We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

“Without consulting her, [my father] had decided that Yasmin would be a more suitable and elegant name for his wife than Frida. It was one of the first signs that her identity was disposable. Her free will was up for grabs, available to be stencilled over by my father and perhaps even by her children.”

Many of Habib’s early-life anecdotes illustrate the disparities between men and women under patriarchy. Habib does not clarify the subject of the second sentence; readers do not know to whom “it was one of the first signs.” The lack of clear subject and the passionate language introduces free-and-indirect discourse to the narration, insinuating that Yasmin’s feelings and the narrator’s are the same on this topic. Giving Yasmin’s anger over the loss of her identity the gravitas of narratorial fact establishes Habib’s stance toward patriarchy and the damage it has caused women.

“It would be far too easy to villainize my mother and her behaviour. But that is to assume she had the tools and the privilege to consider another future for her daughter. She was raised to believe that control was not something granted to women […] Her experiences taught her that as a woman, fertility, purity, and beauty were the only currencies she could exchange for a better life.”

Habib gives a nuanced view on guilt and blame within their memoir, introducing the theme of Healing Intergenerational Trauma. Larger, sociological structures are to blame for the lack of scope their mother had. In Yasmin’s mind, “fertility, purity, and beauty” are the only tools she can use to protect Habib. Habib uses pathos by considering Yasmin’s position and realistic options in order to counteract unwanted takeaways about their parents.