The Killing of the Gay Imam

While the law is progressive and supposedly protective, the social reality is vastly different for queer people in South Africa. Melanie Judge says that, despite Cape Town being the “gay capital of Africa,” the “violence against LGBTI people in South Africa is an effect of power that seeks to discipline, injure, and make suffer” people with queer sexualities. She observes that the nature of queerphobia manifests in discreet and obtuse ways, curtailing the potential of queer subjects and disregarding their dignity. Queerphobia manifests as physical violence against lesbians who are “correctively raped,” across the nation. As a form of cultural violence (Galtung 1990), queerphobia reveals its exclusivity as a structure of heteronormativity establishing an ideal sexual script for comportment, curtailing the agency of queer people (Dror 2006). This hegemonic script is a form of violence because it curtails the potential of queer bodies, reducing them to harsh somatic realities. Anti-queer cultural violence is often legitimated by religious forms. 

In the South African Muslim community, queer Muslims are understood by conservatives as deviant, and are sometimes violently othered by theological decree. The dominant clerical organization in the country, The Muslim Judicial Council (est. 1948), declared that queer sexual practices are forbidden under Islamic law. Any Muslim who argues the opposite is an apostate and needs to renew their faith. In November 2022, the MJC responded to the government’s proposal to include gender-neutral bathrooms, school uniforms, and codes in state-funded primary and secondary schools: 

"The reality for Muslims living in South Africa is that we to are a minority community, entrenched in our history of our country, and if we are not going to be vocal, if we are not going to put forward to our government our ideals and our religious observances, we will be left behind and will be subjugated to an unpleasant and untenable existence. The Muslim Judicial Council (SA) remains committed to the ideals of mainstream orthodox Islam. While we remain respectful of diversity of opinions, we deem this new trend of thrusting the LGBTQ narrative, liberalism, and postmodernity upon us, as a violation of our rights as Muslims and the rights of all other religious denominations." 

The MJC distances itself from the state’s proposal of inclusion, calling out the government for not protecting their liberties as a minority (supposed liberties to hate and control sexual minorities). According to its logic, if this act is made into law, Muslims will be subjected to an “unpleasant and untenable existence” simply because schools want to introduce gender-neutral bathrooms, uniforms, and behavioral codes. As the most powerful Muslim organization in South Africa, the MJC has reaffirmed its commitment to “mainstream orthodox Islam.” However, the MJC incorrectly leverages its reading of history and the discursive tradition as a lens through which Muslim praxis ought to be performed. The silence of tolerance works for Muslims who prefer to keep their sexual lives away from their religiosity (and public discourses about correct Islamic behavior). However, queer Muslims contend to break this silence and present an alternative way, living out their intersectional identities. 

Imam Muhsin Hendricks created safe spaces for queer Muslims. Coming from a family of religious leaders, teachers, and healers, he trained in traditional Islamic Sciences (law, scripture, theology, philosophy) at the University of Islamic Studies in Karachi, Pakistan from 1990-1994. Upon his return to Cape Town, he became an Arabic teacher and fashion designer. Throughout this, he struggled with his sexual identity. He tried to ‘heal’ himself from the supposed affliction of same-sex desire by performing various acts of worship, even marrying a woman, and fathering three children. After a difficult marriage, Imam Muhsin got divorced, went into seclusion (khalwa) on a farm, and engaged in some introspection, through fasting and praying for guidance. He returned to Muslim society and came out as a “gay imam.” Coming out of the closet is a confusing performance for religious subjects, largely signifying a confessional mode of sexuality that stands in contrast to the disciplinary norms of a sexual economy of silence (Segdewick 1990). Imam Musin describes his journey guided by a “compelling need to be authentic” (Gregory 2022). “I felt…I can’t say it was a dream or wahy [revelation] that I was getting or anything like that. It was just this overwhelming sense that I am okay with who I am now” (Gregory 2022). Imam Muhsin’s spiritual cultivation radiated outwards and gave him the strength and conviction to be public about his sexual identity (Hendricks 2020). 

He founded Al-Fiṭra (which later became The Inner Circle in 2006 and then Al-Ghurabā in 2018) in 1998 to provide support and community to people struggling to reconcile their faith and sexual identity by organizing a community for pastoral care (psycho-spiritual counseling, ritual community, performance of civil unions), public education (training for imams), archive-making, and coalition-building (Tofa 2014). The last time I spoke to Imam Muhsin, he told me he was going to invite me to the 2025 annual queer Muslim retreat, bringing together queer Muslim activists, academics, and allies from around the world. At the November 2024 retreat, we discussed the possibilities of cultivating a new Islamic ethics based on the experiences of queer Muslims. In the final section of this paper, I reflect on some of the ideas we cultivated at that retreat as a way of putting the late imam’s theological activism up for communal reflection.