Founder of Europe’s first inclusive mosque: “Being gay and Muslim is like trying to decide which arm to cut off”
Dr and Imam Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed has told the Evening Standard that being gay and Muslim is similar to “trying to decide whether to cut off one arm, or the other.”
The founder of Europe’s first inclusive mosque, in France, believes that being gay “is not sin” but states that the rejection of the LGBT community by Muslims is “modern and new in Islam.”
“It has to do with colonisation, complexes and the fact that Arab Muslim societies are in turmoil and are looking for very macho identities to push forward. But it has nothing to do with Islam as spirituality, because our tradition is much more peaceful in terms of dealing with sexuality and gender identity,” he says.
Zahed also added that reaction to him being a gay Imam and setting up an inclusive mosque have been surprisingly positive. “We had many people telling us we are dirtying up Islam, but we had many more people telling us ‘you are the true Islam’”.
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