Monster Media 1993 #2/Image.iso/text/islamnfo.zip/GAYISLAM

Text File | 1993-05-06 | 6KB | 107 lines

─ Area: F-P_NEWS ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Msg#: 2077                                         Date: 05-04-93  10:36
  From: Hank Roth                                    Read: Yes    Replied: No
    To: All                                          Mark:
  Subj: Gay Islam
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*-*-* pnews conferences *-*-*

                          LOVE AND RAGE
                        Electronic Edition

                       MY OWN PRIVATE ISLAM

                        by Yusuf Al-Hallaj

AS I WRITE THIS ARTICLE, THE majority of my one billion fellow
Muslims are fasting from dawn to dusk in this, the holy month of
Ramadan. In the past, I have fasted myself and have felt an
extraordinary sense of self-purification as well as a strangely
transcendent identification with Muslims all over the world. But
as I began to question certain precepts of orthodox Islam, my
commitment to fasting dwindled. Today, the fourth day of the
ninth month of the 1413th year of Islam, I will indulge in three
square meals, and I will not feel guilty for a very simple
reason: I am gay, and my religion, or more particularly, my co-
religionists, say that I have sinned. And not only will I be
punished in the afterlife, but I should be punished in this world
too: lashing, imprisonment or death, depending on the discretion
of the state ruler, in accordance with Islamic law.

I feel no compulsion to identify, transcendently or otherwise,
with my fellow Muslims, my brothers and sisters who would condemn
me for loving a man. Islam's condemnation of homosexuality has
not precluded homosexuality in Islamic societies, past or
present. Iran in particular has had a long history of male-male
sex and love (less is known about lesbianism in Muslim nations).
Nineteenth century Egypt saw European travellers visiting not
just to see the Pyramids and the Nile, but to look for pretty
Egyptian boys too. Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam, has a
history of toleration of homosexuality, and in Pakistan there is
a province where they say all men are fags, a stereotype not
entirely devoid of factual basis. Needless to say, gays and
lesbians "out of the closet" are unheard of in Muslim countries.
In places like these, closets are for clothes, and then some.

To be a Muslim in the U.S., irrespective of sexuality, is to
confront a daily assault of ignorance with respect to Islam. In
the media, in the classroom and in people's minds persist some of
the most inaccurate and utterly stupid notions of Islam. I often
feel like Islam's most ardent defender, a religious vanguard
writing to newspapers with tallies of the number of times they
have used "Muslim" and "fundamentalist" and "extremist" and
"terrorist" interchangeably in a given week; correcting
professors on the meaning of the word <MI>jihad<D>; explaining
why <MI>Aladdin<D> is grossly offensive. I sometimes forget that
the majority of the people I am so often defending would think me
an abomination if they knew about my orientation and would even
want me killed. As harsh as the West is to Islam, Muslims are by
and large ten times so toward gays and lesbians. These are my
people.

Of course I am among Islam's strongest critics as well, or more
precisely, I am among the strongest critics of Muslims,
particularly those who start every other sentence with "The
Quaran says ..." or "The prophet said ... ." In general, I know
better than they what the Quaran says or what the prophet did.
The dissident always knows the history of his or her people
better than do others, if only by necessity. And yet, these are
dangerous times. Too harsh a criticism of a Muslim is often taken
as an attack on Islam, and one need only recall the furor
provoked by Salman Rushdie to realize the peril in this.

For most, coming out of the closet is difficult enough without
the threat of religiously sanctioned bodily harm. I greet my
fellow Muslims with the same hand with which I stroke my lover's
penis, but they will never know it. Nor will they ever know the
joy I feel or the love that I share with my man. For my part, I
will never know what it is to be accepted by the only community I
have ever really known.  We must realize that liberation is born
out of struggle, not legislation or negotiation.

We have revolutionary potential, but we are not inherently
revolutionary. Yes, our very existence challenges the norms of
patriarchy, but the power structures that run this country have
shown a remarkable ability to assimilate sectors they had
formerly shut out, when faced with the possibility of radical
change. Was it really a victory for us to have Pete Williams, a
gay man, as the Pentagon spokesman for the Gulf slaughter?

As anarchists we struggle against all forms of domination. As
queers we live the daily reality of that domination. Together we
offer a radical, street-based, direct-action approach to
political struggle. We fight to defend our communities from
attack and to confront those who seek to destroy or control us.
We struggle against the emerging queer bourgeoisie with the same
vigor we fight the straight bourgeoisie. We will attempt to be
part of making the connections between heterosexism and other
forms of domination. Our goal is nothing short of revolution
based not in a vanguard party, but in the communities, in the
streets and in our bedrooms.

                               -30-

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