It seems that there is at least one Muslim clergyman out there willing to break ranks with Islam’s unfavorable view of gay people.
According to Al Arabiya, a gay Mauritian imam named Jamal presided over the marriage of Ludovic Mohamed Zahed, a French man of Algerian origin, (on right in photo at right) and Qiyam al-Din (left) in Din’s native South Africa earlier this year.
Furthermore, Zahed says Jamal introduced him to his new life partner at a conference on AIDS in South Africa a few months earlier.
Zahed tells France 24 TV of how he met his new partner through the gay imam:
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“I was in the lecture hall when an imam, who incidentally is gay himself, introduced me to Din. We discovered we had a lot in common and a mutual admiration was cemented. I stayed on after the convention for two months, deciding to get married, since South African laws were more friendly [to same sex unions]…
“Being married in front of my family, was like a new start of life for me, I could have never imagined such a day would come, seeing the joy in my parents’ eyes after they had battled with my sexuality and tried with all their might to change the course of my sexual orientation.”
Zahed and Din returned to France recently, but have been having trouble getting their marriage recognized by the French government. Continues Al Arabiya:
Zahed wants to pursue his doctoral studies in Islam and homosexuality and he also heads an organization that researches issues relating to Islam and homosexuality. He said his absolute priority is to get a legal permit for his new spouse to stay and work in France.
The couple does not intend to travel to an Arab or Muslim nation for fear of being discriminated against. “We want to stay in France, because my husband really likes this country. However, if it becomes impossible for him to stay, we will return to South Africa to live.”
What an amazing, inspiring story. Zahed and Din can hold out hope that Francois Hollande will beat Nicolas Sarkozy in the upcoming French presidential election. Hollande has stated he will push the legalization of gay marriage as a priority in 2013.
Photo via Facebook
Cam
Great news! Congrats to the couple!
Tackle
That was brave for the Muslim clergyman to preside over the marriage of a gay couple.
They seem very determine to make their relationship work, and I wish them well.
Ok, ok
Beautiful couple, and hardly any comments. Surprised?
Belize
JayKay, my lover, would like you all to know that since the marriage was blessed by an imam, it should not be taken seriously because the only real religion that should be followed in the world is Christianity. He would also like you all to know that this is obviously a Muslim ploy to get liberal queens to support “muslimism” in order to give way to more terror attacks. He would like you all to know that he believes this because he is a smart, handsome and obviously superior homosexual because he’s conservative and he is smart enough to marry women in order to not get bashed.
DB
Wonderful news, although it will be better once same-sex Muslim marriages can occur more commonly in Muslim countries and are being performed by both heterosexual and gay imams. Note that this wedding was performed in a Protestant country (South Africa) by an imam from a Hindu country (Mauritius) between grooms from a Catholic (France) and a Protestant (S. Africa) country. Also, let’s pray France finally legalizes marriage equality and catches up in human rights to its neighbors Belgium and Spain.
VJ
@Ok, ok: Save it, bitch.
Fawkes
@Ok, ok: I was going to comment on what a beautiful couple they are, but your little whimpering rant pissed me off, so I’ll refrain.
indiancowboy
Sounds great! I hate to be a bit inquisitive though. I mean it’s not the first time I’ve heard about such an imam, there is supposed to be one in North America somewhere and one in South Africa. It isn’t the latter one that is mentioned in the story? I find it hard to grasp that he could be Mauritanian as that country is one of the most repressive of all, one of the few with death penalty for gay sex. Can it this imam’s identity be verified?
indiancowboy
Sorry, when rereading it,I see that it says Mauritian and not Mauritanian, and that of course makes it different:-). I was probably reading too fast and paying more attention to the happy faces. It would have been more shocking news if the imam had been Mauritanian, but still great, of course. Congrats!
Ok, ok
@Fawkes: lol
shannon
I am NOT shocked there are no “nice ” responses…….they have nothing to complain about the Black one….LOLOL
Brand
God bless all three of them. It’s always inspiring to see spiritually authentic gay people making progress on reconnecting the world’s religious, cultural, and political institutions with their core tenets of love, peace, justice, liberty, and equality.
J
This is stupid.
I’m an ex-Muslim.In Islam homosexuality is wrong.So why did that imam blessed them?
People should stop expecting Islam and Christianity to accept gays.Homosexuality is a sin in those religions.
Gays should be abandoning those religions.
indiancowboy
@J: Religions can be worked on, they were after started by humans claiming to know all of God’s will, so why should we not be able to change their views on topics where they clearly are wrong? We are well on the way to change the views in the major Christian Church in my home country Norway, and it’s the case in many other Protestant churches in Europe and some in the US. In Norway the majority of bishops not only accept gays now, but support the right to marrige and that also married gays can be pastors.
Miriam
@Belize: Matrimonial terrorism. :^P
Brand
@J: The Protestant, Episcopalian, and Quaker religions in the U.S. all officially embrace not only gay congregants but gay clergy, even those sexually active in the context of a committed relationship. What you say is a common misperception about the modern practice of religion and a common misunderstanding of the major progress made over the course of religious history. There are plenty of things in the Bible equally frowned upon as homosexuality but no contemporary religious leader actually pays any attention to them. If Christian leaders all forced the Bible’s proscriptions literally upon their host countries, we would have a situation akin to the Sharia law we often hear American religious conservatives trying to scare us with, with perfectly decent people (mostly women, but children and men as well) being beaten, whipped, even stoned to death routinely in every city and town by Christians taking it upon themselves to follow a literal interpretation of Biblical instruction.
While one reaction to that might be “what Sodoms and Gommorahs we have become”, another is that there are things that are clearly immoral and antithetical to a spiritually authentic life, and there are other things that are anachronisms and failures of understanding. Eating shellfish, wearing clothes made of more than one type of fiber, mixing meat and dairy, working on the Sabbath (which is Saturday, by the way, and not Sunday) and a great many other arcane things are punishable by death. On the other hand, you’re allowed to own slaves, and the Bible tells you how much you’re allowed to punish or beat them, and for what infractions.
Gays should not be abandoning these religions, they should be joining in the examination and contemplation of them. They should also be examining their own lives. Too many gays of my acquaintance (and some straights as well) have more or less taken the view that, “as long as I’m ‘going to hell’ for A and B, why give any thought to morality at all?” And too many gays have felt that as long as they’re going to be excluded from the healthy maturation of self actualization, of enduring love and social acceptance, then they might as well indulge in the opposite. But the progress of society and the happiness of individuals depends upon some measure of obeying the law, of respecting the rights of others, and of respecting oneself. Religion is like a great many other things in that it is all too often bastardized by political self-interest and social hierarchy. Politics is not unlike it in that way, or art. But that doesn’t make us think we’re better off denouncing civilization and living in anarchy. They all do a lot of good, enough so that they are worth fighting the bad inherent in them to discover their deeper values.
“Faith, hope, and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love,” was the response when asked what the central, ultimate message Jesus Christ brought from God to His people. Really understanding what that means, and how we can embody faith, hope, and love in our own lives, and inspire these in others, is what religion in the Judeo-Christian tradition is truly all about—despite what travesties pious people make of it. If we all could really put that central message to work in our own lives, imagine what we could make of this world.
J Stratford
Finally, some movement within Islam to fight the homophobes.
Its one candle in the dark… but it is better to light just one little candle than to stumble in the dark.
Soon other points of light will join this, I hope.
Merlyn
Bless them. I wish them many happy years together.
J
@Brand: NO!
These Abrahamic religions claim to be from God.But seeing the bullshit in them proves that they’re not.So why are gays following them?
Of course they can be modified.But since these religions claim to be from god,changing them is just corrupting them.It makes them no longer the word of god.”God” said that homosexuality is wrong.So be it.
Don’t agree with it? LEAVE IT! And that is what every Christian,Muslim and Jewish homo should be doing!
Brand,you surely are a silly deluded Christian!