
 Area: F-P_NEWS 
  Msg#: 2077                                         Date: 05-04-93  10:36
  From: Hank Roth                                    Read: Yes    Replied: No 
    To: All                                          Mark:                     
  Subj: Gay Islam

*-*-* pnews conferences *-*-*

                          LOVE AND RAGE
                        Electronic Edition

                       MY OWN PRIVATE ISLAM

                        by Yusuf Al-Hallaj

AS I WRITE THIS ARTICLE, THE majority of my one billion fellow 
Muslims are fasting from dawn to dusk in this, the holy month of 
Ramadan. In the past, I have fasted myself and have felt an 
extraordinary sense of self-purification as well as a strangely 
transcendent identification with Muslims all over the world. But 
as I began to question certain precepts of orthodox Islam, my 
commitment to fasting dwindled. Today, the fourth day of the 
ninth month of the 1413th year of Islam, I will indulge in three 
square meals, and I will not feel guilty for a very simple 
reason: I am gay, and my religion, or more particularly, my co-
religionists, say that I have sinned. And not only will I be 
punished in the afterlife, but I should be punished in this world 
too: lashing, imprisonment or death, depending on the discretion 
of the state ruler, in accordance with Islamic law. 

I feel no compulsion to identify, transcendently or otherwise, 
with my fellow Muslims, my brothers and sisters who would condemn 
me for loving a man. Islam's condemnation of homosexuality has 
not precluded homosexuality in Islamic societies, past or 
present. Iran in particular has had a long history of male-male 
sex and love (less is known about lesbianism in Muslim nations). 
Nineteenth century Egypt saw European travellers visiting not 
just to see the Pyramids and the Nile, but to look for pretty 
Egyptian boys too. Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam, has a 
history of toleration of homosexuality, and in Pakistan there is 
a province where they say all men are fags, a stereotype not 
entirely devoid of factual basis. Needless to say, gays and 
lesbians "out of the closet" are unheard of in Muslim countries. 
In places like these, closets are for clothes, and then some. 

To be a Muslim in the U.S., irrespective of sexuality, is to 
confront a daily assault of ignorance with respect to Islam. In 
the media, in the classroom and in people's minds persist some of 
the most inaccurate and utterly stupid notions of Islam. I often 
feel like Islam's most ardent defender, a religious vanguard 
writing to newspapers with tallies of the number of times they 
have used "Muslim" and "fundamentalist" and "extremist" and 
"terrorist" interchangeably in a given week; correcting 
professors on the meaning of the word <MI>jihad<D>; explaining 
why <MI>Aladdin<D> is grossly offensive. I sometimes forget that 
the majority of the people I am so often defending would think me 
an abomination if they knew about my orientation and would even 
want me killed. As harsh as the West is to Islam, Muslims are by 
and large ten times so toward gays and lesbians. These are my 
people. 

Of course I am among Islam's strongest critics as well, or more 
precisely, I am among the strongest critics of Muslims, 
particularly those who start every other sentence with "The 
Quaran says ..." or "The prophet said ... ." In general, I know 
better than they what the Quaran says or what the prophet did. 
The dissident always knows the history of his or her people 
better than do others, if only by necessity. And yet, these are 
dangerous times. Too harsh a criticism of a Muslim is often taken 
as an attack on Islam, and one need only recall the furor 
provoked by Salman Rushdie to realize the peril in this. 

For most, coming out of the closet is difficult enough without 
the threat of religiously sanctioned bodily harm. I greet my 
fellow Muslims with the same hand with which I stroke my lover's 
penis, but they will never know it. Nor will they ever know the 
joy I feel or the love that I share with my man. For my part, I 
will never know what it is to be accepted by the only community I 
have ever really known.  We must realize that liberation is born 
out of struggle, not legislation or negotiation. 

We have revolutionary potential, but we are not inherently 
revolutionary. Yes, our very existence challenges the norms of 
patriarchy, but the power structures that run this country have 
shown a remarkable ability to assimilate sectors they had 
formerly shut out, when faced with the possibility of radical 
change. Was it really a victory for us to have Pete Williams, a 
gay man, as the Pentagon spokesman for the Gulf slaughter? 

As anarchists we struggle against all forms of domination. As 
queers we live the daily reality of that domination. Together we 
offer a radical, street-based, direct-action approach to 
political struggle. We fight to defend our communities from 
attack and to confront those who seek to destroy or control us. 
We struggle against the emerging queer bourgeoisie with the same 
vigor we fight the straight bourgeoisie. We will attempt to be 
part of making the connections between heterosexism and other 
forms of domination. Our goal is nothing short of revolution 
based not in a vanguard party, but in the communities, in the 
streets and in our bedrooms. 

                               -30-

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