If it weren’t for having to read the Quran every day since as far back as I could remember, I would have believed I didn’t deserve to be happy, to be loved, or to have a choice in who I married. I would have spent my entire life believing that violence was just a given, a reality I had no choice but to tolerate. But Allah, my Allah, told me that I deserved better. So I would pray to him when I felt that no one was looking out for me in this world, not even my parents.
