#queer ummah

From Northampton, Massachusetts, USA:

“Reasons why my life is worth living right now (in no order of importance):

- Learning more about and honoring the lives and mission of Ahlul Bayt

- beginning to harness and appreciate my voice in a musical context

- unraveling anxiety and trauma, pushing myself through necessary and thrilling healing

From Michigan, USA:

“When I was 17, I knew I was queer. I had been sure for about 3 years. In the same tender year, my AP Literature teacher read my class a Rumi or Hafiz poem every Friday.  I became very attached to Rumi in particular and went to a bookstore some weeks later to steal a small book of Rumi poems. I kept that little book close to me at all times, meditating on his words and filling the book with pink sticky notes. One year later, I abandoned Christianity and decided that I there was no way for me to be religious and gay. Those years of hard secularism were the most confusing and as much as I tried to remain steadfast in godlessness, I turned to Rumi for comfort and guidance. I bought more Rumi books and came across a passage about living a life for Allah. And for the first time, I thought if I wanted to understand Rumi, I should learn about Islam. From there, I fell in love and was filled with love. I am privileged enough to have a powerful queer Black Muslim in my life to show me that queerness and Islam can live harmoniously in the same heart. After years of anger expressed through secularism, I am now at peace in Islam. I’m still new, and I sometimes hesitate to call myself Muslim because there is still so much I have to learn. Additionally, I’m afraid of being called illegitimate because of my newness and queerness. 

From Queens, New York, USA:

“I was raised a homophobe in my mother's Muslim household. I remember absorbing a lot of hate speech, automatically separating myself from the victims of her prayers. She would always hope that they could all go to their own island and leave the rainbow alone... Darker tones than that though. I left her household in 2014 and moved back to Queens.

It wasn't until college that I removed the default label of heterosexuality and called myself a 'philosexual'. I loved anyone who would love me, that I could feel from afar and reciprocate warmly. They happened to be 75% girls. And I was still a virgin, so sex wasn't even part of it until much later. I only was in love with one boy, but my soulmates were my sisters. One Muslima who felt the way I did, one trans boy who taught me to feel ways I never did, and one younger lesbian who just wanted to love every aspect of me.  

I realized they were me. They all showed respect and empathy that you don't always get from outsiders. The level of understanding was different.

I have married a man (the boy I was in love with) who now understands that one reason he's so lucky to be my husband alone, is that I can only love another woman after being hurt, manipulated and disappointed by so many men. He still isn't on board with the whole movement to bridge homosexuality and Islam. It is a touchy subject in the house still, but we're both growing.

I didn't want to be forced to marry just anyone, to ‘save me from the hellfire’. I see the depression in sisters who come out too early, still under their parents' control. I feel blessed to have explored on my own, and coming out to peers in my own time. A lot of people remember me being really adamant about not being touched, especially by a woman. A lot of that emotion was fear of the pain of rejection. I was an honor roll student and I barely got recognized as such at home because that is what was expected of me. My name means ‘female leader’ so every time I fucked up, it would definitely be my doing that my sisters would follow in my footsteps. How could I make my younger siblings gay by letting a girl feel me up in the locker room?

To be honest, I still don't stand by the crude methods of young lesbians influenced by the dumbass boys we went to high school with... Them boys ain't get no cheeks and we all hated them. What kind of example?

But when I got older and met more mature members of the LGBTQ+ community, I felt like my more complex emotions were simplified... I learned that I wasn't set to one fate because my hijab dictates my piety. In actuality, my hijab has gotten me alone with more pretty girls than my mom would think... so yikes.

She still feels a way about the community, but she notices the change in my demeanor... that I'm a lot sweeter, more patient, and loving than before. I was not taught this love at home. I learned it through loving women, softly. By being cautious with a sensitive man's heart, caringly.

Knowing Allah helps me see things differently. I've been depressed with regular existence things for the latter half of my life... dissociating often and not giving my heart the proper attention, because I live above my own head. But I know Allah loves love. He built the whole universe on love. And if there would be a punishment for love, it would be for withholding love from another and replacing it with hatred and enmity. How do you justify greeting a beloved part of Allah's creation with disgust when all they exude is love? My mom says ‘love what Allah loves and hate what he hates,’ but Allahu ar-Rahman, so who has the right??? I have the right to love in all directions and still pray in one. I am capable and always open to sweet love. Surface love or deep love. The ummah should teach peace and understanding, because the hatred and abandonment of pure emotions will distract anyone going through them from faith. We love one another, but we only really need God's love. The type of tough love homophobic parents show their LGBTQ+ children makes them feel exiled. InshaAllah we will be more receptive than our parents, and let not stigmatized views of personal values be in the forefront of our faith. We don't take sex to the masjid or the prayer rug anyway.