We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2019

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Key Figures

Samra Habib

Samra Habib is the author and subject of the memoir We Have Always Been Here. They are an LGBTQ+ Pakistani Muslim whose family immigrated to Canada when they were seven years old to escape religious persecution. Habib identifies with the specific label of “queer” or “queerness.”

Habib has a BA in journalism and spent their early career working in advertising before becoming an LGBTQ+-focused journalist and activist. As a first-generation immigrant, Habib is uniquely situated to explore the intersections between Islamic faith and LGBTQ+ identity in the Western world using their background as a professional writer. Habib’s memoir is a continuation of their quest for representation begun with their photography project Just Me and Allah. Habib uses their memoir to create the kind of representation of LGBTQ+ Muslims that they wish to see in the world.

Habib begins the memoir as a frightened child who believes they must hide who they really are. They end the memoir as a proud and confident person who lives authentically, hiding neither their faith nor their queer identity. Chapters 1-7 find Habib trying to balance safety with living authentically while the world around them teaches them that hiding who they are is the only way to remain safe. Habib’s sexual assault in Chapter 1 leads them to believe that they must hide how much the experience has disturbed them for the sake of their family (18). When Habib meets Khola at school in Chapter 2, they are excited to have a friend in school who is also Ahmadiyya. Khola refuses to acknowledge that they attend the same Mosque in public (31).

Their marriage to Nasir destroys their hopes of becoming a writer. Habib’s dashed dreams reinforce the notion that they should hide who they are from the world and not hold onto dreams for the future. Their marriage to Peter is also an attempt to hide who they are for the safety and familiarity offered by a heterosexual relationship. Many of Habib’s life experiences teach them that hiding or becoming invisible and unobtrusive is the best way to remain safe. Early life experiences teach them that safety is the best outcome to hope for.

After Habib divorces Peter, they realize that they can pursue their own happiness and fulfillment instead of hiding their dreams and wants. Chapter 8 represents a tonal shift for Habib’s story, where their life turns toward resolution and authenticity. Their trip to Japan allows them to understand their own wants, needs, and desires. Chapter 9 is Habib’s last attempt at maintaining the armor of a heterosexual relationship with Alex. Habib finally realizes that the “cloak” of a heterosexual-presenting relationship is a leftover “from a past that [they] had moved beyond, and [they were] tired of hiding” (101). Habib says that their tendency to hide creates a “dangerous pattern” that leads them to dissatisfaction, feelings of being trapped, and suicidal ideation (101).

Habib’s decision to live as openly LGBTQ+ is framed as a lifesaving choice, one that allows them to engage with life, romance, family, and friendships fully. Habib’s reclamation of their faith as an LGBTQ+ person is another instance of breaking with the “dangerous pattern” of hiding their true self. Reclaiming their faith opens up opportunities to connect to community and found family that are unique to the LGBTQ+ Muslim lived experience.

Abi and Megan

Abi and Megan are described as Habib’s “lesbian moms” (91, 105). Abi is Habib’s boss at their first job out of college as an editorial assistant for an automotive publication. The couple serves as Habib’s “window into a queer world [they] hadn’t yet explored” (83).

Habib is intrinsically drawn to Abi and her ability to live openly as a lesbian despite pressures to be heterosexual. Abi’s wife is a “butch,” or masculine-presenting lesbian, woman named Megan. As a butch, Megan gives Habib a glimpse into gender-nonconforming presentation within the LGBTQ+ community. Together, Abi and Megan fulfill a parental role for the younger and inexperienced Habib. They form a core pillar of Habib’s early found family, next to Andrew.

Abi works to instill Habib with a sense of optimism in the future. Abi tells Habib that “[t]he future is here but there is so much more to come” (83). Abi’s optimism for the future contrasts sharply with Habib’s lived experience when the two meet, which has taught Habib that dreaming for the future or attempting to live more authentically are dangerous endeavors. Abi’s outlook is both a foil to Habib’s and a testament that an LGBTQ+ person can live openly and live a fulfilling life. Abi also rattles Habib’s sense of what a woman can and should be (which Habib considered themself at the time of writing the memoir). Abi is loud and confident and leads a team of employees as a manager. Abi teaches Habib that they should take up space and demand to be heard instead of keeping quiet as they were raised to be (82).

Habib’s admiration turns into emulation. Their journey to understand themself and live authentically is a way of taking up space when they are expected to be cisgender and heterosexual. Abi and Megan also rattle Habib’s sense of what a relationship can and should be. Habib considered love a “suffocating chore” that required a sacrifice of freedom before becoming familiar with the relationship dynamics between Abi and Megan (91). Abi and Megan model an entirely voluntary relationship to Habib, who has only witnessed marriages of necessity and arrangement growing up.

Abi and Megan are quasi-adoptive parents for Habib, who needs other LGBTQ+ people to model LGBTQ+ relationships and living for them. The parent-child relationship between Abi and Megan and Habib serves as a literal foundation for the found family that Habib gathers around them throughout the memoir.

Andrew

Andrew is an art student at Habib’s college. He is their first friend after high school. Habib gravitates to Andrew at college orientation due to his unconventional appearance. Andrew and Habib bond over LGBTQ+ aesthetics, art, and fashion.

Andrew encourages them to reinvent themselves through aesthetics and art. Andrew’s influence helps Habib explore tattoos and eclectic fashion as means of self-expression. Andrew is the first openly LGBTQ+ person in Habib’s life. He takes them to an LGBTQ+ party in New York in Chapter 7, where he openly embraces being gay while Habib struggles with their attraction to women at the party. Andrew acts as an early role model and introduction into LGBTQ+ culture for Habib.

Andrew acts as a foil to Peter. While Habib’s marriage to Peter falls apart, their friendship with Andrew blossoms. Peter represents the dead-end life that pretending to be heterosexual offers Habib, while Andrew represents a hope for the future and the ability to change who they are. Habib describes their relationship to Peter as a “chore” and believes they are asexual due to their complete lack of attraction to men (76). In the next paragraph, Andrew gives them “a lesson in giving [them]self permission to envision a future and possibilities that otherwise might not have been extended to [them]” (76).

Habib juxtaposes these two drastically different feelings in order to highlight the contrasts between the two sides of their life. On one side, Habib hides from their LGBTQ+ feelings in their private and intimate life; on the other side, they immerse themselves in a friendship with a gay man that allows them to radically rethink their future and reinvent their persona. While one part “shuts down,” another part comes to life (76). Habib’s friendship with Andrew allows them to see different possibilities where their life had offered them no examples before.

The contrasts between Peter and Andrew illustrate the impact of found family and representation on Habib’s life. Found family and watching other LGBTQ+ people live authentically gives Habib the language and tools to understand why they feel so uncomfortable in their marriage to Peter.

Habib’s Mother

Habib’s mother, Yasmin Habib, was born and raised in Pakistan and fled the country with her husband and three children. Habib’s mother is the one who orchestrated their arranged marriage with Nasir. She also gives them the most resistance when they question the marriage. Yasmin opens a salon in Toronto after the family’s initial hardships and then sells the salon once her husband can solely provide for the family. Yasmin is an example of resilience under patriarchy and illustrates how intergenerational trauma both continues and is stopped.

According to Habib, their mother married their father due to sheer economic convenience. Habib’s father had career prospects and could provide, while Yasmin came from an impoverished family. As a woman in Pakistan, her only way out of poverty was to marry a man who could provide for her. The marriage of Habib’s parents is their only example of marriage when they are pushed into marrying Nasir. Their parents’ marriage leads them to believe that loving someone is not an “essential ingredient” to marriage (59). This model of marriage leads Habib into a second failed marriage with a man to save face with their parents (73-74).

Habib recognizes that their mother’s reality has shaped what she thinks is possible, and thus “best,” for her child. After confronting their mother about the arranged marriage, Habib writes, “I wondered whether my mother ever dared to imagine what her best could look like [...] My mother had failed to give me a better life than hers because she didn’t have the blueprint to show me what my best could look like” (51). Habib portrays their mother as a woman whose “best” has been limited to a narrow scope by a patriarchal society that has forced her to shelve all her aspirations and personhood in order to care for a family and a husband.

The source of the intergenerational trauma that Yasmin passes down to her child is also the source of her resiliency in the face of patriarchy. Yasmin demonstrates this resilience by forming close-knit groups of women in both Pakistan and Toronto. In Pakistan, Habib watches their mother tend to women who are survivors of domestic abuse, while other women in her inner circle are married off to men in America. Yasmin is a communal anchor for the women around her in Pakistan and ensures that they survive and have access to a network of close-knit women.

Yasmin replicates this community in Toronto when she opens her salon. Habib describes the salon as a “community drop-in centre for Pakistani women” that men like their father avoid because the women “ha[ve] created their own universe” that excludes the normally dominant men in their lives (79). The salon is a world where the Pakistani women of Yasmin’s neighborhood get to exist without men dictating their actions and mannerisms. The salon gives Yasmin economic power and personal autonomy that she never had before. The salon allows Yasmin and Habib to reconnect and begin repairing their relationship. Yasmin’s shift toward acceptance and healing with their child is spurred by the salon. By the end of the memoir, Yasmin openly accepts her child and no longer feels compelled to push them into any unhappy marriages with men.