CAPE TOWN, South Africa (RNS) — The journalist in me habitually writes of the death on Saturday (Feb. 15) of Imam Muhsin Hendricks, “A motive has now not been positive.” Nonetheless Muhsin, a buddy and colleague, had suggested me about the death threats. They began when he got here out as homosexual in 1996. They ended on Saturday morning when he change into once murdered in Gqeberha, the passe Port Elizabeth, in South Africa.
My social media circulation is flooded with shock, hassle, anger and demands for justice. The comments are peppered with violent homophobia, but Muhsin rarely ever dwelled on the loathe. His WhatsApp position serene reads, “BE the LOVE you esteem to bag.”
For these of us he worked with, Muhsin remains that worship.
I first interviewed him in 2016 for an RNS epic, “Queer Muslims bag solace and cohesion at South Africa retreat.” Each time my human rights journalistic organization, Taboom Media, hosted a reporting workshop in Cape Town, Muhsin would bring his intensive slides and discuss overtly and passionately with journalists about sexual and gender differ in Islam.
Jacqui Benson-Mabombo change into once such a journalists. A Jewish community chief and co-founding father of the Queer Faith Collective in Cape Town, Benson-Mabombo and Muhsin grew to vary into chums, colleagues and gymnasium buddies. Muhsin officiated their wedding in 2022. “After the Oct. 7, 2023, [attack on Israel], I had considerations about showing up as a Jewish particular person within the unfamiliar activist dwelling,” Benson-Mabombo remembered this week. “Muhsin stated: ‘Don’t danger. I’ll stand with you. I’ll wear a yarmulke. Glorious approach. I’ve got your assist.’”
Muhsin had everyone’s assist. After popping out, he devoted his lifestyles to serving to other LGBTQI+ Muslims reconcile their faith and unfamiliar identities. In his garage, then in mosques, then online, he built safe areas the attach unfamiliar Muslims had been free to be their entire selves. His Masjidul Umam change into once never “the homosexual mosque” — the Of us’s Mosque change into once launch to all. His acceptance grew to vary into self-acceptance. Most importantly, Muhsin’s work saved lives.
Most headlines call him the “world’s first overtly homosexual imam,” a newsworthy descriptor but rarely the entire epic. Past Muhsin’s work with unfamiliar Muslims, he change into once a pillar of unfamiliar rights activism and the unfamiliar interfaith circulation globally. He change into once a father, a grandfather and a buddy.
Marlow Valentine and Muhsin met within the mid-Nineties at the Glorious Hope Metropolitan Community Church (then called Delighted Christian Community), an inclusive congregation in Cape Town the attach Valentine later served as pastor. “Muhsin held dwelling for other unfamiliar folks, now not excellent Muslims. He spread out his dwelling, his organization, and his coronary heart to direct to folks very loudly and clearly, ‘You are loved, you are licensed, and I’m here for you,’” he stated.
Valentine is now this system manager at Inclusive and Affirming Ministries, a South African human rights organization that works to conquer queerphobia in Christian and interfaith areas. He change into once planning contemporary work with Muhsin excellent closing month. “Muhsin change into once the embodiment of the fight, of nameless and faceless unfamiliar Muslims who couldn’t be as brave and out as he change into once. Now, who steps in and takes that world stage?” Valentine asked.
It’s a question on everyone’s solutions.
“He’s left huge shoes to fill,” Benson-Mabombo stated. “I’m timid that if somebody or somebodies don’t step in to fill these shoes, Muslims who haven’t been in a plan to approach assist out, who haven’t had a Muhsin in their lifestyles, would be caught in closeted areas and constrained.”
Ishmael Bahati, a unfamiliar Muslim activist in Kenya and member of the Global Interfaith Community for Of us of All Sexes, Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities and Expressions, change into once Mushin’s pupil for 15 years. “I stare Muhsin in all my work,” Bahati stated. “I’ll the administrative center, I stare Muhsin. I’m going assemble fieldwork, I stare Muhsin. I’m a product of Imam Muhsin.”
Bahati stated Muhsin’s execute has sent shock waves through his unfamiliar Muslim networks, every in East Africa and former. “If Imam Muhsin also can additionally be murdered in South Africa the attach licensed guidelines against discrimination exist, what does that mean for these of us in worldwide locations the attach queerness is criminalized? And for our allies. Are we safe? We’re all wondering who will address this work, who will champion the rights of unfamiliar folks in spiritual areas,” he stated.
Ani Zonneveld, founder and president of Muslims for Innovative Values in Los Angeles, suggested me: “Muhsin change into once this form of blinding soul, and he certainly lived his loyal self. The theology of loathe is now not benign. … It’s the antithesis of the teachings of the Quran – of worship and compassion. I’d love to search these imams who preach loathe charged with loathe speech.”
In 2022, the South African Muslim Judicial Council issued a fatwa that condemned homosexuality. Muhsin warned it would incite hatred against unfamiliar folks. After his execute, the MJC issued an announcement that read, in fragment, “Whereas the MJC has consistently maintained that Muhsin’s express is incompatible with Islamic teachings, we unequivocally condemn his execute and any acts of violence focusing on contributors of the LGBTQ community or every other community.”
Final twelve months South Africa enacted a laws that makes loathe crimes and loathe speech jailable criminal offenses. Whereas the country’s structure and licensed guidelines provide steady protections for gender and sexual minorities, spiritual and social hostilities persist. South Africa has one of many absolute top execute charges on this planet, extra than seven events that of the U.S., and native rights groups continue to doc cases of folks killed for being unfamiliar.
“Muhsin’s execute is a message now not excellent to the unfamiliar Muslim community but to anybody who steps exterior the parameters of patriarchal fundamentalist understandings of faith and religion,” Valentine stated. “Anyone who doesn’t notice that line, your lifestyles is a target, you fill a target for your assist.”
Muhsin continually knew he change into once a target. He talks about it at length in “The Radical,” a 2022 documentary about his lifestyles and work. “The must be loyal change into once greater than the phobia to die,” he says within the film, of his decision to approach assist out.
Could well additionally serene the phobia ever change into reality, his cousin Moegsien remembers Muhsin telling him: “Don’t danger about these folks who pulled the space off. Pray for them. We must bag worship and compassion.”
Acknowledged Valentine: “The difficulty for us who walked alongside Muhsin is to make certain his whisper is now not silenced, his work is now not stopped, and his legacy is now not eroded or invisibilized. We must continue to direct Muhsin’s name.”
(Brian Pellot is a journalist primarily based in Cape Town, South Africa, and the co-founding director of Taboom Media, which works to toughen moral media protection of taboo human rights topics. The views expressed on this commentary assemble now not basically mirror these of RNS.)
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