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The execution-style killing of an openly gay imam, Muhsin Hendricks, in South Africa has left people in the LGBTQ+ community fearful for their safety – but also determined to forge ahead with the campaign to end their marginalisation in religious circles.<\/p>\n
Reverend Toni Kruger-Ayebazibwe, an openly gay Christian cleric, told the BBC that Hendricks was a “gentle spirit” who brought light into any room he occupied.<\/p>\n
“The gap Muhsin leaves is massive,” she told the BBC, adding that she knew for a fact that there there were “a large number of queer Muslims around the world who are grief stricken”.<\/p>\n
The 57-year-old was shot dead in what appeared to be a hit on Saturday in the small coastal city of Gqeberha.<\/p>\n
Initial reports that Cape Town-based Hendricks had been in Gqeberha to perform the wedding ceremony of a gay couple have been dismissed as untrue by his Al-Gurbaah Foundation.<\/p>\n
“He was visiting Gqeberha to officiate the marriages of two interfaith heterosexual couples when he was tragically shot and killed,” it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
It is unclear why the couples had asked Hendricks to oversee their ceremonies, but it suggests that he was pushing the boundaries, even in the last seconds of his life.<\/p>\n
Traditional imams in South Africa rarely, if ever, perform the marriage of a Muslim to a non-Muslim – something that Hendricks clearly had no issue with.<\/p>\n
He had, according to a faith leader that the BBC spoke to, conducted one such marriage ceremony and was on his way to conduct the next one when he was gunned down in his vehicle.<\/p>\n