A criminal barrister has penned a coming of age memoir about growing up queer in a strict Muslim Shia household.
Mohsin Ziadi in his book ‘A dutiful boy’ chronicles his struggles of accepting his identity being raised in a devout family. Born to immigrant parents from Pakistan, Mohsin’s anecdotes urge debates and open conversations between the multiple generations in Asian families as young children find and adapt themselves in a modern Britain.
He worked his way up from a failing inner city school replete with gang violence to being the first student from his school to read law at the Oxford University, and gradually become a criminal barrister at one of the top chambers in the country. The book follows Mohsin in his journey of navigating through the hoops of isolation at a time when his mother struggled to understand the complexity of his choices. His conversations with his mother about his identity and his love for his partner is a guide to many in the Asian community who struggle to “come out” to their parents for the fear of prejudice and stigma attached to homosexuality. This is perhaps, best highlighted by how high-street pharmacist Shrien Dewani was forced into living a “double life” being married to Anni Dewani and during her 2010 murder case, it was revealed that he had kept his bisexuality hidden from his family.
Underpinning these core concepts however is the lesser debated intersectionality between class and race which Mohsin is quick to identify through his father’s experience of working as a taxi driver. While he makes peace with a need for social validation, he also deals with social isolation after his mother emotionally distances herself from him.
Part of the struggle for Muslim men and women to come out can perhaps be attributed to being caught in the crosshairs of religious and theological debates. The long-standing protests by Muslims parents out of the Parkview Primary School in Birmingham will be a pivotal chapter in the history of sex education and its dissemination in schools while respecting faiths and cultures. Over the years, there have been many representing and demanding equal rights for this community most renowned being Khakan Qureshi. Yet, he is quick to dismiss himself from being glorified as the torchbearer of the Asian LGBT+ community. In his recent interview with The Sunday Times, he said,
“I’m no expert on theology. I do think that faith is a very individual thing. I mean, ultimately, I’m not in the business of telling people how to practise. What I can say is that I was born and raised Muslim, I still identify as Muslim, and I was also born gay.”
