Islam has the fundamental concept of the greater "Jihad", an "inner struggle" - one often ignored in the narrow interpretation of the word as "holy war", beamed into your home daily-courtesy the friendly folk at Fox and friends.

As the gay and Muslim director/producer of a A Jihad for Love I am faced with the choice that all Muslims must make today. Are we going to allow our own communities' volatile bigots (definitely a minority) define our religion for us? Or are we going to really embrace the Islam that our Prophet had revealed to him a little more than fourteen centuries ago? That was an Islam that held a promise of women's rights which had not been seen before; an Islam that empowered sexuality and took it out of the bounds of procreation; an Islam that was able to unite first a few warring tribes in the desert and then entire nations and civilizations.

All Muslims also face the profound choice of either allowing themselves to become apologists for their faith (easy enough to do in the West) or speak with conviction about their very own Islam's-with all of their diversity and centuries of independent reasoning (Ijtihad). I know the Islam I have chosen, which is pretty much the same Islam the subjects of A Jihad for Love bring to Canada this autumn.

As a Muslim filmmaker, mine is the "Jihad" of the camera. I humbly suggest that filmmakers like myself follow in the footsteps of scholars through centuries who had chosen "the Jihad of the pen". In making this film it has been profound to realize that I am called upon to be a defender of my faith. I can think of no place better than Toronto to begin a discussion that is as vital to continuing discussions and debate within Islam, as the many others that surround us today.

It's time that we reclaimed Jihad and it's about time that all those voices within Islam that have been silenced for too long - and believe me there are many- speak out. I certainly have the humility to realize I am not the only to start speaking out loud and out proud. As gays and lesbians we are now ready to lay equal claim to our profoundly held faith and no one can stop us.

Let's make this Jihad digital and take it into the twenty first century with the tools that our ancestors did not have. You all are invited to join us to witness for what is a hopeful beginning on September 9th, 11th and 15th.

You will meet some of the subjects of the film. I am told the 'buzz' around the film is getting louder and indeed this is excellent news.

Our website and my own blog with all of the information for the screenings
has now gone live at www.ajihadforlove.com

It has been almost seven years since I landed on the shores of "the free world" in my rickety boat and now we all find that the torch the lady on the Hudson holds has never burnt more feebly. As a Muslim filmmaker from India I have been honored to have the current US regime re-classify me ?an alien with extraordinary abilities.? This is a real Department of Homeland Security category also known as the O-1 visa.

Interestingly, I was entering fairest Halifax in Canada on the day that Toronto announced A Jihad for Love as part of its official documentary line-up. I was there in the middle of a very hectic post-production schedule, hoping to get the US consular office to stamp my one-year  US visa renewal. As I was sent for ?secondary inspection? (as I always am), a wholesome and buxom Nova Scotia border agent asked me what my film was about. This time I told her that it was about Islam and homosexuality and that Toronto had selected it. She smiled and told me that she had just read about it in the Globe newspaper and hoped to see it. She waved me on. Only in Canada!

Just three years ago, when I still had the re-drawn map of North America, as my screen saver (the post US election one - which showed the ?red? states as ?Jesusland? and everything else as ?The United States of Canada?), I was leaving Canadian soil triumphant with my first O-1 visa stamped. I was taken for secondary inspection (this time by the US border agents stationed in Toronto) and asked what kind of ?filmmaker? I was. All I could muster was ?a documentary filmmaker doing a film on gays in minority communities.? I have come a long way and so has this film in the last three years.

The film started when I was a student shooting on borrowed two chip Sony cameras in Washington DC. It was only after my remarkable producer, Sandi DuBowski (who has legendary skills in documentary fund raising and outreach) came in a few years ago that I found the resources to film in countries like Egypt or Bangladesh. Visible and invisible forces, thoughtfully supplied by autocratic regimes have watched my every move. In Bangladesh, I had to depart hastily once state security ransacked my hotel room.

As many of us independent documentarians already know, filming without government permissions is a remarkable risk.  I have discovered that the thrill of landing wherever home or "safe" might be - with those tiny mini DV tapes intact in your checked baggage - is an indescribable reward. As a ?Jihadi?  filmmaker I also know that the democratization of the industry with digital technology and smaller cameras has created a revolution in the stories we dare to tell. My advice: try to look like a tourist and no tripods EVER! This means you better work on those handheld skills.

I still have a film to finish so that you can all see it in a few weeks and I promise to return with more musings from the frontlines of this, our love Jihad. Watch this space for my own blog: http://www.ajihadforlove.com/