19 June 2013 , By Katie Nguyen More
News From Our Correspondents, Source:
AlertNet
London
"The best thing was to just come out and
be authentic - even if it means the world
is going to kill you, but at least you die an
authentic person," says Muhsin Hendricks,
one of the world's few openly gay imams.
Born and raised in South Africa, the 46-
year-old has spent years helping gay
Muslims reconcile Islam with their sexuality
through The Inner Circle, an organisation
he founded that was set up in 2004.
Hendricks spoke to Thomson Reuters
Foundation by telephone from Cape Town
about what the Koran says about
homosexuality, the reality for gays in
South Africa and what it was like coming
out at the age of 29.
Q: What was your experience growing up
being gay and a Muslim?
A: I come from a very conservative Muslim
background. My grandfather was imam of
our community mosque, so there was a lot
of pressure on us children to be good
Muslims - if there is such a thing as a
good Muslim.
There was no expression for sexuality.
There was nobody you could talk to about
sexuality. So for the first 16 years of my
life, it was a lonely journey with me having
to deal with all these emotions on my
own. My mother was ruling with the iron
fist, so she was not somebody I could
approach with that. I resolved at the age
of 18 to further my studies in Islam
because I couldn't understand that when I
went to the mosque, they preached a
very compassionate and merciful God, but
it was the same God that gave me this
sexuality and asked me not to act on it. I
needed to find out what the Koran was
really saying about sexuality, and then at
the age of 21, I won a scholarship to
study at one of the universities in
Pakistan.
I think it was during my studies when
there was confusion - am I doing the right
thing? Am I being the right person? That's
when I decided to get married. I thought
if I'm not going to get married, I'll probably
go through the rest of my life thinking
what if I had tasted a woman like they say
I have to, would that have made me
straight?
So I got married. Fortunately there was a
girl very much in love with me. I told her a
few weeks before I got married. I said,
'Look, this is who I am. I'm willing to give it
a try.'
But six years down the line, having had
three kids, things didn't happen and we
both just felt that we had been doing an
injustice to each other. The best thing
was to just come out and be authentic -
even it means the world is going to kill
you, but at least you die as an authentic
person.
I didn't just take a small step out of the
closet, I just jumped out and went
straight to the papers and on the front
page, it was: 'Gay imam comes out'. I had
three jobs at that time and I was fired
from all three of them. I went through a
kind of depression.
Q: How did your family respond to you
coming out?
A: I was divorced for a whole month
before my mother came to discover I was
divorced. She said she was hearing some
rumours I was divorced because I'm gay. I
thought, you know what, this is the woman
I most feared in my life but at this point I
can't hide it anymore, so I said, 'It's true,
it's not a rumour' - and she fainted. After
my sister came to help her, I thought I'll
just leave her to work on that. The next
morning she came to me and she said,
'We're going to have to go to an imam. I
think you're jinxed. You need some
spiritual help.' I said, 'No, mother, that's
enough. I've gone through that process
for 29 years and I don't think there's
anything wrong with me.'
We had a tiff. She said, 'I can't accept it.'
I said, 'Well what do you want to do?
Because I can't accept the fact you can't
accept it.' I think because I spoke in a way
I had never spoken to my mother before
she could understand the seriousness of
my pain and she said, 'Show me what you
think is right.'
I got her documentaries to watch, books
to read on the issue. Then finally there
was an acceptance. One day I heard my
mother saying to a lady enquiring about
this and about me - she said to her, 'I
know my son is a very honest child. He's
always been God-conscious, and I don't
think he would choose something like this.
I'm not going to throw my son away. I still
don't understand it completely, but he's
my son and I'm leaving that up to God to
decide.' She accepted me and she
accepted my partner. When she passed
away I was the only one at her bedside.
Q: What does the Koran say about
homosexuality?
A: The Koran only speaks about the story
of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Koran
doesn't use the word homosexuality. It's
only a term that was coined in the 18th
century, and the Koran was a 7th century
book. The story has been interpreted for
years to refer to the atrocities of Sodom
and Gomorrah as homosexuality so what I
do is I unpack it. One of the principles
that we learn when we study the Koran is
that you can't quote a verse from the
Koran out of context. It has a context, it
has a history, there's a real particular
purpose. So, I say, 'Let's do the same
with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.'
We look at the archaeological findings, we
look at what historians say about Sodom
and Gomorrah, and once we piece that
together we find that the story was really
about economic exploitation, inhospitality
to guests, rape, molestation, homosexual
practices that were related to idolatry.
So then I ask in my conclusion, 'If you look
at that and if you look at who you are in
terms of your sexual orientation, do you
think that story talks about you?'
Q: South Africa does not criminalise
homosexuality. In fact, its 1996
constitution prohibits discrimination
based on sexual orientation and has been
described as one of the most
progressive constitutions in the world -
but what's it really like for gays and
lesbians in the country?
A: I think that that statement holds true,
that we do have one of the best
constitutions in the world, but it doesn't
translate to what happens at grassroots
level. We still see that lesbians are being
killed in the townships, there's corrective
rape happening. Now and then you hear
that some gay person has been killed and
nobody knows why, and I think that
happens because there haven't been
enough programmes instituted by
government to help with the transition.
We come from a very violent history of
apartheid and then suddenly into a very
liberal constitution.
If you perhaps were living in more
developed cities in South Africa like Cape
Town, Johannesburg, Durban and Port
Elizabeth, you'd probably see less of that
discrimination, but the more you move you
into townships where there is a lack of
education, there is a lack of information
around these issues, you do still see
violence and discrimination happening.
People in work areas are very aware that
they shouldn't be discriminating, but if you
dig deeper down you still wonder if
people have really made peace with the
fact that gay people are on the same
level in terms of human rights as straight
people.
Q: Is the situation getting any easier for
gay Muslims in South Africa?
A: I'm not sure I can look at South Africa
in isolation to what's happening in the
rest of the world. I think there's gains in
some areas and there's losses in others.
If we look for example at the recent
statement from the president of the
Muslim Judicial Council in Cape Town, we
see that there's a definite move in the
last five years now from saying that queer
Muslims should be killed - 'If this had been
a Muslim country they would have been
killed' - to 'Let's look at what kind of
programmes can be instituted, what kind
of help can amassed to help queer
Muslims.' They still think we should become
straight, but at least they're not saying
we should be killed. That's a big shift for
us. Another big shift is the fact that for
the first year at our annual international
retreat, there were two straight imams
willing to engage. Positive steps like that.
We get more families coming into
counselling where before it was only
queer Muslims, now it's queer Muslims and
their families.
But on the other hand, look at the rise of
fundamentalism on the African continent -
the Sahel region, the sub-Saharan
countries, and events like the Arab Spring
- how that influences the way people
practise Islam. What happens in other
countries does affect Muslims in different
parts of the world as well, so perhaps
that's the challenge at the moment.