We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

by Samra Habib

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?

Maybe home was simply any place where you felt seen and welcome.

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.

“We have always been here,

“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.”