Nur Warsame

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Nur Warsame is a gay imam from Australia. He is a hafiz, i.e. one who has memorised the Quran; he is the second Victorian imam to earn this title. [1]

Warsame was born in Somalia [2] and lived in Egypt and Canada as a child. He moved to Melbourne in Australia as a high school student, and has been an imam since 2003. [1]

Previously married to a woman and with one daughter, [2] Warsame came out as Australia's first gay imam in 2010, [3] and is the only gay imam in the country as of 2018. [4]

Since 2014, he has run the underground LGBT support group Marhaba ('welcome' in Arabic) [1] [5] and says he was ostracised by the Muslim community because of his sexual orientation, and intended to open Australia's first mosque which was open to the LGBT community. [3] [6] That year, he spoke at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. [7]

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Lattouf, Antoinette (28 April 2016). "The secret mosques opening their doors to gay Muslims". ABC News.
  2. 1 2 Abboud, Patrick (14 July 2016). "Meet Australia's first openly gay Imam". SBS News.
  3. 1 2 Polianskaya, Alina (10 January 2018). "A gay Imam hopes to open one of the first LGBT+ friendly mosques". The Independent.
  4. Glazzard, Jonathan; Bancroft, Kate (22 October 2018). Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Learners 11-18 Years. Critical Publishing. p. 95. ISBN   978-1-912508-15-0.
  5. Mohummadally, Alyena (24 September 2018). "Queer Muslims in Australia Yahoo! Group: A first in Australia". In Pallotta-Chiarolli, Maria (ed.). Living and Loving in Diversity: An anthology of Australian multicultural queer adventures. Wakefield Press. p. 319. ISBN   978-1-74305-595-3.
  6. Lattouf, Antoinette (9 January 2018). "Gay Imam hopes to open Australia's first LGBTI-friendly mosque". ABC News.
  7. Aslan, Alice (1 March 2018). "Muslim activists promote acceptance of queer Muslims". Green Left. No. 1171.