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.

She was raised to believe that control was not something granted to women.

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.

Even the most complicated woman feels uncomplicated and familiar to me.

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:

One day I would wear the title of azaad like a badge of honour.

that we all go through hardships, tragedies, and barriers, that they’re all part of life in a world that has always been incredibly unfair and cruel, but it’s what we do with those experiences that allows us to leave our mark.

Did she ever have the luxury to envision a best made up of decisions that were good for her without feeling selfish and guilty?

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.

I love this quote so much.