It’s all well and good for Hafsa Qureshi to laugh off the abuse she gets from other Muslims, but she is also in danger:
“As for those of your women who are guilty of lewdness, call to witness four of you against them. And if they testify, then confine them to their houses until death takes them, or Allah finds another way for them.” (Qur’an 4:15)
Allah prescribes home imprisonment until death for women found guilty of “lewdness,” most commonly understood in this context as adultery as well as homosexual activity, on the testimony of four witnesses. According to Islamic law, these four witnesses must be male Muslims; women’s testimony is inadmissible in cases of a sexual nature, even in rape cases in which she is the victim. This penalty has been abrogated and revised, as is provided for in the verse itself when it says “confine them to their houses until death takes them, or Allah finds another way for them.” This explanation is attributed to Ibn Abbas: “The early ruling was confinement, until Allah sent down Surat An-Nur (sura 24) which abrogated that ruling with the ruling of flogging (for fornication) or stoning to death (for adultery).” If a woman is found guilty of adultery, she is to be stoned to death; if she is found guilty of fornication, she gets one hundred lashes (cf. 24:2).
“People spew hate at me for being an LGBT Muslim – but I know they don’t represent my community,” by Nathan Clarke, Birmingham Mail, April 13, 2023:
“I find the hate quite funny to be honest,” says Hafsa Qureshi. As a loud and proud queer person of faith, Hafsa has developed thick skin to the daily barrage of abuse she receives from fellow Muslims on social media, simply for being herself.
“I find it so bizarre that people get so wound up,” she says laughing. “People tell me I’m going to hell or accuse me of trying to change Islam – but I’m literally just one person from Birmingham, I have no power!”
Over the years, Hafsa has learnt that the best way of dealing with the abuse is to just laugh it off – but she says she worries about what impact hate like this has on other LGBTQ+ Muslims who are too afraid to come out. “Thankfully the vast majority of people are fine and supportive of who I am – but that minority is so loud,” she says.
“It worries that LGBT Muslims are going to see the hate I get and think that they’re not welcome in this world – many queer Muslims have told me they’ve thought about taking their own lives, it really scares me.”
Hafsa first came out as bisexual to her sister at the age of 11 – and came out publicly to colleagues whilst working at the Ministry of Justice in Birmingham. She now works at Stonewall UK working to raise visibility and awareness for her community….
“I consider myself a religious person, despite what a lot of people think,” she says. “People on social media will often tell me that I’m a sinner and that I’m going to hell because of how I live my life – but I know that they do not represent my community.
“Most Muslims I know love and support me – they might not march with us at Pride but they accept who I am, which is so important. The way I look at religion, in Islam we say we are ‘one’ people – and it’s not a true community without all it’s members, including queer Muslims.
“I don’t think someone is worth less than me because they do things differently. In my opinion, Islam is all about bringing people in – and so many people showed me love and care when I first came out, but I worry people see the hate and think all Muslims are like that.”…
“I want more people to understand that there are a lot of people out there in the world,” she says. “Some of us are queer, some of us aren’t, some of us are Muslim, some of us aren’t – but some of us are both.
“There are so many LGBTQ+ Muslims out there – there’s a whole community of us. Everyone has a right to their own opinion, but if you spew hate at me publicly that’s just going to make all of us look bad.
“I’m a religious person and I’m also queer – that’s just who I am.”…
Uma Maheswar says
Hope Hafsa Qureshi is protected and safe
tim gallagher says
What a weird mentality this woman must have to remain a Muslim and gay when islam, her religion, says that people such as her should be killed. She should ditch islam, but then again, islam also says that people who leave islam should be killed. What an evil load of garbage islam is. It always has murdering people on its mind. That and raping people. Nothing but endless hatred and evil – that’s the content of islam. A totally inhumane religious ideology with an extremely vicious concept of god at its centre..
somehistory says
Tim, what you say is all too true. As I believe that satan is behind the whole thing, there is no way out unless one comes near to satan’s enemy. God can, and will, conquer it.
tim gallagher says
Yes, somehistory, evil and extremely violent is a good description of islam. The idea of a religion which is always calling for people to be murdered for various reasons is sickening. Other religions leave it up to God to judge people but islam, maybe to satisfy the evil members of the religion, always seems to be calling on its members to murder people who, according to islam’s barbaric rules, don’t behave well enough. I can find nothing good in islam although I do meet some Muslims who seem reasonably pleasant despite being members of islam.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Somehow, I can’t tell which part of her is more revulsive – her being queer or her being a muslimah. But her claim of being religious – at least in the islamic sense – is pure hogwash. Let her take a trip to Pakistan and find out how well her claims of being ‘religious’ is digested back home
somehistory says
She “worships” the idea of who she is. She knows, as a mozlum, that she can’t be what she claims to be and continue living, living as a devout mozlum, and that’s why she pretends that there is a whole community of people like her. that other mozlums are like her. queer and otherwise, just like her.
gravenimage says
UK: ‘There are so many LGBTQ+ Muslims out there…I’m a religious person and I’m also queer – that’s just who I am’
………………………………………
Unfortunately, “who she is” would get her thrown off a tall building in most of Dar-al-Islam.
Aum says
Joke – publicity seeker gaming the system to portray Islam as tolerant.
Sadly many will fall for it.
OLD GUY says
My guess she is not totally safe in the UK from islamic sharia attacks. Or she is being used to create the idea that Islam is peace and loving towards all. Anything else would be Islamophobia.
Glen says
Sher calls herself a Muslim as well as being LBGTQ+ without understanding that she is saying that she does not care what Allah says, she is who she is. She does not define Islam, as does no individual Muslim, and according to Islam she is in contradiction to Allah’s demands placed upon all Muslims, so, in truth, she is no Muslim.
Mr Andi says
I have a feeling her girlfriend is a white Liberal infidel Lesbian.
Birmingham is a very muslim City so lets see how long it takes for some devout jihad arsehole to teach her about the ”religion” she seems to love so much… keep me posted..
SJ says
I had a boyfriend whose Jewish parents were born in Iraq. I was told some incredible stories about their life in Iraq, but for now will just tell you they were a very successful family and had to leave everything behind, and I mean Everything and sneak out of Iraq when Israel was born. They also went though a treacherous journey to get to Israel, with their six children. One thing that my boyfriends mother told me was that many Islamic men are gay, and the women are too. She said it might be due to their separation of gender.
So, one day in 2004, my hairdresser told me about a dating site called Adult Friend Finder. I went to that site, and it had all sections of sexual content broken down into groups, and countries of members too! I was shocked because it also had profiles of graphic pictures and descriptions of what the poster/member wanted.
So I starting looking at the breakdowns per nation. I found that the Islamic nations had the largest members of homosexuals than any other nations in the world. And you know who took first place? Saudi Arabia.
I’ve never been back to that site, and wonder what I’d find if I did.