Parvez Sharma

Parvez Sharma is an Indian journalist and film director. He is particularly known internationally by the documentary A Jihad for Love on homosexual Muslims.

Biography

Sharma was born in India and spent part of his childhood. He attended schools in India, the United States and the United Kingdom. After his schooling Sharma studied English Literature at Presidency College of the University of Calcutta. Sharma reached the master at the Jamia Millia Islamia University. Furthermore degrees he succeeded in journalism at the University of Wales, Cardiff and at the American University School of Communication.

Sharma currently lives openly homosexual in New York City and is a Muslim.

In his professional work, Sharma dealt with the subject of homosexuality and Islam. As a freelance journalist he has worked for various media and institutions, such as BBC World Television in India, the Discovery Channel in the United States and the World Bank.

Sharma's internationally best- known work is the documentary A Jihad for Love. The documentary refutes the existing especially in some Islamic countries preconception that there is no Muslim, homosexual people in these countries. The documentary explores the hidden lives of Islamic, gay men in predominantly Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt and Bangladesh.

Even before the emergence Sharma wrote in newspaper articles on the subject of homosexuality and Islam, for example, in published articles in India Emerging from the Shadows in the newspaper The Telegraph. Also for the newspaper The Huffington Post he wrote on this subject.