A Jihad for Love (preceded by a short film called In the Name of Allah) is a 2008 documentary film and was the world's first film on Islam and homosexuality. It took a total of six years to make and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2007. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2008 as the opening documentary film for the Panorama section.The Indo-American Arts Council referred to it as a "seminal film" because of its unprecedented subject. The work that Sharma started with the film has become a staple in many books on Islam and at U.S. University libraries. Sharma wrote the foreword for the two-part anthology Islam and Homosexuality.According to Sharma, South Africa's Muslim Judicial Council labeled him an apostate in response to the film.