It’s sad that it takes a murtad to detect a kaffir, but here we are. Consider this post a fatwa for takfir–my second one aimed at this ludicrous individual. Any faith community that would own such a person deserves him. But a faith community that fails to repudiate him comes close to owning him by default.

Bad enough to be a homophobe, but this is a person who prioritizes gay bashing over Gaza. There’s a separate post to be written on the problem of homophobia in the Islamic world, but I’ll save that for another day. Not much needs to be said here. Either you get it, or you don’t.

This is a moment of truth for American Muslims: Amer Ghalib is a Muslim political leader declaring jihad on Muslims from within the Muslim community in the name of homophobia (and no doubt a long list of other things). If Amer Ghalib doesn’t qualify as an enemy within, nothing does. And if Chappell Roan and Queers for Palestine can get their priorities straight on Palestine, so can American Muslims. (My Mom, hoping against hope: “Could he be a Christian???” JFC. No, Mom, he’s one of “ours.”)

It’s time to throw people like Ghalib out of our midst and out of our lives: cancel them, shun them, boycott them, dox them, shout them down, and shut them down. If jihad means anything, it’s got to mean that. And at this point, a year into the Gaza Genocide, I’d like to think that it means something more than sitting around. (Here’s the whole article from Middle East Eye.)

Queers for Palestine? Sign me up: there’s a jihad I’m happy to join. I’d rather be a Queer for Palestine than whatever the hell he is.

Queers for Palestine at a demonstration for Palestine, October 4, 2024, New Brunswick, New Jersey (photo: Irfan Khawaja)