We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

by Samra Habib

I’d only ever been surrounded by women who didn’t have the blueprint for claiming their lives.

It would be far too easy to villainize my mother and her behaviour. But that is to assume she had the tools and the privilege to consider another future for her daughter. She was raised to believe that control was not something granted to women. Even with a tiny bit of control, there is always a caveat: you cover yourself up when conducting business with men; you get your husband’s, brother’s, or father’s permission before you travel; and elders are always right, even when they aren’t.

So my mother came of age knowing abandonment and neglect intimately. Her experiences taught her that as a woman, fertility, purity, and beauty were the only currencies she could exchange for a better life. She understood that any hindrance to my ability to find a suitable husband made me as undesirable and disposable as her stuttering mother. She lived in a country where countless women are found dead in alleyways and on the sides of dirt roads, their bodies discarded because they were not able to conceive children, particularly boys.

Ahmadis are regularly persecuted, legally and through extreme measures, for anything from using a traditional Muslim greeting in public to reciting the call to prayer. Stories of Ahmadi businesses being set ablaze and Ahmadi mosques being besieged by gunmen are sadly common.

despite having grand dreams of becoming a writer and travelling the world, my future consisted of being a good Pakistani wife. I was destined for a life of servitude, just like Nasir’s mother, my mother, and my mother’s mother, who all muted their ambitions and defining traits to be pious sisters, getting lost in a sea of burka-clad wives.

Getting to know men was not something the women in my family were encouraged to do. They were to be avoided at all times, like attack dogs without muzzles. In Pakistan I’d lived in a gender-segregated bubble, privy to very adult conversations among women who had created safe spaces for themselves, a private world without men. It was in those spaces that I fell in love with the beautiful, complex, and resilient beings women are. Even the most complicated woman feels uncomplicated and familiar to me. Being surrounded by sisters, aunts, and female cousins made it easy for me to not acknowledge men until I absolutely had to.

I was fascinated by teenagers having the luxury to learn from their mistakes, a world in which the only consequences of hanging out with the wrong crowd, taking up smoking, or making bad decisions as a result of peer pressure were grounding and detention. In my world, every move was carefully inspected for any traces of sin, usually by my parents but also by other Muslims from the mosque who felt compelled to keep an eye on me, just as my parents kept an eye on others’ children so that no one would go astray. On numerous occasions, kids from our mosque told my parents that I’d been spotted talking to boys at school, and I would have to explain to them that we were talking about homework or tests.

Azaad is a funny word in Urdu. In most instances, it means “freedom.” Freedom from your captors, war, and oppressive regimes. But when used to describe a woman, it is meant to imply that she is too wild to be tamed by those who have the right to tame her: her parents and all the men in her life whose honour it is her duty to prioritize before her desires. It’s also used liberally to slut-shame and put down a woman who shows any sign of autonomy or independence. One day I would wear the title of azaad like a badge of honour.

Grown-ups, who are supposed to protect their children, are limited by what “best” has felt like to them, based on the circumstances they grew up in and the privilege they did or did not have. The lines between grown-up and child were often blurred between me and my mom. Her “best” did not look like mine; in fact, it looked like danger. It felt like surrender.

I wondered whether my mother ever dared to imagine what her best could look like. Did she ever have the luxury to envision a best made up of decisions that were good for her without feeling selfish and guilty? The kind of best that was truly hers and hers alone? A best that didn’t make her feel that if she wasn’t living for someone else’s happiness, she wasn’t worthy of love? A best that didn’t ask her to justify her existence by being useful to others? A best that didn’t ask her to mute her fire so that someone else’s could burn brighter? A best that didn’t require that she give away every part of herself, including her daughter, until she had nothing left? A best that didn’t demand she sacrifice everything for the promise of heaven’s embrace?

We knew that our relationship with our father was always transactional. So I didn’t ask him for anything.

They reminded me of my dad, who despite being loud and commanding was frightened of women who projected strength and confidence. Nothing flustered him more than a powerful female who wasn’t afraid to speak her mind. At thirteen, I was already starting to realize that this was the type of woman I should aspire to be.

For years afterwards, my mother would remind me of how I signed the nikah papers that night without any hesitation. The fact that I didn’t resist was an indication that I was okay with the arrangement, and this belief absolved her of guilt and shifted some of the accountability onto me. That particular detail and her memory of it would haunt me as I tried to undo the damage it caused. I started to internalize my mother’s belief that my lack of resistance was my way of consenting and that I was responsible for what had happened. I carried the guilt within me, holding myself accountable for not saying anything earlier, even though I felt that I couldn’t.

And so, at sixteen, I was a teenage bride, and the nikah was the chastity belt I wore to guard me from the temptation of teenage rebellion in a country that had given me my first taste of freedom.

But in my reality, there were limitations to how much I could pursue an individual identity, because my identity had already been decided for me.

It was as if the counsellor at the other end had never encountered my specific situation—a teenage Muslim girl trapped in an unhappy arranged marriage—and when she suggested I tell my parents how I felt, I hung up on her.

Peter was unlike any other man I’d ever met: gentle and non-threatening. I knew implicitly that he would never hurt me. He was never jealous or angry, and his indifference, his dispassion, felt like safety to me. It was all I needed.

The privilege of being second or even third generation wasn’t lost on me.

I’d been taught that women weren’t supposed to speak their minds; Abi planted the seed that as a woman in this world it’s important to take up space and make yourself heard, even if it intimidates and offends powerful men.

It was hard to imagine a space that was solely for my joy and comfort and no one else’s. Did I even know how to live a life that put me first?

What would it feel like to walk through the world daring to present myself without apology? Why had I never given myself permission to marvel at my body and appreciate how resilient it had been? How it had gently carried me through pain and trauma, and how for years I hid it under layers of shame. Because my femininity had often been exploited by others, used as justification for controlling and monitoring me, I didn’t want it to be looked at or acknowledged. Now, looking at myself as if for the first time, I understood how showing off my curves could allow me to take back the power from those who had stripped me of it. My body could be a source of joy and pride. It was for me and for me alone.

I watched with delight as people of all ages—from toddlers to octogenarians—wandered through the Manga Museum and sat reading comics on the surrounding astroturf. Seeing them all getting enjoyment from the same source made me wonder: why don’t we ever see someone above the age of fifty being pushed on the swings or eating an ice cream cone with sprinkles?

Throughout my travels, I thought about what I wanted love to look like for me. Was it possible to be loved without losing myself? Was the absence of a partner I was spiritually and intellectually in sync with the price I had to pay for being uncompromising about needing the space to grow?

We talked about how not to lose oneself while giving and receiving love and how to keep our sense of self intact while opening ourselves up to the possibility of love. I marvelled at the sheer longevity of this battle, how it united us across age and geography.

Did I need the occasion of marriage to feel validated by those I love, or to celebrate love itself?

Being surrounded by great people isn’t a fluke. It’s almost like solving a math problem, finding variables, adding and subtracting to figure out a formula that works. Being surrounded by people who fuel you is intentional.

When we moved to Canada, the mosque had been my mother’s refuge, a place where she wasn’t judged on how she looked or dressed. Kneeling on the spongy pink-and-green carpeted floor of the mosque’s dingy basement—the area designated for women while the men prayed in the airier and more welcoming space above—was where I would ask Allah for guidance, just as my mother did. There was a kinship among the women who occupied that space together, as many of them resented being treated as second-class citizens within their own faith. Our only access to any ideological dialogue about the verses of the Quran came by way of a TV screen projecting what male elders deemed worthy of our discussion. Women were not asked to share their thoughts on how the teachings of the Quran played out in their lives. So for that kinship to be broken, for those generous embraces that once cushioned us to be taken away, was especially devastating.

One of the most striking differences from the traditional mosques I attended when I was younger was that people of all genders prayed side by side. Muslims of all orientations and racial backgrounds shared the same space, the same floor. Before the sermon began we were all handed a sheet of house rules, which highlighted that we were not to argue with others about the validity of their faith, since all Muslims experience Islam in different ways. After all, Islam is not a monolithic religion. Although all of us in that room viewed and experienced Islam through a queer lens, the version of Islam we each practised was very much shaped by what also set us apart: geography, culture, race, class, and history.

I tried to hold back my tears—for the first time I was witnessing a version of Islam I could be a part of. After being scolded and frozen out, I now felt that Islam was welcoming me back into its arms. It had been an awful lonely time, and I was glad to be in the company of people who didn’t ask me to change who I was in order to share space with them. I had finally found my people.

Each time, my personal relationship with Islam was restored a little bit more, and my experience of always having felt like an outcast within Islam was validated. I’d never felt more Muslim than I did among my fellow outsiders, who came from all over the world and who each practised Islam in their own individual ways.

I loved that we were questioning and reimagining not just what it means to be Muslim in the twenty-first century but how to apply Islamic teachings to our present-day lives. I looked to these peers to see how they dealt with rejection from their families and with Islamophobia from non-Muslims.

For me, practising Islam feeds my desire to understand the beauty and complexity of the universe and to treat everyone, regardless of their beliefs, with respect. My faith inspires kindness, patience, and self-reflection in my daily interactions. Relearning how to pray—focusing on the words and the prayer steps, such as kneeling in front of God in sajda—taught me that completely surrendering yourself to something you love is a gift. In fact, it’s in the getting lost that you find yourself.

“Jaan, it helps to find solace in the larger universe, especially when your internal world isn’t hospitable,”

“I get it,” she said. “You’re trying to make Muslims who are treated unfairly feel like they are part of Islam. That’s very Muslim of you.”

“Islam in its purest form is simply a way of life,” she said. “From its teachings, I’ve gathered a deep appreciation and respect for the concept of inner struggle, and believe that this is the work every human needs to do to be healthy.”

Islamophobia is not a new phenomenon, but this time, its cruel reality and its consequences for families, many of whom had escaped a dangerous life in the countries they were from, was a little too close to home. Families separated from one another reminded me of childhood fears I’d buried. Would we always be fighting for a chance to be treated with compassion and dignity?

Not everyone is equipped for activism in the traditional sense—marching, writing letters to officials—but dedicating your life to understanding yourself can be its own form of protest, especially when the world tells you that you don’t exist.