Dr. Ibrahim Abdurrahman Farajajé

This book is a posthumous tribute to bisexual philosopher, theologian, AIDS-activist and educator, Shaykh Dr. Ibrahim Abdurrahman Farajajé (b. 1952; d. 2016) and contains scholarship, critical engagement, and creative responses that illustrate the significance of his life and work to queer theory, liberation theology, decoloniality, Islamic/Tasawwuf studies, sacred sexuality, religious responses to HIV/AIDS, and a counter-hegemonic understanding of our world. In addition to the work of his former colleagues, students, mentees, and those his work inspired, the collection contains Dr. Farajajé’s essays and speeches—many of which were not previously published. Because of the breadth and depth of its contents as a definitive text, this collection is a foundational guide to proceeding scholarship on Dr. Farajajé and his legacy.

Born in Berkeley, CA, one of the earliest male students to graduate from Vassar College, Dr. Theol. magna cum laude from University of Bern, holder of a chair in the sociology of religion at Howard University during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and provost of Starr King School for the Ministry, the premier hub for the academic and vocational exploration of multi-religious identity and practice, Dr. Farajajé lived the values advanced in his work through his choice of professional affiliations and modes of activism-scholarship.

This book will be a key resource for scholars of queer theology and ethics, Islamic studies, cultural and social understandings of HIV/AIDS as well as religious studies and theology more generally. One of the chapters in this volume was originally published in the book titled, Male Lust: Pleasure, Power, and Transformation, edited by Kerwin Brook, Jill Nagle, Baruch Gould. Other chapters were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Bisexuality.