A man regarded as the first openly gay Muslim imam has been fatally shot while sitting in a car in South Africa in what many are calling an assassination because of his teachings.

A man hailed as the world’s first imam to say he was gay was shot dead in South Africa on Saturday, local police said, in what rights groups fear could be a hate crime.

An Islamic cleric who made history as the world’s first openly gay imam, Muhsin Hendricks, has been killed in South Africa. Hendricks, 57, founded and led a mosque in Cape Town that served as a sanctuary for marginalised Muslims,

As a global leader in religious inclusivity advocacy, Imam Muhsin Hendricks was often described as the ‘world’s first openly gay imam’. On Saturday morning, Hendricks, from Cape Town, was gunned down in an apparent hit murder in Bethelsdorp,