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In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, Most
Gracious

June 5, 2001

OPINION / EDITORIAL

HIV/AIDS in the Muslim Community

By Faisal Alam, Founder & Director
Al-Fatiha Foundation
LGBTQ Muslims & Friends

Today, June 5, 2001, marks the 20th anniversary
of the official recognition of a disease that has
since taken the lives of more than 22 million
people worldwide.

On June 5, 1981, the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (CDC) in the US published an
article about five cases of a rare pneumonia
among gay men in Los Angeles. Since then, AIDS
has spread globally and has ravaged the lives of
millions of individuals and millions of families.

- Ever day more than 14,000 people in the world
are infected with HIV
- 36 million people worldwide presently live with
HIV
- 900,000 are in the United States alone
- People of Color make up 57% of the cumulative
AIDS cases in the United States
- 40,000 new HIV infections occur in the US every
year
- 22 million people around the world have died
because of complications associated with AIDS

Twenty years go, the devastating impact that AIDS
was to have on the world could not have been
imagined.

Of the 36 million people presently living with
HIV/AIDS worldwise, 34.7 million are adults, 18.3
million are men, 16.4 million are women, and 1.3
million are under the age of 15.

Since 1981 the face of AIDS has changed
dramatically. Originally knows as a "gay man's
disease," AIDS has exploded into a worldwide
epidemic affecting men, women and children of all
races and sexual orientations.

The devastation of AIDS CANNOT be undermined.
Yet governments and religious institutions around
the world continue to live in denial that the
epidemic has not affected their communities.

At a recent United Nations health conference,
conservative Muslim nations including Egypt,
Iran, Libya, Malaysia, and Syira, were at the
forefront in blocking a document from being
passed because it included references to same-sex
relations, prostitution, and drug use. Yet
individuals from these same populations and
communities are the most vulnerable to HIV
infection and the most severely impacted.

The time has come for leaders of our governments
and relgious institutions to take their heads out
of the sand and respond to this epidemic.

We can no longer live in denial that HIV/AIDS is
not ravaging our communities. We can also no
longer live in denial that it is being spread
through male to male sex, commercial sex worke,
and intravenous drug use. But the answer is not
ostracizing individuals within these communities,
oppressing them, or even making them invisible
and silent.

The devastation of HIV/AIDS can only be brought
under control if we begin to educate each other
and respond to this disease in an Islamic manner.
Our faith (Islam)teaches us to be compassionate
to our sick and those that are suffering
physically and otherwise. We are not asked to
banish, condemn, or victimize those that are ill
and those that are living with HIV. Yet this is
exactly what continues to happen in Muslim
communities around the world.

Today, I call on all my lesbian, gay, bisxual,
and transgendered Muslim brothers and sisters, as
well as the leaders of mainstream Muslim
religious institutions to rise up to the occasion
and begin to combat this epidemic. We must begin
to educate ourselves and our communities about
the human side of HIV/AIDS and not fall victim to
pre-conceived stereotypes.

I urge you all today to remember those that have
fallen victim to AIDS and honor their lives by
writing letters to your government leaders,
health officials, and to religious leaders -
urging them to begin rigorous HIV prevention
campaigns in their countries and in their
communities. The time has come for us to rise up
and face this epidemic head on.

We can no longer live in denial that HIV/AIDS
does not exist in our community. And we can no
longer think that this epidemic will not affect
us. WE MUST speak out and fight this disease.
For if we don't, silence will equal death!

--------------------------------------------------

Al-Fatiha Foundation is an international
organization dedicated to Muslims who are
lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning,
those questioning their sexual orientation or
gender identity, and their Friends.

Al-Fatiha Foundation
PO Box 33532
Washington, DC 20033

Email: gaymuslims@...
Web: http://www.al-fatiha.net

--------------------------------------------------

=====
M. Faisal Alam --- E-mail: mfaisalalam@...

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny...An inescapable
network of mutuality...I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed
to be what you ought to be." - Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

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