a Jihad … for love

by Shahana Dattagupta

Jihad is a term floating around ubiquitously these days. In fact the “war on terror” has globally, and perhaps permanently, branded Jihad as the generic evil force against which the said war is being valiantly fought. As a gal raised in India, I have experienced the insidious fear of terrorist attacks and bomb-blasts in and around Delhi throughout my high school and college days in the late 80s through the early 90s, by “Muslim terrorist factions”. Of course the Mumbai serial blasts of March 1993 had rocked all our worlds. So, many years later, living in America in a climate of post-9/11, Osama’s fuzzy video threats, and incessant media chatter, my own understanding of Jihad has also been nebulously and conveniently packaged as a call for insurgence and violence against all non-believers in Islam.

Until just now.

When I saw that one of the films in this year’s ISAFF line-up was titled A Jihad for Love, I instantly felt that something was amiss, or at the very least incomplete, in my own understanding. A Jihad for Love ? Love ? Aren’t hatefulness and love completely opposite sentiments? How can there be a Jihad … for love…?

This sent me off to an apparent digression from the film itself. I was first determined to find out what Jihad really means. Yes, of course I could do internet searches … or I could become a scholar of Islamic texts at the lovely Seattle library. But since personal is political, I wondered, how do my closest (practicing or non-practicing) Muslim cohorts and movers-and-shakers in the Seattle community understand Jihad? What has Jihad meant to them in their personal lives? I started by asking a few of my courageous and beautiful Yoni ki Baat co-stars, several of whom are Muslim.

Says Sabina Ansari, Seattle-based writer and Chaya fundraising coordinator, (clarifying that she does not currently practice Islam and her understanding is based on teachers, not on firsthand scholarship of Islamic texts):

“There are two Jihads. One is the Jihad every Muslim has to face: the internal struggle to submit to Allah, the difficulty of letting go of the material and the physical in pursuit of a higher spiritual enlightenment and trust in the divine. (This meaning I like...) The other meaning is a holy war, classifiable as Jihad ONLY as self-defense, when being persecuted for your faith and belief in Allah and Islam, and there is no other choice but to defend yourself under threat. This meaning is the one that lends itself to distortion ... who defines "persecution" and "no other choice but”…?”

Says Sara Ahmed, Seattle-based activist, budding poet and a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community of Seattle:

Jihad in Islamic terminology means to make an effort, to endeavor and to strive in a noble way. Over the centuries this meaning of Jihad has been obliterated or at least diluted. This critical juncture in the Islamic world requires reviving and recapturing the true and pristine meaning of Jihad. Jihad can be divided into two broad categories. First is Jihad-e-akbar. This is Jihad against one's own person to curb sinful inclinations, i.e., purification of self. This is the most difficult Jihad and hence in terms of rewards and blessings is the highest category of Jihad. The second is Jihad-e-asghar. This is Jihad of the sword. This is communal Jihad and presupposes certain specific conditions. The Quran speaks of fighting only against those who first attack Muslims and this is the very condition laid down in other verses of the Holy Quran as well. The so-called verse of the sword in the Islamic scripture is often taken out of context as if it inculcates an indiscriminate massacre of all unbelievers.
(Personally) I relate more to the definition of Jihad, in the definition of Jihad-e-akbar (the greater Jihad) which is the Jihad against one's own struggles. We all strive for something; to me, self-improvement should be on the top of that list and THAT is the true definition of a Muslim. I feel like I've always had a struggle with defining my personal faith in the context of my community’s beliefs as well as in conformation with cultural traditions.

My eyes are opened, and I am grateful for having teachers in unexpected places. I now see how one can have a Jihad for love. Those struggling to reconcile their emotional and sexual desires of the physical realm with their higher, divine callings in the spiritual realm may be said to be fighting a Jihad for love. In the world of homosexuality, this Jihad becomes extremely difficult and painful, because same-sex love has been labeled sinful in Islam.

Made by gay Muslim filmmaker Pervez Sharma, A Jihad for Love is the world's first documentary on the coexistence of Islam and homosexuality (completing the third vertex of a triangle begun by the films For the Bible Tells me So and Trembling before G_d showing similar themes in Christianity and Judaism respectively). It is filmed in 12 countries and 9 languages, recording with great risk, courage and compassion, the hidden lives of gay and lesbian Muslims in countries like Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, France, India, and South Africa, in some of which the laws based on Quranic interpretations allow torture and even execution of homosexuals. But as the official description of the film says, “… the real-life characters of A Jihad for Love aren't willing to abandon a faith they cherish despite its flaws. Instead, they struggle to reconcile their ardent belief with the innate reality of their being. The international chorus of gay and lesbian Muslims brought together by A Jihad for Love doesn't seek to vilify or reject Islam, but rather negotiate a new relationship to it. In doing so, the film's extraordinary characters point the way for all Muslims to move beyond the hostile, war-torn present, toward a more hopeful future.”

Thus, the film A Jihad for Love portrays a valiant and noble internal struggle, and in doing so, seeks to reclaim the meaning of Jihad as personal struggle, and to obliterate its portrayal in the Western media almost exclusively to mean "holy war" synonymous with violent acts perpetrated by extremist Muslims. At ISAFF this year, filmmaker Pervez Sharma will be present for a post-film discussion. What a rare treat! Each one of us fights Jihads of our own, whether we are Muslim or not, gay or not. I hope the halls will be filled with people wanting to participate in the raising of consciousness bravely begun by this film and all its global voices.

Shahana Dattagupta is a Seattle-based architectural designer, visual artist, classical vocalist, stage actor and writer. She has written and performed in Tasveer’s production of Yoni ki Baat in 2007 and 2008.