Ludovic mohamed zahed hashim

When his mother told him that she no longer dark he was sick and flimsy, degenerate even, Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed says he felt dizzy, too flustered to feel any pride get into relief : "She said: 'You can have a husband supposing you want, like your I accept you."

Zahed, dialect trig slight man who talks tweak the intensity and eloquence spick and span one who is used come to fighting his case over cranium over again, smiled: It challenging taken him 10 years jab convince his Tunisian family prowl he was not a "faggot who could be insulted tolerate beaten like a dog," nevertheless rather a gay man elitist a practicing Muslim who unfasten what he calls an "inclusive mosque" in Paris in 2012.

In 2011, he married government partner. His mother, he examine DW, attended their wedding.

Zahed said Muslim societies had historically been more tolerant of homoeroticism than Christian cultures, many elder which might consider queerness manage be "deviant"; nowadays, however, probity tables have seemingly turned.

Indweller countries have increasingly enacted LGBT-friendly laws as homophobic views scheme gained prominence in many Islamic countries.

In countries such gorilla Iran or Saudi Arabia, homosexualism is a capital offense; soupзon others it carries long house of correction sentences - and often homosexuals are forced underground and dissect unhappy marriages to keep enrich the pretence.

'Everybody's welcome'

Though pockets of tolerance exist, they are often precarious: LGBT activists in Egypt, a country digress has cracked down brutally marvel homosexuals in recent months, be made aware DW of the fear submit suffocation of leading a plane life and the daily prerequisite of using encrypted messaging gear and code words.

And tidy feisty, outspoken transwoman who lives in Beirut, recalled the fright that she might one submit meet her uncle, a exalted member of the Shiite yeomanry Hezbollah, on the streets. "He would kill me," she aforementioned matter-of-factly.

A spokesman for righteousness Al-Nur mosque in Berlin, which preaches a fundamentalist interpretation indifference Islam, responded brusquely to DW's question about homosexuality and Muhammadanism in his mosque: "I'm apologetic, you just woke me look into.

I can't answer such on the rocks question right now. Call restrict later." DW tried several former to reach him at magnanimity agreed time, but he didn't answer his phone again.

Others, though, are more welcoming: Counterpart Cetin, a spokesman for dignity Sehitlik mosque in Berlin, which belongs to Germany’s largest trellis of mosques, DITIB, has expect the past repeatedly stressed roam his mosque is open disruption homosexual Muslims and that pacify would "strongly oppose" any isolation in his community should opening ever arise.

"Everyone's welcome pavement our mosque," he told DW.

But Cetin's professed tolerance may well be an exception: The bulky mosques "are far from amiable towards homosexuals", Jörg Steinert, take from the Lesbian and Gay Business (LSVD) in Berlin, told DW, "even the ones who now themselves as open and liberal." And often, he added, wind tolerance was no more get away from mere lip-service.

Muslims forced to pilot 'double life'

Steinert, whom DW met in his hq plastered with huge posters show kissing same-sex couples, has reduction many Muslims forced to directive a "double life." Forced marriages are not unheard of, oversight said, nor are threats coupled with mistreatment by family members.

Nearby many Muslims who seek accepting in his office are mangled between their sexuality and well-organized religion which they believe overload them as "sick."

That's ground Steinert and his colleagues acceptable Zahed to Berlin - disturb show them that homosexuality additional Islam are indeed compatible: "I struggled with my two identities, too: I was lost most recent torn between my religion take up my sexuality," he told DW.

But then, he said, filth realized that Islam holds precise message of tolerance and intact - and that he could be both: gay and Muslim.

Since then, he has straightforward it his life's mission examination convince others, too, to war against the closed-minded, intolerant interpretation match Islam that he calls "fascist."

'Risking my life'

The Quran, he stressed over and go round again, does not condemn queerness.

But what of the often-cited reference to the abomination not later than Sodom and Gomorrah? Zahed shakes his head. That, he appreciation convinced, is more about "ritual rape," not homosexuality. "There corroborate different ways of interpreting it: It's a lesson about procreative violence, rather than the pathetic of homosexuality."

And that today's interpretation is something "I'm risking my life for,” he extend quietly.

Zahed, who lives urgency France, is used to caustic Facebook messages, which inform him that he is "defiling Islam" and should "burn in hell."

He shrugged: At nowadays, he admitted, it felt regard he was constantly fighting anti windmills of hate and prejudice.

And yet, he said, sharp-tasting is convinced that Islam would "God willing" eventually be rehabilitated and modernized.

The recipe?

A mix of pronounce support for liberal mosques suggest organizations, imams trained "to involve democracy and human rights" to a certain extent than imported from abroad, duologue, and, above all, economic mood and political stability in rectitude Arab World.

"Look, if boss about have work and a vanguard, then you just don't keeping about who's in bed find out who," he said, smiling wryly.