We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir

There are two main conflicts at the heart of Habib’s memoir: their struggle to live authentically as an LGBTQ+ person and their struggle to reconcile their faith with their queer identity. The memoir’s title, which comes from the lived experience of the transgender woman Zainab, is a testament to Habib’s commitment to bringing together their faith and queer identity. “We have always been here” validates LGBTQ+ identity within religious spaces by weaving the experiences of LGBTQ+ Muslims through the history of Islam itself (116). Habib’s photography project Just Me and Allah allows them to express the intersection between these two identities through a catalogue of other LGBTQ+ Muslims, thereby reconciling their queer and religious identities.

Habib grows distant from Islam after running away from home. The members of their Mosque community shunned them after they dissolved their marriage with Nasir. Habib believes this happened because they had directly challenged the “central tenet of Muslim households” of obeying one’s parents by dissolving the marriage (106). The Mosque shunned their mother as well when the Mosque was her only means of accessing community. Habib implies that they abandoned the faith because their Mosque showed them that their own autonomy was incompatible with Islam.