Without taking away from your individuality, I know that many of the things you’ve said will resonate with many readers. And contrary to the reading that many people choose to impose on our writings here, we do NOT promote the idea that people should be “ashamed of themselves” and live a life of misery. Our simple point is to recognise what Allah allows and forbids, and thus control our desires – and to do this in a sustainable way, this also entails self-development to GUIDE those desires. And we advocate the positive outlook that you’ve explained, in that this test (of SSA) can have many good effects in this life if approached properly, and can result in great rewards in the Hereafter for patience and obedience to the Creator.

I think you’re very much on the right track in seeking male friendships (and Islamic brotherhood) to fulfil something in your life that’s missing. In fact, if you reflect on this deeply, you may realise that the lack of this may have a lot to do with the sexual feelings you’ve developed. On that basis, forming those friendships can have an effect in reducing the other feelings, if the element of “distance/mystery” is reduced. If coupled with getting married (if you’re confident you can do right by your wife), then this could be a sustainable way of living, as thwarting SSA altogether is an unlikely outcome for most people.

These are some general thoughts, though I’d encourage you to consider the support group at http://www.straightstruggle.com to share ideas and learn from other people’s experiences and perspectives.

I would like to start by saying this blog is essential –so glad people are talking about this. Although I have to say I wholly reject the idea of being judged or told to be patient by heterosexual Muslim scholars, but a lot of what is said here can be potentially useful I think. My situation is as follows. I am a Muslim American man in my early early 20s. I come from a well known wealthy Arab family that is entirely homophobic and completely anti gay. Ironically, I am the pride and joy of my family, In a very short while, I’ll have my PhD. In addition, I’m social, unusually attractive, intelligent, respectful, and I have a reputation for being honest and trustworthy. Being such, my entire family is constantly constantly dreaming of my wedding. I hear about it every day. Honestly, I want nothing more than to meet the Ideal woman and start a family. However, I am gay. I am not ashamed by this. Nobody knows because I’m very masculine and tend to have an aggressive personality; characteristics people associate with gays. I am very smooth with women as well so I’ve gotten kind of a reputation for being a heart breaker. To be honest, Ive spent all my life trying to be an Ideal, perhaps because I want to compensate for my weakness for the same sex. I hate the idea of being pitied; I prefer to be envied –I know this is very unIslamic. Anyhow, unlike many gay men who are in the closet. I don’t hate myself. In fact, quite the opposite, I can really say that I love myself. If I wasn’t gay, I wouldn’t be the same person that my family loves. I wouldn’t be doing all these amazing things with my life. Alhamdulilah, I do my best to never hurt anyone and to remain honorable. I have never had sex with a man. I’m more interested in love than I am sex. I can live without sex but not without love. I haven’t decided not to act on my homosexual feelings, but I have decided that if I do it will not be just because i’m horney (please forgive my vulgar language). As a disclaimer I must say i’m not 100% gay. I think I would be able to have sex with a woman. I have a very slight attraction to females, but my feelings for men are 10 times stronger. The reason I haven’t had sex with men is (1) I don’t want to deal with my family —I’m not ashamed of my sexuality –I was born this way, but I just don’t want to argue with ignorance (2) As mercy for my parents –they would be devastated, alot of people envy them and might find joy from identifying something (they believe) is shameful with my family (3) I am hoping allah will reward me for not acting on my gay feelings (and here I want to distinguish between merely not punishing me and rewarding me –denying yourself such natural satisfaction in my opinion is a form of jihad and finally (4) I haven’t been able to convince myself that my religion is wrong. I love everything about Islam except the prohibition on homosexual relations. I beleive that there are good reasons for it. I know it is the right thing to do. But I thing that Arab culture is distorting the message. The Imam of our masjid is an absolute idiot and hypocrite and I wouldn’t come to him for advise on how to tie my shoes let alone deal with a religious issue. So here is my question I want to build stronger relationships with men and I think this may be able to help fulfill my desires without sex. I don’t know how to do this. I am very distant with most men. If I am attracted to a guy, I stay away from him or I keep a very formal relationship with him. A lot of guys think I’m stuck up but really I’m just afraid of having a close relationship with a guy and being found out. Also, I find that a lot of men find me intimidating (something I am working on fixing). What can I do?
P.S. sorry for the mawal; I realize this is a very long story.

I got here by searching for Al-Fatiha (Muslims in support of LGBT).
I’m a straight non-muslim. I was expecting to find a page which tries to reconcile homosexuality and Islam, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Rather, you say the urge of homosexuality is not abnormal, and judge those who commit homosexual acts as sinners.

From your point of view you’re trying to help by giving them advice on how to keep God pleased so they can get into paradise. The individual’s current well-being is – from your point of view – is inferior to his well-being after this life.

From a humanist point of view I find this very wrong. I see someone in the comments going through counseling and feels miserable. To secure his current well-being (which is priority, since after-life-well-being presupposes the muslim faith is correct and is therefore not guaranteed) I would try to convince him that he is not a sinner – this is the core of the problem. What you are doing is not helping, it’s prolonging the suffering.

I say this because I empathize with people struggling between faith and sexual orientation.

Cheers