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The Al-Fatiha Foundation was an organization which advanced the civil, political, and legal rights of LGBTQ+ Muslims. It was founded in 1997 by Faisal Alam, a Pakistani American LGBTQ+ rights activist, and was registered as a nonprofit organization in the United States until 2011. [1]
Alam founded Al-Fatiha in November 1997. The organization grew out of an internet listserve for questioning Muslims from 25 countries, and by October 1998 had developed numerous in-person chapters. [2] [3] At its height, Al-Fatiha had 14 chapters in the United States, as well as offices in England, Canada, Spain, Turkey, and South Africa.
The name "Al-Fatiha" means "the Opening." It is also the name of the first chapter of the Qur'an. In the beginning of that chapter ('surah'), God is described as compassionate and merciful; the organization's founders believe that these attributes characterize Islam, rather than hatred and homophobia. [4] Each year, Al-Fatiha hosted an international membership retreat and conference. [3] Early conferences took place in Boston, New York, London and San Francisco in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and focused on issues such as the reconciliation of religion and sexual orientation. [2] [5] The last Al-Fatiha conference was held in 2005 in Atlanta, Georgia.
In 2001, Al-Muhajiroun, an international organization seeking the establishment of a global Islamic caliphate, issued a fatwa declaring that all members of Al-Fatiha were murtadd , or apostates, and condemning them to death. Because of the threat and coming from conservative societies, many members of the foundation's site still prefer to be anonymous so as to protect their identity while continuing a tradition of secrecy. [6]
While Al-Fatiha worked to combat homophobia within Muslim communities, it also felt it faced the challenge of seeking to avoid provoking an Islamophobic reaction among non-Muslims. [4]
After the organization's founder, Faisal Alam, stepped down, subsequent leaders failed to sustain the organization. It began a process of legal dissolution in 2011. [7]
Within the Muslim world, sentiment towards LGBT people varies and has varied between societies and individual Muslims, but is contemporarily quite negative. While colloquial, and in many cases, de facto official acceptance of at least some homosexual behavior was commonplace in pre-modern periods, later developments, starting from the 19th-century, have created a generally hostile environment for LGBT people. Most Muslim-majority countries have opposed moves to advance LGBT rights and recognition at the United Nations (UN), including within the UN General Assembly and the UN Human Rights Council.
Faisal Alam is a gay Pakistani American man who founded the Al-Fatiha Foundation, an organization dedicated to advancing the cause of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Muslims.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan face severe challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Afghan members of the LGBT community are forced to keep their gender identity and sexual orientation secret, in fear of violence and the death penalty. The religious nature of the country has limited any opportunity for public discussion, with any mention of homosexuality and related terms deemed taboo.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people face widespread prosecution in Egypt.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people living in Lebanon may face discrimination and legal difficulties not experienced by non-LGBT residents, although they have more freedom than in other parts of the Arab world. Various courts have ruled that Article 534 of the Lebanese Penal Code, which prohibits having sexual relations that "contradict the laws of nature", should not be used to arrest LGBT people. Nonetheless, the law is still being used to harass and persecute LGBT people through occasional police arrests, in which detainees are sometimes subject to intrusive physical examinations.
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred or antipathy, may be based on irrational fear and may sometimes be related to religious beliefs.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT)-affirming religious groups are religious groups that welcome LGBT people as their members, do not consider homosexuality as a sin or negative, and affirm LGBT rights and relationships. They include entire religious denominations, as well as individual congregations and places of worship. Some groups are mainly composed of non-LGBT members and they also have specific programs to welcome LGBT people into them, while other groups are mainly composed of LGBT members.
Homosexuality in the Palestinian territories is considered a taboo subject; LGBT people experience persecution and violence. There is a significant legal divide between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the former having more progressive laws and the latter having more conservative laws. Shortly after the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank in 1950, same-sex acts were decriminalized across the territory with the adoption of the Jordanian Penal Code of 1951. In the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and under Hamas's rule, however, no such initiative was implemented.
The relationship between religion and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people can vary greatly across time and place, within and between different religions and sects, and regarding different forms of homosexuality, bisexuality, non-binary, and transgender identities. More generally, the relationship between religion and sexuality ranges widely among and within them, from giving sex and sexuality a rather negative connotation to believing that sex is the highest expression of the divine.
Queer Cyprus Association is an LGBTQ rights organisation in Northern Cyprus aimed to deal with criminal law amendments of TRNC which criminalises same-sex relationships. They seek equal human rights including to "fully decriminalize homosexuality, equalize the age of consent and better protect LGBTQ people under the law.”
Daayiee Abdullah is an American Imam based in Washington, D.C. Abdullah is said to be one of five openly gay Imams in the world. Abdullah was a member of and spiritual advisor of the Al-Fatiha Foundation until it closed in 2011. As a Muslim leader, Abdullah's homosexuality has caused controversy due to the traditionally upheld beliefs about male homosexuality in Islam.
Historically speaking, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people have not been given equal treatment and rights by both governmental actions and society's general opinion. Much of the intolerance for LGBT individuals come from lack of education around the LGBT community, and contributes to the stigma that results in same-sex marriage being legal in few countries (31) and persistence of discrimination, such as in the workplace.
The Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD), founded in 2013, is an American support and advocacy organization for LGBTQ Muslims.
LGBT migration is the movement of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender(LGBT) people around the world and domestically, often to escape discrimination or ill treatment due to their sexuality. Globally, many LGBT people attempt to leave discriminatory regions in search of more tolerant ones.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people generally have limited or highly restrictive rights in most parts of the Middle East, and are open to hostility in others. Sex between men is illegal in 9 of the 18 countries that make up the region. It is punishable by death in five of these 18 countries. The rights and freedoms of LGBT citizens are strongly influenced by the prevailing cultural traditions and religious mores of people living in the region – particularly Islam.
Tynan Power is a progressive Muslim activist who advocates for gender equality and transgender rights in Muslim communities.
The following outline offers an overview and guide to LGBT topics.
The National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA) is an American federation of Asian American, South Asian, Southeast Asian. and Pacific Islander LGBTQ organizations. NQAPIA was formed in 2007, as an outgrowth of the LGBT APA Roundtable working groups at the 2005 National Gay Lesbian Task Force Creating Change Conference in Oakland, California. NQAPIA seeks to build the capacity of local LGBT AAPI organizations, invigorate grassroots organizing, develop leadership, and challenge homophobia, racism, and anti-immigrant bias. The organization "focuses on grass-roots organizing and leadership development."
Homonationalism is often seen as the favorable association between a nationalist ideology and LGBT people or their rights, but is further described as a systematic oppression of queer, racialized, and sexualized groups in an attempt to support neoliberal structures and ideals. The term was originally proposed by the researcher in gender studies Jasbir K. Puar in 2007 to refer to the processes by which neoliberal and capitalist power structures line up with the claims of the LGBT community in order to justify racist, xenophobic and aporophobic positions, especially against Muslims, basing them on prejudices that immigrants are homophobic and that Western society is egalitarian. Thus, sexual diversity and LGBT rights are used to sustain political stances against immigration, becoming increasingly common among far-right parties. In Terrorist Assemblages, Puar describes homonationalism as a "form of sexual exceptionalism [dependent on the] segregation and disqualification of racial and sexual others" from the dominant image of a particular society, most often discussed within an American framework.
