Bearing Witness for God and Dignity

On Saturday, 15 February 2025, Imam Muhsin Hendricks was murdered in Gqeberha under circumstances that appear deeply troubling. He had allegedly been invited to officiate an interfaith opposite-sex Islamic marriage – most likely because no other cleric in the vicinity was willing to solemnise a union between a Muslim woman and a non-Muslim man. While the full details of his killing are yet to emerge, available reports strongly suggest that this was no random act of violence, but rather a deliberate and targeted attack, one fuelled, it seems, by religiously infused homophobia. The matter is reported to be under current investigation. Across the world, messages of grief, shock, and profound appreciation have poured in, acknowledging his immense contributions to queer Muslim activism and the broader struggle for inclusivity within Islam.

I am in shock. Despite Muhsin’s consistent awareness of the dangers he faced due to his work and what he represented, I never imagined that he would be murdered in South Africa. I first met him around 2007 at a symposium on Muslim Cultures held at WISER, a research institute at Wits University. Invited to speak on Islam and queer Muslims, he began with humility, warning his audience that he was no academic and that his insights might seem unsophisticated to such an intellectual gathering. But there was no need for such modesty. What he offered was not a detached theoretical analysis but a visceral engagement with lived reality – a reality that millions of queer Muslims experience daily. His reflections, raw and profound, cut to the very core of the struggle for faith, dignity, and belonging. That day, and in the years that followed – through my interviews with him for a Master’s project on sexual diversity in Islam, and later at conferences his organisation hosted — my engagement with Muhsin and his work was productive.

Now is not the time for an exhaustive critical biographical account of his legacy, although that may come later. What matters is to recognise that his contribution to queer Muslim activism was significant. His work was guided by two unwavering commitments: the liberation of queer Muslims and the retention of a meaningful connection to Islamic tradition. He carved out a space of faith and community for those who had long been denied both – particularly for many from the most vulnerable segments of South African society – creating an inclusive Islamic home for the excluded and the exiled. In this, he did not merely live for his mission – he died for it. His devotion to a God who is inclusive, compassionate, and just never wavered. In that sense, he bore witness to a fundamental spiritual truth: that we are all God’s people. He who is the Most Merciful and Most Compassionate cannot be the homophobic deity that so many, in their limited understanding, ascribe to Him. In this way, Muhsin is a shahid – a witness – offering his life in testimony to an integral ontological and theological reality.

This is not the moment to debate the history of same-sex behaviours in Islam, nor to argue for their legitimacy. Those interested can find an overview assessment of these in my writings here [Link] and here [Link]. Instead, there are two urgent reflections I wish to share.

First, rarely does one commit physical violence as their first act of harm. Violence is cultivated in discourse long before it manifests in bloodshed. It is nurtured in the rhetoric of hate, in the disgust many harbour towards certain people, in the steady normalisation of exclusion. Clerics and communities alike must undertake serious self-examination. Religious legal proscriptions should never translate into social and cultural marginalisation, especially where it enables violence directed towards life. A Sufi saying, safar dar watan, speaks of the spiritual journey one must undertake in the wilderness of the self. What prejudices, what slurs, what silent complicities have led us here? What words and actions have rendered queer lives disposable, undeserving of dignity? This moral burden is not the killer’s alone – it belongs to all who have contributed to an environment where such an act becomes possible. And if there is indeed a Day of Judgment, then accountability will be demanded of us all.

Second, it is imperative to assert and protect the agency of queer Muslims. Islamicate history, in many ways, is a queer history – its poetry, art, and social customs bear ample testimony to this. But that is a conversation for another time. Today, queer Muslim efforts to claim space, to insist on dignity, and to reimagine their relationship with God mark a critical moment of theological reflection. This is a journey beyond the heterosexual frameworks that have traditionally shaped Islamic law and theology. It is, in essence, a process of theological queering, to use the terminology coined by Marcella Althaus-Reid; an intentional interrogation of the ways in which heteronormativity has structured our understanding of faith, God, and scripture. This work requires not just fortitude and sincerity but also a rigorous critique of the constructs we have been conditioned to accept as natural or divinely ordained. There is nothing inherently normal or inevitable about the heterosexual norms that define contemporary mainstream Muslim life today. Just as enormous intellectual and theological efforts have been made to legitimise capitalist financial models within Islam – despite its often tenuous relationship with Islamic ethics – so too have nuclear, monogamous marriages been established as the unquestioned ideal. Even those who vehemently oppose Islamic feminism cannot deny that it has indirectly expanded Muslim women’s access to education and agency.

The struggle for queer Muslim dignity is not merely a political one – it is a spiritual imperative. Muhsin Hendricks understood this. And in his unwavering commitment to a God of justice, mercy, and love, he bore witness to a truth that cannot be erased, not even by violence.

Finally, we must recognise that the very Constitution, in South Africa, that guarantees religious liberty and protects the rights of minority faith communities in this country also firmly and unequivocally safeguards queer existence. The conditions that enable religious diversity to flourish are the same conditions that enable queer life to thrive. There is no inherent duty to uphold the former while denying the latter. A just society does not allow freedom to be selectively applied, it demands that the dignity of all is respected, equally and without compromise.

إِنَّا ِلِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ

Indeed, we belong to Allah, and indeed, to Him we return.