South African police said Mushin Hendrix, considered the “first openly gay imam” in the world, was shot dead near a city in southern Gukeberha.
Imam, who operated a mosque intended as a safe haven for gays and other marginalized Muslims, said he and others on Saturday when vehicles stopped in front of them and blocked the exit. They were in the car together, police said.
“Two unknown suspects with covered faces have come out of the vehicle and started firing multiple shots with the vehicle,” the Eastern Cape Force said in a statement.
“Then they escaped from the scene and the driver realized that Hendrix, who was sitting behind the vehicle, was shot and killed.”
A police spokesperson confirmed with AFP the authenticity of the social media video intended to show the targeted murder at Bethelsdorpe near Gukeberja, previously known as Port Elizabeth.
“The motive for the murder is unknown and forms part of an ongoing investigation,” police said.
International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associations condemned the murder.
“Families across the Irga world are deeply shocked by the news of Mushin Hendrix's murder and are asking authorities to thoroughly investigate what we fear as a hate crime,” he said. Executive Director Julia Erto said in a statement.
Hendrix, who was involved in various LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, came out as a gay person in 1996. Two years later, he began holding conferences in his hometown for LGBTQ+ Muslims. “We opened the garage, put down the carpets and invited people to drink tea and talk,” he told The Guardian in 2022.
In 2011, Hendrix strengthened his role as the Imam figure by setting up space in the mosque after his friends endured local sermons denounced homosexuality. “I said, 'Maybe we're when we started our own space, so people can pray without being judged.” ”
He ran the Al Gurbaa Mosque in Winburg near the birthplace of Cape Town. The mosque offers “a safe space for strange Muslims and marginalized women to practice Islam,” the website says.
The subject of the 2022 documentary called The Radical, Hendricks previously hinted at a threat to him.
He told the Guardian that he was advised to hire a bodyguard, but was not afraid of attack, and insisted that the need to be authentic is “more than the fear of dying.”
Hendrix, who worked as an Arabic language teacher and fashion designer, was 29 when he came out to his mother. Born into a Muslim family, he married a woman and gave birth to a child, and divorced eight years after his father passed away before revealing his sexuality to his family.
Police data show that South Africa is one of the highest murder rates in the world, with 28,000 murders between February 2024 and February 2024.
