been thinking a lot tonight about non-muslims - and by this, I mean predominantly white atheists - who are anti-theistic but accept my self-identification as muslim because in their eyes, I'm not "really" muslim, i.e. I don't outwardly perform muslim orthodoxy.

and here's the thing about that: if you're only willing to hang out with me because you think I'm not really muslim, then you shouldn't hang out with me, because I might not be the niqabi nightmare you imagine when you hear the word sharia, but I'm still as muslim as they come.

both of my sisters still wear the hijab. so does my mother. when you joke about women with rags on their heads and expect me to laugh along with you because you think my wearing miniskirts means I'm more enlightened, you're mocking my family. I don't find that funny.

I don't think my religion is backwards or bigoted. I think a lot of *humans* are backwards and bigoted, and some of them happen to be muslim, but I've also *personally* spoken to richard dawkins and he literally thinks arabs can't do science. can't blame that one on religion.

non-religious people think they're paying me a compliment when they say I'm "not, like, *muslim* muslim" - which, by the way, is something the meaning of which nobody has ever been able to explain to me. what exactly is a muslim muslim? how does one qualify?

because I've read the qur'an - multiple times, in multiple languages! - and I've never found the ayah that explains what a "muslim muslim" is. someone who believes in god extra-hard, maybe? does twice as much of everything they're meant to do? (how does that work at ramadan?)

I admit, I'm nobody's model muminah. I wear short skirts, I drink alcohol, I'm not fussy about where my beef and lamb come from as long as they're not contaminated with pork, I've had sex before (and after) marriage.

that doesn't make me not muslim. it makes me not perfect.

being muslim requires only one thing: belief in the shahadah. la ilaha illallah muhammadin rasulullah. I have held onto that belief through the best and worst times of my life, through joy and abject misery, for twenty-nine years.

I have cried those words when I've been scared. I have whispered those words in the dark when I've been lost. I have murmured these words drunkenly, begging allah for a better way forward. I have whooped those words in joy. I believe them with every fibre of my being.

I don't perform my faith for strangers. when I wear a hijab, it's to pray, in the privacy of my own home. when I fast for ramadan, nobody knows but me. one day, insha'allah, I'll go on hajj and I'll be one in a sea of faces, anonymous.

if you're looking for someone to make you feel better about your jokes at the expense of the unenlightened savages and their magical sky god, you'll need another token brown friend.

you see, I really am a muslim muslim.

la ilaha illallah muhammadin rasulullah. ameen.