A Jihad for Love

This is Sophie

I watched A Jihad for Love, an unveiling documentary about the vast and complex intersections between Islam and homosexuality.  This film is interesting in that it is told by various homosexual Muslim men and women, many of whom have had to flee their home countries and become refugees in another country, safe (or at least safer) from persecution.  This documentary is one of the few I have seen that has followed the hidden lives of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Muslims.  It follows those silenced from countries with high Islamic populations such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, to Turkey, France, India, South Africa, the United States, and the United Kingdom.  

In many of these countries the government has enveloped interpretations of the Qur'an into governmental laws.  These laws reinforce the fact that homosexuality can be punishable by death.  Such laws keep entire communities isolated, monitored, feared and entrapped.

This was a particularly interesting documentary for me to have seen because I used to live in Malaysia, a Muslim country.  Like in many of the countries seen in the film, Islamic law is intertwined within governmental law in Malaysia.  As an outsider who considers herself liberal, at times this seemed uninviting and even disdainful of anything that veered away from Islamic "normality".  During my time living in Malaysia, I had never met anyone who was openly homosexual.  It made more sense to me after watching this documentary that expected repercussions to "coming out" is daunting enough to keep such an identity hidden.

What I found most powerful in this film is that none of the people renounced their religion.  Most of them immigrated to other countries, leaving family and entire communities behind to save their lives, but for all of them their Islamic identity was just as important as their homosexual identity.  Maybe this was a focal point for me because I do not consider myself overly religious, probably more spiritual.  I wonder how much of their decisions not to renounce their religion had to do with personal identity and how much had to do with family and the fact that Islam is so much a part of their country and culture that renouncing it would, again, ostracize them.

All picture courtesy of Google Images