Making Room for One Another

 Folks, this was a note (below) I wrote about two years ago after I saw the documentary 'Jihad for Love'. I thought, given the events of recent days, that it was timely to let a wider audience read it.

There may be those who say we should not even talk about this, that to do so would somehow disturb public order. But how have we been able to respond to anything without seeking knowledge about it first? Are we not enjoined to learn before we react? Or do we simply respond based on whims, fancies and rumours? Is that what we call an intelligent response, or do we not care whether our responses are intelligent or not? And how does this urge to constantly punish benefit us? Does it make us feel better about ourselves when we punish someone else?

It so happened that recently a report on Muslim LGBTs in the US came out. Not all of it is relevant to us here in Malaysia but some of it is interesting and enlightening. Read it here and then, if you want, criticise it. But please don't react without reading it.

Al-Quran 58:11 (Asad) O YOU who have attained to faith! When you are told, “Make room for one another in your collective life”, do make room: [and in return,] God will make room for you [in His grace].  And whenever you are told, “Rise up [for a good deed]”, do rise up; [and] God will exalt by [many] degrees those of you who have attained to faith and, [above all,] such as have been vouchsafed [true] knowledge:  for God is fully aware of all that you do.

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Jihad for Love: My Response to the Movie

October 5, 2009

I watched a film last night which moved me so much I felt I had to write about it. At the post-movie discussion I felt so inarticulate in expressing what I felt about it that it kept me up all night. So in order to exorcise those thoughts from my head, I thought I would put them down here.

The movie was 'Jihad for Love' by Parvez Sharma, made in 2007. It is essentially about the plight of several gay Muslims, men and women, around the world including a gay Imam in South Africa, a gay Egyptian man who is forced into exile in France, some gay Iranian men also forced into exile after undergoing torture ( 100 lashes in one case) and some Egyptian and Turkish lesbian women.

My response to it is from that of a Muslim woman who believes that Islam is based on justice, equality and compassion and who wants to fight the injustices perpetuated in the name of Islam from within.

The first thing that struck me about all the gay people in the movie was how religious they were. Indeed, far more than me. To them, praying and seeking help from God was the most natural thing. No doubt the Imam from South Africa had far more formal training than the rest but it impressed me that all of them, without exception, were always conscious of God, of their duties as Muslims. Furthermore in seeking to find answers to what they view as sexual orientations that they are born with and cannot help, it is to God and religion that they turn to, nowhere else. Not a single one seemed to have turned to drugs or anything. Certainly the idea of abandoning religion totally seemed not to have occurred to any of them.

Secondly, they all seemed like very loving family people. The imam was in fact a divorced father of three and the scenes with his children, who clearly adore him, are particularly touching. He has not hidden the fact that he is gay from them because he is out in the open but their love for him and declarations of support should anyone try to harm him underscored to me what family values is supposed to be about.

Similarly with the others. The young men forced into exile are seen phoning their mothers and the conversations are clearly emotional. Their mothers miss them, they miss their mothers. They all wish they did not have to be apart. I was intrigued that the Egyptian's conversation had so many references to religion ( as in "I have wonderful news today on the Prophet's birthday!) including ending the conversation with his mother saying "There is no God but God" and him responding, "And Mohamad is the Prophet of God." Perhaps this is typical of Egyptian culture but certainly no Malay I know ever speaks like this.

All of them live with the constant need to find some way of reconciling their sexuality with their religion. It is difficult and most have to live a life of secrecy. But not once do they abandon all hope that God is always merciful, compassionate and full of love and, as one of them said, "always by my side." The Egyptian man who was imprisoned and raped said he got through his ordeal by always keeping his Quran by his side and reading it constantly. I don't know of anyone with more privileged lives who do that.

In the discussion afterwards, I said that the film was the best religious lesson that I ever had because it illustrated how Muslims, in times of adversity ( and God knows these men and women faced adversity beyond most of our imaginations), find their solace in religion because they had been taught all their lives that God is Merciful and Compassionate. And in fact, these are His most important attributes. It served to remind us who are constantly having to face so many issues regarding religion to be steadfast and to keep the faith.

One of the commenters after the film had asked why it was that Muslim gay people wanted to "have their cake and eat it" ie be Muslim AND gay. This assumes that there is simply no room for gay people in Islam. I had to respond to this because it is the same argument that Muslim feminists hear: how can you want equality between men and women and still be a Muslim? That comes from a profound misunderstanding of what Islam is, and confuses human interpretations and implementation of Islamic law with what I believe God intended. I find no references in the Quran that God said we should discriminate either between the sexes or between heterosexuals and homosexuals. So why would it not be possible to believe in equality before God?

Besides, who is anyone to tell me, any gay person or any Muslim for that matter, that they should not be Muslim just because your views are different from what is considered 'the norm'? If you are born and bred Muslim, the values, ethics and indeed rituals of Islam are part of what you are, the very fabric of what you are made. How does anyone simply abandon this? Indeed few people do and I would suggest when it happens it is often because there was nobody to explain to them what Islam really means, particularly by referring to the Quran. (And it is the Quran that says "there is no compulsion in religion"). Instead 'Islam' to them is exemplified by the political environment around them which tends to be harsh and extreme, and indeed far from the spirit of justice that Islam is built on.

Which brings us to the issue of the state and religion. It is clear that the men and women who have been forced into hiding or exile are not running away from God or their faith but just from the state. The state which justifies imprisoning, beating and killing in the name of religion. The young Iranian who finally goes to Canada may have left his family and country behind but he brought his faith with him. This was what caused him to collapse into tears once he landed in his new country; that he had been able to escape but not the many thousands of others who did not have the means to. He was not talking about escaping from God but only from the clutches of the state.

Indeed what moved me most about Jihad for Love was how intensely personal each person in it felt about his religion. It dispels the stereotype that homosexuals or transvestites are people without religion or have abandoned it. And it is clear, that no matter what the state does in the name of religion, it will not be able to erase Islam from the hearts of these people.

And that is our only weapon, those of us who have chosen to fight for equality and justice within Islam. That no matter what our detractors do to us - call for boycotts, censure, threaten us with harm - they cannot take Islam away from us. We may not be THEIR Muslims but we are Muslims nevertheless.