Salma El-Wardany’s novel, These Inconceivable Issues, opens with a line that scandalized me once I first learn it in 2022: “Do you suppose Eid intercourse is a factor? Like birthday intercourse, however simply the Muslim equal?” I keep in mind devouring the practically 400-page story about three British Muslim pals in two days after which falling into one thing of a studying droop. Why had been there no more books on the market like this, that delved into the complexity of Muslim womanhood?
Novels about feminine Muslims as soon as relied on two main character tropes: the pious, veiled lady with ironclad moral mores and the oppressed woman who rebels towards cultural codes and finds liberation away from her household and religion.
However over the previous few years, Muslim authors have produced bracingly authentic tales that foreground religion as a cornerstone of identification somewhat than a stumbling block. The 12 months 2025 noticed the discharge of Mariam Rahmani’s Liquid, a novel a few scholar in Los Angeles who vows to go on 100 dates to discover a husband earlier than a household tragedy pulls her to Tehran. In 2024’s Daughters of the Nile, Zahra Barri explores Arab and Muslim feminism and sexuality from the views of Egyptian girls throughout three completely different generations. And in 2023’s Hijab Butch Blues, Lamya H (a pseudonym) bravely reimagines the tales of necessary girls from Islamic historical past, noting parallels along with her personal up to date struggles.
Within the realm of YA, authors like S.Ok. Ali (Misfit in Love) and Tasneem Abdur-Rashid (Odd Lady Out) have expanded what a Muslim coming-of-age story can appear to be, serving to youthful Muslims see themselves in literature: sporting hijabs and navigating Islamophobia but additionally making an attempt to slot in and falling in love.
On the identical time, writing about Muslim womanhood has flourished within the nonfiction area. Authors are reclaiming narratives which have traditionally pitted religion and feminism towards each other, particularly with regards to Islam. It’s a pressure explored by Muslim journalist Shahed Ezaydi in The Othered Girl: How White Feminism Harms Muslim Girls, which comes out subsequent month. Candid and relatable, it’s a breath of recent air in a literary area of interest the place texts are sometimes educational, dense, and daunting for the common reader.
Once I got down to write my novel, Turbulence (out now by way of Dreamwork Collective), the work of all of these authors was inspiring. My protagonist, Dunya Dawood, is studying to separate the essence of Islam from the patriarchal interpretations that are inclined to cloud it. Pregnant and on a flight from the Center East again to New York, Dunya displays on the alternatives she’s made—setting apart her desires of filmmaking for marriage and motherhood—when a surprising revelation causes her to enter labor.
It was necessary to me that Dunya prevented the frequent Muslim-woman tropes. She’s on an ongoing religious journey, someplace between studying, loving, and interrogating her religion. When Dunya’s pal Sheefah encourages her to problem traditions which can be imagined to be divinely mandated, sure questions emerge in her thoughts. Why do girls pray behind males? How can the hijab serve not solely as an emblem of piety however of political solidarity? What can gender equality appear to be for contemporary, married Muslim {couples}?
We’re taught that Islam liberated and empowered girls on the time of revelation, so why does it usually fail to take action right now? Males have been dictating what it means to be a Muslim for hundreds of years, however does that make their rulings immutable? These are conversations that battle and confuse many people who’re dedicated to our religion and, on the identical time, establish as feminists.
