We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

Habib reflects on how their parents met after recounting their own marriage. Their dad met their mother after accidentally hitting a woman with his car and seeking help from a friend. Their mother mistook the blood on his clothes for his own and tended to him. Their father married their mother a few months later.

Their mother came from a much lower class than their father, leaving their mother with few ways out of her impoverished life aside from marrying their father. Habib watched the two of them engage in a stiff and loveless marriage, which they believe is why they never asked their father to help them convince their mother to call off the arranged marriage. Their marriage taught Habib that marriage was an inevitable burden to suffer, so they thought that they must marry Nasir to keep their family’s love.

Habib’s marriage to Nasir causes their parents to ease up on their rigid behavior policing. Habib is allowed to wear makeup now that they are married and their parents do not constantly surveil their whereabouts. Nasir, however, takes up his perceived duties as a husband and begins policing what Habib reads and how they spend their time. Nasir feels threatened by their level of education. Habib becomes a voracious reader and learns to hide their books from Nasir and their family.

They find solace in their friendship with Peter, a Black student at their high school who defies their expectations for men. Peter is kind and gentle and does not presume that he is superior to them just because he is a man. Habib tries to go to prom with Peter by lying to their parents but finds their father waiting for them outside the prom venue. The control exhibited by their parents and Nasir leads Habib toward suicide ideation.

When Habib learns that a woman relative has divorced her husband for physically abusing her, Nasir tells them that he thinks it is sometimes right for husbands to hit their wives. Habib vows to dissolve their marriage because of Nasir’s views on domestic abuse. Habib attempts suicide by dousing a sandwich in bleach. After a trip to the emergency room, they come clean with their family and dissolve the marriage with Nasir.

Their parents become hyper-controlling and surveilling after the marriage dissolves. They believe that Habib may become sinful or rebellious or otherwise ruin their life in some way and shame the family in the eyes of the community. Habib is shunned by community members at their Mosque for dissolving the marriage. Habib runs away from home to live with Peter just as they begin their undergraduate journalism degree.

Habib and Peter begin a relationship that resembles a marriage: They live together, pay the bills together, and live like Habib assumed a married couple would. At their college orientation, Habib meets Andrew, an outwardly flamboyant student to whom they are instantly drawn.

Their parents bombard them with phone calls and voice messages; Habib has left them completely in the dark about where they have gone and what they are doing. Habib eventually caves and re-establishes contact with their parents. They lie about being married to Peter to save their parents from embarrassment. Shortly after introducing Peter to their mother, Habib marries Peter.

The two try to consummate their marriage, and Habib is unable to have sex with Peter. The two have sex the morning after their first failed attempt. Habib feels only pain and disillusionment after having sex with a man. Habib feels as if sex is something they owe to Peter, despite their disinterest in sex.

Habib grows closer to Andrew, who opens a world of possibility in radical aesthetics, art, and film. The two explore their passions together through art projects and trips together. Andrew helps them open up and explore their relationship with their body, leading Habib to get their first tattoo.

Habib finds themself alienated in a world of mostly white people who do not understand their culture or their faith. They turn to online social media like LiveJournal to meet other people like them. As a first-generation impoverished immigrant, Habib struggles to connect to other people of color who were born and raised in Canada.

Habib finds community in their mother’s salon. As their parents learn English, their prospects for employment improve; their father returns to working in architectural firms, while their mother opens a salon. The salon becomes a community center for Pakistani women without men in sight. Habib uses the salon to reconnect with their mother away from their father and other men. The two slowly repair their relationship, and their mother surprises them by accepting their rebellious appearance and tattoos without question.