Essay-Chapter One

Part I

Essay-Chapter 1

Who Am I and Why this Work?

Who Am I?

Was I suffering from a demonic possession? Or was it the evil works of a dark spell? These were the questions that led to my exorcism-session in the Jordanian city of Aqaba in fall of 1999. The session was loosely organized by some family members and conducted by a Shiekh-exorcist. Having ventured unsuccessfully into all other possibilities in the hopes of ameliorating my predicament, the following was the most viable of explanations: either I had become possessed by demons or fallen victim to dark spells and witchcraft. The symptoms were clear: I was gaunt, desolate, sad, irritable, unable to keep up my schoolwork, and always in a state of isolation. Why else would I fail high school after having been the top student for almost all of my prior academic years?

I was born in Amman, the capital city of Jordan, in 1981 to a Muslim Palestinian family from Lifta, a small village on the north-west approaches of the Holy City of Jerusalem. From early on in my life, almost as soon as I became cognizant of my surroundings, I realized that I was intrinsically different; in particular, there seemed to be a clash between my biological male identity as a young child and what had been ingrained in me as the norm within our gender-social structure. I was attracted to feminine things regardless of being a boy and that was not "natural" and did not make sense. I remember the countless times when I "borrowed" my sister's make-up and took it to the bathroom with me and put it on my face. I hated rough play and was not interested in aggression, streets, cars and sports. I favored being at home instead. I enjoyed playing with my sisters and that made me happy and safe; It felt intrinsic. I must have been eight years of age or so when I took my sister's dress to the abandoned basement and tried it on. I danced in it and dreamed of being Lady-Lady, the princess from one of the cartoons I used to watch. And even though I was made to "realize" then that dressing up like girls was something forbidden and contradictory to our teachings and tradition, it was a revelation of a latently natural and beautiful truth within my own existence that neither I nor those around me were in a position to understand. I was not able to share such behaviors with anyone either; a boy should never act like girls, talk like them, dress in their clothes, play with their dolls, or walk like they do. But the older I became the more I realized that there are serious contradictions and fallacies between what I was led to believe as "irrefutable" social truths and what I was innately feeling as a child who was different from those around me.

I hit puberty around age 12 and I was then confronted with something so contradictory to my beliefs, so powerful, so sinful and so sick and real, that I, for a very long time, could not comprehend. I was a male with strict sexual attractions to other males the way females have attractions to them. But only females should have those feelings, so how could this happen? What was wrong with me?

That is how my story began. It was from there, from my initiatory feelings of confusion and contradiction, through many identity-struggles of sickness and perversion, that I began my voyage of self-discovery. It was a saga of a stranger amidst his own people, filled with isolation and pain and endured several stages of transformation. It was agonizing, long, and hurtful, but nevertheless persistent and celebratory.

I am Luti

I committed myself to our neighborhood mosque around the age of 14 during my summer vacation of 1995. I was in a desperate need to live a life that would potentially rid me of all my internal contradictions and to put me on the right track. There was no better way than to resort to Allah and become a good Muslim. My faith in Allah was so strong and I had no doubt that He would ultimately help me overcome my "abnormality" and all other struggles. I became one of the most dedicated youth in the mosque in a very short time, maintaining all my prayers and memorizing a lot of the Quran by heart. I was chosen along with a few others to a special secretive coterie that aimed to prepare us for manhood as the rijal (men) of the future. But the word rijal used to terrify me because regardless of all my attempts to act like men, to talk like them, and walk like they do, I was hiding inside of me something that could not possibly be hidden. My timid personality, different voice, and the way I walked were all considered odd to people. In one of his letters to me on 05/03/1996, my coterie's Shiekh mentor wrote to me the following words: "In the beginning of your journey with me I noticed some attributes about you that are not attributes of rijal??!!" That letter was hurtful because it was a reminder of my shameful situation and my failure to hide it. I had to do something!

The closest Arabic word we had for such feelings in my surroundings at the time was Liwat (sodomy or forbidden sexual acts between men). A man who commits such acts is called luti. This is probably considered the biggest sin in Islam after the sin of killing other human beings. It is considered even worse than zina or when a man and a woman have sex outside of marriage. The word luti may be worse in implication than the word faggot. It is used with a sense of disgust, belittlement and shame, implying sin, unnatural activity, bestiality and pedophilia. One cannot even bear to think about it even within the privacy of one's mind from how harsh it resonates in the body and soul. That is so because liwat is nothing more than an abomination and no one chooses to do that except those who are filthy, immoral, and lubricious.

I looked through what was available to me in the form of religious texts to find a definition of what I was going through beyond the definition of liwat, but there was nothing on that matter; there was nothing that viewed my situation from an intrinsic perspective. I had no meaningful resources and what I was going through was beyond my ability to understand. Everything pointed in one direction: my lutie feelings are a product of my own choices. But if what I was feeling was something I had chosen to feel, even though I do not remember making that choice, then I knew I had to do all I could to reverse it. However, my will-power was incredibly weak. I became very exhausted and my hopes started to fade. My life seemed to plummet into an abysmal sea of darkness. I had lost my drive for school and began wandering the streets of Amman. I became hopeless, directionless and my efforts were primarily concentrated on one goal: to satisfy the sexual monster I was becoming.

I cried and repented every time I committed the sin of liwat. I felt very scared and extremely weak. I pleaded with Allah for forgiveness every time I sinned but it was a vicious cycle that kept repeating itself; it was truly beyond me. I expressed my feelings in a note during that time: "I swear to Allah that I am unable to stop [committing the sin of liwat], I know very well that it is haram and I have never done it but with a total submission to Allah of my weakness and guilt. I do it even though I don't want to, but there is something powerful from within that forces me...and I repent and cry every time, but [alas] I go back and repeat the cycle…I know I should not give up but I have started giving up because I keep violating my repentance. I hate myself, I swear to Allah I do, but I stand powerless in front of my situation and lack the tools to fix it." I loved writing because it was my resort of expression but even that was dangerous. I would later invent my own alphabet or secret-code which is pictured herein.

This was my life. I walked directionless in total darkness and contradiction, living only to painfully devour my sexual acts; living a hypocritical life that displayed devotion and piety, but hid the obscenity of who I truly was.

I was nothing but a disgusting, sinful luti.

I am a genetic mutant

Being "luti", regardless of all things I had been told, read or heard, was not something I had chosen to do, feel or live by. I tried the impossible to internalize what was accepted around me and to change my sexual desires. I yearned for a solution to correct my "abnormality" and reverse the plague of my “choices.” However, my situation was beyond my level of comprehension and amending it was beyond my capacity. The harder I tried, the more failures I faced and the more fragile I became. 

I made numerous attempts to explain the truth of how I was feeling to trustworthy religious leaders and scholars. I did not want to go to Hell and was trying my best to be close to Allah. I told them I would do anything to change my circumstances and be redeemed. I pleaded with them to understand where I was coming from and that I did not seem to be "choosing" my luti feelings. To me It was simple, I genuinely lacked any heterosexual desires. But conveying that point across was not so simple and I was always confronted with ignorance. In response to a letter I sent asking about this issue with the excuse of helping "a friend" of mine who had fallen victim to this sin, a shiekh-relative living in Saudi Arabia wrote, "it is mandatory on your friend to truly repent to Allah and to ask Him for forgiveness every time he commits this sin. The more good deeds he undertakes the more bad deeds will be erased. He has to be strong when it comes to his own will-power, be genuine in his efforts, and to remember that Allah sees him and is able to take his soul away while he is committing that sin; repentance then is too late. Liwat is a debt in one's family and is punishable by law. And he should not lie to himself and be convinced that heterosexual marriage is not good for him because marriage does satisfy one's desires and Allah made it halal within the Islamic Shariah. If he can not get married for whatever reason [financial for example], then he needs to fast [fasting is known to contain one's mind regarding Earthly matters, and it was reported that the Prophet PBUH has asked people to fast when they cannot not marry]. He also needs to abandon all his bad friends and the places that remind him of that sinful act. He has to find a good group of friends to support him to live according to the Shariah Law and to pray to Allah to help him with his endeavor. He has to stay away from anything that may arouse him sexually... ” I also received another letter with a fatwa specifically for my case from Shiekh Abd Almanan Albukhari, a student of one of the biggest Muslim scholars in this modern era, Shiek Ibn Othaymeen. Shiekh Albukhari, who graduated from the Shariah Law School of the Islamic University of Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud in Saudi Arabia, had something similar to say. He wrote, "your claim that you do not desire women sexually is an absurdity and an influence from Satan on you..." Among many things, Shiekh Bukhari advised me to not make friendships with amrad-men (hairless and more feminine looking), avoid thinking about my situation and looking at pictures of women and children, to fast more, ask for guidance and truly repent to Allah, and make sure to get married to a good Muslim woman.

I asked many more trustworthy people for help, but the belief that I must somehow have a latent heterosexual desire was always the backbone to all their answers. I was told that everything would be corrected if I got married. I was told I should fast and abstain from sex and food until Allah feels mercy on me. I was told that my plight is my choice and my choice is reversible. I was told to not look at women and children because they might be the cause of my problem, instead I should only be around other men and attend their gatherings. But all such advice was either a contradiction to my reality or was completely irrelevant.

I poured my soul out to scholars asking how this persistent advice on marriage could possibly be my savior when I had no sexual desire for females? I was told I had chosen these luti feelings and I could change them, but who would choose this? I fasted plenty, as I was advised, but did not understand how fasting could influence my sexual attraction. I was to stay away from females and avoid looking at their pictures, which seemed to be a contradiction to my situation since they did not arouse me. The suggestion to stay away from children made no sense, how could children be related to my problem or a solution to it? The instructions I received to only be around other men also seemed to contradict the reason why sex-separation is implemented in Islam and to my same-sex feelings and desires. I had plenty of questions that no one was able to answer. It was a terrible life and a burden that I could hardly handle. The fact that our Muslim scholars and leaders were consistently unable to discuss this issue with me in a clear, logical, and comprehensive manner, and to simply convince me with their arguments in such a way that relates to my reality, was a clear indication that they have no clear understanding of my situation. Or was it just me?

Islam is a great religion and if the scholars say liwat is haram then it must be. But they speak from a position that implies I have a choice in the matter and that somehow I must have heterosexual feelings. I was told that other luties were heterosexuals and only desired women but made the intentional choice to sin and rebel. I concluded then that there were only two possibilities: either I had heterosexual feelings on which I chose not to act (which I refused to believe because I knew I had no choice in the matter and I lacked any sexual attraction to the opposite sex) or, at worse, I must be the only person who is like this, some sort of genetic mutation. Thinking that I might be a genetic mutant was closer to my logic than all accusations of "choice" and such. My problem then must have been different from that of other luties and there was no solution for me in marriage or stronger will-power or any other contradictory solutions, even if these might have worked for other luties who willingly become as such. Therefore, the key difference between my case and that of other luties is that while their problem is one of ill-choices and weakness in will-power, my problem was worse because it was a mutation in the process of my biological formation which led to my instinctual confusion with my sexual identity. Was I the only luti in the entire world who did not choose these feelings? I seemed to be since there were no indications of anyone else all around me.

It only made sense: I was a genetic mutation and nothing more than a freak of nature.

I Am Psychologically Ill

My family tried all they could to understand the state of my depression and the declivity of my schoolwork. I was bleeding in front of them but there was nothing they could have done to to help me. I would not open up to them; I could not open up to them. I was scared and disgusted. But even if I was to open up, what would I tell them? What would I say? I was dealing with a sordid luti disease that could not have been understood as anything else other than shame and contempt. My world was turning into a dark hopeless cave and suicide was becoming seriously appealing.

I managed to damage most of my relationships with my family and stopped talking to most of them, including my mom. Mom however was a notably stubborn lady who was persistent and willful. She truly tried everything she could to break into me and her ways were often bothersome, though always creative. She wrote me letters, targeted many of my friends and organized them  to speak with me, role-played games with my relatives and even with my school principal to motivate me, all of which went on behind my back and was driven by the love of a mother witnessing the loss of her child. I felt I was under too much pressure and finally broke down in front of a relative of mine during one of Mom's arrangements and told the truth. He of course could not understand my situation but was kind. He realized that my situation was beyond him and offered to take me to a psychiatrist; I agreed for as long as he kept it a secret. I ended up seeing one of the

One of the Psychiatrist's Prescription

best psychiatrists in Jordan but almost as soon as I explained my situation, I realized he was not going to be helpful. The psychiatrist laughed at me mockingly when I expressed my "abnormal" sexual interests and said that had I been living in Europe, I would have been able to undergo a sex-reassignment surgery and live the remainder of my life as female. That of course was not what I was looking for and was an indication of the cluelessness of this psychiatrist. He asked me to check my sex hormones at the Islamic Hospital in Amman to identify any deviations, but the results were all within the normal limits for any male teenager my age. He put me on Prozac and other antidepressants.

I was slipping away from reality and losing motivation for school and my future goals. Again, Mom was not to give up and decided that she needed to call my dad in the USA, who was there working to provide for the family. She informed him of the dangerous situation I was in and that she had tried her best to help me but nothing seemed to be working. I was then forced to send my dad a fax to explain to him my situation. This was very hard to do because my dad was the most dedicated person I had ever known and there I was, paying him back with nothing but failure. Dad was always kind and understanding when he dealt with me but my situation worried him very much. He began calling me everyday to check on me which made everyone else around me speculate that I must have some sort of terminal disease. I perceived their attention as pity and I hated how weak and vulnerable it made me feel. Unable to take it anymore, I lied to my dad and told him that my hormonal-test revealed an abnormality and the doctor was able to fix it; I was no longer lutie. Dad then took the matter into his own hands and asked for the hand of one of my relatives on my behalf. I objected and claimed that if I must marry someone, then I would like to at least pick someone myself who is not related to me. The marriage proposal, however, was rejected. 

I struggled painfully through the remainder of that year. I failed high school.

I Am Possessed

After exhausting all available earthly resources to save me, the seemingly final option for my family was an untraditional venture into the unknown realm. They had to make sure that I was not possessed or victim of sorcery. I had also thought of these possibilities because what I was going through seemed anything but ordinary. My predicament could have easily been the work of demons, Jinn, or witchery.

The door of the room was shut and the exorcism-session was about to begin. The Shiekh started prepping me and elaborated on what I should expect. He mentioned that I might see a written-spell somewhere, which would be an indication of witchcraft. But the other possibility is demonic or Jinn possession. If this was the case, such spirits might take control of my body and voice and try to resist. My toe might start moving which would be a good indication of the expunction of those spirits. I closed my eyes as instructed and the Shiekh started his rituals which included a repeated recitation of some verses of the Quran, Hadith and prayers. The Shiekh addressed the spirits directly and asked them to identify who they were, fear Allah, and leave my body. But after the passing of the allocated time, there were no signs of any possession or witchcraft. The Shiekh told my family then that there was nothing unearthly wrong with me.

To tell you the truth, I had been wishing to get possessed by a Jinn at the time, though I used to ask Allah to make him a good Muslim Jinn. I tried repeatedly to change my circumstances and become a good Muslim but was always confronted with failure. My situation was beyond any human intervention; for any hope to ameliorate my circumstances, therefore, I was truly in need of the supernatural!

I however was never possessed with anything.

I Am a Pervert and Deserve to Die

I struggled a lot. I was so disgusted with myself and what had become of me. I finally decided to offer myself to the Shariah Law and be killed according to a well-established liwat penal-code. The punishment for the sin of liwat in Islam is severe: there is the school of thought that preaches the definitive killing of those practicing the sin; there is the school of thought that takes on a more lenient stance by subscribing to it the same punishment as that for zina (lashing the unmarried and stoning the married); there is the school of thought that preaches tazir, or a form of punishment that is up to the judge; and others. While they differ in the method of punishment for same-sex sexual encounters, they all agree on the severity of the sin and the mandatory punishment. The sin of liwat according to Islamic teachings is an appalling sin that shakes the Throne of Allah; it is probably the second in severity to killings of innocent human beings. I had already arrived at the conclusion that my case was not technically a case of liwat, it is rather a unique genetic mutation that could possibly be amended by medical interventions. But I had already committed the act of liwat several times and was unable to stop. If offering myself to the Shariah Law would be a peaceful resolution to my problem and a purification of my soul from Allah, then it would have to be done. I tried my best to change what I was, but the more I tried the harder it became. 

I could no longer live in remorse. Our Muslim societies are moral societies and should be pure from any contaminants like myself. I decided to get rid of myself in 1999 and wrote a letter to a Fatwa institution in Saudi Arabia to ask them to guide me to what would be best for me. I wrote to them clearly that I was ready to come clean about my past and be killed in the process if that would put me at peace. I was ready to submit myself to Allah, admit all my sins and weaknesses in the hope that He would accept my repentance and purify my heart. Being put to rest by a Shariah Law judgment was a creative halal outlet for me that would possibly ensure my peace and at the same time would not be considered a sinful suicidal choice. The other clear alternative was to die as sinful as I was and to live in the flames of Hell for eternity.

I was lucky however and the letter was never sent. My immigration paperwork to the United States of America were being finalized and my life was about to change.

I Have a Biological Disease

I left Jordan for America on January 16, 2000 and was enrolled at Fordson High School in Dearborn Michigan. Determined to start a new life that would erase my past and revive my spirits, I became among the top students in my class fairly quickly. But what I was feeling from the inside as a sexually deviated lutie was constantly thrusting around my body and soul. However, now that I was in a new country with different norms and traditions, my chances to truly understand my situation were never better. I had a thirst to learn about my sexual desires and find a cure for them. I started to talk to people about the topic and conducted a lot of literature research. The results were not as expected: in comparison to the environment in which I had grown up, the topic of same-sex attraction was not that strange to most people in this country. I discovered that there are other people who are in the same situation. I was certainly not the only one and the idea that I must somehow be a genetic mutation, or one of a kind, no longer seemed feasible. But I insisted on refusing to believe in anything that viewed same-sex sexual attractions, or homosexuality as was being called here, from a natural perspective. I concluded that if my deviant sexual attraction was not a mutation or one of a kind, then I must be suffering from a biological disease that must be treatable. There was no doubt in my mind as a practicing Muslim that lutie feelings are sordid and dangerous to society at large. Why else would they be banned by Islam? I gave a speech during a humanities class entitled, "The Case Against Homosexuality." I discussed why homosexuality was dangerous to society and the "fact" that it was the reason for AIDS was a case-example for that. I ended the speech by urging the students to do all they could to fight this so-called homosexuality. 

A note to myself that I must escape

My psychological situation was worsened after finishing high school. I was sick, tired, hopeless and it seemed there was no cure for me. I hated myself and felt sad for my family for having to deal with someone like me. I thought long and hard about a way out and the only thing that I could have done to rid them of my problems was to escape. And on a cold October evening of 2001, I locked myself in the room to gather some of my belongings, jumped from my first floor window, put my suitcase in the car and took off. I had just recently gotten my driver license and a car and that was practically the first opportunity for me to be able do something like this. I left my family with a letter explaining that I had to do this because I had an illness that I had to cure. I drove to the nearby mosque first and waited there until it was late. I then went back to my family's house and parked my car in front of it. It was dark and quite and the street was empty. I started crying and conjuring up pictures of my family members to say sorry and goodbye. The house lights were turned off around 4 am and I went back to the mosque for the morning prayer. I took off after that to my planned destination a few hundred miles away. It was a teary confusing painful ride. I stayed away from my family for a year and I went back to them having failed in my mission, remaining just as lutie at the end of the move as I was at the beginning of it.

I went to a community college after that to start my higher education. I concentrated my efforts on researching the topic of same-sex sexual attraction in order to find a solution for it. Things started to evolve as I came across some scientific research that correlated that phenomenon to biological causes. That was good because if I was able to know what causes same-sex sexual attractions then I would be much closer to finding a cure for it. I remember once discussing this with a friend of mine who then asked: what if it was not choice or a disease but rather a natural creation of God? What if nothing really needs to change?

I did not take this friend or others who said similar things seriously. What they were telling me was dangerous and went against everything I was taught and believed. I insisted that if Islam said something was wrong, then it must be. Homosexuality is a biological disease and It must have a cure.

But were my resistance and convictions justified?

I am Homosexual

What I could not comprehend at that time was the possibility that the whole Muslim nation was wrong about what Allah and His Prophet (PBUH) have said about this topic. I adopted the Islamic teachings as was provided to me by our scholars and insisted on their accuracy and authenticity without any doubt. But what if the entire Muslim nation was indeed wrong about the reality of homosexuality? How could that be? How can an entire nation of over 1.5 billion people be ignorant about something like this? What were the chances? Was that even possible? Could it be true that I was the way Allah intended? That was something I could not comprehend. There would have been someone before me who would have figured all this out. So many questions were running through my head and the more scientific research I conducted, the more I was forced to reevaluate my long held beliefs and opinions.

Islam teaches that science and religion must go hand in hand. And after having internalized what modern science says about my feelings and desires, I decided to revisit the Shariah resources and contemplate them again. I was much more critical this time and what I learned was shocking. We truly are ignorant in regards to homosexuality and that was very hurtful to me and a disregard to my humanity. How could I and others be let down by our Muslim umma like this? How could our scholars be so unjust? 

I do not necessarily accuse our scholars with ignorance, but I do accuse them of doing injustice to me and to others who are like me. This injustice is a direct result of their refusal to carefully reevaluate homosexuality from a modern scientific perspective and because of their total disregard to all the welcoming evidence for homosexuality within the Shariah Law of Islam. If they had truly looked carefully into the issue, their stances and fatwas would have been dramatically different. This could be a result of their fear of not wanting to take risks to avoid making mistakes. But such fear is unrooted and does nothing but injustice to some of Allah's most beautiful creatures. After I finish my journey of publishing this work in its entirety and expose enough evidence from modern science, Quran, and Hadith that are sufficient to make homosexuality halal, I will put this heavy responsibility of reexamining the issue on the shoulders of our Muslim scholars and leaders.

I was chosen as the Editor-in-Chief of my college newspaper in 2005 and I took that opportunity to write an editorial on my struggles as a homosexual person in my Muslim society, and another on how I reconciled my faith with my sexual orientation. This is how I came out of the closet and began to see the light. My drawing in the beginning of this essay-chapter "In the Closet" is a true expression of the pain I struggled to endure. My entire reality, who I was and what I was becoming, was in an unfathomable agony; what was in the cave was continuously screaming, and the rest of me was bleeding as a consequence.

It has been a long journey for me to get here but I finally realized the truth. I am not luti or a genetic mutation. I am not psychologically or mentally disturbed. I am neither possessed by demons nor spirits nor have I fallen victim to witchcraft. I am not a sexual pervert and do not deserve to die. I do not have a biological disease or any other such accusations. I am an individual who was created to be a homosexual.  My struggles and perseverance are a perfect celebration of humanity and Allah loves me for who I am. I deserve to live safely, respectfully, visibly, and peacefully.

Why This Work?

My life as a Muslim attempting to reconcile his faith with sexual orientation was long, painful, and full of obstacles. I had exponentially more questions than I had answers. The reality of what is perceived about homosexuality in our Arab and Muslim surroundings is complicated and has fallen victim to scientific, linguistic, cultural, and religious ignorance, which I will discuss in my next essay-chapter. This work is here to answer seemingly unanswerable questions, to expose the immanent truth of homosexuality and to attempt to move the conversation from the darkness of the past towards the direction that Allah intends.

Our main struggle as Arab and Muslim homosexuals within our Arab and Muslim cultures and surroundings can be seen as two struggles. The first and the most critical, in my opinion, is what I call our "struggle of existence," or to assert our presence as natural creations of Allah who need to be celebrated and accepted instead of resisted and rejected.  In order to shift our cultural paradigm to be more accepting, we must educate our umma on the reality of homosexuality within the Shariah Law of Islam and modern science. This struggle to exist is what motivates this work and a primary reason behind it. The second struggle, which accompanies the first and is not any less important, is the political struggle of ensuring basic human rights. It operates from the principle that every human being deserves basic human rights and our constitutional laws and governments should provide and ensure that. There are many notable human rights organizations and activists who have worked tirelessly to dedicate their resources and well-beings to accomplish such an endeavor. 

It is important to emphasize here that neither of those struggles is sufficient independently. The struggle for human rights alone is not enough because how can a country be expected to change their laws to accommodate a group of people who are believed to be non-existent, or who go against norms of religion, nature and tradition? Fighting to protect the homosexual community only from a political human rights angle in Muslim societies is like fighting for the rights of the immoral invisibles.

Similarly so, the first struggle I mentioned, "our struggle to exist," is also insufficient on its own because it requires our visibility. We have to be visible so we can ask for our rights within the Shariah Law of Islam. Where are those homosexual Muslims who are asking for their rights? They surely exist but are not visible. To depend on others to do that work for us is not good enough; the oppressed must, themselves, face the oppressor. But how can we be visible in this current situation in our Muslim and Arab countries when there is a grave danger for being so? To be visible we need to have laws for human rights and protections. I see that there is a need to balance out the equation for the two struggles by educating people on homosexuality, so that it is no longer perceived as a taboo and dangerous, enough so that we feel safe to be visible and demand our acceptance without being killed or prosecuted (struggle to exist) and hence this work, while continuing the hard work on changing our laws to provide basic human protections that will pave the road for our visibility (the struggle for human rights). Both struggles need to lean on each other as they clime the ladder to the dignity of the Arab and Muslim homosexuals.

This work is simply here to start a constructive conversation on this topic in order to move it from the darkness of the past to the enlightenment of the present. It aims to expose the welcoming space for homosexuals within the Shariah Law of Islam and to educate and organize. This is much needed because it is filling a void that has always been empty. What is wrongfully perceived about homosexuality in our Muslim societies is internalized by most as the truth, virtue and the way of the righteous, where in fact it is only the epitome of immorality and ignorance.

Please await the publication of Essay-Chapter 2 on what made homosexuality so complicated in Arab and Muslim environments. Also, If you liked what you read and want to support and follow it, you can do that easily by liking our facebook page and share it with others. The link is below. Thank you.

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