“We are giving an option, a substitute to the transgender community by providing them an Islamic teaching facility. The message is: you can opt to stay in the world of glamour and be exploited or come to this seminary and connect with God,” says Rani Khan, 34, formerly a prominent makeup artist and performer. She has recently opened the first-ever madressa for transgender people in Islamabad in an underdeveloped area called Meherabad Colony.

“We will give them both – worldly and Islamic education,” she says, adding, “We are also providing them skills like stitching so that they can earn a living in a respectable way.

Rani Khan, a community leader, is originally from Chiniot in the Punjab. For many years she was a makeup artist/dancer. She came to Islamabad a few years ago and recently opened the first transgender-only religious seminary last year.

“I have studied the Quran and belong to a religious family. The death of a close transgender friend in miserable conditions a few years ago changed me completely,” she tells The News on Sunday, as she sits on the carpeted floor of a small room in the seminary. She has converted the house she was renting into a seminary. The number of students has reached 25. Most of them come from Islamabad but a few come from far off areas.

“This is an important development for members of the trans community which faces exclusion, discrimination and suppression from the society,” she says adding that “God has sent her to fulfil an objective”.

Trans people remain on the periphery of the society and in many cases have to pick from limited livelihood options - mainly dancing, begging and sex work. Due to social discrimination, very few are able to live a life with dignity and have stable jobs that pay regularly.

“I left these things three years ago and started the seminary. I am also making efforts to provide our students professional skills, stitching, cooking etc,” she says.

Some people, including some in the transgender community are not happy with Rani’s venture, but she says the “community is just as much a creation of God as others.”

“Allah has created us and it’s men who have created these differences. Not Allah, but people discriminate against us,” she says.

“My message to my community is that they can live a life of exploitation and sin or opt for a better way and follow Islam”, she says.

“This will help us earn respect and the society will accept us and treat like other citizens,” she explains.

Rani’s assistant Noor, has a master’s in English literature. She has now devoted her life to the cause. She says that after they went door to door, some parents agreed to send their children to the seminary to learn the Quran.

“It is a call to my community to step out of this daldal (quagmire) and leave the life where they are frequently subject to violence, including rape, forcible cutting of their hair and other kinds of torture.”

She says taking up religious learning may provide a shield for them in the society and hopes that it can help restore dignity and protect their lives.

“You cannot take this path unless your conscience tells you to. This is the path of purification,” she says.

She notes that the state/governments have taken some steps for the welfare of her community like issuance of identity cards and inclusion of names in the voter lists, but also says that such measures cannot automatically bring them respect.

“But if you become religious, you will earn respect quickly,” she says.

She urges the government and philanthropists to help them in their cause.

“We want to make this facility better. We want it to become an institution where Islamic education, as well as professional and technical skills, are provided to members of the trans community so that they can live better lives,” she says.

Hamza Shafqaat, the Islamabad deputy commissioner, who has visited the seminary, says that trans people need support because of social stigma. He thinks the seminary can facilitate the community’s participation in mainstream social life.

It was in 2018 that the Pakistani government, for the first time, acknowledged fundamental rights of trans citizens after the apex court’s intervention. Trans citizens were included in the census for the first time in 2017. A seminary for transgender people reportedly also exists in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and a Christian transgender group has set up a separate church in Karachi, Pakistan.

The author is a staff reporter. He can be reached at vaqargillani@gmail.com     Twitter: @waqargillani