Cut From the Same Cloth shows life in Britain as you’ve never seen it. Read it.
This is the first in a two posts relating to the essay collection. The second one is about a story I wrote in my essay (featuring an author on a panel yelling at me because men! secularism! sigh)
Cut From the Same Cloth is out! Years in the making, published by Unbound (who published The Good Immigrant, ed. by Nikesh Shukla) and edited by writer Sabeena Akhtar, Cut From the Same Cloth is an anthology of essays by women who have experience wearing the hijab.
I’m in the collection so this isn’t a review as much as it is a celebration of the wonderful contributors and their writing. It isn’t every day that Muslim womxn are put front and centre. I feel so honoured to be in the midst of such talented and beautiful souls. In the collection, we travel through school, university, the human rights sector, the therapist’s office, the bookshop… we move from Soho to a small village in Cambridgeshire, exploring themes like race, class, spirituality, social media, love, motherhood, daughterhood…
These are deep, searching essays to be taken in slowly. For any reader, they give some idea of what it will take for us to have meaningful solidarity between our communities.
For Muslims especially: We may all be Muslims, but we have a long way to go until we can live and breathe brotherhood and sisterhood rather than just saying it.
Here is a list of my favourite quotes from each essay:
Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan’s ‘I Am Not an Answer I am the Question’ - @thebrownhijabi
‘Breaking stereotypes is the most obvious form of being an answer to other people’s questions that exists for Muslim women. It does nothing for us but waste our time. Stereotypes do not exist to be broken, they exist to break us. Therefore, I am no longer placing value on disproving other people’s assumptions. This refusal is a form of non-compliance in a world that says Muslim women’s humanity and worth are conditional upon proving it. In not complying with that world we can become questions to it, instead. Why is our humanity conditional? Why is the onus on us to prove it?
A politics of questioning is, to me, inherently Islamic.’
Asha Mohamed’s ‘Hidden’ - @iftiinwadaag
‘Ask yourself why it is that European history goes back thousands of years, but African history starts with the scramble for Africa. What happens when the only history you learn about yourself is one of degradation, humiliation and de- humanisation? What happens when the only history you learn about Europeans is one of power, status and enlightenment? Do you feel equal? What does a child learning this in a British school subconsciously internalise? Particularly when the concepts of these power structures are being physically and emotionally compounded as often the first memorable incidents of racism also occur within schools.’
Sophie Williams’ ‘On Therapy’
‘I can’t believe that I’m having to explain my clothes to my therapist. I pick my niqab off the table. ‘I wear this because I like it. I feel comfortable in it.’
‘But it’s part of your religion,’ she corrects me.
‘It’s also part of who I am. I wear it for spiritual reasons, sure, but I also derive psychological benefit from it too. It’s like sunglasses, but better. I value the privacy.’
She leans back, looking pleased. ‘So maybe one measure of the success of our sessions might be that you’ll be comfortable taking it off in public,’ she says, making a note.’
Negla Abdalla’s ‘Dirty Melanin, Precious Melanin: Bilal was Black’
‘Message to the world – it is not okay under any circumstances to say to anybody any of the following statements:
‘You’re not Black, you’re brown.’
‘You’re not that dark.’
‘Do not use that foundation shade; try to make yourself look brighter,’ followed by suggesting a shade ten times lighter than our actual skin colour.
‘Your sister/brother is much blacker than you.’
‘You should use a mix of honey, lemon and sugar scrub – it will make your face so white.’
‘I’m Muslim, I cannot be racist. Bilal the first muezzin was Black.’’
Khadijah Elshayyal ‘COVID-19 and Recalibrating Our Ramadhan Realities’ - @drkelshayyal
‘It then struck me how the discourse around ‘COVID Ramadhan’ still came from a place of privilege. It still spoke to those of us who were always fortunate enough to be at the centre of the communal hub during this most precious month of the year. Those of us who had consistently occupied spaces at the periphery – by virtue of our caring obligations, or by aspects of identity: our sex, our age, ethnicity, disabilities and perhaps also those of us who were reconverts to the faith … we remained at the periphery of this conversation – even during this frenetic time of unparalleled stress and uncertainty. Where had these conversations been in previous years? Where had our concern and empathy been for those in our communities for whom Ramadhan was by default a lonely and isolating experience?’
Ruqaiya Haris ‘The Quest for Modesty in the Digital Age’ - @Ruqaiya_H
‘The virtue of modesty in men is rarely spoken about, and when it is spoken about it isn’t largely met with debates or scathing commentary that relentlessly attack the character of the individual in question. Whether in cases of Muslim sportsmen showing their awrah (the parts of their body that are impermissible to show in public) or male Muslim public figures exposed for sex scandals, the entire notion of modesty seems more malleable and forgiving for men. While allegations of male Muslim scholars abusing their power and conducting unlawful, predatory relationships with female students was met with some outrage in the community, it still inspired many statements from many other notable figures encouraging us to ‘cover the sins of our brothers’, which felt like a cop-out that only served to facilitate the silencing of abuse victims. When compared with the public reaction and vilification of female Muslim public figures who simply failed to adhere to sharia requirements of hijab or modesty in their personal practice, the contrast is evident.’
Fatima Ahdash ‘Arabic-Speaking’: Liberal Racism and Translating Trauma in the Human Rights Sector’ - @Fatima_Ahdash
‘I cannot quite convey how deeply upsetting it was to have to hear, on a daily basis, your people being spoken about in such a demeaning and, dare I say, dehumanising manner. For although these jokes, comments and remarks were not, of course, directed at us the ‘Arabic-speaking’ staff, it was enough to know that this is what our supervisors and colleagues in the human rights sector thought of Arabs like us: as incompetent breeders whose sacred rituals and spiritual lives amounted to nothing more than a nuisance to be dealt with.’
Sofia Rehman’s ‘The Gift of Second Sight’ - @sofia_reading
‘What happens when Kecia Ali writes about sexual ethics and Islam, when Asma Sayeed writes about the history of women’s scholarship in Islam and maps its ebbs and flows? Why are the shelves of Islamic bookstores bereft of the titles by Asma Barlas, Amina Wadud, Ziba Mir-Hosseini? Muslim women who have argued against patriarchy in all its guises and Islamophobia, and have called for gender justice and decolonisation enacted through Islamic principles…
The ideas and scholarship had not traversed the divide between the ivory tower of the academy and the grass-roots community because of the barriers to entry created, in one direction, by elite institutions of Higher Education pulling up the bridges, and in the other by the constant vilification and scaremongering against these women in the community. As always, the women’s voices are there; they are just very effectively put on mute.’
Mariam Ansar’s ‘Youth in the Time of Madrassahs’
‘With small fingers tracing over an alif, baa, taa, thinking this isn’t as hard as it looks. Mouths opening to recite a memorised verse a little while later, and realising, just a few minutes in, they’ve messed up. Who’s laughing already? Who’s got Apa or Ustaadji shaking their heads? Foregoing the ruler in their hand to tell them to go stand facing the wall, and not lick the paint the way a Halima, or a Ruqaiya or an Aisha did last week? Laughter again. A too-smart teacher’s pet uttering a sigh of disgust at such childish ineptitude. Apa or Ustaadji without words, and everyone needing a reminder, amidst the chaos of a quickly catching laughing hysteria – and the softening of some once-hard after-school hours – to go back to their quiet recitations.’
Aisha Rimi’s ‘4,091 Miles Away from Home’ -@rimi_aisha
‘I’ll admit, I was surprised by my mother’s experiences and sentiments of her time growing up in 1980s England. The first two years were spent in Malvern and Exeter, which are hardly hotspots for diversity, yet she was welcomed and embraced with open arms by a host family and by others within the community. Everything seemed fine. However, during the 1985 Brixton Riots in South London, my mum was living in West London, and racial issues became a little more real for her. Despite living in the same city, the riot was something she was able to distance herself from. ‘I had never been to Brixton at the time. I didn’t live in an area with a lot of different ethnic minorities, so the whole thing felt very far away from me although it was happening in London,’ my mother tells me. What strikes me is how it contrasts with the way I and others of my generation often feel so connected by the impact and severity of racist and Islamophobic incidents across the world. I find the power of social media and how quickly we can access information and firsthand reports forces this feeling. Still, some of what my mum expressed about being able to distance herself from the Riots resonates with me. Our capability to instantly connect and to be online also makes it easy for us to tap out and disconnect from atrocities happening both in our own countries and worldwide, especially when they don’t touch our own communities.’
Hodan Yusuf ‘s ‘Waiting to Exhale: the Scarcity of Safe Spaces’ - @hyfreelance
‘It is suffocating especially for Black or mixed-race Black Muslims who have non-Black family members who refuse to walk that walk with them, instead choosing to remain wilfully ignorant to the unique experience of being a Black Muslim in the UK. These people compound the oppressions by diminishing or denying the experiences of their spouses or children within their homes. Often, they don’t check the casual racisms of their own families, gaslighting their Black spouses and children into self-doubt, silence and isolation, until it feels like there are very few places left to turn to.’
Suma Din’s ‘A Cartography of Motherhood’ - @Suma_Din
‘I am still here, standing on the axis where the clear blue line crossed the highway of youth; once a mother, always a mother. This is the anomaly of this space, that you venture forward and stand still at the same time. I have stood here for over two decades. By the end of this jaunt, you may move some distance, or you may not.
Isn’t that why you read, to travel?
Within the confines of these lines, I will introduce you to two regions: the experience of raising Muslim children, and how I, as a mother, have grown on this terrain. Sink- holes, landmines, marshes and the odd lavender field line our path.’
Rumana Lasker Dawood’s ‘Growing into Hijab’ - @lil_pomegranate
‘Did your husband make you wear that?’
What a cliché. Can you see my eyes roll? It’s the kind of thing that as a hijabi you expect to hear and have a stock answer for. Depending on your mood it could be an enlightening and informative spiel about the hijab and the reasons why women wear it, or it could be a straight up ‘no’ with a face that says: ‘I dare you to ask if I’m hot in this too’. But this time it caught me off guard and left me speechless .I had been a doctor for nearly three years, and I had met with a consultant at work to discuss my application for the next stage of training. We had been going through my CV and he had even expressed an interest in the research I was doing. It was a professional conversation between colleagues . . . and yet he asked me this question as easily as asking if I wanted sugar in my tea.’
Shaista Aziz (in conversation with Zara Adams) ‘Grenfell’ - @shaistaAziz
‘I didn’t know anyone who lived in Grenfell, but I under-stood the magnitude of this catastrophe on the people left behind and the people and communities in the area. And this is what made me feel like I wanted to connect with the women impacted and hear their stories. I first went to Grenfell a month after the fire. I wanted to go and pay my respects. I headed to the Westway to do just that. I was very conscious that I was an outsider and many outsiders were in the area and that some of them, at least, weren’t welcome because of their behaviours – local government representatives, some journalists and members of the media, and those who had come to intrude on the grief and devastation of people and a community. I left a short while after I arrived and after I had read Fatiha and paid my respects.’
Sabeena Akhtar’s ‘Smile’ - @pocobookreader
‘I shrink myself as the carriage-full of football fans point and chant the famous Nat King Cole song at me in amusement. Moments earlier they forced me to open my handbag on the packed tube and ‘prove’ I wasn’t carrying a bomb as, grinning, they inspected the contents of my bag (including, to their delight, sanitary towels). They see the fear and humiliation in my teenage face and hold it like triumphant victors, breaking out into chorus, encouraging me to see the bright side of their ‘banter’. To just smile.
I hate that song, it’s like the soundtrack to the patriarchy. And yet, like most young women who find themselves in a position of fear, I did smile – I still do. I later laughed about the incident, shared it as an anecdote with friends and buried the fear and embarrassment deep behind my laughter.’
Yvonne Ridley’s ‘The Global Revolution of Hijab’ - @yvonneridley
‘The truth is I used to look at veiled women as quiet, oppressed creatures until I was captured by the Taliban just fifteen days after the horrific events of 9/11. I snuck into Afghanistan under the cover of the all-enveloping blue burqa, intending to write a newspaper account of life under the repressive regime.
As an investigative journalist, I must admit the burqa was extremely liberating in as much as I had become invisible. No one looked at me, judged me, gave me a first – never mind second – glance. I was only arrested after falling off a donkey!’
Khadijah Rotimi’s ‘Racial Perceptions’ - @___Khads_
‘One of the main challenges for me has been the fact that, since wearing the hijab, my Nigerian side is often overlooked and/or insulted by certain Muslim communities who have a very ignorant perception of beauty. I’ve developed a very thick skin towards racism and backhanded compliments, particularly from the South Asian, Arab and East African communities. I’m often told that I’m ‘too pretty to be Nigerian’. I think my least favourite is ‘wow, you look completely Pakistani mashaAllah’, as if to congratulate me for my apparent ‘lack of Blackness’. My eyes automatically rolled even having to write that stupidity. It’s as if because I am half Asian, the Asian community has a sense of familiarity towards me which makes them feel it’s perfectly acceptable to ‘compliment’ me in this way, as they assume I share their racist beauty standards, which stem from a history of colonialism (and two-faced aunties who want their grandkids to look as gora – white – as possible!).’
Raisa Hassan’s ‘Ticking the ‘Intelligence’ Box’ - @raisahassanXOX
‘For once, our eyes locked. She smiled with a light in her eyes – a light I cannot explain. I will never forget that look in her eyes. Or her face. Never. Little did I know that that would be the last time I ever saw her. That year, in the summer of 2009, Miss Zaidi died in an accident on holiday. It was hard to go past room 50 for the remaining four years, let alone walking through or being taught in there. Every time I think about that last encounter, I cry. I still miss her. This is one story that will always be connected to my hijab, with pride – for as long as I live. She respected me for who I was. A disabled Muslim hijabi. People now say that I had influenced her to wear the hijab. If I did, what an honour. We will never know for sure.’
Fatha Hassan’s ‘So I can talk to guys now?’
‘This wasn’t in the Muslim girl handbook on ‘how to suddenly find a husband’; no one prepared us. They say practice makes perfect, but I’m now entering a swimming pool with a full belly of Nando’s and I don’t know how to swim. I was constantly told not to do this and that, but now I have completed jumping through hoops – education, career – I am magically expected to produce a family out of thin air. This is exactly what happens when parents avoid giving the talk on sex – we’re just left stumbling around in the dark. The thought of bringing in the opposite sex as ‘marriage material’ after being told to stay away for so long is crazy! Suddenly the fictitious man you’ve never spoken to materialises in their mind: ‘Is he Somali?’, ‘Does he work?’, ‘Is he Muslim?’ (I don’t know what’s been going on for this question to suddenly arise) and ‘What’s his tribe?’’