Chris Godfrey spoke to LGBT Muslims about the challenges that lie ahead in reconciling the two groups.
“We never discussed sexuality growing up, ever,” says Ejel Khan, 41, who grew up in a traditional Muslim household in Luton. “There was no way could I have come out to my parents. Being gay was just a subculture in the mainstream community.”
Khan describes himself as a non-practising Muslim, who occasionally goes to Friday prayers and who still feels part of the wider community. While he’s out now, it wasn’t easy for him growing up in a household that formed part of a close-knit religious community, one where homosexuality wasn’t accepted.
“I grew up in a different time,” he says. “When I came out to my parents later on in life, I realised they were worried about the wider community and how it would come across. They were worried about how people would perceive it. Places like Luton, they [residents] tend to be from Bangladesh and Pakistan and Kashmir; rural places and kind of stuck in their own cultures and traditions.”
When Khan did come out to his parents, aged 30, their positive reaction was such that he wished he’d come out sooner
The community may not have accepted him at the time, but his parents would have done; it was only his silence and lack of dialogue with his family that kept him from being honest with them. Now, Khan hopes to smash the silence around sexuality and gender identity in the Muslim community.
On Thursday 22nd October, Khan, along with his peer Sohail Ahmed, the Peter Tatchell Foundation and other activists and allies, constructed a street stall in Whitechapel (an area with a strong Bangladeshi community) outside the tube station. They engaged with passersby about the need for greater cohesion between the Muslim and LGBT communities. It marked the launch of the LGBT-Muslim Solidarity campaign, a new initiative organised by the Peter Tatchell Foundation.
“We stood outside, engaged with people walking past, gave out literature and tried to have conversations,” says Matthew Mahmood-Ogston, founder of Naz and Matt Foundation. “It’s really important to go into the community directly and actually speak to them directly from a peaceful point of view.”
The LGBT Muslim Solidarity campaign drew a mixture of support and hostility
While most of the pedestrians the LGBT-Muslim Solidarity campaign interacted with were at the very least open to discussion, there were a few who felt antagonised by their presence.
“Unfortunately some people didn’t like us being there,” says Mahmood-Ogston. “One young gentleman…didn’t want to know, he was shouting abuse at us and shouting it’s unacceptable, how dare we try and damage his religion. We just want to create a sense of understanding, because the first step to change is awareness. It’s a long journey, but you have to keep going.”
Mahmood-Ogston’s partner of 13 years, Nazim Mahmood, took his own life two days after his family confronted him about his sexuality. Vowing not to sit back and let this happen to anyone again, Ogston set up the Naz and Matt Foundation, which seeks to help LGBT people of faith and tackle homophobia triggered by religion. It may be a relatively young charity but already it’s become an integral source for LGBT people of faith.
“We get thousands of emails to our foundation and their are so many similarities in so many stories,” says Mahmood-Ogston. “They come out to their families and then they’re rejected. Then violence can happen, they can be thrown out of their house, they can have all their assets taken away from them, and they can have ties to their family cut off. Or it could be in other situations they didn’t choose to come out; they made a decision to never come out but still their family found out and then confronted them.
“To hear so many stories like this where the family members find out and they go against their own children, that’s why we do what we do in our foundation. That’s why we’re so glad to be able to support the LGBT-Muslim Solidarity campaign.”
Liaising with official Muslim institutions
The next phase of the campaign will see members begin liaising with official Muslim institutions, the first of which they hope will be the East London Mosque (who they’ve already contacted about holding an event in partnership with). They’ve also been working closely with Imaan, a key LGBT Muslim Support group. While the street stall was a bold move, one that clearly had some success, producing a more long-term impact throughout the religious community rests on the campaign’s ability to engage with and draw support from religious leaders.
“The challenge for them would be getting their voice heard,” says drag queen and activist, Asifa Lahore. “It’s definitely great doing it on the street and getting the public involved. But I think that the real crux of the matter is actually getting inside the Mosque and getting the religious leaders talking about it.
“I think they’re worried about losing support from the community and much higher up…and I think they’re more concerned about upsetting the hierarchy. Whatever personal views they may have, for them it would be more about losing power in the community essentially.”
Death threats from hardline Muslims
While Lahore would have liked to have joined the demonstration, she was advised against doing so, having previously received numerous death threats on account of her status as the UK’s most prominent Muslim drag queen. While her newfound fame may have attracted a barrage of homophobia and threats from hardliners, it’s certainly not an experience unique to her.
“At my own mosque I don’t [experience homophobia] because they’ve grown up with me, they went to school with me,” says Ejel Khan. “But there’s around 20 mosques in Luton, so there is hostility there in other mosques and other communities. I do get people who dehumanise me and think that what I’ve got is an affliction, a disease and that I’ll get better.”
Reducing hostility
One of the methods Khan uses to sway those who disagree with him about homosexuality is to talk to them in Bengali, an action that shows them he’s “one of their own” and reduces hostility. It’s a technique that he claims has generally proved successful. While there’s still a long way to go, for Khan the UK’s Muslim community has already made positive changes towards accepting and embracing the LGBT community, compared to when he grew up.
“They are changing because the world is changing,” he says. “Today it is improved and people are discussing it more, but it’s still a new thing. You can go to different forums and find out about sexual identities, or websites sites like imaan.org.uk. I didn’t have any of that at my disposal, 20 odd years ago.
The importance of dialogue
“We’ve got dialogue and some of the community still don’t accept us – the hardliners and more extreme. Some I’m not going to tar with the same brush; much of the mainstream Muslim community are willing to have dialogue with us. That’s what we’re doing with the LGBT solidarity campaign: we’re highlighting some of the concerns and issues we might have.
If you would like to talk to someone about any of the issues covered the Naz and Matt Foundation can be found at www.nazandmattfoundation.org, and Imaan at www.imaan.org.uk.
More information about the LGBT-Muslim Solidarity Campaign can be found at www.petertatchellfoundation.org.