Women, Gays, Sex, Islam

Here is an article about gay Muslims from a fellow Muslim blogger.

For years, I had fallen into the trap of the haraam/halaal debates that often produce nothing but frustration and inflated egos (my own included). Though I still get sucked in every so often, I try to stay away from that kind of thing and take a position similar to Sulayman X:

I no longer care. The issue is really quite simple, and there is no need for endless talk: gay people are human beings with human feelings and needs, and spiritual needs too, and the love they feel for others is the same love anyone feels for anyone else. Rejecting or hating them serves no useful purpose. Just because some homophobic people get a buzz from hating gays and lesbians does not mean that Allah agrees with them.

[…]What I do know is that each of our souls has the capacity to distinguish between right and wrong, and that the meanings of “right” and “wrong” are subject to infinite conditions only God is capable of sorting out. I also know that my knowledge pretty much ends at the one-God thing, and my conscience won’t allow me to disregard or reject someone who feels differently than I do. Voices condemning homosexuals to hell are abundant, but those voices don’t seem to mesh well with the themes that rise off the page every time I pick up the Qur’an.

Whether you agree or disagree with the positions that al-Fatiha [a gay Muslim organization] takes, understand that it provides a safe space for those Muslims who identify as queer, and that is a lot more than one can say about the mainstream Muslim community.

That is a very important point. Compassion and respect for others who are different from us in any way, whether in religious doctrine or in sexual orientation, is something we need to have a lot more of in the Muslim community.

While we are on the topic of Muslims and persecuted groups, Hijabman talks about women’s spaces in mosques. He cites a Hadith [saying of Prophet Muhammad] where he appointed a woman, Umm Waraqah, to lead prayers and both men and women prayed behind her. I must say I was unfamiliar with this and have only seen rulings about women being allowed to lead other women in prayer. I can’t excerpt HijabMan’s post properly, so I urge you to visit his blog and read it in full.

While we are breaking taboos, Muslim Wakeup started a Sex and the Umma series of fortnightly columns which have featured some short stories. It is not everyone’s cup of tea, but the stories can be thought-provoking as well a good read.