Jihad for Love: Leap of faith for gay Muslims

While there is much to admire among the subjects of A Jihad for Love, the film itself is a low-grade production that risks losing the viewer with an unimaginative sequence of talking heads.

Sometimes we don't even get that: the faces of the queer Muslims interviewed in this documentary about homosexuality and Islam are often smudged out, to protect them and their families.

Born and raised in India, gay Muslim director Parvez Sharma is a journalist who has worked for the BBC and The Telegraph. He obtained much of his footage for this film surreptitiously, especially in countries such as Iran where homosexuality is a crime punishable by death.

It would be one thing if the gay men and lesbian women that Sharma interviews were content to lead secular lives, but the sting comes in their devotion to their faith.

As much as they might wish to proclaim the love that dare not speak its name, these Indians, Iranians, Pakistanis and Egyptians more fervently wish to reconcile their love of Allah with same-sex preferences.

Muhsin Hendricks, who lives in Cape Town, is a particularly poignant example. He comes from a long line of Islamic scholars. "I was virtually born in a mosque," he says. Aware of his own nature from an early age, he asks God why he had to be this way.

He goes to Pakistan and marries, has three children, then takes the bold step of coming out. As an openly gay Imam, he engages those in his orthodox Muslim community, urging them to see that the Qu'ran has no injunctions against same-sex love.

In Cairo, Sharma finds Mazen, who was raped and tortured in prison following a raid on a gay club. "God has given me patience," he says, from his refuge in Paris.

A happier story is told about Ferda, a Sufi lesbian in Istanbul, and her girlfriend, Kiymet. The camera follows them on a visit to Ferda's mother, who affectionately embraces her daughter's partner.

  Jihad for Love: Leap of faith for gay Muslims
Toronto Star,  Canada