Are there LGBTQ-friendly and inclusive mosques?

Yes, there are LGBTQ-friendly and inclusive mosques, and their number grows each year. In Berlin, Toronto, London, Copenhagen, Cape Town, and the San Francisco Bay Area, communities gather where women and men pray in the same hall, women lead the prayer and give the Friday sermon, and LGBTQ Muslims are welcomed as worshippers like everyone else. They draw on a principle as old as Islam: the mosque belongs to Allah, and the Prophet ﷺ kept his own mosque open to every person who came to pray.

What is an inclusive mosque?

An inclusive mosque is a mosque in which every Muslim may worship with dignity. Communities differ, and most share some of these practices:

• Women and men pray in the same space, often side by side, and women may lead prayer and preach.
• LGBTQ Muslims and their families are welcome, and imams may bless their marriages.
• No one is questioned about dress, and women decide for themselves whether to cover their hair.
• Converts, people with disabilities, and visitors of other faiths are welcomed with care.

These practices recall the mosque of the Prophet ﷺ in Medina. Women prayed in the same hall as men, with no wall between them, and the Prophet ﷺ forbade anyone to keep them away:

«لاَ تَمْنَعُوا إِمَاءَ اللَّهِ مَسَاجِدَ اللَّهِ»

“Do not keep the women servants of Allah from the mosques of Allah.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 900

When a Bedouin who knew nothing of mosques urinated in a corner of it, the Companions rushed at him. The Prophet ﷺ told them to leave him, pour a bucket of water over the spot, and remember that “you were sent to make things easy, and you were not sent to make them hard” (Sahih al-Bukhari 6128). See also Can women go to the mosque?

Where are LGBTQ-friendly and inclusive mosques?

Germany

The Ibn Rushd-Goethe Mosque in Berlin opened on 16 June 2017. It was founded by the lawyer and imam Seyran Ateş and named after the Andalusian philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes) and the poet Goethe. For its first three years it met in rooms of the Protestant St. John’s Church (Johanniskirche) in Moabit, and since 2020 it has had its own premises in the same district. Women and men pray side by side behind women and men imams, and LGBTQ Muslims are welcome.

Canada

The El-Tawhid Juma Circle in Toronto, also known as the Unity Mosque, was founded in May 2009 by the lawyer El-Farouk Khaki, his partner Troy Jackson, and the scholar of religion Laury Silvers. It holds women and men equal in ritual practice and welcomes people of every sexual orientation and gender identity.

United Kingdom

The Inclusive Mosque Initiative was founded in London in 2012 by two Muslim women. It holds Friday prayers, Eid prayers, iftars, and circles of dhikr in rented spaces, among them community centers and a church, with women sharing in leading prayer and with British Sign Language for deaf worshippers.

Denmark and France

The Mariam Mosque in Copenhagen is led by women. In August 2016, the imams Sherin Khankan and Saliha Marie Fetteh led its first Friday prayer. In Paris, Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed opened an inclusive prayer room in 2012.

South Africa

Imam Muhsin Hendricks founded Masjidul Ghurbaah, a mosque for LGBTQ Muslims and women, in Cape Town in 2011, and for decades supported LGBTQ Muslims through his organization The Inner Circle. He was killed in February 2025. May Allah have mercy on him and accept his service.

United States

Qal’bu Maryam in Berkeley, founded in April 2017 by Rabiʿa Keeble, is a mosque where women lead the Friday prayer and men are welcome to pray alongside them. Muslims for Progressive Values hosts prayer communities in several American cities, where women and men lead prayer and LGBTQ Muslims are welcome.

China

China has the longest living tradition of women’s mosques (nüsi), led by women imams called ahong. They grew out of Quran schools for girls in central China from the late seventeenth century. The Wangjia Hutong Women’s Mosque in Kaifeng, Henan, carries a plaque dated 1820, and Kaifeng today has more than a dozen women’s mosques.

Is it permissible to pray in an inclusive mosque?

Yes. The prayer in an inclusive mosque is the same prayer, facing the same Kaʿba, with the same Fātiḥa. The Prophet ﷺ appointed Umm Waraqa to lead the people of her household in prayer, and gave her a muezzin (Sunan Abi Dawud 592, graded hasan by al-Albani). The early jurists al-Ṭabarī and Abu Thawr permitted a woman to lead men, and our answer on whether women can lead prayer sets out the evidence. The stronger view also holds same-sex love to be lawful (Is being gay haram?), so a gay or trans Muslim stands in the row as any other servant of Allah.

The Quran reserves its sharpest words for those who shut people out of the houses of Allah:

وَمَنۡ أَظۡلَمُ مِمَّن مَّنَعَ مَسَٰجِدَ ٱللَّهِ أَن يُذۡكَرَ فِيهَا ٱسۡمُهُۥ وَسَعَىٰ فِي خَرَابِهَآ

“Who does greater wrong than the one who bars the mosques of Allah from having His name remembered in them, and strives to ruin them?”

Quran 2:114

What if there is no inclusive mosque near me?

Allah made the whole earth a place of prayer. The Prophet ﷺ counted it among the gifts given to him:

«وَجُعِلَتْ لِيَ الأَرْضُ مَسْجِدًا وَطَهُورًا»

“The earth has been made for me a place of prayer and a means of purification.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 335

Pray at home with friends and family, and one of you may lead. Join one of the online prayer circles and study groups that inclusive communities run. Visit your local mosque as well: many imams welcome everyone who comes to pray, and your presence in the rows is your right. Communities that bless same-sex marriages are listed in Can two Muslims of the same sex marry?, and the wider movement is described in What is progressive Islam? In North America, Muslims for Progressive Values can connect you with a community; in the UK, Hidayah supports LGBT+ Muslims; and young people in the US can reach The Trevor Project at any hour.

A closing word

Every mosque is built on the same ground, the earth Allah spread out for all His servants. May He open the doors of His houses to every heart that seeks Him, and gather His servants in rows of love, shoulder to shoulder, before Him.