CAPE TOWN, South Africa (RNS) — The journalist in me habitually writes of the death on Saturday (Feb. 15) of Imam Muhsin Hendricks, “A motive has not been determined.” But Muhsin, a friend and colleague, had told me about the death threats. They began when he came out as gay in 1996. They ended on Saturday morning when he was murdered in Gqeberha, the former Port Elizabeth, in South Africa.
My social media stream is flooded with shock, grief, anger and demands for justice. The comments are peppered with violent homophobia, but Muhsin rarely dwelled on the hate. His WhatsApp status still reads, “BE the LOVE you wish to receive.”
For those of us he worked with, Muhsin remains that love.
I first interviewed him in 2016 for an RNS story, “Queer Muslims find solace and solidarity at South Africa retreat.” Every time my human rights journalistic organization, Taboom Media, hosted a reporting workshop in Cape Town, Muhsin would bring his extensive slides and speak openly and passionately with journalists about sexual and gender diversity in Islam.
Jacqui Benson-Mabombo was one of those journalists. A Jewish community leader and co-founder of the Queer Faith Collective in Cape Town, Benson-Mabombo and Muhsin became friends, colleagues and gym buddies. Muhsin officiated their wedding in 2022. “After the Oct. 7, 2023, [attack on Israel], I had concerns about showing up as a Jewish person in the queer activist space,” Benson-Mabombo remembered this week. “Muhsin said: ‘Don’t worry. I’ll stand with you. I’ll wear a yarmulke. Just come. I’ve got your back.’”
Muhsin had everyone’s back. After coming out, he devoted his life to helping other LGBTQI+ Muslims reconcile their faith and queer identities. In his garage, then in mosques, then online, he built safe spaces where queer Muslims were free to be their whole selves. His Masjidul Umam was never “the gay mosque” — the People’s Mosque was open to all. His acceptance became self-acceptance. Most importantly, Muhsin’s work saved lives.
Most headlines call him the “world’s first openly gay imam,” a newsworthy descriptor but hardly the whole story. Beyond Muhsin’s work with queer Muslims, he was a pillar of queer rights activism and the queer interfaith movement globally. He was a father, a grandfather and a friend.
Marlow Valentine and Muhsin met in the mid-1990s at the Good Hope Metropolitan Community Church (then called Gay Christian Community), an inclusive congregation in Cape Town where Valentine later served as pastor. “Muhsin held space for other queer people, not just Muslims. He opened up his home, his organization, and his heart to say to people very loudly and clearly, ‘You are loved, you are accepted, and I’m here for you,’” he said.
Valentine is now the program manager at Inclusive and Affirming Ministries, a South African human rights organization that works to overcome queerphobia in Christian and interfaith spaces. He was planning new work with Muhsin just last month. “Muhsin was the embodiment of the struggle, of nameless and faceless queer Muslims who couldn’t be as brave and out as he was. Now, who steps in and takes that global stage?” Valentine asked.
It’s a question on everyone’s mind.
“He’s left massive shoes to fill,” Benson-Mabombo said. “I’m scared that if somebody or somebodies don’t step in to fill those shoes, Muslims who haven’t been able to come out, who haven’t had a Muhsin in their life, may be stuck in closeted spaces and constrained.”
Ishmael Bahati, a queer Muslim activist in Kenya and member of the Global Interfaith Network for People of All Sexes, Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities and Expressions, was Mushin’s student for 15 years. “I see Muhsin in all my work,” Bahati said. “I go to the office, I see Muhsin. I go do fieldwork, I see Muhsin. I am a product of Imam Muhsin.”
Bahati said Muhsin’s murder has sent shock waves through his queer Muslim networks, both in East Africa and beyond. “If Imam Muhsin can be murdered in South Africa where laws against discrimination exist, what does that mean for those of us in countries where queerness is criminalized? And for our allies. Are we safe? We’re all wondering who will take up this work, who will champion the rights of queer people in religious spaces,” he said.
Ani Zonneveld, founder and president of Muslims for Progressive Values in Los Angeles, told me: “Muhsin was such a gentle soul, and he truly lived his authentic self. The theology of hate is never benign. … It is the antithesis of the teachings of the Quran – of love and compassion. I want to see these imams who preach hate charged with hate speech.”
In 2022, the South African Muslim Judicial Council issued a fatwa that condemned homosexuality. Muhsin warned it would incite hatred toward queer people. After his murder, the MJC issued a statement that read, in part, “While the MJC has consistently maintained that Muhsin’s position is incompatible with Islamic teachings, we unequivocally condemn his murder and any acts of violence targeting members of the LGBTQ community or any other community.”
Last year South Africa enacted a law that makes hate crimes and hate speech jailable criminal offenses. While the country’s constitution and laws provide strong protections for gender and sexual minorities, religious and social hostilities persist. South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world, more than seven times that of the U.S., and local rights groups continue to document cases of people killed for being queer.
“Muhsin’s murder is a message not just to the queer Muslim community but to anyone who steps outside the parameters of patriarchal fundamentalist understandings of faith and religion,” Valentine said. “Anyone who doesn’t follow that line, your life is a target, you have a target on your back.”
Muhsin always knew he was a target. He talks about it at length in “The Radical,” a 2022 documentary about his life and work. “The need to be authentic was greater than the fear to die,” he says in the film, of his decision to come out.
Should the fear ever become reality, his cousin Moegsien remembers Muhsin telling him: “Don’t worry about those people who pulled the trigger. Pray for them. We must find love and compassion.”
Said Valentine: “The challenge for us who walked alongside Muhsin is to ensure his voice is not silenced, his work is not stopped, and his legacy is not eroded or invisibilized. We must continue to say Muhsin’s name.”
(Brian Pellot is a journalist based in Cape Town, South Africa, and the co-founding director of Taboom Media, which works to improve ethical media coverage of taboo human rights topics. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)