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| Celebrating Eid: 'As a conflicted Muslim, this day doesn't come easily' | Celebrating Eid: 'As a conflicted Muslim, this day doesn't come easily' |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Growing up, whenever a classmate would shout “fucking Hindu” at me, I was devastated. It felt like no one could see me, that all they could see was yet another brown person. I was lumped into some incorrect category driven by ignorance. Then, September 11 happened and I realized how different it was to be the subject of active hate. | Growing up, whenever a classmate would shout “fucking Hindu” at me, I was devastated. It felt like no one could see me, that all they could see was yet another brown person. I was lumped into some incorrect category driven by ignorance. Then, September 11 happened and I realized how different it was to be the subject of active hate. |
| As far as insults went, “Hindu” was inaccurate and ignorant. But being asked if my family were terrorists or being told to “go back to where I came from” cut right through me. | As far as insults went, “Hindu” was inaccurate and ignorant. But being asked if my family were terrorists or being told to “go back to where I came from” cut right through me. |
| And so as Ramadan ends and Muslims across the world joyously celebrate Eid Al-Fitr with feasting and presents, I am grappling with the faith I was raised with. | And so as Ramadan ends and Muslims across the world joyously celebrate Eid Al-Fitr with feasting and presents, I am grappling with the faith I was raised with. |
| My parents are devout, and it became clear to me as a child that straying from Islam was not an option. There was no exploratory period of what Allah meant, what other religions meant, or what not believing in a higher power could mean. It was suffocating and with every surah I memorized, I felt more stifled. Did I really want to be Muslim? Would I be more enamored with another religion? I wanted a chance to find out for myself, but doing so was out of the question. | My parents are devout, and it became clear to me as a child that straying from Islam was not an option. There was no exploratory period of what Allah meant, what other religions meant, or what not believing in a higher power could mean. It was suffocating and with every surah I memorized, I felt more stifled. Did I really want to be Muslim? Would I be more enamored with another religion? I wanted a chance to find out for myself, but doing so was out of the question. |
| As I got older, I had more and more reservations about Islam. Things like not being able to wear shorts when my brother could, to knowing women in a Muslim nation like Saudi Arabia still can’t go anywhere without a chaperone were very hard to reconcile with my budding sense of my self as a feminist. | As I got older, I had more and more reservations about Islam. Things like not being able to wear shorts when my brother could, to knowing women in a Muslim nation like Saudi Arabia still can’t go anywhere without a chaperone were very hard to reconcile with my budding sense of my self as a feminist. |
| So, as a teenager, I adopted the age-old liberal trick of disavowing religion; because religion is for the ignorant and narrow-minded. I knew enough to know that the sky is blue because of scattering light and tiny molecules, not merely because Allah said so. In college, I avoided telling people I was raised Muslim. I didn’t observe Ramadan, and the prayer rug my mother so lovingly packed for me gathered dust in the back of my closet as I finally wore what I wanted freely for the first time. | |
| While I can now honestly say I never really stopped believing in God, I definitely tried. I publicly called myself an atheist and smirked at those who needed religion, but secretly I never abandoned simple rituals like saying a short prayer before eating or absentmindedly asking a higher power for guidance when lost. | While I can now honestly say I never really stopped believing in God, I definitely tried. I publicly called myself an atheist and smirked at those who needed religion, but secretly I never abandoned simple rituals like saying a short prayer before eating or absentmindedly asking a higher power for guidance when lost. |
| But that all changed because of Isis. Islam needs real allies in in the face of such barbaric acts like those we have seen in Orlando or my family’s home country or Turkey or Iraq or Saudi Arabia. So, within the last five years I started to double down on Islam. I am the one now initiating discussions on Islam and its role in politics, race and feminism in my social circles. I am no longer ashamed to say “Yes, I am Muslim” but “No, I probably will never wear a niqab and yes, I too have a lot of questions myself”. By having such frank discussions, I had to admit to myself that being a Muslim was ingrained for me and I could never abandon it – but I did have to find a way to practice. | But that all changed because of Isis. Islam needs real allies in in the face of such barbaric acts like those we have seen in Orlando or my family’s home country or Turkey or Iraq or Saudi Arabia. So, within the last five years I started to double down on Islam. I am the one now initiating discussions on Islam and its role in politics, race and feminism in my social circles. I am no longer ashamed to say “Yes, I am Muslim” but “No, I probably will never wear a niqab and yes, I too have a lot of questions myself”. By having such frank discussions, I had to admit to myself that being a Muslim was ingrained for me and I could never abandon it – but I did have to find a way to practice. |
| Like any other religion, there is a spectrum of belief for Muslims. I never had progressive Muslim role models growing up, but that’s changing. People are speaking up, using their experiences to rally on behalf of inclusion, that really helped me see how identifying as a Muslim was not mutually exclusive with me being an American, a liberal or feminist. People like Hasan Minhaj poignantly talking about being different in his one-man show, London mayor Sadiq Khan’s delightfully frank essay on fasting, queer Muslim photographer Samra Habib sharing the stories of other LGBT Muslims, Muslim American teens in New York City coping with identity and books like Love InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women are refreshing and inspiring. The Muslim experience is no longer a monolith. | Like any other religion, there is a spectrum of belief for Muslims. I never had progressive Muslim role models growing up, but that’s changing. People are speaking up, using their experiences to rally on behalf of inclusion, that really helped me see how identifying as a Muslim was not mutually exclusive with me being an American, a liberal or feminist. People like Hasan Minhaj poignantly talking about being different in his one-man show, London mayor Sadiq Khan’s delightfully frank essay on fasting, queer Muslim photographer Samra Habib sharing the stories of other LGBT Muslims, Muslim American teens in New York City coping with identity and books like Love InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women are refreshing and inspiring. The Muslim experience is no longer a monolith. |
| When you’ve spent most of your life as a confused Muslim, days like Eid don’t come easily. I don’t have many Muslim friends, despite growing up in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood in Queens, and my family never really spent it as a cohesive unit mainly because getting the day off from work or school wasn’t a guarantee. | When you’ve spent most of your life as a confused Muslim, days like Eid don’t come easily. I don’t have many Muslim friends, despite growing up in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood in Queens, and my family never really spent it as a cohesive unit mainly because getting the day off from work or school wasn’t a guarantee. |
| So for me celebrating Eid has become a sort of political act. My attitude towards celebrating has changed now that my six nieces and nephews are older. Their version of Islam can be full of merriment and acceptance. In fact, this Eid I will be at my brother’s home with his white, American wife and their newborn son, and I can’t think of a more inclusive way to celebrate. | So for me celebrating Eid has become a sort of political act. My attitude towards celebrating has changed now that my six nieces and nephews are older. Their version of Islam can be full of merriment and acceptance. In fact, this Eid I will be at my brother’s home with his white, American wife and their newborn son, and I can’t think of a more inclusive way to celebrate. |
| With every terrifying terrorist attack that is being wrongfully blamed on Islam, Muslims across the world understand Aziz Ansari’s fearing for his family’s safety or comedian Dean Obeidallah’s feeling of immediate, internal turmoil that happens whenever there’s a terrorist attack. And I can’t do much to stop any of that. | With every terrifying terrorist attack that is being wrongfully blamed on Islam, Muslims across the world understand Aziz Ansari’s fearing for his family’s safety or comedian Dean Obeidallah’s feeling of immediate, internal turmoil that happens whenever there’s a terrorist attack. And I can’t do much to stop any of that. |
| But what I can do, is celebrate Eid with courage and show by example what it means to be Muslim – as varied and complicated as it is to be human. | But what I can do, is celebrate Eid with courage and show by example what it means to be Muslim – as varied and complicated as it is to be human. |