Chapter9 Building Bridges Between Queer and Normative Muslims

Maryam Khan

My prayers, worship practices, sacrifices, life and death are all devoted to the Creator, Inheritor and Ruler of the worlds.

—Qur’an 6:162–63

In diasporic Muslim North American contexts, queer Muslims often occupy a marginal existence—at the fringes of Islam and Muslimness.1 Queer Muslims face Othering in many forms, as individuals who are considered haram (forbidden) and who need to be “fixed,” hidden, and, at times, altogether eliminated from the folds of Islam and its discourses.2 Since queer Muslims are not seen as embodying and living Islam, envisioning a peaceful coexistence with normative Muslims can be a difficult endeavour fraught with many challenges.3 For example, queer Muslims face challenges compounded by sexual and gender diversity, in addition to the religious, socio-political, historical, and cultural challenges surrounding internal politics in the larger Muslim diaspora that can get in the way of peaceful relations.

In this chapter, I propose several strategies that might allow normative Muslims and queer Muslims to make peace.4 Two overarching questions guide my discussion: Is the umbrella of Islam and Muslimness big enough to host diverse perspectives? Is peace even possible between normative and queer Muslims? I argue that peaceful coexistence and relations can be possible between normative and queer Muslims through critical engagement with Islamic liberationist, feminist, and sexuality-affirming readings on Islam by theologians and scholars such as Amina Wadud and with the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi regarding compassion, tolerance, and non-violence.5 Furthermore, my own positionality and experiences as a devout Muslim and racialized South Asian queer woman with a disability, will ground these perspectives.6

Holding Multifaceted Contexts and Truths

Who Is Speaking?

Contexts are important because they identify and situate whose voice gets heard in Islam, the power and privilege imbued in what’s being said, and the location of the speaker.7 For Muslims living in Canada, the politics of identity, belonging, Islamophobia, racist Othering, and embodying Muslimness play out in relation to the nation-state’s colonial, religious, socio-political, economic, cultural, and historical contexts framed by modernity, neoliberalism, right-wing populism, and secularist forces, articulated through civilizational differences, cultural clashes, progress, and rights rhetoric.8 One way these forces intersect and ensure gendered and raced representation of Islam and Muslimness can be seen in contemporary discourses on niqab and hijab bans, the policing of Muslim women bodies, the evidence of Islamophobia, racist immigration policies, and violence against Muslims.9 For example, Jasmin Zine, a Canadian Muslim scholar who writes about Muslim women, argues that such contemporary discourses are located in “the discursive roots . . . historically entrenched within Orientalist representations that cast colonial Muslim women as backward, oppressed victims of misogynist societies.”10

In the international realm, Islam and Muslims are not viewed favourably, especially as it relates to the treatment of women and queer Muslims. For example, Bucci’s research on domestic violence experienced by Muslim migrant women in Italy finds high rates of intimate-partner violence; this is compounded by Islamophobia amid the Catholic patriarchal culture of Italy.11 In this study, approximately half of Italian participants believed that Islam involved oppressive, anti-woman, and barbaric practices. Muslim Othering plays out amid geopolitical discourses that pit Muslims and Islamic societies against modernization and progress, as these are measured through pink testing, LGBTQ+ rights, and women’s rights.12 Often, nation-states like Canada and the United States accuse Islam and Muslim societies of resisting queerness and enforcing state-sanctioned violence against queer individuals. One Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, deployed fear and engaged in civilizational rhetoric to promote his political party’s anti-Muslim immigration agenda. Fitna, a seventeen-minute film produced by Wilders, describes Islam as fascist, homophobic, violent, patriarchal, and dangerous to the Dutch way of life.13

Canada and the United States have long-standing colonial and imperial relationships with the Muslim world, characterized by many North American organizations and political groups (LGBTQ+, feminists, the oil industry, faith-based missionaries, and so on) imposing their superior values and beliefs as progress and rights. Efforts made by non-governmental organizations lobbying for changes to colonial laws in Muslim contexts that criminalize same-sex relations are often countered by North American (some Pentecostal) organizations that support conservative interpretations of the Qur’an and approaches to Islam that squelch the rights of and the protection of sexual minorities in Muslim societies.14 Farid Esack cautions Muslims residing in the West to remain cognizant of their power and privilege when calling for Islamic reforms in the Muslim world:

North Americans’ location as privileged citizens of an empire that was aiding and abetting Muslim dictatorships in perpetuating the very injustices that we were opposing and . . . the inability to recognize how the prioritization of reforming Islam and taking on the Muslim community in the absence of a struggle against imperialism and neo-colonialism, were effectively playing into the hegemonizing project of the Global North.15

As someone who is embedded in these contexts, I recognize the imperial power and privilege my voice propagates. My calls for Islamic reform and approaches to Muslimness are situated in my intersectional identity (embodied queerness, disability, race, ethnicity, and so on) and the journey to decolonize white supremacist structures and practices in daily life. I speak from places of privilege afforded to me as someone who works in academe and lives in the West, and who is able to perform queerness and Muslimness in relative comfort. My family of origin accepts most expressions of my queerness. I do not believe that my disability and queerness are punishments or tests from the Creator. I recognize that a queer Muslim living elsewhere in the globe will contend with different contexts.

For believers, it is an arduous task to balance and not to demonize some Muslims’ practice of Islam while talking about the politics of Muslimness in North America. I am not attempting to placate Western imperialist, colonialist, and populist anti-Islam agendas. I am also not attempting to incite racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia.

Yet anyone, especially queer Muslims when talking back against injustice, can be labelled a troublemaker who is trying to change Islam. I have heard such statements on many occasions from family and friends. My sister used to call my Islam by a pejorative term: fislam as in fake Islam. Unfortunately, my experiences with normative Muslims over the years have left me cautious and at times fearful that I will be harmed in some way. I realize that this may be similar to other queer Muslims’ experiences in North America while navigating ethno-racial, cultural, socio-political, religious, spiritual, and positionality differences.16 At the present time, the situation remains that queer Muslims are exhaustingly arguing for sexual and gender parity, while dancing diplomatically around Muslim bi-trans-homophobia and trying not to be identified as Western puppets. Who is listening to queer Muslims? How can conversations of making peace transpire without acknowledging the liminal and marginal position occupied by many queer Muslims? Is there a way to hold these multiple truths and contexts without excusing one behaviour for another?

Normative Muslim bi-trans-homophobia is real. This needs to be acknowledged. Patriarchal Muslim authorities have branded sexual and gender diversity as a “cancer” slowly devouring Islam and Muslims while eroding individual and societal morality.17 Additionally, Pepe Hendricks asserts that “the existence of homophobic hate rapes (often referred to as ‘curative’ or ‘corrective’ rape), particularly targeting vulnerable lesbians, reflects the disproportionate relationship between citizen rights enshrined in the law and the everyday social reality experienced by queer folks” in Muslim societies.18 Research conducted with thirty-eight queer refugees in Austria and The Netherlands (90 percent identified as Muslim from the Middle East, North Africa, or Asia) found that almost two thirds of participants experienced post-traumatic stress symptoms related to their queer identities.19 The most distressing experiences included physical and psychological violence in trying to escape persecution, threats at gunpoint, rape and sexual assault, and verbal aggression. Other experiences during migration included shame, sex work for survival, public humiliation, discrimination from government officials, racism and Islamophobia, denial of identity with documentation, isolation, suicidal ideation, and lack of job opportunities. These experiences demonstrate that, for queer Muslim refugees, racial and gendered violence is a common experience that leads to trauma and psychological distress.

Even though I have lived my existence in relative safety and have managed to avoid being the recipient of extreme violence, whether from the larger queer or the normative Muslim and diasporic communities, I still am not immune to systemic and everyday violence (slurs, microaggressions, assault, privacy infringement) aimed at Canadian ethno-racial and sexual minorities. So I tread with caution while attempting to foster a critical dialogue between normative and queer Muslims while also calling out Islamophobia, racism, ableism, cisgenderism, and bi-trans-homophobia as it shows up.

Whose Islam?

The contemporary body of knowledge on Islam and sexual and gender diversity is a record of diverse perspectives, often competing for limelight and dominance in the battle to represent Islam and Muslims in North America. Depending on who you talk to about sexual and gender diversity in Islam, you’ll get a different response. Usually, the dominant (normative) perspectives win, as these coincide and are closest to normative Muslims’ happy security in their cis-heterosexual, able-bodied, and sanist approaches to Islam and expressions of Muslimness. Below, I detail two divergent perspectives on Islam, Muslimness, sexual and gender diversity: those of normative Muslims and the other or alternate perspectives usually favoured by queer Muslims.20 While discussing these perspectives, I will concurrently outline some key challenges faced by the internal diasporic Muslim world in Canada and the United States and the larger contexts and relationships between Muslims and non-Muslims:

• The normative Muslim response usually is this: Islam doesn’t allow homosexuality. It is a great sin. Often, when pressed further, we might hear: There is no such thing as gay Muslims, and there aren’t any back home.
• Normative Muslims believe that the Qur’an explicitly states that same-sex relations are abhorred in Islam by drawing on the following references in the Qur’an, which discuss Lot and his community’s interactions:21
- “Do you approach males among the worlds and leave what your Lord has created for you as mates? But you are a people transgressing.”22
- “The mighty Blast overtook them before morning. We turned the cities upside down, and rained down upon them brimstones hard as baked clay.”23
- “And Lot! (Remember) when he said unto his folk: ‘Will ye commit lewdness such as no creature ever did before you?’ Lo! Ye come with lust unto men instead of women. Nay, but ye are wanton folk.”24
• Some hadith (teachings of the Prophet) are reported to say the following with regard to same-sex relations:
- “Doomed by God is who does what Lot’s people did [that is, commit homosexual acts].”
- “No man should look at the private parts of another man, and no woman should look at the private parts of another woman, and no two men sleep [in bed] under one cover, and no two women sleep under one cover.”
- “Whoever has intercourse with a woman and penetrates her rectum, or with a man, or with a boy, will appear on the last day stinking worse than a corpse; people will find him unbearable until he enters hell fire, and God will cancel all his good deeds.”25

The process of Qur’anic exegesis is a complex task. Most people do not know how interpretations were and are made, other than by male Muslim jurists. Who was and is involved? What works were and are consulted? Men’s interpretive religious authority as a right is not questioned in matters related to exegesis; normative exegetical processes have assumed women’s biological and moral inferiority.26 Moreover, interpretation is imagined as an objective task, and somehow the interpreter is placed outside his socio-political, historical, and cultural understandings during the process. The interpreter does not issue a statement listing beliefs and values that are the basis of his interpretive method and process. Thus, a false sense of objectivity is applied to the interpretation of religious texts. In fact, when Qur’anic exegesis was attempted for the above-mentioned verses, Muslim scholars took the lead from Jewish and Christian counterparts to determine the meanings behind the story of Lot, Sodom, and Gomorrah.27 Progressive and liberatory Muslim scholars argue that the destruction of Lot’s community was not a result of same-sex relations, but due to the people abhorring the Creator’s divine guidance. Lot’s wife’s demise also resulted from rejecting the word of the Creator. The verses speak out against the abuses of power, rape, harassment, and the confinement of Lot’s guests.28

The Prophet was vehemently against anyone writing out his teachings for fear that people would place his teachings above the Qur’an. Authenticating the hadith is also a complex process and is not foolproof. It is easy to falsify records and what’s reported to have been said by people surrounding the Prophet Mohamed.29 Muhsin Hendricks, an imam who identifies as queer, argues that the “hadith contain many inconsistencies, contradictions and distortions of facts. As definitive and reliable sources of Islamic law they are deeply problematic. It is no surprise that hate crimes against queer individuals, including the justification for their execution, stems largely from the hadith.”30 Interpretations of the Qur’an and hadith that promote oppression and prejudice against women and queer individuals do not follow the message of infinite acceptance, mercy, and love of the Creator. Instead, these alienate humans from the Creator.

Importantly, Islam is not just one thing: there’s no such thing as the one and true Islam. Suggesting that Islam is monolithic, static, clear, and anachronistic is rooted in Orientalist thought.31 There is extensive theological and sociological literature on differences in gender—men’s Islam vs. women’s Islam.32 Much has also been written about differences across the jurisprudential schools of Islamic thought, about sexual and gender diversity, and about specific geographic locations.33

Wherever Islam has flourished, the tradition has adapted to a myriad of regional languages, cultures, and histories.34 Moreover, there are many approaches to the practice of Islam (Ahmadiya, Shia, Sufi, Ismaili, and Sunni, to name a few), as well as diverse cultural, spiritual, and socio-political orientations of Muslimness as it is expressed in specific Muslim communities across the globe. Islam and Muslimness encompass not only a religious dimension but also intersecting social, cultural, economic, and spiritual dimensions. Under the ritualist and religious umbrella of Islam, there is consensus on these basic principles: believing in one Creator, establishing prayers and worship to the Creator, fasting during Ramadan, giving charity, and performing pilgrimage around the kabah.35 There are many paths to the Creator. Who is to say that Sunni approaches to Islam and Muslimness, which are pervasive in parts of Bangladesh, Morocco, and Yemen, are interchangeable and the same? They are not. Overall, the practice of Islam and embodiment of Muslimness shift based on one’s unique position (geography, race, gender, sexuality, ability, age, history of land and people, colonial and imperial histories, and so on). When normative Muslims utter generalizing blanket statements about Islam’s official stance on sexual diversity and women’s reproductive rights, among other topics, they are evoking a monolithic, static, and stale representation of the faith tradition and its practice situated in specific contexts.36

Homosexuality, Same-Sex, What?

Homosexuality as a construct and discourse, as theorized by Foucault, did not originate in the Muslim world. In other words, homosexuality according to Foucault is a particular way of organizing and thinking through sexuality as an avenue of identity and subject-making of the deviant and abnormal, which is different from the heterosexual, the considered “natural” attraction and way of being sexual.37 Referring to sexual and gender diversity purely as homosexuality is a modernist Eurowestern construction. For these reasons, the term “homosexuality” is not a part of Qur’anic and Islamic parlance:

Terms such as homosexuality, bisexuality and heterosexuality, by which modern society classifies human sexuality, are not used in the Qur’an. Nonetheless, a theme of sexuality, sexual permissibility and sexual prohibition pervades the Qur’an. It addresses a heterosexual audience, and is largely silent about non-heterosexual sex. It is important to recognize that this does not automatically imply condemnation of the latter.38

Afsaneh Najmabadi points out that the recognition of the homosexual based on a sexual act was not native to Iranian society. For example, Iranian men would engage in same-sex behaviours and acts before their marriage to women. Being homosexual did not exist as a category of identity.39 In Pakistan, males and females engaged in same-sex attractions and acts, which was not perceived as a way of identification, since men still got married and had children with their wives and the wives continued to bear children and engage in sexual acts with their husbands.40 In many ways, it is true that homosexuals and gays do not exist in Pakistan and Iran, as it relates to an identity label with legal rights. However, things are changing; in fact, there are now LGBTQ+ Muslim individuals in Iran and Pakistan. There are many reasons explaining the rise of queer identity politics in most Muslim societies and regions that is beyond the scope of this paper.41 However, same-sex relations and sexual and gender diversity are not new to Islam, Muslim societies, and Muslimness. Extant literature supports historical accounts of gender nonconformity, female and male cross-dressing, female and male same-sex acts, and attractions in literary, cultural, and religious writings.42

Pluralism and Inclusivity: Building Bridges

There is a notable wave building in North America that challenges the stance on sexual and gender diversity that is propagated by normative Islamic institutions and authorities. This wave has its origins in critical, liberatory, feminist sexuality, and gender-sensitive approaches to Islam and Muslimness.43 An overarching aspect of these approaches is inclusivity and pluralism—meaning that Islam is universal, for everyone, and has its foundations in love, peace, and freedom from injustice.44

Some literature asserts that queer Muslims can and do rectify issues related to ethnicity, faith, and family, negotiating with religious, ethnic, cultural, and diasporic familial and community expectations.45 Most of this literature exposes the difficulties queer Muslims encounter, such as fleeing persecution and violence at the hands of patriarchal Islamic authorities and family members, forced marriages, deaths, suicides, isolation, mental health issues, abandonment of Islam, hiding sexual and gender identity, feelings of loss, shame, and guilt. Due to these reasons, among others, some queer Muslims assert that sexuality and faith are mutually exclusive and, therefore, cannot coexist.46

Nestled within these perspectives are strategies used by queer Muslims to hold the truths of sexuality, gender identity and expression, and Islam concurrently without sacrificing one for another. For example, Pepe Hendricks argues that, through the use of the Islamic legal principle of ijtihad, which allows jurists to interpret texts purely by means of independent critical thinking, Muslims can engage in “the struggle to bring about social justice and transformation,” in which “there is a need to exert critical interpretation and independent reasoning to enrich our thoughts and spirit.”47 Moreover, ijtihad can pave the way for new “legal rulings that are compiled based on changing times, new interpretation of readings and altering circumstances.”48As part of the larger exegetical processes or tafsir of the Qur’an, Scott Kugle discusses critically re-examining references to the story of Lot and situates these processes in their contexts of rape and toxic masculinist framings.49 In a similar way, Andrew Yip’s research with queer Muslims shows that a “critique of traditional interpretation of specific passages in the texts” was used alongside a “critique of interpretative authority of religious authority structures and figures”; and then a “re-casting [of] religious texts” to reconcile faith and queerness.50

Below, I discuss some strategies that can possibly help peace germinate between queer and normative Muslims by drawing on my interpretation of Qur’anic and Gandhian teachings. For some readers, this combination may be analogous to blasphemy and heresy. But before issuing a fatwa or religious judgement and dismissing these as musings of a queer Muslim, I invite you to heed the Qur’anic injunctions never to stop seeking knowledge and to keep your mind open to various forms of knowledge.51 I am also painfully aware of the anti-Black attitudes that Gandhi espoused during his years in South Africa, at a time when he had yet to reject the legitimacy of the British Empire, as well as his habit, in his old age, of sleeping naked with young women as a test of his ability to remain celibate—a practice at best unsavoury to modern Western sensibilities.52 Yet by drawing on his teachings about non-violence, compassion, self-sacrifice, and the need to hold onto the truth, I am not claiming that he was a saint: he was, like us all, a flawed human being. It is, I believe, vital to “take whatever provides you with value and insight, and leave the rest.”53

Knowing Yourself

When thinking about peace and peaceful relations, it is imperative to focus on the Self and not the Other. Peace with the Other can be envisioned only when there is self-awareness and knowledge about who you are and where you lie, sit or stand. One of the core teachings of the Creator is to work continuously on oneself to do good and to repel evil by good deeds.54 This may involve practising self-compassion, being mindful of your intentions and actions, or living a pious life. It may also include seeking and attempting to understand varying knowledges (corporeal workings, engagement with poetry, scientific discoveries) from diverse standpoints—for example, thinking about how one’s practice of Muslimness (as, for example, a South Asian queer born-Muslim woman) may look different from someone else’s based on social location (such as a Black queer Muslim woman convert).

Where does your moral compass and ethics point? Is it to exert pressure on others to conform to your Islam and ideals? In the Qur’an, emphasis is placed not on changing the behaviour of other people but rather on changing your own. The Creator will hold you responsible only for your actions and thoughts.55 Often, normative Muslims will exercise great efforts to curtail and regulate queer Muslims’ lives instead of focusing on their own Islam and Muslimness. Everyone has a conceptualization of their own truths. It is important to live your truth and allow others to do the same. A teaching about modesty in the Qur’an provides a good example of this. The verse in question urges the observers of “immodesty” to “lower their own gazes.”56 Here, the focus is on your deeds and life as the observer to curtail your own actions and not to impose your beliefs, which often appear in the guise of good intentions, on humans whom you imagine require salvation.

Regardless of his personal shortcomings, the principles that drove Gandhi’s activism point to a way of existing in the world that can nurture compassion, truthfulness, and peaceful relations across religious, class, ethnic, and gender divides. Gandhi taught that, above all, those who seek change must first look to themselves and embody the qualities they wish to instill in others. Gandhi was committed to the practice of ahimsa, a Sanskrit word meaning “non-violence” or “non-injury.” Living in accordance with ahimsa requires self-restraint: it means that even when you are yourself the target of violence, you must refrain from responding in kind. Baiju Vareed argues that, while ahimsa literally means non-harm, “in a broader sense it means loving one’s opponent to the point of not wishing her or him any harm. While truth is the end, non-violence is the means and they are irrevocably bound to each other.”57

Living according to the ideal of doing no harm can be a complex and lifelong process. It is hard to imagine ourselves as perpetrators of harm. Everyone wants to be perceived in a good light and does not want to believe that their lifestyle is coming at a cost to someone else. I’ve struggled with this over the years and continue to contemplate how my existence in this world comes at a cost to creation. For example, my house is built on stolen Indigenous land.58 I use resources (water, food, land, technology) without much consideration as to how my relaxed use impacts the natural world and humans globally. There are too many examples to list. It is impossible not to do harm because harm is a part of everyday existence. I’ve been thinking about the next level beneath do no harm, which can involve coming to terms with my existence and its costs and trying to minimize these harms to human, animal, and plant life. This position allows me to acknowledge that, as a human, I will make mistakes. Being compassionate with my personal limitations can help with actualizing self-compassion in everyday life and possibly empathizing with those who harm me. We could all ask this question: how can I try to achieve love for my opponent or empathy and compassion without having these elements in my own life?

Anyone Can Answer Islam’s Call

Islam as a faith tradition and the Qur’an can be accessed by anyone seeking to understand their message and live by their principles. How can the Qur’an and Islam speak to everyone if they are represented and meant for only a few? One need not be a member of a given race, ethnicity, or class to believe in Islam or to engage with the Qur’an because the message of Islam, through the holy book, is universal, not limited by time, space, or geography.59 Amina Wadud points out that the Qur’an’s goal is not to create a duplicate society and circumstances present at the time of its revelation in seventh-century Arabia: “Rather, the goal [of the Qur’an] has been to emulate certain key principles of human development: justice, equity, harmony, moral responsibility, spiritual awareness, and development.”60 Another important aspect that cannot be overstated is that each Muslim approaches the sacred text from their unique position; thus, there cannot be a sole “right” interpretation of the Qur’an. So why is it that some normative Muslims deny queer Muslims the right to practice Islam and call themselves Muslim?

A good friend once shared that one can find anything in the Qur’an; it all depends on one’s quest and desires. One can look for love, and it’s there. If normative Muslims are coming from the perspective that the Creator’s mercy, love, and kindness are accessible to anyone who wants it, then peaceful relations with queer Muslims can germinate. Within the Islamic tradition, it is believed that the Creator has ninety-nine names that speak to the Creator’s oneness and love but also the ability to act as an avenger and restrictor. There is flexibility and multiplicity in the Creator’s ways, and certain aspects may be difficult for humans to reconcile. A peaceful coexistence can emerge from both sides (normative and queer) if there is openness and freedom from judgment. I cannot tell a fellow Muslim what they believe is wrong and un-Islamic since I do not live their life.

There are many normative Muslims who insist that their interpretation of women’s rights, children rights, divorce laws, and such is the right and correct interpretation. This is untrue. The concept of ijtihad, mentioned earlier, allows each Muslim to wrestle with the sacred text and arrive at their own understanding of how the Qur’an can be applied in their life. Islam does not have any go-betweens on the path connecting the Creator and the believer. One can feel, embody, read, and interpret the Qur’an based on one’s beliefs and life experiences. Why would I believe in something that has no relevance to my daily life in Canada? Asma Barlas, in her study of patriarchal readings of the Qur’an, points out that

the Qur’an does not even associate sex with gender, or with a specific division of labor, or with masculine and feminine attributes (e.g., men with intellect and reason and women with instinct and emotion); rather, “since they manifest the whole,” the Qur’an does not endow humans with a fixed nature. Moreover, its account of human creation from a single Self, its definition of moral agency and subjectivity in terms of “ethical individualism,” and its emphasis on the equality before God of the moral praxis of both men and women not only confirms that the sole criterion for differentiation in Islam is ethical-moral and not sexual but also allows for a mutual recognition of individuality.61

This “recognition of individuality” is pivotal in connecting belief with how one walks in this world. The spiritual, moral and ethical imperative is what sets humans apart, not one’s genitalia, gender expression, or sexuality.

Unity

Unity or tawhid is core to the Islamic faith. Unity signifies the interconnectivity and interdependence of all diverse creation (inclusive of the universe, humans, non-living entities, anything beyond human conception and within it) to the Creator who is the sole, timeless originator.62 Because this unity is revealed in the Creator’s oneness and presence in everything in everyday life, it makes sense to follow this oneness, in tandem with all creation, irrespective of the positionality that may pertain to Muslims (race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, for example).63 Beholding all creation as intentional includes sexual and gender diversity since the Creator does not make mistakes. The concept of unity can be used to empower one’s faith to respect and be inclusive of all types of diversity (such as neurodiversity, mental health, non-normative expressions of sexuality and gender). Indeed, many verses in the sacred text speak to honouring the Creator through recognizing and celebrating diversity. Muhsin Hendricks points to places in the Qur’an that support the Creator’s plan to include sexual diversity, such as: “And among His signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colours: Verily in that are signs for those who possess knowledge.”64

Trustee and Trusteeship

Amina Wadud considers that all creation is purposeful and that all humans, irrespective of race, gender identity and expression, sexuality, disability, and so on are considered divine and have the purpose of being trustees (Khalifas) of the land, each other, wealth, and resources: “Part of Allah’s original plan in the creation of humankind was for man to function as a khalifah (trustee) on earth.”65 Acting as trustees acknowledges that the human presence on Earth is temporary, relational, and impermanent. As the Creator does not distinguish based on positionality facets but on one’s deeds, Wadud argues that trusteeship cannot be observed in the abstract but requires action: “One cannot stand on the sidelines in the face of injustice and still be recognized as fully Muslim, fully khalifah. I have accepted the responsibility and continue in the struggle.”66 This call to unite intention and action is powerful and makes it incumbent on me as a fellow Muslim to act on social justice beliefs—toward validation and existence of queer Muslims as full humans.

Gandhi also talked about humans as trustees on this earth and that everything belongs to the Creator: “All wealth does not belong to me: what belongs to me is the right to an honourable livelihood, no better than that enjoyed by millions of others. The rest of my wealth belongs to the community and must be used for the welfare of the community.”67

Truthfulness

Gandhi discussed the importance of being truthful in everyday life and holding steadfast to that truth. According to Gandhian principles, the truth resides deep in one’s being and can be accessed by truly listening to one’s inner guide—the inner teacher that resides inside every human. However, being on a journey to seek out truth cannot violate another human’s dignity or integrity.68 For example, practising one’s Islam cannot violate or oppress another human (as in believing that only a select few humans deserve mercy, being judgemental, or responding to evil vis-à-vis evil).

The Creator’s breath animates all humans and works as the inner guide and teacher.69 As Amina Wadud notes, “The third and final step in the creation of humankind is . . . the breathing of the Spirit of Allah (nafkhat al-ruh) into each human—male or female.”70 Years of societal prejudices and harmful ideas (like believing the Creator only loves some people) have shrouded the inner guide in darkness. If the Creator resides in everyone, how can one’s truth outweigh another’s? Truth has to be embodied in one’s actions, spirit, thought, and emotions. My truth is that I am from the Creator and will return to the Creator.71 All creation in life is sacred, purposeful, and meaningful.

By truly listening to one’s divine inner guide, the Creator’s own breath can make one more conscious of the Creator, and when one becomes aware of this, peace, love, and contentment, this enhances the knowledge that I am not really alone. Having an awareness and consciousness of the Creator in one’s life and aspiring to a pious existence is called taqwa. The opening prayer to this chapter is a constant reminder to be present mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically with the Creator, in tandem with creation. I say this prayer multiple times a day and reflect on the intentional connections made between thought, emotion, body, spirit, and action; and with other humans, my work, land, and all creation—seen and unseen. All actions I engage in are forms of worship, so I have to be careful about intentionality and action. Indeed, this very chapter is an act of worship. The most beautiful aspect of this prayer connects me and my being, everything that I am, and the good I do is because of the Creator’s love and blessings. The prayer reminds me that I do not stand alone. I am loved. I am forever connected to the Creator, whose strong link makes the connections between my fragmented positionality selves and embodied experiences.

It can take many decades, perhaps centuries to build relational bridges between diverse individuals and communities (that is, between queer and normative Muslims to foster respect, relationality, faith, and trust). The work of building strong relational bridges is an arduously frustrating and uplifting set of tasks or rather a journey. One way of entering this work is through fortifying your relational, social, and resource capital by getting to know personal strengths, capacities, and limitations. Many individuals, irrespective of religious affiliation, are not good friends with themselves and their inner guide. Becoming friends with your (self) can be an avenue for reflection, truth-seeking and truth-telling. As a social work educator, I spend most time in personal and communal reflection seeking clarity and truth. As the individual does not/ cannot exist without the community. Therefore, getting to know yourself cannot transpire in isolation, and be solely rendered as an individualistic task and framework.

One thing to remember is that the self/selves can be a good trickster, so being accountable to more than your many selves, in good company is a necessity. Answering the call of social justice, equity, truth-telling, and pluralism can happen in a multitude of ways that honour the individual and community. I believe that pluralistic and liberatory perspectives on Islam and Muslimness can expand the Islamic umbrella to include and validate queer Muslims. The strategies of knowing yourself, responding to Islam’s call, identification with relational unity, engaging in trusteeship and truth-telling are merely raindrops in the ocean of this work and journey. Given this, being on this journey is difficult which requires constant work. I do not speak as an expert, yet a lay Muslim calling on other lay Muslims walking the same path to walk in solidarity. Are you up for the challenge? If yes, I will meet you halfway on the bridge to building peaceful relations between queer and normative Muslims.

Notes

1 By Muslimness, I am referring to ideas, values, identity, clothing, artifacts, beliefs or tenets, principles or rules, and practices that demonstrate a person’s adherence to and affinity for Islam, and its subsequent performance(s) in the context of Islamic pluralism. For a further exploration on Muslimness, see an in-press chapter from Khan, Maryam. “The Absence and Presence of Female Same-sex Eroticism in Muslim Societies and Islam.” In Queer/Muslim/Canadian: Identities, Experiences and Belonging. Edited by Momin Rahman and Maryam Khan. Springer International Publishing, 2024. For more information, see https://link.springer.com/series/15246/books.
2 I use the term “queer” to denote sexual and/or gender identities and ways of being that deviate from the status quo of cisgenderism, cisheteropatriarchy, heteronormativity, and heterosexuality. On the lived experience of the othering that queer Muslims face, see Shaheed Alvi and Arshia Zaidi, “‘My Existence Is Not Haram’: Intersectional Lives in LGBTQ Muslims Living in Canada,” Journal of Homosexuality 68, no. 6 (2019): 993–1014, doi: 10.1080/00918369.2019.1695422.
3 See, for instance, Maryam Khan, Giselle Dias, and Amanda Thompson, “Mapping Out Indigenous and Racialized Critical Community-Based Perspectives and Experiences in the Time of COVID,” Intersectionalities: A Global Journal of Social Work Analysis, Research, Polity, and Practice 9, no. 1 (2021): 188–98.
4 In subsuming Muslims under the two headings “queer” and “normative,” I do not mean to erase the multiplicity of nuances and differences that each category enfolds—differences that reflect an individual’s social location or positionality, cultural origins, ideological preferences, life experiences, and so on. On queer Muslim subjectivities, see, for example, Sara Ahmed, Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006).
5 See, especially, Amina Wadud, Qur’an and Woman: Rereading the Sacred Text from a Woman’s Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), and Inside the Gender Jihad: Woman’s Reform in Islam (Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publishing, 2006).
6 I am, in addition, an uninvited guest who lives on the traditional unceded territories of the Neutral, Anishinaabe, and Haudenosaunee Peoples. For the settler versus guest discussion see, Ruth Koleszar-Green, “What Is a Guest? What Is a Settler?” Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 10, no. 2 (2018): 166–77.
7 In this context, see the work of Farid Esack, exemplified in “Progressive Islam—A Rose by Any Name? American Soft Power in the War for the Hearts and Minds of Muslims,” ReOrient 4, no. 1 (2018): 78–106, doi: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/reorient.4.1.0078.
8 The concepts discussed here are complex and exploring them in detail is beyond the scope of this chapter. On right-wing populism, see Bart Cammaerts, “The Mainstreaming of Extreme Right-Wing Populism in the Low Countries: What Is to Be Done?” Communication, Culture and Critique 11, no. 1 (2018): 7–20, at 3–4, doi.org/10.1093/ccc/tcx002; on secularism, cultural clashes, progress, and rights rhetoric, see Fatima El-Tayeb, European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011), 1–42 and 81–120; on neoliberalism and modernity, see Fatima El-Tayeb, “‘Gays Who Cannot Properly Be Gay’: Queer Muslims in the Neoliberal European City,” European Journal of Women’s Studies 19, no. 1 (2012): 79–95, doi: 10.1177/1350506811426388; on homonationalism, rights rhetoric, and progress, see Jasbir K. Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times(Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 1–114; on modernity, see Momin Rahman, Homosexualities, Muslim Cultures and Modernity (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 27–47.
9 Denise Balkissoon, “The Quebec Mosque Shooting: Je Me Souviens,”Globe and Mail, January 24, 2018, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/; Sarah Shah, Canadian Muslims: Demographics, Discrimination, Religiosity, and Voting, Institute of Islamic Studies Occasional Paper Series (Toronto: The University of Toronto, 2019), 6–7; Jasmin Zine, “Unveiled Sentiments: Gendered Islamophobia and Experiences of Veiling Among Muslim Girls in a Canadian Islamic School,” Equity and Excellence in Education 39 (2006): 239–52, at 240–44, doi: 10.1080/10665680600788503.
10 Zine, “Unveiled Sentiments,” 240.
11 Linda Bucci, “An Overview of the Legal and Cultural Issues for Migrant Muslim Women of the European Union: A Focus on Domestic Violence and Italy,” Crime, Law and Social Change 58 (2012): 75–92.
12 Puar, Terrorist Assemblages, 37–77.
13 Geert Wilders cited in Hatim El-Hibri, “The Extreme of the Mainstream: Fitna and ‘Dangerous Islamic Media’ in The Netherlands,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Chicago, May 21–25, 2009.
14 Belinda Beresford, Helen Schneider, and Robert Sember, “Constitutional Authority and Its Limitations: The Politics of Sexuality in South Africa,” in Sex Politics: Reports from the Frontlines, edited by Richard Guy Parker, Rosalind P. Petchesky, and Robert Sember (Rio de Janeiro: Sexuality Policy Watch, 2004), 197–246, at 213.
15 Esack, “Progressive Islam—A Rose by Any Name?” 88–89.
16 Maryam Khan and Nick J. Mulé, “Voices of Resistance and Agency: LBTQ Muslim Women Living Out Intersectional Lives in North America,” Journal of Homosexuality 68, no. 7 (2021), 1144–68, doi: 10.1080/00918369.2021.1888583.
17 Ibrahim, “Homophobic Muslims,” 955.
18 Pepe Hendricks, “Queer Muslim Love: A Time for Ijtihad,” Theology and Sexuality 22, nos. 1–2 (2016): 102–13, at 103 (emphasis in the original), doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13558358.2017.1296691.
19 Edward J. Alessi, Sarilee Kahn, Leah Woolner, and Rebecca Van Der Horn, “Traumatic Stress Among Sexual and Gender Diverse Refugees from the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia Who Fled to the European Union,” Journal of Traumatic Stress 31 (2018): 305–15.
20 For a comprehensive review, see Scott Kugle, Homosexuality in Islam: Critical Reflection on Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims (Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 2010); Scott Kugle, Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims (New York: New York University Press, 2014); Nadeem Mahomed and Farid Esack, “The Normal and Abnormal: On the Politics of Being Muslim and Relating to Same-Sex Sexuality,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 85, no. 1 (2017): 224–43, doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfw057.
21 See Khalid Duran, “Homosexuality and Islam,” in Homosexuality and World Religions, edited by Arlene Swidler (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1993), 181–98.
22 Qur’an 26:165–66, cited in Duran, “Homosexuality and Islam,” 182. There is an explanatory note attached to “worlds” that states, “Are there, out of all Allah’s creatures, any besides you who commit this unnatural act?” (514).
23 Qur’an 15: 73–74, cited in Duran, “Homosexuality and Islam,” 182.
24 Qur’an 7: 80–81, cited in Sherifa Zuhur, Gender, Sexuality and the Criminal Laws in the Middle East and North Africa: A Comparative Study (Istanbul: Women for Women’s Human Rights (WWHR), New Ways Publishing, 2005), https://kadinininsanhaklari.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Cinsellik_Ceza_3_2.pdf.
25 All three hadith are cited in Duran, “Homosexuality and Islam,” 12.
26 Asma Barlas, “Believing Women” in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002), 14.
27 Kugle, Homosexuality in Islam, 60–61.
28 Junaid Jahangir and H. Abdullatif, Islamic Law and Muslim Same-Sex Unions (New York: Lexington Books, 2016), 99–105.
29 Barlas, “Believing Women” in Islam, 3.
30 Muhsin Hendricks, “Islamic Texts: A Source for Acceptance of Queer Individuals into Mainstream Muslim Society,” Equal Rights Review 5 (2010): 31–51, at 33.
31 Said, Orientalism, 99, 141.
32 See, among others, Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1992); Barlas, “Believing Women” in Islam; Saba Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005); and Ziba Mir-Hosseini, “Islam and Feminism: Whose Islam? Whose Feminism?” Contestation: Dialogue on Women’s Empowerment Journal 1, edited by Hania Sholkany, http://www.contestations.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/contestations1.pdf.
33 On same-sex relationships in Islamic legal thought, see Kecia Ali, K. (2006). Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith, and Jurisprudence (Oxford, UK: Oneworld Publications), 75–95. See also Pepe Hendricks, ed., Hijāb: Unveiling Queer Muslim Lives (Cape Town: The Inner Circle, 2009); Muhsin Hendricks, “Islamic Texts”; Kugle, Homosexuality in Islam; Jahangir and Abdullatif, Islamic Law and Muslim Same-Sex Unions. Regarding specific geographic areas, see Jamal, Jamaat-e-Islami Women in Pakistan; and, for Egypt, Mahmood, Politics of Piety.
34 Wadud, Qur’an and Woman, xii–xix.
35 Kadri, Heaven on Earth, 19–35.
36 Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Journeys Toward Gender Equality in Islam, (London: Oneworld Academic, 2022), 28–42.
37 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, vol. 2, The Use of Pleasure, trans. Robert Hurley (1985; New York: Vintage, 1990), 43, 101. Foucault’s work highlights that “homosexuality” was constructed as an opposite of heterosexuality. The construction of the “homosexual subject” emerged in legal discourse, as someone who committed the crimes of same-sex acts and attractions and those not performing up to the standards of gender roles. Such individuals were regulated through medicine, especially psychiatry and psychology, where interventions were being determined to suppress and treat this “abnormality” and sexual deviance.
38 Muhsin Hendricks, “Islamic Texts,” 37.
39 See Afsaneh Najmabadi, “Types, Acts, or What? Regulation of Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century Iran,” in Islamicate Sexualities, edited by Kathryn Babayan and Afsaneh Najmabadi (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 275–95.
40 See Badruddin Khan, “Not-So-Gay Life in Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s,” in Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History and Literature, edited by S. O. Murray and W. Roscoe (New York: New York University Press, 1997), 275–96.
41 Many NGOs in the Muslim world seeking gender parity, women’s rights, sexuality rights and diversity are also working toward demonstrating solidarity with the global LGBTQ+ rights movements, with challenges in historical and contemporary colonial and imperial attitudes. See Ghassan Moussawi, “[Un]critically Queer Organizing: Towards a More Complex Analysis of LGBTQ Organizing in Lebanon,” Sexualities 18, nos. 5–6 (2015): 593–617, https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460714550914.
42 Sahar Amer, “Cross-Dressing and Female Same-Sex Marriage,” in Islamicate Sexualities, ed. Babayan and Najmabadi. 72–119; Scott Kugle, “Sultan Mahmud’s Makeover: Colonial Homophobia and the Persian-Urdu Literary Tradition,” in Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society, edited by Ruth Vanita (New York: Routledge, 2002), 30–46.
43 For an excellent critical discussion on the politics of liberal, progressive, and moderate Islams in North America, see Esack, “Progressive Islam—A Rose by Any Name?”; for gender-sensitive approaches to Islam, see Barlas, “Believing Women” in Islam; Esack, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism: An Islamic Perspectiveof Interreligious Solidarity against Oppression (Oxford, UK: Oneworld, 1997); Pepe Hendricks, Hijāb; Muhsin Hendricks, “Islamic Texts”; Jahangir and Abdullatif, Islamic Law and Muslim Same-Sex Unions; Kugle, Homosexuality in Islam; Kugle, Living Out Islam; and Wadud, Qur’an and Woman.
44 Esack, Qur’an, Liberation and Pluralism, 105.
45 Ayisha A. Al-Sayyad, “‘You’re What?’ Engaging Narratives from Diasporic Muslim Women on Identity and Gay Liberation,” in Islam and Homosexuality, edited by Samar Habib (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Publishing. 2010), 373–93; Momin Rahman and Ayesha Valliani, “Challenging the Opposition of LGBT Identities and Muslim Cultures: Initial Research on the Experiences of LGBT Muslims in Canada,” Theology and Sexuality 22, nos. 1–2 (2016): 73–88, https://doi.org/10.1080/13558358.2017.1296689.
46 Asifa Siraj, “On Being Homosexual and Muslim: Conflicts and Challenges,” in Islamic Masculinities, edited by Lahoucine Ouzgane (London: Zed Books, 2006), 202–16; Siraj, “The Construction of the Homosexual ‘Other’ by British Muslim Heterosexuals,” Contemporary Islam 3, no. 1 (2009): 41–57, doi: 10.1007/s11562-008-0076-5; A. Siraj, “Isolated, Invisible, and in the Closet: The Life Story of a Scottish Muslim Lesbian,” Journal of Lesbian Studies 15, no. 1 (2011): 99–121, doi: 10.1080/10894160.2010.490503.
47 Pepe Hendricks, “Queer Muslim Love,” 103.
48 Pepe Hendricks, “Queer Muslim Love,” 103.
49 Kugle, Homosexuality in Islam.
50 Andrew. K. T. Yip, “Queering Religious Texts: An Exploration of British Non-heterosexual Christians’ and Muslims’ Strategy of Constructing Sexuality Affirming Hermeneutics,” Sociology 39, no. 1 (2005): 47–65, at 51, doi: 10.1177/0038038505049000.
51 See Qur’an 2:282; 58:11; 20:114.
52 These are, of course, complex issues. As a young lawyer, trained in London, Gandhi arrived in South Africa imbued with the hierarchical attitudes characteristic of imperial Britain. During his roughly two-decade stay in the country, Gandhi fought tirelessly for the civil rights of Indians, while at the same time holding derogatory opinions regarding Blacks, whom he regarded as inferior to Indians—attitudes for which he has been labelled a racist. His background does not, however, excuse racism: it merely contextualizes it. There was much for him to unlearn. For a powerful critique of Gandhi’s career in South Africa, see Ashwin Desai and Goolam Vahed, The South African Gandhi: Stretcher-Bearer of Empire (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015). See also Soutik Biswas, “Was Mahatma Gandhi a Racist?” BBC News, September 17, 2015, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-34265882.
With regard to Gandhi’s sexuality, his puritanical views, including his insistence on abstinence (for Gandhi, procreation was the sole acceptable purpose of sex), are grounded in the long-standing tradition of brahmacharya—the ascetic practice of self-restraint, especially in regard to sex. In its origins, the ideal of celibacy reflects the patricentric belief that semen is a source of power and must therefore be stored up rather than ejaculated. All the same, the practice of brahmacharya does not require the deliberate creation of temptation so that one can then prove capable of resisting it. Gandhi’s “celibacy tests” were, if not wholly unprecedented, then at least suspiciously overzealous.
53 Raven Sinclair, “Introduction to Special Indigenous Issue,” Critical Social Work Journal 11, no. 1 (2010): https://doi.org/10.22329/csw.v11i1.5810.
54 Qur’an 41:34.
55 Qur’an 4:84.
56 Qur’an 24:30.
57 Baiju Pallicka Vareed, “West Meets East: Gandhian Ethics in Social Work Practice,” in Social Work Ethics: Progressive, Practical, and Relational Approaches, edited by Elaine Spencer, Duane Massing, and Jim Gough (Don Mills, ON: Oxford Press, 2017), 190–201, at 195. In view of Gandhi’s unswerving belief in the power of non-violence, as well as the need for compassion and tolerance, it has been deeply distressing to witness the appropriation of his image by the right-wing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, currently in power in India—a party intent not merely on sowing hostility between Hindus and Muslims but on pursuing policies that threaten to culminate in Muslim genocide. It is difficult to imagine how Gandhi, who clung to a vision of a united India in which Hindus and Muslims lived in harmony, would react to such cynical abuse.
58 Maryam Khan and Kathy Absolon, “Meeting on a Bridge: Opposing Whiteness in Social Work Education and Practices,” Canadian Social Work Review / Revue canadienne de service social (CSWR-RCSS) 38, no. 2 (2022), 159–78. https://doi.org/10.7202/1086124ar.
59 Wadud, Qur’an and Woman, xii, 3, 6.
60 Wadud, Qur’an and Woman, 95.
61 Barlas, “Believing Women” in Islam, 130. Barlas quotes from Sachiko Murata, The Tao of Islam: A Sourcebook on Gender Relationships in Islamic Thought (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1992), 43; the emphasis was added by Barlas. For the concept of “ethical individualism” in relation to Qur’anic exegesis, see Barbara Freyer Stowasser, Women in the Qur’an: Traditions and Interpretations (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 17, 85, and 103.
62 Wadud, Qur’an and Woman, 15, 16, 22.
63 Wadud, Qur’an and Woman, 15.
64 Muhsin Hendricks, “Islamic Texts,” 36. The author also references, among other passages, Qur’an 49:13 and 36:36.
65 Wadud, Qur’an and Woman, 23.
66 Wadud, Qur’an and Woman, xix.
67 Mahatma K. Gandhi, “Theory of Trusteeship,” Harijan 3, no. 6 (1939): 149.
68 Mahatma K. Gandhi, An Autobiography or the Story of My Experiments with Truth (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Trust, 1927).
69 Qur’an 38:72.
70 Wadud, Qur’an and Woman, 17.
71 See Qur’an 2:156.

Part 3. Nature as Other: The Human and Non-human Relationship