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This research guide is a reference for how people of the LGBTQ+ community across the Arab World are treated. This guide gives resources that will help you gain a basic understanding of Islam, the history of LGBTQ+ people in the Arab World, and then the stories of those people. This guide focuses on highlighting and uplifting the stories of queer people in the Arab World, the stories that are not talked about enough.
Acceptance Rate of LGBTQ people in Arab Countries
This statistic depicts the results of a survey conducted to determine the share of Arab adults who believe homosexuality is acceptable across the Middle East and North Africa as of 2019. As of 2019,a share of about 26 percent of the respondents from Algeria believed homosexuality is acceptable.
Databases for Research
- Oxford Bibliographies Islamic Studies - HomosexualityWestern travelers to the Orient furnished writing and observations on same-sex sexual practices in Muslim lands in the Early Modern period. Prior to these observers, in the premodern period, scholars from the Arab world, under the patronage of various Islamic caliphates, wrote about human sexual behavior and desires. Some categories of desire constructed by these scholars, as well as subject positions, are comparable to the contemporary understanding of homosexuality as an erotic preference for members of the same sex.
- Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new windowMulti-disciplinary full-text database with more than 8,500 full-text periodicals, including more than 7,300 peer-reviewed journals. Indexes and abstracts more than 12,500 journals and a total of more than 13,200 publications including monographs, reports, and conference proceedings.
- Oxford Reference / Religion reference books This link opens in a new windowReady-reference book collection. Search or browse the Religion subject section. Search within a book or search the whole database of Oxford Reference.
- MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowOffers a detailed bibliography of journal articles, books and dissertations. Produced by the Modern Language Association (MLA), the electronic version of the bibliography dates back to 1963 and contains over 1.7 million citations from more than 4,400 journals & series, and 1,000 book publishers.
- Twentieth Century Religious Thought: Volume II, Islam This link opens in a new windowA multivolume, cross-searchable online collection that brings together seminal works and archival materials related to worldwide religious thinkers from the early 1900s until the first decade of the 21st century.
Volume II focuses on modern Islamic theology and tradition and details Islam’s evolution from the late 19th century by examining printed works and rare documents by Muslim writers, both non-Western and Western voices.
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Organizations
- Muslims for Progressive ValuesAs Muslims for Progressive Values, we advocate for human rights, social justice and inclusion in the United States and around the world.
- Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender DiversityMASGD works to support, empower, and connect LGBTQ+ Muslims.* In our work, we challenge root causes of oppression, including misogyny, racism, capitalism, and xenophobia. We celebrate gender and sexual diversity within Muslim communities and promote an understanding of Islam that is centered on inclusion, justice, and equity.
- Arab Foundation for Freedoms and EqualityThe mission of the Foundation is to encourage and support sexual health, sexuality gender and bodily rights movements in the Middle East and North Africa through capacity building, knowledge production, protection and advocacy.