Sohail Ahmed is a reformed former radical Islamist who was at one point on the cusp of engaging in violence in his home city, London. Raised in an extreme and austere form of Islam, he was taught to hate non-Muslims and even other Muslims who happened to follow a different form of Islam. Additionally, having discovered that he was gay at an early age, he turned this hatred inwards towards himself – a fact that ended up fuelling his radicalisation journey.

Eventually he began to question the beliefs and worldview he had been raised with and self-deradicalised. He now works to raise awareness of the threat of extremism to society, and advocates for LGBT rights in Islam. He is a member of the Counter Terrorism Youth Advisory Group.

Elizabeth Arif-Fear is a queer British Muslim and award-winning activist, passionate about protecting human rights, promoting peace and strengthening intercultural/interfaith cohesion.

Her main interests include: women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, refugee and migrant rights and issues surrounding multiculturalism, anti-extremism and community cohesion – in particular, Jewish-Muslim relations.

A dedicated writer and campaigner, Elizabeth founded the human rights/interfaith organisation Voice of Salam in 2015 and currently works in communications and fundraising in the human rights sector, as well as with with a range of organisations dedicated to protecting human rights, promoting peace, strengthening interfaith cohesion and eradicating prejudice.

In 2019, Elizabeth won the St. Ethelburga’s award for Sacred Activist of the Year and also became a published poet. Most recently, she graduated as a Fellow on the KAICIID 2022 Fellowship Programme focussed on intercultural and interreligious dialogue.

Khakan Qureshi was awarded a British Empire Medal in the New Year’s Honours List 2021, received the Midlands Zone ‘Birmingham LGBTQ+Community: Outstanding Achievement Award’ in 2020 for his lead on the advocacy of lgbt education in schools, and in February 2020, was one of the recipients of the Points of Light Award presented by Downing Street.

Khakan was nominated and shortlisted for the following: Brit LGBT Awards, Pink News Award, National Diversity Award and European Diversity Award.

Khakan is  the Founder of Finding A Voice, a voluntary led organisation for South Asians  LGBT+. He has visited academic institutions and shared his personal experiences of being a Gay Muslim, and has presented at large hierarchical organisations across the UK, universities in the USA and India.

Khakan organised the first South Asian LGBT+ Conference in 2018 and led the first LGBTIQ+ Intersectionality and Islam conference in 2019.

In 2019, Khakan joined No Outsiders creator Andrew Moffat to lead the Birmingham Pride parade – the very first time the parade was led by members of the LGBTQ+ Muslim community in its 22 year history – to support the ‘No Outsiders’  programme or similar, in schools.

Khakan has written articles for Attitude, The Gay UK, Gay Times and appeared on different media formats exploring  representation within the LGBT+ community and mental health.

Charlotte Littlewood is a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. She is a PhD candidate in Arab and Islamic studies with the University of Exeter University. Her research focuses on minority within Muslim minority conflict in the UK, in particular the persecution of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community and the extent to which the UK is able to support this community.

Charlotte started her career as a Prevent practitioner on behalf of the UK government, going on to be a Counter-Extremism Coordinator for an East London Borough. From this Charlotte went on to found her own community interest company with the aim of countering extremism and promoting equality. She developed and took projects that focused on women’s rights and tackling domestic violence to the West Bank, Palestine. Alongside this she consulted for Muslims Against Antisemitism, working towards greater tolerance and cohesion between communities in the UK.

Charlotte has a LLB in Law and MA in Security and Strategy.

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EVENT SUMMARY

The Henry Jackson Society was pleased to welcome Sohail Ahmed, Elizabeth Arif-Fear, and Khakan Qureshi for a talk on their experience of being both Muslim and belonging to the LGBT community. Qureshi described the incident that happened when he was invited to speak at a school in Birmingham. He detailed how badly the students took the fact that he was both Muslim and gay. He also suggested that education has taken a step back and was outraged by the fact people can go through the British education system and hold these archaic beliefs. Ahmed then went on to discuss his own upbringing, and how his parents fell into the trap that is radical Islam, and how much suffering that brought him, both because he questioned the radicalism that his parents believed in and also because he is gay. He also talked about how he later on was able to reconcile his sexuality with his religion, and the reforms that need to happen within the Islamic Community. Arif-Fear also added her perspective of being a convert and a bisexual women. Her experience had been far more positive, and all her Muslim friends had taken her coming out very positively. However, she also said how she prefers not to discuss this personal topic with many Muslims, because of how prevalent homophobic attitudes are in this community. All the speakers seemed to agree that something needed to be done in regard to how radical Islam is treated in Britain, and they suggested that homophobia from this community tends to be more tolerated, when it should not. Finally, the speakers answered questions on whether organizations that promoted hatred of the LGBT community should be allowed to retain their charitable status, and how can LGBT Muslims from conservative backgrounds be supported.

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