Just Me and Allah: A Photo Project on Queer Muslims

Queer Muslims are at the receiving end of homophobia and Islamophobia, more so after the recent Orlando shooting.

Photograph taken at the El-Tawhid Juma Circle in Canada, a ‘human positive’ queer affirming space; LGBTQ members take turns leading the Friday prayer. (Photo Courtesy: Samra Habib)

In the early hours of Sunday morning, Omar Mateen, opened fire in Pulse, a gay bar in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and injuring 53 in the worst mass shooting in the history of the US. A lot of the discourse around the incident revolves around Mateen and his religious proclivities (he pledged allegiance to ISIS before the shooting), which is altogether too easy a segue for America to bring in Islamophobia. What was sorely missing in the immediate aftermath of the incident were voices of the LGBTQ community; instead, much was said to convey that this was more a deliberate attack on gay people in a gay club during Pride Month. It wasn’t.

What, then, becomes of queer Muslims? Those who live on the edge of two violently marginalised communities and who in the past few days have received vitriol from both groups that form their fundamental identity?

Meet Toronto-based Samra Habib, as a part of the Quint Lens’ debut feature. A photographer and activist, Habib was always inclined towards storytelling, and felt a need to reach out to more queer Muslims who were going through the same dilemmas and conflicts as her. Her digital photography project ‘Just Me and Allah’ captures the nuances and subtleties of the personalities of queer Muslims around the world, with hard-hitting interviews of their stories of balancing a faith that has become synonymous with evil, and sexuality with sin.

Christelle was born half Evangelical and half Sunni Muslim. She is currently based in Paris, and is an activist and a social worker. She describes herself as a black, queer, mentally-disabled Muslim, and wants to create a discourse around intersectionality. (Photo Courtesy: Samra Habib)

People question how I can be queer and Muslim or why I don’t have a Muslim sounding name or don’t cover myself. I’ve even been asked how I can be black and Muslim because of how Arabs treated Africans during the Arab slave trade. People want you to think your whole identity is <i>haram</i>, <b>but hey, it’s just between me and Allah. </b>

Christelle, Paris&nbsp;

Farhat, an aspiring film maker, was raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh and is currently based in New York. A few years ago, they took some time off while doing their undergrad in the US, to return home and “drive [their] queerness away” by practising Islam rigorously; they found solace in meeting other queer people and befriending them. (Photo Courtesy: Samra Habib)

There continues to exist a massive tension between navigating activist radical queer spaces and being a Muslim who calls to Allah every day. I continue to have debates within myself on what it means to incorporate Islam in my life and to be a part of a community that I deeply care about and believe in as well. I am looking for more gender non-conforming and transgender Muslims with anti-racist and femme identifying politics to be in community with, which I have failed to find so far. Maybe that will change in the future.

Farhat, New York&nbsp;

El-Farouk Khaki was born in Tanzania, and was taught a very inclusive and liberal interpretation of Islam, heavily influenced by Sufism. He is an advocate, and practises refugee and immigration law, and created SALAAM Canada, a support group for gay Muslims. (Photo Courtesy: Samra Habib)

Six years ago, my partner Troy Jackson, Laury Silvers and I decided to start a Friday mosque space with the intention that it would become more than a Friday space and it would be beyond Toronto. What’s really significant is the fact that we have triggered people’s imagination with the notion of an inclusive mosque space that’s gender equal and queer affirming. A place like Toronto Unity Mosque is vital because there is a spiritual trauma that LGBTIQ people suffer because we’re told we’re somehow lesser and that we don’t belong and are innately sinful because God’s love doesn’t extend to us.&nbsp;

El-Farouk Khaki, Founder of SALAAM Canada and Co-founder of <a href="http://jumacircle.com/about/who-we-are/">Toronto Unity Mosque</a>

Shazad was born in St Alberta, Canada; it wasn’t until he moved to Toronto after graduation that he found the space to discover the meaning of Islam as it was to him. He works to promote gay men’s sexual health at the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention. (Photo Courtesy: Samra Habib)

During my parents’ divorce, I tried to cling to Islam because I felt scared and conflicted. I thought I was a bad person and would go to hell for being gay and that coming out would stress my mom out even more. This continued until I learned about reconciling my sexuality with my religious beliefs in university. I stopped being scared. It didn’t make sense to me that I would burn in hell for loving a man.

Shazad, Toronto

Hengameh was born in North Germany to an Iranian Muslim couple. She is a freelance journalist and a part-time editor at a German pop-culture feminist magazine. She describes herself as a sassy, sarcastic feminist killjoy.

It’s very hard not to believe that religion is bad when you grow up in an anti-Muslim society that demonises Islam, especially post-9/11. I also saw how the highly racist, classist, sexist and heterosexist Iranian regime used Islam to legitimise their politics. I experimented with Buddhism and called myself a Universalist at one point and eventually reclaimed the Muslim identity less than a year ago. <b>I did not know that I was allowed to call myself Muslim while being queer. </b>

Hengameh, Berlin

The Orlando shooting has been reduced to a fight between the LGBTQ community and the Muslim community; those who lie at the intersection of the two disagree. They are at the receiving end of homophobia and Islamophobia; they are doubly hurt.

(All quotes and photographs are taken by Samra Habib as a part of her internationally exhibited photo project, Between Me And Allah.)