Un Ramadan queer col mio vecchio Corano

Reflections* by Lamya H** published on the website of the quarterly Tanqeed (Pakistan) in December 2014, freely translated by Giacomo Tessaro

I come out of the bathroom and see her leafing through my Koran. We are doing theiftar [the evening breaking of the fast during the month of Ramadan, ed.] in my tiny New York apartment, just the two of us. The hard part is done – last minute cooking, the stress of food aromas during fasting hours, clearing the table – and now we're lounging on my sofa with a bowl of berries. I pop into the bathroom for no more than two minutes and, when I come out, there she is leafing through my Koran, the one I've had since high school, with its worn pages, its ears, its underlining and comments in pencil. Looking at that Koran is a bit like looking at what I was: the time when I was obsessed with the idea of ​​talking to God, when I repeated and underlined in yellow all the ʾadʿiyah [invocations, ndt]; the pages towards the end, with the surat [chapters, ndt] that I have memorized, more creased, more lived in; the underlined words, which I struggle to fully understand. The complicated progress of my faith.

I must be visibly nervous because he stops while he's turning the page.

“Do you mind if I take a look at it?”

“No, of course not” I find myself saying, because… well, because I really like her, this beautiful, brilliant woman who is here in my apartment and, of all things she could be doing, is leafing through my Koran.

At a certain point he stops. “What do the blue underlines mean?”

I hesitate to answer her. Islam for me is a completely personal thing and it has always been difficult to talk about it with those who know that I am queer and with those who do not have the same connection with the religion.

“Those are the ayat [verses] that told me something this year.”

He sits back on the couch and reads the blue-underlined verse he was looking at while I chew my nail while I wait. When she's finished she looks at me and a simple question escapes her: "Why?".

Well, it's a long story. The story of a group of queer Muslims who refuse to separate their identities this Ramadan. A group of queer Muslims tired of feeling out of place in the mosques of their cities, but also tired of feeling tired, tired of waiting for something to change.

It all started with an ambitious idea: let's create our own space, reading the Quran and breaking the fast every day. The technical details, however, proved difficult to address: where will we do all this in an intimate but also accessible way, in this city of great distances and small apartments? How will we find time in our already busy days? What will we do to eat? But the most difficult thing, of course, is how. How will we approach the Quran? How can we make space for the very varied relationships we have with faith, with the trauma represented, for some of us, by the more classic interpretations? How will we deal with this text and the voluminous amount of tafsir [interpretation, ndt] that none of us have studied in depth, centuries of exegesis that don't always have something to tell us? How will we read this text, which we have been taught to read through the readings of others?

Abbiamo finito per trarre ispirazione da un laboratorio chiamato “Queering the Quran” (Leggere il Corano con la lente queer) tenutosi al ritiro dei musulmani LGBTQ, a cui alcune di noi hanno partecipato. Il moderatore del laboratorio, un caro amico, fa notare come a volte ci facciamo un feticcio del contesto originale del Corano: forse che il contesto non può essere l’oggi? E se lo leggessimo attraverso una lente personale, una lente che presuppone che Dio parla a noi qui, in questo istante? Questo metodo non vuole svalutare la nostra esperienza vissuta, né l’interrelazione della cultura e del contesto con l’interpretazione del testo; riconosce che certi versetti sono usati in senso oppressivo, ma va oltre. E così leggiamo. Di solito non più di un versetto o due al giorno. Leggiamo ad alta voce le varie traduzioni in inglese, talvolta ascoltiamo la recitazione in arabo e poi ci fermiamo alcuni minuti per raccogliere le idee e scriviamo le nostre riflessioni prima di discuterne. Ci stupiamo. Leggiamo attentamente, analizziamo, raccontiamo storie. Diamo voce al nostro disagio, talvolta alla nostra paura. Ammiriamo la bellezza. Dopo mangiamo, parliamo delle nostre giornate, chiamiamo su Skype le persone che non possono essere con noi fisicamente. Giochiamo a mafia [gioco di società, n.d.t.], ci accompagniamo l’un l’altra all’ospedale. Diventiamo amiche e creiamo una nostra famiglia.

As we build intimacy and trust we increasingly refuse to gloss over difficult verses. During a iftar towards the end of Ramadan the doubt about which verse to read hovers in the room and the silence becomes longer than usual, so I come out with aayah which has always caused me problems: “Your wives are like a field to you. Come to your camp as you wish, but be prepared; fear Allah and know that you will meet Him. Give the good news to the believers!” (2:223). This verse is considered more or less misogynistic depending on the translations. We fall into a dark silence. This verse weighs on us.

Little by little the answers arrive. The historical context, one of the friends says cautiously, which eloquently describes our tendency to put our experience of the world at the center of everything, that that verse could have meant something different in the particular time and context in which it was revealed, that it could have been revolutionary compared to the way women were treated before.

Someone disputes: “But the Quran tells us that it is universal with respect to space and time. What do we do with your interpretation?”.

“And what about the concrete ways this verse is used to justify violence against women?”

“A verse does not necessarily have something to say to everyone and in every age. In all our daily experience we take and choose what has something to tell us; why not apply this filter to religious experience?”

And then a quiet voice: “And what to do in those days when these justifications are not enough?”.

The question silences us, blocks us. A few minutes and someone says, wait a bit. Why do we want to sexualize this verse? Do we want to combine the cliché of sowing the seed with the metaphor of the field? Is this camp perhaps a place to cultivate emotions rather than the sexual act? What if God was telling us to think of our relationships as fields, as something that requires our effort to provide emotional nourishment and growth? The sound ofadhan [the call to prayer, ndt] comes out of a cell phone. It's a comforting explanation to fixate on, a good way to end.

I say all this to this woman, here in my apartment, who is leafing through my Koran. This is the context in which I came into contact withayah underlined in blue that you just read. I tell her how, the next day, I turned on my iPod during work to avoid the great tiredness of interacting with people while fasting. I started listening to the Quran to fill the void and by chance I came across this verse. This verse that leaves me speechless and breathless, which acknowledges the uncertainties inherent in interpretation, stands against literalism and reminds us to use our own judgment. An answer.

“He is the one who sent the Book down upon you. It contains explicit verses, which are the Mother of the Book, and others that lend themselves to different interpretations. Those who have disease in their hearts, who seek discord and [incorrect] interpretation, follow that which is allegorical, while only Allah knows its meaning. Those who are rooted in science say, “We believe: everything is from our Lord.” But the only ones who always remember this are those gifted with intellect.” (3:7)

I say all this to this woman who listens raptly, asks me nuanced questions and makes my heart full of clichés beat faster. It's a huge leap of faith. The most intimate thing I've ever done.

* The Quranic passages are taken from the UCOII version by Hamza Roberto Piccardo.

** Lamya H is a queer Muslim writer living in New York.

Original text: A Very Queer Ramadan