But it was the finer details of “Muslim Man’s” offer, recently posted in an internet chatroom, that might concern his future in-laws and lead them to see their own daughter in a new light. “I am looking for a bi- Muslim woman,” he wrote. “Someone who aspires to stability whether that is as husband and wife, or as husband, wife and same-sex partners.”

In the week that Sir Iqbal Sacranie, Britain’s most senior Muslim figure, described homosexuality as a harmful, immoral vehicle for spreading disease, the internet remains the only place where many gay or bisexual Muslims can truly be themselves.

Sir Iqbal is regarded as a moderate and his comments were the latest in a long line of similar statements from mainstream Islamic leaders.

These have in turn provoked outbursts of Islamophobia from sections of the gay community, with some activists at the Gay Pride parade last year berating Muslim marchers as “suicide bombers” and a gay magazine categorising Islam as a “barmy doctrine”.

Trapped in the crossfire, the vast majority of gay, lesbian and bisexual British Muslims live secret double lives or never acknowledge their feelings.

The Times contacted members of this underground community this week. Their testimony reveals a world where thousands of lives have been wrecked by sham marriages, elaborate deceptions, unacknowledged HIV and crippling loneliness.

“Zac”, 24, from Lancashire, has been prevented from living as a gay man. He told The Times how his parents had forced him into an arranged marriage with his Pakistani cousin in the hope that it would “make me straight”. His wife is now pregnant with his son. He is trapped at home, consumed with frustration and resentful of his parents.

“Raz”, 21, is a second-year politics student at the University of Birmingham. Like Zac he describes himself as a good Muslim who goes to the mosque regularly. “I think there’s a lack of understanding among people like Sacranie. They think homosexuality is a choice but if it was, why would I choose to make my life so much more complicated?”

“At the end of the day it comes down to whether you want to lead the gay life or the 2.4 children life. If I was going to get married I wouldn’t consider telling my parents about my sexuality at all because no good would come of it and it would really upset them.”

Ibrahim Ismail, sexual health co-ordinator for South Asian and Muslim men with the Naz Project in London, said that Sir Iqbal’s remarks could become a self-fulfilling prophecy, promoting the spread of sexually transmitted disease by terrifying more gay men into living secret, unsafe sex lives. “It will drive them underground, undermining the fight to improve sexual health,” he said, quoting the example of a secretly HIV-positive man who infected his pregnant wife with the virus.

“His family disowned her but he preferred to let them find him a new wife and put her at risk than come clean about his HIV status and explain he had caught it from other men.”

Mr Ismail said that many British Muslims still lived lives rooted in denial.

But among the tales of struggle and compromise there are grounds for optimism.

A handful of Muslims are believed to be among the hundreds of gay men and women who have taken out civil partnerships in the past month. The country’s other top Muslim, Dr Zaki Badawi of the Muslim College, has urged gay Muslims to take advantage of their financial benefits so long as they are not sexually active.

Most importantly, organisations such as Imaan (www.imaan.org.uk) and the Safra Project (www.safraproject.org) are slowly establishing themselves as havens for gay Muslims to share their experiences and receive support and advice.

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