Queer Muslim Activist Tugay Sarac to Receive 10,000 Euro Reconciliation Prize

Tugay Sarac, a 29-year-old project leader for Islam and Diversity at the Ibn-Rushd-Goethe-Moschee in Berlin, has been named the recipient of the Klaus Jensen Foundation's Versohnungspreis 2026. The award of 10,000 euros will be presented in Trier on 26 November. Sarac also serves as the mosque's LGBTQ representative and conducts prevention and education work in schools on queerness, Islam, antisemitism, and Islamism, favouring personal encounter and dialogue over confrontation. His central message is that Islamic faith and queer identity are compatible, summed up in his motto Love is halal. His path to this work is personal: as a teenager he radicalised within a Salafist circle partly as a way of suppressing his own homosexuality, before leaving that ideology in 2017. Speaking from firsthand experience about radicalisation mechanisms, he now bridges communities often placed in opposition. The Klaus Jensen Foundation cited his courageous engagement in prevention work and dialogue.