Islam is seen as hostile to LGBTQ+ people. This gay Muslim says it’s queerer than you think.

This queer Arab makeup mogul has never viewed his sexuality as contradictory to his faith.

While Islam lacks a central governing body to put forth any official stance on homosexuality, those who adhere strictly to the words of the Quran tend to interpret the text similarly to the traditionalist followers of the other Abrahamic religions – as condemning same-sex love. 

But Nour Tayara doesn’t see it that way. 

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The queer Arab makeup mogul has never viewed his sexuality as contradictory to his faith. In fact, he believes in an Islam that has always embraced the beauty of human diversity.

Tayara is the founder of the plastic-free makeup brand AORA, which he launched in 2023 after working for over a decade at L’Oreal. He runs the company from Mexico, though he lived all over the world before settling there about five years ago.

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The company launched in the country in 2023 and then in the United States in 2025. Tayara found success quickly in the U.S. market, so much so that AORA was asked to do the makeup for this year’s Bad Bunny Super Bowl Halftime Show.

Through it all, he has remained committed to his Muslim faith and to publicly expressing pride in his Arab roots. Tayra spoke with LGBTQ Nation about what keeps him connected to Islam, and why, in his view, the religion has always felt a little bit gay.

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A post shared by Nour Tayara (@nourness)

LGBTQ Nation: You were raised in Lebanon as Muslim, is that correct?

Nour Tayara: Yes, my mom is Christian, and my dad is Muslim.

Which religion do you most identify with?

More Muslim.

Because one, from a legal perspective, in Lebanon you get the religion of your dad. So, my ID said Muslim. Number two, we don’t have civil marriage in Lebanon. So my mom had to become Muslim on paper so that they could actually get married religiously.

Growing up, we spent much more time in Islam with my dad’s family. I got to learn a lot of stuff from the Quran. I like the religion. It started with a lot of intellect, with a lot of art, with a lot of culture. I’m talking about Islam as a religion and not Islam as the culture that this world has decided to paint in the past 30, 40 years.

It’s not the Islam of oil countries or the Islam of terrorism or the Islam of no women’s rights or of being anti-gay. For me, it’s the Islam of the One Thousand and One Nights, and it’s the Islam of the start of algebra and astronomy and medicine. It’s a religion that I find very, very, very beautiful because it was based on fixing a lot of societal issues.

How do you see your faith in relation to your sexuality, considering Islam has historically rejected LGBTQ+ identities? Or, do you even feel that it has? 

I actually don’t feel that. For one, I don’t feel like Islam is that vocal about rejecting gays or queerness. It hasn’t been vocal about embracing it either, but I personally think Christianity has been a lot more vocal about closing the door. 

When I came out to my parents, I was about 20. Religion was such an important thing for me back then. I had to figure out how can I explain to my parents who live in Lebanon, in a very religious country, who don’t know much about gay anything, because it’s not on TV, it’s not in culture, it’s not in conversation, there are no magazines.

So I decided to start making them these little PowerPoint presentations and getting them to watch movies. I discovered a couple of documentarists that were doing documentaries about Islam and queerness. A Jihad for Love was a beauty. I made my dad watch it. Then I found something about Christianity, C.R.A.Z.Y by Jean-Marc Vallée, so I made my mom watch it.

I think if I had not seen that documentary at 20 years old, I would not have known that there are Muslims who did not want to say, “Hey, I’m going to just give up absolutely fully on having a faith.” It doesn’t mean that you have to be the most religious person. I don’t go to the mosque right now, but I think we all use and experience religion in a way that works for us. That is the way it should be.

Islam is something that gave me a sense of belonging, a sense of security, a sense of love, a sense of empathy, a sense of rules and values that help me judge and weigh my behavior. I was not going to just give that all up just because someone said I’m not allowed, and not in a very clear way. Just because mortals decided to hate on me. No.

So you struggled for a while with how to come out to your parents. Did you struggle internally at all with your sexuality and its relationship to Islam?

No. I don’t want this to be too controversial, but I’ve also always found Islam personally to be, visually and artistically, very homoerotic. Islam is about One Thousand and One Nights, the harems, men dressed in silk robes lying on gorgeous cushions in amazing interiors. It never felt austere. It never felt scary. It always felt like something so happy. For me, it always felt a bit gay.

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A post shared by Nour Tayara (@nourness)

You describe yourself on social media as a “proud queer Arab.” Why is it important to you that those parts are front and center?

I am extremely proud of my origins. I really believe in representation. I grew up without seeing people like me. I know a lot of us say that, and it might seem cliché, but it’s not — it’s the reality. I grew up not seeing gay men doing what I’m doing. It doesn’t mean I haven’t seen some of them successful, but in Lebanon it was very specific careers, and it had to do a lot with either like fashion or beauty, but not in a big boss way.

Then 9/11 happened, and I kept seeing the world seeing Arabs as either uneducated or terrorists or extremely misogynistic, a lot of things that do not represent my culture. So, the more visibility I get, the more I want to put out there what I am and how proud I am of it. I would love more people to see that queer people can make all of this happen and that Arab people also are so much more than the Islamophobic or anti-Arab narrative.

You said you don’t currently go to a mosque. How would you describe your current relationship with your faith? Is it more of a cultural connection?

I think it is. I recite and say things to myself when I feel the need to. I celebrate holidays. Sometimes I fast for Ramadan, but not always. I carry a little Quran with me. Again, I think religion is personal. So if I’m traveling, I always carry a little Quran with me. I feel very safe there.

I had a lot of difficulty finding an out queer Muslim person to interview for this piece. Do you feel there is a strong queer Muslim community?

There is a very strong queer Muslim community, but I think the queer Muslim community, but also Islam overall, relies a lot less on the place of worship than Judaism and Christianity. Islam is something that you take with you a lot more. The five times you pray in a day, if you do, you do it anywhere. And this is my personal interpretation to your question.

I think in Christianity and Judaism, there’s a dependency on your rabbi, on the priest, on the church accepting you. I think in Islam, we’ve created a community that’s not about finding the mosque that will accept you. Because the place of worship is not as crucial in your everyday relationship to the religion.

So it feels less visible or less official for you because there hasn’t been a need for the priests that will do their sermon and bless you at the end, or the synagogue that says gays are welcome. Then, on another end, Islam as a religion has been less schismed in a way. Like Christianity has so many versions. You have a version where a priest could be also married, or there are now women priests, so it has evolved in its hierarchy of human resources.

In Judaism, that’s true, too. Islam has not.  So I think our expectations have been different. No one is expecting we’re going to get a woman imam that’s going to welcome the gays. I don’t think anyone has that expectation right now.

So just kind of a less progressive arc overall.

It’s definitely less progressive on the official side of things there, but at the same time, it’s a religion where your relationship to religion doesn’t necessarily need that officialization.

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A post shared by Nour Tayara (@nourness)

What advice would you give to queer Arab youth who don’t know how to tell their families?

The biggest advice I would say is about not being afraid of telling your parents. At the end of the day, we have a responsibility to educate our families. When we come from these countries or from these religions, it’s very important to remember that our parents are not ignorant, they’re not homophobic, they are just uneducated, and they have not been surrounded by the information.

It’s easy to say Western parents are more accepting, but they’ve also had 50 or 60 years of media around them. They have been able to humanize this topic a lot more. It’s up to us to humanize it to our parents.

Be patient with your parents, hold their hand. Don’t throw that information at them and then leave them with the gravity of a topic that they cannot grasp.

Everyone cannot necessarily come out. Some people depend financially or depend in other ways. When the time is right, I think it’s good to have that patience and that courage to know that things will go in the right direction. 

Historically, the Arab world has been a lot more open. We shouldn’t forget that. We live in a cyclical historical world, and I love to remind myself how puritan and anti-women’s expression, anti-gay expression, the U.K. was, for example, 100 years ago, when the Arab and Muslim world was seeing beautiful expressionism of all things sexuality, and a world that was much more extravagant, where men were wearing mascara, and women were wearing beautiful [garments]. People came and saw us as sexual savages for having harams… and all of that.

So I like to remember that we once were all of that, and we can be again.

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