At the intersection of Pride and Eid
Maybe pride is the courage to not let fools kick us out of our faith.
It’s a privilege to have time and space to reflect and change our minds. Many lack privacy, language, and are kept busy and distracted with the norms of our world. We rely on patriarchs to be our spiritual experts. And when we decide we must survive them to stop fearing ourselves, we go and let them keep God to use against us forever. Sometimes I think this is what they want, so they can say we know nothing of God, that we should be scared.
But I couldn't fear a Beloved who wants me to stay, and stayed with me. Now when I meet stubborn Muslims like me, I want to talk about God with them ALL the time. Queer Muslims have so much to teach me about God, and God loves me gloriously through them. Our perseverance, flexibility, and courage are the same traits that morally panicked Muslims read as Deviance, Too Much Freedom, Overconfidence, PRIDE! 🌈
Maybe pride is the courage to not let fools kick us out of our faith. Maybe it is the willpower to overcome fear in a cave, to practice in secret because we are rejected from mainstream spaces, to own knowledge we’re not supposed to have, and be the minority declaring to the arrogant that things are not as absolute as they seem. So, at the intersection of Eid and Pride, I am grateful for the company of a God more nonbinary than me, who loves more widely than I do, and in the tropics of Southeast Asia 1400 years later, to share confidence with the first Muslims of the desert.
Liy (they/dia), 32. This post first appeared on TheQueerMuslimProject's Instagram to celebrate Pride and Eid 2019.
