"What It’s Like to Grow Up as a Closeted Gay Extremist Muslim"

[FLPanhandle]

https://www.vice.com/read/gay-hardline-islamist-sohail-486



Sohail Ahmed, 23, was raised in a hardline Islamist household in London's East End. He was taught to despise his country of birth, all of Western culture, and everyone who wasn't Muslim. Conversely, he was gay and, at heart, a humanist, struggling for years with the intractable problem of holding the chauvinistic views of radical Islam, which were directly opposed to his nature.

On 9/11, my hatred crystallized into something solid and pure. I was nine.

My family is from Kashmir in Pakistan and they raised me, and four younger siblings, in East London. When I was six, they were befriended by another family in our tower block who swiftly turned them from pretty much apolitical into austere, harsh Salafi Islamists.

From then I saw the world through the prism of radical Islam, and every attempt to make sense of reality was analyzed through it. Life was a battle between good and evil, belief and unbelief. There was a huge contradiction between who I truly was and the odious, reactionary views I held. Always the internal voice saying, 'This is wrong,' while being so convinced of my beliefs that they ended up drowning out any semblance of reason.

Getting closer to Allah was always held up as the way to get rid of sinful thoughts, so I prayed more, became more "pious," grew out my beard, and fell further and further into revolutionary Islam.

At 16, my mind was so corrupted and hate-filled that I considered a bomb attack on Canary Wharf. Being attracted to an unspeakable atrocity was ultimately the expression of this huge self-destructive streak. I wanted to show my piety and zealousness to Allah, but was truly terrified of spending an eternity of conscious torment in fire for my sexuality. It's hard for secular people to understand how real Hell is to the devout. The threat of an everlasting inferno backlit all of my thoughts and behavior.

At university, the Islamic Society already had hardened members, and I became a key figure. We held prayer and study groups, turning Muslim pupils on to our noxious worldview. We'd host these incredibly poisonous speakers and present them as religious authorities. Once they're given that unchallenged platform, nobody questions them.

I began to listen to the doubts and internal nagging voice around 21. Looking into evolution, intellectual, and philosophical arguments against theism, and studying Enlightenment thinkers really opened up this whole door of reason. The mind-forged manacles of blind and dogmatic faith began to loosen. I swiftly abandoned the whole project of revolutionary Islam after the glaring fallacies and absurdities were illuminated by the warm glow of rationality and empiricism.

In a fiery argument with my parents I spat that Islam probably wasn't even true. They went through my internet history looking for atheist material, or whatever, and they found—well, other stuff.

My father said I was worse than a dog. He made me go through exorcisms to cast out the devils—djinns—that were obviously possessing me, and for two months I was exorcised every day. We even went to a "professional." The man couldn't look at me straight, like he thought I was immediately going to try to shag him if he made eye contact.

After two months of this pseudo-spiritual pantomime I tried to kill myself because it was so fucked up and distressing. The attempt failed, and I had to move out and leave the toxic surroundings, or I really would have died.

Paradoxically, when radical I was much more sexually involved with guys than after coming out. Because it was so wrong and forbidden it became something fetishized and thus enchanting and tempting.

I'd imagine some of the hardcore Islamists and preachers are gay. Sexuality is mixed up and connected to radical views in many different and dialectical ways. Look at all the married Evangelicals and Christian fundamentalists who get caught banging guys and still aggressively deny they're homos. It's exactly the same here, but just less talked about because it's so, so taboo in Muslim communities.

LGBT Muslims are one of the most silenced and fear-cowed minorities. There are many more than people think, but the penalties for saying you're a former or gay Muslim are severe. From social ostracism to violence and very believable threats of death, the cost of speaking out is extremely heavy.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

More at the link and well worth reading after Orlando.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

1. What a brave man to speak up.

I hope he stays safe.

[Prism]

2. Courageous. The denialists should read this

I fear for his safety for publishing his truth.

But anyone who thinks Islam isn't a problem needs to read this article. It isn't to say Islam has any kind of monopoly on hate and homophobia. Clearly not. But there are people bending over backwards to declare Islam had nothing to do with it - hell, there's an article on GD right now getting recs.

49 dead, and we still want to play these adolescent ideological games.

[closeupready]

3. But wait, amigo! Gays on DU are arguing gayness had nothing to do with Orlando.

Isn't that an adolescent mind game, as well?

Both his gayness and Islamic fundamentalism had something to do with his decision to commit mass murder - you can NOT separate those two factors.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. Anti gay bigotry had to do with his decision, no evidence exists that he was living as the guy in

the OP, not. His 'gayness' is not at all established. And it is the hate of any aspect of a person's being that causes suffering, not the aspect itself.

[closeupready]

5. It's established as far as I'm concerned, and for many people.

You can put on your blinders, but most see things clearly.

[LostOne4Ever]

6. The ease that those many people are willing to blame gay people for their own deaths

[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=#009999]based upon anonymous testimony and a lot of speculation (while ignoring that he had two wives, stalked women, and no-one has ever claimed to actually had a same-sex relationship with him) says a lot about who really has the blinders on.

/whisper
Psssh, It is not those of us rejecting the "self hating gay man" narrative.

Because, straight people can never be homophobic bigots. Any homophobe has to be gay themselves...

[/font]

[closeupready]

7. Lost in all this is I was responding to Prism, initially.

I like Prism; we've had occasions in the past to AgreeToDisagree, amicably.

I'm not really familiar with your history on DU, but I sense you simply want to pile on with the anger started by the other one. You and he have your views, I have mine, and that's that.

So I will not be responding further to either one of you on this thread.

[LostOne4Ever]

8. I simply want to kill this meme that all homophobes are self hating gays themselves. Later. nt

[closeupready]

10. Understood, and peace to you.

[markpkessinger]

11. Not this gay . . .

I spoke up last week about this: see http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027911554 .

[closeupready]

14. Yes indeed.

I remember that.

[Prism]

12. It's an understandable initial defensive reaction I don't know whether or not I share.

The problem being, heterosexuals latch on to the self-hating gay meme to absolve themselves of responsibility. There have been many incidents in the past where it was a given that a homophobic crime was clearly motivated solely by self-loathing, and that homophobia was somehow an intra-orientation problem. There are two types of gays when it comes to these things - the gay and the secretly gay.

So when the news broke, there were a lot of straight people declaring "Ah ha! I knew it" (and all that implies) before we were privy to any concrete facts or had any context on which the judge the shooter.

After all that I've read, I'm still kind of in the ambivalent camp of thought. On the one hand, you have the apps and the pass he ostensibly made at a classmate years ago. On the other, you have a lot of super misogynist behavior towards women you don't typically see in your garden variety closet case. Something was going on there.

So, there's a lot to ping around there. But we're all just trying to divine from scraps of information. The one missing piece for me is that we have yet to have any actual sexual partners materialize. Say what one will, but if you want a hook up on Grindr, you will find one. Especially in Central Florida. If he was on it as often as people claim, I'm sure he could've had encounters. So the question is, was he actually looking for sex, or was he casing the community? Was it frustrated sexuality or was this the nascent start to him thinking about getting violent against the community? I get someone might be ashamed to come forward with that info, but for all that smoke there has yet to be a confirmed fire.

None of this dismissing, of course, he might have been bisexual. I'm not sure we'll ever know.

But, I don't like the whole clear cut "Obviously a self-loathing closet case. Mystery solved!" This guy had a lot of complicated, interconnected issues to unpack. He was being radicalized by his religion, his father's a piece of work, he resented racist and xenophobic treatment of Muslims, and there was a potential struggle with his orientation.

We might just be seeing in him a perfect satanic brew that will result in answers no community will be particularly easy with.

[closeupready]

13. As always, you really do "think, for a change", and I credit you for that.

You make some really good points. It will be very interesting to hear what facts are uncovered by all the different investigations to come. I could be 100% wrong, who knows.

Cheers.

[Prism]

16. I wrote this response before the Univision interview

So I'm leaning more towards he was gay or bisexual. But, I have some doubts. Not necessarily about his orientation, but the source. It just feels so weirdly pat. "I'm going after Latino gays!" But, why case other random locations when Pulse was doing a Latino night? Like, if that was his motive, his target was absolutely perfect, and yet he was kind of shopping around for options according to the wife. I'm not sure I buy this.

I'll wait. I'll see. We'll get the story somehow. Gay apps and websites retain messages and mails even after profile deletion (I speak from experience).

But, yeah, I understand and even concede your original point. I guess I'm just too empathetic to the people reacting that way. They have their well-experienced reasons.

But the truth is the truth. As long as we marry ourselves to that, we can't steer wrong.

[smirkymonkey]

9. He is very brave to speak up. I admire his courage.

Above all the courage to question the ignorance of the beliefs he was raised with and to challenge them and choose life for himself.

[Albertoo]

15. Those who call criticism of literal Islam "islamophobia" are not commenting this testimony

I wonder why