Faith and sexuality: The search between them

“I started praying again, and now I’m more confused than before.”

A doctor from Kerala said this to me during a conversation a few months ago.

He was not confused about his sexuality. He had known he was attracted to men for years. What troubled him was something else. After a long period of distance from religion, he had recently started praying again. To his surprise, prayer brought him comfort. It gave him a sense of peace he felt he had been missing. Yet the closer he felt to his faith, the more difficult certain questions became.

How could he make sense of his sexuality alongside his faith?

Could he be true to both?

As he spoke, I found myself thinking about my own journey. His questions were not identical to mine, but they felt familiar.

Like many queer Muslims, I knew I was attracted to men long before I had the language to describe the attraction. Growing up, I had heard homosexuality discussed as something sinful and forbidden. The story of Lut was often presented as evidence that same-sex relationships had no place within Islam. Long before I fully understood my sexuality, I had already learned to fear it.

I remember wondering why I was different.

Why was I feeling something I was not supposed to feel?

Why could I not simply be like everyone else?

Photo credit: Aamil on Unsplash

Even after I became more comfortable with my sexuality, the conflict did not disappear overnight. There were times when I felt guilty after being intimate with men. I remember moments of sadness and confusion, wondering why accepting myself had not brought the peace I thought it would.

So, accepting my sexuality was not the end of a struggle; rather it was the beginning of a new one. After spending years coming to terms with being gay, I found myself trying to reconcile my faith and sexuality. There were moments when I wondered whether it would simply be easier to walk away from religion, as some queer people I knew had done. But I loved my faith too deeply to leave it behind, just as I had come too far to deny my sexuality again. What followed was not a search for certainty, but a long search for a way to live honestly with both.

Over time, through reading, reflection, prayer, and many difficult questions, I gradually found enough peace to live with the tension.

Looking back, I realize that accepting one’s sexuality and reconciling it with one’s faith are often two different journeys. Today, I no longer carry the same guilt I once did. I have not found all the answers, but I have found enough peace to stop seeing my faith and sexuality as two parts of myself that must always be in conflict. Listening to the doctor from Kerala took me back to a part of my own journey I had not revisited in years. His questions reminded me of the fear, confusion, and loneliness I had once carried, and they stayed with me long after our conversation ended.

What struck me most was that his story was not unique.

Over the years, through community work, counselling conversations, and personal relationships, I have spoken with queer Muslims from different parts of India. This writing draws primarily from conversations with queer Muslim men, reflecting the communities I have been part of. The details of their lives varied, but the emotional landscape often felt remarkably familiar.

A doctor from Mumbai once spoke to me about his struggle to reconcile his sexuality with his religious beliefs. He had already come out to his parents, but their response left him in a painful limbo. They continued to remind him that homosexuality was a sin and often returned to religious arguments they hoped would change him.

What stayed with me was not their disagreement, but his uncertainty. He was not arguing against religion, but he was struggling with it.

Part of him feared that everything he had been taught might be true. He spoke about sin, accountability, and the possibility that his desires might place him at odds with god. Listening to him, I was reminded that for many queer Muslims, the conflict is not imposed entirely from the outside. Often, it is deeply internalized long before anyone else becomes involved.

A friend living in Bangalore had taken a different path.

He had built a life with his partner and seemed content. When I asked him about religion, he simply said, “That’s not for me. I believe in spirituality. It gives me more freedom to be who I am.”

His answer surprised me because he did not seem angry with Islam. Nor did he appear particularly interested in debating it. He had simply stepped away.

Yet, even in conversations with people who had distanced themselves from organized religion, I noticed a recurring theme. Many still spoke about prayer, faith, or spirituality in one form or another. Some missed the rituals they had grown up with. Others missed the comfort of turning towards something larger than themselves during difficult moments. Many simply missed the peace.

Then there was a friend from Delhi. When we spoke, he seemed exhausted.

Unlike the doctor in Kerala, he was not trying to reconnect with faith. Unlike my friend in Bangalore, he had not found an alternative spiritual path. He seemed stuck somewhere in between.

He no longer felt connected to religion, but he also struggled to fully accept himself.

“I don’t know anymore,” he told me at one point.

That sentence stayed with me. Not because it offered an answer, but because it captured something I had heard in different ways from many others. Sometimes, the conflict produces certainty, sometimes distance. Sometimes, it produces hope, and yet other times, it simply produces exhaustion.

Photo credit: Syawish Rehman on Unsplash

The more people I spoke to, the less it felt like an individual struggle and more like a shared one.

Whether the conversation took place in Kerala, Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi, or elsewhere, similar questions kept resurfacing.

Can I still belong?

Can I still be a good Muslim?

Can faith and sexuality exist together?

What do I do if they cannot?

Sexuality is not simply about sexual attraction. It is also about intimacy, companionship, love, and the possibility of building a meaningful life with another person.

Faith is not simply about rules. It is also about comfort, spirituality, identity, belonging, and one’s relationship with the divine.

When both matter deeply, the challenge becomes far more complicated than choosing one over the other.

Public discussions often portray queer Muslims as people standing between two incompatible worlds. But the stories I have encountered suggest something more complicated. Most people are not trying to reject their faith. Nor are they trying to reject their sexuality. They are trying to find a way to live with both.

Some return to prayer, some move away from religion. Some find new forms of spirituality. Some continue searching.

The paths differ, but the questions often remain similar. For many queer Muslims, accepting their sexuality is not the end of the struggle. It is often the beginning of a different journey.

The question is no longer, “Who am I?”

The question becomes, “How do I live honestly while remaining connected to the parts of myself that matter most?” I do not think there is a single answer to this question.

What I do know is that I have heard versions of it from people across India, spoken in different voices, shaped by different lives, and carried in different ways.

Perhaps that is what connects us – not certainty, but the search for answers.

Main photo credit: Sasha Freemind on Unsplash. All photographs are representative