muslim, but no one ever reconciled the two things.
Interestingly, I met most of them at the mosques in Lahore. No,
honestly -- you would go just to cruise and meet people because
they were such social places."

These days his visits are purely religious.

"I go to the mosque as a human being who wants to thank my
creator -- not as a gay or a straight man," he says. "But Islam
places a great stress on love and care and I think the love and
care I give to my partner is very Islamic too."

Like the Christian gays and lesbians who lobby the church for
more support, Al-Fatiha's 200-plus members hope to make Islam
more inclusive.

"I'm not saying the Koran says it's OK to be homosexual, but
it's all in the interpretation and reasoning of the text," says
Adnan.

"Why is the mainstream community so unwilling to tackle it, to
talk about it even if they disapprove?"

Part of the problem, he believes, is that many Muslims see
being gay as a "white disease". "That's only because people are
in the closet in the Islamic world and are out and talking about
it here. But people think it's the corrupting effect of white
society in this country."

But Muslims often find it just as hard to find understanding
in the gay community. "There's a lot of Islamophobia; to them,
everyone is like the Taliban," he says, unconsciously stroking
that clean-shaven chin.

"Western people pick up on the fundamentalist speakers -- but
the Muslim community has a very strong feminist movement, for
instance, particularly in the Middle East. It's easy for people
to, say, leave your family, leave your community, just be gay.
But we get so much strength from our families in the Islamic
community; we ought to be able to share our sorrows and happiness
with them."

For Adnan, who came here to study, that means returning to
Pakistan and the parents who have grudgingly learned to tolerate
his sexuality. He maintains that their first thought was: "What
will the neighbors say?" when they caught him having an affair
with a man.

"There was an expectation I would get married and have kids
and look after my parents and if I was gay that was all right, as
long as it was under the carpet. When I said I wouldn't do it, it
suddenly became a religious question," he says.

But when Adnan returns to Pakistan it will spell the end of
his campaigning; sodomy is still illegal there and is punishable
by flogging. Despite insisting that his love is "Islamic", even
he dare not speak its name in a society still governed by Syariah
law.