Britain’s first gay Muslim to wed reveals abuse he’s faced

Britain’s first gay Muslim to wed reveals abuse he’s faced

Jahed Choudhury, pictured right with new husband Sean, has opened up about his struggle between his heart and his faith

Sean and Jahed Choudhury look like any other happy young couple, still on a honeymoon high three weeks after their wedding.

Just back from Alicante in Spain, they can’t stop looking at their matching white gold rings engraved with both their names and the date of their marriage.

They hold hands as they reminisce about the day they promised to love and honour each other in front of 50 close friends and family at Walsall register office, followed by a ‘Bollywood’ reception with drums and dancing.

The pair laugh as they joke about the chicken and pilau rice Jahed’s mother made for the feast. It was so good, says Jahed, that there was none left for him because it had all gone.

‘I love Sean and I’m very happy to be married to him,’ says Jahed, 24, unable to stop tears welling up. 

‘But if someone offered me a cure for being gay tomorrow, I would take it in an instant. I would give anything not to have been born gay.’

This is, perhaps, the last thing you expect to hear from the man who on June 22 married Sean, 20, in what is believed to be the first gay Muslim wedding in Britain.

Posting the wedding photos on Instagram last week, both of them wearing Bangladeshi dress, Jahed said he was proud ‘to show the whole world you can be gay and Muslim’.

But, today, the joy of being able to walk hand in hand on honeymoon in Spain with his husband â€" with no one batting an eyelid â€" is starting to feel like a distant memory.

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Jahed, right with Sean, said he was 'proud to show the world you can be gay and Muslim' but revealed if someone offered him a 'cure' for being gay he would 'take it tomorrow'

The couple, pictured left and right, said they kept their wedding 'low key' because they feared they might be 'targeted' for abuse on the big day

Anxiously twisting his wedding ring, Jahed sounds almost terrified as he talks about settling down to gay married life in the West Midlands town where he grew up.

Tormented by the fear that his wedding may be perceived as a deliberate insult to his Islamic faith and close-knit Muslim community, he says they have already received death threats on social media.

‘We kept our wedding very low-key because I was frightened we’d be targeted on the day,’ says Jahed in the couple’s first in-depth interview since the wedding.

‘For years I haven’t been able to leave my home without someone spitting in my face for being gay, and now I’m worried it will be even worse f or having married a white man.

‘I apologise if I have offended anyone and I wouldn’t blame other Muslims for rejecting me as a sinner. But, then, this is who I am.

‘I am both Muslim and gay, and the only way to cope with the two is to split them in my mind. 

'I still have my faith and pray five times a day, but I understand that some Muslims will never accept homosexuality.

‘I still have a relationship with God, but I think I would be unwelcome in a mosque because of my sexuality. I can’t believe that I’m the only gay Muslim in my community, but I don’t know of any others.

Sean, left, said it was 'brilliant' being married to Jahed and that his Roman Catholic family had accepted the pair of them

Jahed revealed part of the reason he married Sean was to avoid pressure to marry a woman and he said he hopes the couple, pictured, will be 'left alone to get on with their lives together'

‘It’s just not talked about, so even if just one young gay person reads this, not just from the Muslim faith but from any faith, I hope it helps them to know they are not alone.’

He adds: ‘I know we’re both very young, but I married Sean because otherwise I would always feel pressured into marrying a woman. So, in one way, I wanted to get married to Sean, but in another I wanted to get that stress out of my head.

‘Even if we are never accepted by some members of my community, I hope that we can just be left alone to get on with our lives together.’

As for Sean, a Roman Catholic who was born into the travelling commu nity, tradition meant he was also expected to marry a woman â€" if not quite in a Big Fat Gypsy-style wedding, then not far off.

‘I came out to my mum when I was 16, but I think she already knew. She was very accepting and loved me just the same,’ says Sean, whose father died from a heart attack aged 53 when his son was 11 years old.

‘It’s brilliant being married to Jahed and my family love him. Our honeymoon was amazing and now I want to settle down and enjoy life. I’m not frightened of the future and I see it as my job to protect him.’

Sean’s family, including his mother, three sisters and brother, all attended the wedding, but Jahed is more reticent about this, except to say his mother, older brother, sister and cousin joined him.

Earlier this week, he was reported as saying: ‘This is about showing I don’t care. My family doesn’t want to come on the day. It’s too embarrassing for them. They think it’s a disease that can be cured…’

But he says now that his whole family, whether they were present at the wedding or not, have been supportive even if they would rather have seen him marry a woman.

Jahed Choudhury (left) and husband Sean Rogan (right) said they had received abusive phone calls and 'hate' since they married

Jahed Choudhury, left, and Sean Rogan, right, married wearing traditional Muslim dress in a ceremony inside Walsall Registry Office

The happy couple celebrated their wedding with family and friends - and some cake

‘I have only talked to my father once about being gay and he accepted it, saying: “This is your choice, take responsibility for that choice and go fly.” ’

Some members of the Islamic faith believe being gay is un-Islamic, but Imaan, a Muslim LGBT charity, insists the Koran actually says little about homosexuality.

According to scholars, the Koran demands unspecified punishment for men guilty of lewdness together, but calls for them to be left alone if they repent.

Jahed says his experience of being Muslim and gay has taken him to the brink of despair.

By speaking out, he says he hopes to reach out to others â€" from all faiths struggling with the same situation â€" and ‘educate their parents, to encourage greater understanding and acceptance’.

Growing up with Bangladeshi parents and three siblings in a traditional Muslim household, Jahed tells me: ‘I think I knew I was gay before I even knew I was Muslim.’

He says he was six when he realised he was different from other boys. As a child, he was interested in fashion, liked dressing up in his sister’s clothes and dreamed of becoming an actor or performer.

Describing himself as ‘the black sheep’ of the family, who ‘stuck out like a sore thumb’, Jahed says his mother and father â€" who owned restaurants in the West Midlands â€" thought he’d just grow out of it.

The happy couple, pictured, met two years ago when Mr Choudhury, right, was considering ending his life when he was approached by Mr Rogan, left, who spoke to him on a bench

The couple had the date of their happy day engraved on their wedding rings 

‘My parents came to Britain from Bangladesh 40 years ago. They were uneducated and I don’t think my mother had ever even heard of homosexuality,’ says Jahed, who grew up in Darlaston.

Emotionally and physically attracted to other boys rather than girls and with delicate, petite good looks, Jahed says he quickly became a target for bullies at his racially mixed secondary school.

‘Some people would spit on me, empty rubbish bins on me, call me a pig or a fag, and some Muslim people would shout “haram” â€" a very nasty insult,’ says Jahed. ‘Haram means sinner. It is the word you use for rapists and murderers.

‘Once, I was beaten up by a gang of boys, but what upset me most was when someone said to me: “Your mother should h ave aborted you.” They told me I would never go to heaven and that Satan had taken over me.

‘I used to pray to God to change me. I used to beg Him, saying: “Why did you make me gay, if homosexuality is a sin?” I wanted to be like everyone else.’

Jahed was a student at a performing arts college in Wolverhampton when he started self-harming and was 18 when he first tried to kill himself after the word “fag” was sprayed on his family’s front door. After he recovered, a female friend persuaded him to confide in his mother.

‘When I told her I had feelings for boys, she said: “What feelings?” When I said sexual and emotional feelings, she was not shocked, but she wasn’t educated about homosexuality and told me it was just a phase I’d grow out of,’ says Jahed.

‘I think maybe both my parents feel I was influenced by Western society , television, the internet and social media and maybe that played a part, but I think I would still have been gay if I’d been born in Bangladesh and grew up there.’ Nevertheless, Jahed was so desperate to repress his sexuality, he readily accepted the help and guidance of teachers at his mosque and prayed for a ‘magical’ cure.

It was a source of acute distress for him that his sexuality might have a negative effect on his family’s standing in the community.

While trying to ‘change’ his sexual orientation, he lost friends, took medication, went on a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh and even tried ‘aversion therapy’ by making himself sick while looking at pictures of gay men.

When all this failed, aged 22, Jahed says he suffered a complete mental breakdown and tried to end his life by taking an overdose.

Members of both families attended the low-key ceremony in Walsall  

Following their wedding in Walsall, the happy couple are jetting to Spain on honeymoon

The couple decided to wear a Bangladeshi wedding outfit for their big day as it was 'beautiful'

It was on a park bench, after he’d been released from hospital, that Sean Rogan found Jahed sobbing.

‘He was slumped on the bench, head in his hands, crying his eyes out and I just couldn’t walk on and leave him there,’ says Sean. ‘I sat next to him and said: “Are you OK? I’m not going to harm you, you can trust me” and he asked: “Are you gay?” Then he told me he was gay, too, and he didn’t know how he could live with it.

‘I told him: “You need cheering up,” so I told him I was taking him to the cinema. We ended up going to see a horror movie.’

Jahed, who proposed on Sean’s 19th birthday in June last year, recalls: ‘For me, it was love at first sight. I felt Sean was my guardian angel that d ay, sent to pick up the pieces of my life.

‘Before he sat down next to me, I felt I was already a ghost. He turned my life around.’

Last week it was reported that Sean, who has taken Jahed’s surname, was planning to convert to Islam, but he now says he will not.

In the wake of the death threats following their wedding, both he and Jahed accept that as a mixed-race, same-sex married couple they would struggle to find acceptance in the Muslim community. 

Much as they would like it to be different, Sean says he understands the conflict. He, too, has struggled with strong cultural expectations that hold that homosexuality is sin, although not to the same degree Jahed has.

The couple started living together almost two years ago, moving into a high-rise housing association flat with security, so they both feel safe from further abuse or attacks.

‘Sean has always been very respectful of my faith and we both agreed not to have sex before marriage,’ says Jahed, who admits he will never come to terms with the inner conflict between his sexuality and faith, nor the pain it has brought his family.

‘Perhaps it would have been easier for me to marry a woman and have a secret gay life, but I could never have done that to a woman.’

Two years later, Mr Choudhury, right, is believed to be the first Muslim man to have had a same-sex marriage in Britain and feels he is proof that it is okay to be both gay and a Muslim

While many will praise Jahed and Sean’s bravery in publicly celebrating their wedding, their everyday lives sound challenging. 

Both dream of becoming TV presenters, but say they are unable to work right now because of health problems.

Jahed, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the abuse he’s suffered, says he has been prescribed antidepressants and medication to help him sleep.

He regularly sees a counsellor, as does Sean, who tells me he also now suffers from anxiety, exacerbated by the stress of worrying about Jahed’s safety.

They both hope to have chil dren together one day, but aren’t quite sure how they will go about it or what â€" if any â€" faith the child will be brought up in.

Jahed says he longs to give his mother a grandchild, while Sean says he has always dreamed of being a father.

Quite how their respective communities â€" and in particular Jahed’s â€" might react is something that preys on their minds.

‘Here, we are always on edge and looking over our shoulders. I have panic attacks just leaving our home and am frightened being out on my own,’ says Jahed, who believes they will eventually find the acceptance they crave.

‘On our honeymoon, for the first time in my life, I felt I could walk down the road hand in hand with the person I love.

‘No one knew who I was, no one cared if we were gay, everyone was very welcoming to us and it felt like we we re free. We felt happy.’

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