Less than a week after the government announced the process for implementing religious civil partnerships, BBC Radio 5 Live are to broadcast an investigation into the growing numbers of gay Muslims seeking Islamic marriages.
Last week, the
Movement for Reform Judaism joined Liberal Judaism, the Quakers and
Unitarians in offering to host civil partnerships and calling for same
sex marriages.
One religious denomination that made no formal move
was Islam.
But, according to a BBC investigation, there are Muslim clerics who are willing to officiate at gay
weddings.
5 Live Investigates speaks to one couple who have had a ‘nikah’ – an Islamic marriage contract.
Asra, one half of the lesbian couple featured told the BBC how she got
together with her partner Sarah: “We met about three years ago, at an
iftar – a breaking of fast during Ramadan.
“I think a lot of Muslims find that time of year very spiritual and
very enlightening, and so I think that’s why our relationship developed,
because we spoke about our faith. Eventually we went on a date.”
“After the first date, which was about an hour, Sarah casually asked me to marry her.”
Sarah said: “I think it was more like four hours, after dinner,
coffee and walking. I didn’t really plan it, but it just really seemed
like the way it was between us, I should try and keep it as pure as
possible.
“That may sound strange being lesbians, but it felt like we should do it the most honourable way we could.”
The couple decided that they wanted to have a nikah, to cement their
relationship, that they were able to enter into without the help of an
official Imam, or Islamic cleric.
Unlike Jewish rabbis or Christian
priests and vicars, Imams are not ordained ministers in a formal sense.
“A few friends said you don’t really have to have an official Imam, but
you need someone who is knowledgeable enough about the Qur’an to do it,”
Sarah said. “Fortunately, one of our friends was, and she offered to do
it. She’s a lesbian herself, and she said we could do it in her home.”
Three months after they met, the pair signed their nikah and held a ceremony.
“We got rings from Camden market, and we drew up contracts – we got a
blueprint off the internet of a heterosexual contract and we both
looked at it separately,” Sarah expained.
“To see if there were things
we wanted to change. I remember I put about the dog – that if we broke
up, Asra wouldn’t steal the dog.”
The couple had a dowry of £5.
Asra’s parents are not accepting of her homosexuality. Sarah’s on the
other hand are, she says its because she wasn’t born a Muslim: “I
converted five years ago – I think my family is quite accepting of my
sexuality. But sometimes it seems like they are waiting for me to grow out of being a Muslim.”
In America, a gay Imam, Daayiee Abdullah has performed a number of
more fomal nikah ceremonies. He claims that denying gay Muslims a
religious union, is against Islamic law.
He told the BBC: “Since Islamic
legal precedence does not allow same sexes to wed, Muslim societies
make it a legal impossibility within Islam [but] by not allowing
same-sex couples to wed, there is a direct attack on the Koran’s message
that each person has a mate who is their ‘comfort and their cloak’.”
Sarah and Asra say that as a couple they face two types of
discrimination.
They face homophobia from the Islamic community, and
Islamaphobia from the gay community, something that Sarah says: “really
worries me”.