Essays

What Are You Doing Here, Sister? Los Angeles Review of Books

“In the beginning, there was a plane; and then there was an airport. And then there was a language. And then there was a city that taught me to live. This queer city, this brown city — this queer brown city. Finally, finally, I am home.”

A Personal History of Islamophobia in the US Vox

Islamophobia isn’t new. It’s been part of my daily life for years.

How Trump's America Has Changed the Way I Wear My Identities Vice

As a gender nonconforming, queer immigrant Muslim, I'm constantly shuffling the identities I expose. But whether I'm wearing a hijab or a snapback, there's nowhere to hide anymore.

Yes, it's possible to be queer and Muslim Salon

People think Islam and queerness are contradictory, but both are deeply woven into the fabric of who I am

Dark Skin, Whitening Masks The Offing

“Everyone in my mother’s family sitting in this room is darker, and I’m one of the darkest —a deep shade of chestnut to everyone else’s wheatish complexion. Even at 11, I’m constantly offered suggestions that I ignore: scrub my face with besan, eat lots of cream, dab almond oil on my face at night.”

Not Your Tragic Queer Muslim Story Black Girl Dangerous

“[It] did not occur to me that my Muslim-ness and my queerness were supposed to be at war with each other until I started performing these identities in semi-public ways. The exoticization, the Islamophobia, the disbelief at my existence – these are all manifestations of imagined narratives that are projected onto me and do not reflect an innate discordance of being. My queerness and my Muslim-ness do not need to be reconciled mostly because they cannot be disentangled from each other. I can’t remember ever not having been both.”

How To De-Queer Your Apartment The Islamic Monthly

“And just like that, you have less than 24 hours to prepare for their impending visit of your family. Hard enough for any normal person to do, to pull off the feat of sanitizing one’s life for display to the people who raised her, but what’s a closeted queer to do?”

A Fragile Dance: Queer Brown Futures (Or Lack Thereof) Autostraddle

“Why are these not (also) the stories we tell each other, these stories of alternative futures, these stories of resistance? Why do we only collect coming out stories, it-gets-better stories, these stories that are set in the past, that tell of a particular set of experiences that not everyone can relate to? Stories that treat the future as if it doesn’t come with a problems of its own.”

A Very Queer Ramadan Tanqeed

“It starts off as an ambitious idea: let’s create our own space, let’s read Quran and break fast together every day.”

The Things That Saved You Longest Days Sacred Nights

“It hasn’t been easy, it isn’t easy still. But you’re less likely to say that these days, you’re less likely to shoot for being alive as a goal. Which feels huge for how little it actually is, this act of surviving. But here are some things that saved you.”

Queer, Brown, Muslim - And Constantly Under Attack Muslim Women Speak

“As a queer, brown Muslim these revelations hit hard. Suddenly, all my identities were under attack. In a strange way, the intersection of my identities — as a queer person, as a person of color, as a Muslim — was also suddenly treated as valid for the first time.”