In a warm, well-lit room tucked away in Melbourne's CBD, the city's queer Muslim community has come together to break fast during Ramadan.
This Iftar — meaning the meal eaten after sunset during Ramadan — has been running for three years to provide a space for Muslims in the LGBTQ community.
As one of the five pillars of Islam, during Ramadan, Muslims are required to fast each day, from dawn until dusk, for around 29 or 30 days, with the Iftar serving to break the day's fast.
It's a meal commonly shared with family and friends but, for many LGBTQ Muslims living in Australia, Ramadan can be a much lonelier time of year.
Queer Iftar organiser Abdullah Yahya* fled his home country and became a refugee in Australia to escape criminalisation for being queer.
Mr Yahya said the community aspect of Ramadan can be "heartbreaking and isolating" for LGBTQ Muslims like himself, who feel ostracised due to their sexuality.
"I was struggling to find a space for myself during Ramadan," Mr Yahya said.
"If I’ve gone through something that is isolating and heartbreaking during Ramadan, I don’t want anyone else … to go through the same thing."
He started running the Iftar for his community in 2019 and the following year he joined with BridgeMeals, a community-led initiative that holds dinners for marginalised groups, such as refugees, migrants and LGBTQ people.
"Culturally, [Ramadan] is something that we grew up with, and we just want to have that same opportunity to have that same practice again," Mr Yahya said.
The Iftar started with just 6 to 8 people per week in 2020.
This year, BridgeMeals ran three small Iftars to ensure privacy and confidentiality for those who attended, with the group already seeking more funding to keep up with the demand.
For the final Iftar, the organisation brought everyone together and allowed allies to attend too, filling the room with around 80 people.
'That family experience that we're longing for'
Yaser Yousry attended the Iftar for the first time this year and said that, growing up queer and Muslim, he never thought a space like it would exist.
Tears welling in his eyes, Mr Yousry was overcome with emotion when asked what the event and the space meant to him.
"I’m kind of lost words to be honest … It's unprecedented … I've never seen this many queer Muslims in one room before," he said.
Mr Yousry said he'd struggled to belong in both the queer or Muslim community, but the event and the people he had met reminded him the two are not mutually exclusive.
"Just like being a person of science and also being faithful … [being queer and Muslim] can come together," he said.
Mr Yousry said that, throughout the Iftar, he had conversations with people about the family they had lost when they came out as queer, while others were still hiding their identity for fear of losing their religion and their family.
"We've all experienced a similar thing. We all have a little trauma, fear of abandonment," Mr Yousry said.
"This [queer Iftar] will help a lot of people feel safe and feel like they have a home and a community … and have that family experience that we're longing for."
Creating a safe space for queer Muslims
Nurul — the president of the community group Sydney Queer Muslims — said creating safe spaces for LGBTQ Muslims could be saving lives.
Her organisation has been running queer Iftars in Sydney since 2017 and she said it was "very encouraging" to hear Melbourne's events were growing too.
Nurul said queer Iftars give people a chance to reconcile their Muslim and queer identities, a major source of pain for her community.
"It reaffirms that you exist, that you are valid. It's good for the soul," she said.
"You don't know whose life you're saving by just having one event."
Mr Yahya said a lot of work needed to be done for the wider, socially conservative Australian community and the wider LGBTQ community to accept queers of faith.
He said members from more "conservative" parts of the community had attacked the event online, but that he was hopeful more queer Muslims would hear about the Melbourne Iftar and attend next year.
"They can't police us and how queer we want to be and how Muslim we want to be," Mr Yahya said.
"Doing this kind of work is my way of being a Muslim."
As the sun set in Melbourne, everyone gathered at the Iftar began to eat and celebrate being together.
For Mr Yahya, the meal symbolised a community that was free to express themselves.
"Having this space means that nobody gets to dictate our faith, because we believe in our religion. We believe in how we practise our faith. We believe in how we define our relationship with our God," he said.
"This is our own journey and this is our own space."
* Abdullah Yahya's name has been changed for privacy reasons.
