Presentation on LGBT Muslims sparks debate

Protesters said the speaker’s lecture conflicted with the Quran.

By Angela Case

Published April 28, 2010, last updated 6:31 p.m., Nov. 13, 2010

A presentation about the lives of Muslims who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender drew both protest and support from attendees Tuesday.

Faisal Alam, the event’s keynote speaker, is the founder of Al-Fatiha, a worldwide organization dedicated to LGBTQ Muslims. Alam began his presentation by addressing common perceptions of Islam. He said Muslims are often thought of as anti-Semitic, homophobic, patriarchal, rigid and terrorists.

“My goal is to offer you a juxtaposition of two different extremes of Islam,” he said. “In the world that we live in today, it’s common to look at the world in these black and white ways. But the world is much more complicated than that.”

Alam said he founded Al-Fatiha when he was a student at Northeastern University in Boston. After coming out to family and friends, he had trouble reconciling his homosexual identity with his identity as a Muslim. Alam began looking on the Internet for resources for LGBT Muslims. Finding none, he started a listserv for LGBT Muslims and promoted it on the listservs of Muslim student organizations worldwide. The listserv grew into what is now the Al-Fatiha organization.

Alam said Islam is undergoing a transformation regarding the role of women within the faith. He said once the issue of gender is resolved within a religion, sexual orientation becomes the next issue.

Alam showed several video clips, including a trailer for “A Jihad for Love,” a documentary about LBGTQ Muslims. He then discussed specific issues LGBTQ Muslims face, such as the conflicts between LGBTQ identity and national identity and between individual desires and family expectations.

“When I’m debating Muslim scholars or religious leaders, I talk about theology, but I also talk about people’s lives,” he said. “Talking about theology is very academic. The power of the human story is very, very powerful. Sometimes I say, ‘Let’s put theology aside for one second, and let me tell you this story.’ ”

Several people in the audience in Allen Auditorium had differing views about the information and opinions Alam presented.

During a question-and-answer session following Alam’s presentation, several audience members questioned his statements about interpretation of the Quran. One attendee asked where Alam would draw the line between an acceptable reinterpretation of the Quran and an unacceptable one.

Event attendee Kamau Bilal said Islam is very clear in its position on homosexuality.

"Alam can interpret the verses however he wants, but Islam, as it has been since the beginning, says homosexuality is prohibited," Bilal said. "He, as a person, has the right to do whatever he wants. If he wants to be a homosexual, that's fine. But to propagate his interpretations, and to tell other people that Islam is accepting of it, is wrong.”

Bilal said people who choose to follow a religion cannot pick only certain parts of it to observe.

“If you choose to live your life by a religion, then you can’t pick and choose what you want from that religion,” he said.

Event attendee Fares Akremi said he agreed with most of the information Alam presented.

“For the most part, the thoughts that were shared had already occurred to me,” he said. “But it was good to hear them coming from somebody else’s mouth.”

Josephine Butler, a graduate student in religious studies, said she had never heard of Al-Fatiha before Tuesday’s presentation. She said the most interesting part of the presentation was learning about how the Quran has been interpreted in different ways over time.

“It’s interesting how basically one person’s interpretation can lay the foundation for how they’re going to practice their religion, and how different that interpretation can be,” she said.