It´s Pride Month. I´m in a Muslim country. What better time to read a bunch of Queer Muslim fiction and memoirs? Here are some that you should definitely add to your to-be-read list.
Some of the least represented, in already underrepresented LGBTQ+ media, are queer Muslims. In many narratives, Islam and LGBTQ+ are often characterised as enemies, but that is a very oversimplified narrative. Unsurprisingly, there are many queer people for whom Islam is also a core part of their identity. Many live in predominantly Muslim cultures, and whose faith is a huge part of their lives, alongside their queerness.
A lot of Queer Muslim fiction I’ve read grapples with similar themes of not fitting into Muslim or queer communities. Being stuck in this no-man’s land. Often, navigating a tricky intersection of identities while wanting to feel like they belong in each.
As someone who is navigating different intersections of illness and queerness, something I’ve been realising is how narrow and prescriptive queer community can be. I’ve been making an effort this Pride to engage with less represented queer experiences. So here are three Queer Muslim fiction books I read this Pride Month. These three Queer Muslim fiction books should definitely be added to your TBR.
Hijab Butch Blues
This book tells the (true) story of Lamya, who grew up in an undisclosed country in the Gulf region. Their family immigrated from somewhere in South Asia. These countries have been deliberately kept vague to protect the author’s anonymity.
Throughout this book, Lamya jumps through different time periods of their life in a very in-depth exploration of their relationship with religion, culture, sexuality and gender. Having realised they were a lesbian, but lacking the words to understand this, Lamya finds solace in the Qur’an.
What follows is a mixture of retelling passages from the Qur’an and connecting these passages with the big questions, experiences and revelations occurring in their life at that point. It starts with this joyful moment aged 14, when Lamya realises that Maryam is angry at God.
While this description might sound preachy, it is not at all; instead, it is beautifully engaging and introspective.
Big themes in this book are the idea of being an outsider. An outsider, even when you are in communities of outsiders. For example, being a Muslim in queer communities, being gay in Islamic communities, and being Desi in the Gulf. Lamya shows the ways in which they are able to love these communities, but also never quite feel a sense of belonging.
Lamya explores the importance of chosen family, especially for queer people. They explore the importance of finding a community where you don’t need to explain yourself. They also show the sacrifices you sometimes make to keep love and family. Conversely, there are the choices you make to walk away from relationships when you need to.
While I have had a very different life experience from Lamya, many aspects of this book were still relatable. The deep wish to find a place where you feel like you can fully be yourself is huge. At the same time, being so conditioned that you aren’t even fully sure how or if it is safe to show up as yourself.
You can feel Lamya’s deep love and understanding of the Qur’an and Islam throughout the book. This is paired with her deep wish to feel belonging. This ties together into such a beautiful exploration of Identity, Queerness and Islam.
For a more in-depth review, check out this review (it contains spoilers) by a Queer Muslim.
We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib
Samra Habib recounts their childhood growing up as an Ahmadi Muslim in Pakistan, a group that was persecuted. As a result, Habib’s family flee to Canada as refugees. There, they face xenophobia and have to rebuild their life in a completely different culture.
Throughout Habib’s childhood, she sees how powerless women are forced to be. Her own mother’s name was even changed, without consent, by her father, to find a more fitting name. As she says, “I’d only ever been surrounded by women who didn’t have the blueprint for claiming their lives.”
Fast forward to the age of 16, and Samra has been arranged a marriage. She dutifully follows through, even though she really does not want to. With the help of freethinking friends from school, Samra is eventually able to get out of the situation. She embarks on a journey of exploration and claiming her own life in a way that the women before her in her family were never able to do.
At some point, she starts to explore her queerness. She tries to find a label that works for her, trying to figure herself out. She leads with curiosity and tries to learn as much as she can about the LGBTQ+ community in Canada. Through this, she finds and nurtures chosen family. At the same time, she starts to reconnect with her mother and grow in her professional life, all the while gaining a voice she never had as a child.
Another major journey we see Samra go through is the journey to reconnect with her faith. And there are some beautiful moments where Samra finds community with other Queer Muslims and starts to figure out her place in the world.
This book recounts such a beautiful and thoughtful journey from being told “Allah hates the loud laughter of women” to saying, “As a woman in this world, it is important to take up space and make yourself heard even if it intimidates and offends powerful men.” All the while, she is navigating the tricky intersection of queer and Muslim and finding ways she can feel seen and heard in both of these identities.
For Samra, “Representation is a critical way for people to recognise that their experiences—even if invisible in the mainstream—are valid.” And so it becomes her mission to represent Queer Muslim’s in whatever way they wanted, to tell these stories and help others like her feel less alone.
Lunar Boy
Lunar Boy is a change of pace from the last two books and is a graphic novel written by a pair of Chinese Indonesian twins. It’s a very wholesome coming-of-age story of a lunar boy (named Indu), who is adopted from the Moon by his mum, who lives in a spaceship community. The book starts with Indu (who is trans) and his mum moving to New Earth, which, in the drawings, is remarkably like Indonesia.
Indu starts a new school where he is immediately warned against the Waria (a mix of wanita and pria, which translates to female and male). He also does not speak the language, although he can understand it well. From this point, he spends his time navigating a move to a new planet, joining a new, blended family, and working out how much of his gender and sexuality he can reveal.
As with most other queer books I’ve ever read, this book demonstrates the importance of community and loving support. Indu ends up finding a queer community centre (which is based on a real queer community centre in Indonesia) and building a community around him of people who love and support him. The braver he is with being himself and putting himself out there, the more he is able to find and connect with the people who are there for him and do support him.
If you are looking for a heart-warming queer moment with a Muslim Indonesian background (mostly demonstrated through the imagery, food and language), this is such a pick-me-up, coming-of-age, easy-to-read book. While it isn’t explicitly Queer Muslim fiction, many context clues suggest it is set in a place where Islam is practised!
Any Queer Muslim Fiction Recommendations?
While it seems that there is much less queer Muslim fiction and representation out there, it definitely exists. Now that most of my queer community are Muslim, it feels like a really important time for me personally to be reading about the plethora of Queer Muslim experiences. So any Queer Muslim fiction recommendations you have, please leave them in the comments. Or, any general sapphic recommendations also work!
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