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Updated November 1, 2004



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In the name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful!
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Essays & Articles

  • If you'd like to contribute articles, opinion pieces or stories for these pages, let me know.
  • Bibliography: Selected books and texts concerning Islam and homosexuality. Still under construction...
Topics
Spirituality
Islam and Homosexuality
Homosexuality in general, Gene debate, etc.
Queer Jihad and its founder Sulayman X

SPIRITUALITY



Texts by Faris Malik

What is Islam? What about the rules? What is the Goddess/God like? What is satan's role?

Understanding actions, intentions, the judgment upon them, and the gift of prayer

Marriage, Adultery and Homosexuality

Who We Callin' Ignorant: Islam, the Mother Goddess, and the State



Texts by Sulayman X

Sleeper Must Awaken - Sulayman X

On being honest

But first, love yourself

Letter to a loved one

The foolishness of judging others

Enter the stream

Non-violently happy

Never mind about god



ISLAM AND HOMOSEXUALITY

Queer Sexuality and Identity in the Qur'an and Hadith
Faris Malik argues that homosexuality per se is not prohibited by the Muslim scriptures, but only one fairly unusual form of it is, namely the sexual penetration of a man who is likely to have sex with women.

Same-Sex Sexual Activity and Lesbian and Bisexual Women
From the section entitled "Special Focus: Islam" at the website of the Feminist Sexual Ethics Project.


Rejections of homosexuality from several Muslim web resources

Investigating Islam "What is Islam's view of homosexuality?"
Islamic Paths "Homosexuality: The Cost to Society" (with links)
Alachua County Dawah Society "Islam and homosexuality"
thetruereligion.org "The Islamic Ruling on Homosexuality"
Islam101.com "Homosexuality"
Submission.org "Homosexuality and Islam (Submission)"
IslamOnline.net Ask about Islam: "Homosexuality... from an Islamic Stand"
IslamOnline.net Fatwa Bank: "Homosexuality is Haram"
Madrassah In'aamiyah "Homosexuality in the Light of Islam"
ViewIslam.com "Homosexuality" (article by Dr. Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips)
Islam - The Modern Religion "What does Islam say about homosexuality?"



Islamic Fundamentalism in Britain: Peter Tatchell warns that Muslim fundamentalists are a growing threat to gay human rights in Britain.

For Muslim extremists in Britain, the growing social acceptance of homosexuality symbolises everything that is wrong with democratic, secular western culture. They seem to hate queers more than the racism and poverty that blights their communities. Despite having experienced much prejudice and discrimination themselves, they show no empathy for those who are victimised because of their sexual orientation.



Gay Muslims on the Internet - from Advocate Magazine

Gay Muslims in many countries face severe penalties—even death—if they come out. But many are now meeting and organizing via the Internet.



Gay Muslims - by David Goldman from Southern Voice

Gay and lesbian Muslims have begun to organize, but they say the Islamic faith is hundreds of years behind Christianity in coming to terms with homosexuality.



Sodom and the Koran - from Gay Times magazine

Can you be gay and a Muslim? Yusuf Islam, the musician formerly known as Cat Stevens, thinks not, and he has thrown his weight behind Baroness Young's campaign to retain Section 28. But he cannot speak for all Muslims any more than the noble lady can speak for every Christian.



Was I Born to Be This Way ? The Thoughts of a Muslim Gay In An Oppressed Society by Mel Ayu

Being gay and a Muslim (and worse still, living in an oppressed society) means always being in such a confused state of mind. Any Muslim man knows that being gay is a NO-NO in Muslim society. Gays are condemned for a one-way ticket to hell ! On the other hand, he knows his sexual tendencies so where does he seek help? There is no such thing as a gay Muslim priest for therapy, or one to turn to for help. So it ends up that he lives in a deep closet. Either he is satisfied with only fantasies and make believes, or to cover up his true personality by a marriage of convenience and lead a secret double life.



Reconciling God

In a plane, flying home over the dark glittering suburbanity of the Northeast. I am exhausted and elated from a weekend of late nights and early mornings at the first International GLBT Muslim Conference. Like many of the people who had gathered for the Boston event, I had long struggled with some of the inherent problems that arise when one tries to combine Islam and homosexuality-especially the Islam of the mullahs and the gay constructs of the "West". For me, those difficulties were twofold. Firstly to find a personal space where my faith and my sexual identity could peaceably co-exist, and perhaps even re-enforce one another. And secondly to explore ways and means to resolve the tension and despair that knowledge of my sexual orientation has caused within my very traditionally Muslim family.



Out and Muslim in the United Kingdom

The slender figure of 19 year-old Muhammad Mustafa* sits on the battered sofa of his London bed-sit. "I have to be careful", he says, peering out of the window to check that no-one is coming to the door. "I don’t even tell my friends where I live". Several weeks earlier, his brothers had beaten him unconscious while his mother, chanting the name of Allah, looked on impassively. Later, a religious leader said he should be killed. Why? Because Muhammad is gay - and Muslim. Like 75 000 others in Britain. Covered in bruises, Muhammad fled the next day to London.



The New Dark Ages: The Global Threat of Islamic Fundamentalism by Peter Thatchell.

Articles by Sulayman X

What your homophobia says about you (by Sulayman X))

"It is most interesting to note that of the thousands of messages I have received, very few -- less than 3, in fact -- were actually sincere attempts by concerned Muslims to engage in an honest debate on the issue of homosexuality. Most messages conveyed the idea that I was such a worthless pervert that any attempt at discussing the issue was a waste of time."



Islamic treatment of homosexuals (by Sulayman X, July 22, 1998)

“The fervor of this modern Muslim extremism echoes the zealotry of the original Dark Ages in mediaeval Europe, when Christian fundamentalists excommunicated philosophers and scientists as heretics, tortured non-believers, drowned women as witches, and burned sodomites at the stake.”



It's okay to be gay (by Sulayman X)

"You are what you are. Why resist? Has resisting ever changed a homosexual into a heterosexual? Why do you resist what you are? Are you not happy with what God has given you? Give up your resistance. It's foolish. You are wasting time."



I am a homosexual (by Sulayman X)

"I have never been driven my home, rejected by my parents, hated by brothers and sisters, despised by teachers and religious leaders, but I could have, because I am a homosexual."


Articles by Faris Malik from the Born Eunuchs Home Page
 

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE GENE DEBATE


Accepting What Cannot be Changed

Reading the ex-gay literature, one is struck by the admitted homosexual temptations many "ex-gays" still struggle with. "God does not replace one form of lust with another," explain Bob Davies and Lori Rentzel in Coming Out of Homosexuality. Ex-gays commonly struggle with homosexual attractions and typically “do not experience sexual arousal solely by looking at their wife’s body.”



The American Psychological Association Answers Your Questions About Sexual Orientation and Homosexuality

Sexual orientation emerges for most people in early adolescence without any prior sexual experience. And some people report trying very hard over many years to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual with no success. For these reasons, psychologists do not consider sexual orientation for most people to be a conscious choice that can be voluntarily changed.



Gay Gene Page

This site is a forum for the discussion of the scientific, social, political and religious implications of research into the origins of sexual identity.



The gay gene debate (From the CounterBalance website)

''One potential consequence of accepting a doctrine of genetic determinism relates to the potential link between genetics and sexual orientation. In the summer of 1993, Dean H. Hamer and his research team at the National Cancer Institute announced their discovered evidence of a connection between genetics and some male homosexuality. By constructing family trees in instances where two or more brothers are gay, and performing actual laboratory testing of the supposed homosexual DNA, Hamer located a region near the end of the long arm of the X chromosome that likely contains a gene influencing sexual orientation.''



The gay gene debate (by Sulayman X, July 22, 1998)

"Homosexuality is firmly rooted in genes and biology. We don't understand it completely. We don't know the exact location of all the genes involved.  But we do know, from endless lab tests with fruit flies and mice and other animals that sexuality is biologically determined, the result of a certain mix of genes, chemicals and hormones. To be more accurate, sexuality ? whether gay or straight ? is the result of a certain mix of genes, chemicals and hormones. This “mix” may be different for the homosexual, resulting in a sexuality than varies from the norm."



"Where did the gay gene go?" (from ABC News website)

''It’s a seemingly endless debate: Why are some people attracted to the opposite sex, while others are drawn to their own gender? Thanks to new research published today, that question just got even harder to answer.''


QUEER JIHAD AND SULAYMAN X


In search of Sulayman X - from Pink Ink magazine

Sulayman X has a lot to say about Islam and homosexuality, and the provocative stand taken by this writer has outraged Muslims worldwide.



Gay Muslim Web Site Opened in Asia: An article in Gay Today about Queer Jihad.

Green vs Rainbow: An Online Struggle by Sadiqi Az-Zindiki at Freethought Mecca. About Sulayman X and the Queer Jihad web site. (January 4, 2001)

Confessions of Sulayman X (November 11,1999)

I am an American convert to Islam. I made my Shahada, or Profession of Faith, at a mosque in Kansas City on June 4th,  1993, in the presence of several Muslim brothers after due instruction and a great deal of personal research and soul searching.



Sulayman X interviews Badruddin Khan (March 23, 2000): Author of 'Sex, Longing and Not Belonging: A Gay Muslim's Quest for Understanding' talks to Sulayman X.

For the love of Malcolm X (by Sulayman X, June 27, 1998)

"I became Muslim because of Malcolm X, because of his grace and dignity, because he was a man and had refused to accept the crumbs thrown to him from the white mans' tables. He had a message for me   a white trash, no account, good for nothing, and a faggot to boot, born in abject poverty, abused from day one in any way imaginable, uneducated, slipping through the cracks, another lost soul in a lost world. His message was simple: stand up and be a man. Stop drinking and smoking and abusing and making excuses. Get right with God. Educate yourself."



Letter from a Reader to express her regret of his decision to leave Islam (sent October 26, 2004)
 
 

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Last updated November 1, 2004.