Ibrahim Abdurrahman Farajajé

Farajajé grew up in a progressive, racially, and economically mixed neighborhood. His extended and immediate family was said to be religiously and ethnically mixed. He credits his parents for his knowledge on the importance of advocacy and social justice. Growing up, Farajajé had tutors for school to stay ahead and a second language tutor and learnt many languages like Spanish and French during this time. He is the first of his biological and adopted siblings. He credits his upbringing for his educational excellency, leadership skills, public speaking skills and his sense of social responsibility.[5]

Farajajé religion was Islamic Sufism. Sufism is a form of Islam, a type of mysticism.[6] In Washington, D.C., in the 1980s, Farajajé was one of the few religious scholars to be an HIV/AIDS advocate.[7] As an advocate for the queer community, Farajajé was one of the first black theologians that self-identified as queer.[8] Farajajé was against the essentialist way of looking at gender and race. He preferred a more fluid approach to conceptualizing identity. From the beginning of his career, Farajajé was a scholar of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, queerness, and queer theology. He developed a program at Howard University that taught African American religious leaders on how to respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis. In the class, his students would be trained on how to be HIV test counselors, and he had people affected by HIV/AIDS speak to his students.[5]

In 1987, Farajajé was the host the co-director of a TV series for Howard University and their affiliate Howard University Mass Media, TV-32, Washington, D.C. (WHMM). During his time at Howard University, in 1988 Farajajé co-directed "Conviction: A Healing Stream", a performance that spoke on the black religious communities and their unwillingness to bury HIV/Aids victims.[9] Farajajé organized the healing service in Washington D.C. with different churches and HIV agency groups coming together for this service. This performance was based on the story of Antigone. The performance was about a woman who had to negotiate with a pastor so she could bury her son who was a victim of HIV. At the end of the performance/service there was a fake funeral in which the audience was asked to view the “body” which turned out to be a mirror, so when the audience members approached the casket they saw themselves, communicating that the victims of HIV/AIDS could be anyone.[5]

After this performance, Farajajé developed a course in which he framed sexuality in the context of imperialism, colonialism and racism. The course, called “Sociology of Hetero Patriarchy”, looked at the connection and intersections between different modes and tools of oppression. Farajajé made it a requirement for the students of this class to spend time in the queer community to understand oppression from their point of view.[5] He became a faculty advisor for an LGBT group at Howard University, legitimizing the existing LGBT group that existed at Howard University. The group looked into African traditional religions and derived their name “Oxala” from an African Yoruba deity that combined genders.[5]

In 1986, Farajajé received his doctorate in theology. By 1993 Farajajé was in his fight as an activist for HIV/AIDS, sacred sex and eroticism of black males. He believed these issues encompassed the word “queer”.[2] In Black Theology: A Documentary History (Vol 2), Farajajé wrote “Breaking Silence: An In-the-Life Theology”, in this he speaks on ending homophobia and biphobia in society, in the “black church” and in the context of black theology.[4] In his Breaking Silence essay, Farajajé speaks on homophobia and biphobia particularly how queer liberation theology should acknowledge that queer black people face oppression from white people and black heterosexual communities. He also argued that the black church community forces black queer people to keep their sexuality hidden. Farajajé also states that this treatment of the black queer community is used to foster self-hatred in the black queer community, and is one of the main reasons why society, specifically the United States of America, was not more vigilant in dealing with the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1980s. This essay argued that being forced to keep their identities a secret leads to more unsafe decisions that lead to the rise of HIV/AIDS. Farajajé main resolution for this issue was to engage in theology that reduces the isolation of black queer people from the black community.[2]

In 1990 Farajajé wrote In Search of Zion: The Spiritual Significance of Africa for Three Black Religious Movements.[10][9] The book studies the religious and theological roots of Afrocentrism. It touches on the African American reinterpretations of Christianity. The context behind the book was the separation of African American communities in the 19th and 20th century.

Politically, Farajajé described himself as an anarchist.[5] In D.C he was very active in the “ACT UP” group and was arrested for civil disobedience around HIV activism. He was also on a chair of political action committee for the D.C Black Queer Coalition, where he made TV appearances.

• "Other Voices" (1987)
• "Conviction: A Healing Stream.” (1988)
• African Creative Expressions (1991)
• In Search of Zion: Spiritual Significance of Africa in Black Religious Movements (1990)
• "Breaking Silence: an in-the-life theology"[4] (Published in Black Theology: A Documentary History Vol 2 1980-1992) (1992)
• Piercing analysis/ or In-to-body Travel/ or What is All that Piercing Stuff?” (1995)