If you’re a practicing Muslim, you’re probably thinking I’m about to pull an “Ayaan Hirsi Ali”, and start defaming everything you hold dear, right? If you aren’t Muslim, you may be thinking you’re about to hit the mother lode of dirt on Muslims so you can say, “See! I knew it! And from one of their own, too? Fox News was right!”

Well you’d both be wrong.

Word of advice: Whenever you read or hear something that isn’t quite black and white, you should always look deeper. Ask questions. Verify. Clarify. In this age of moral and informational ambiguity, clarity is a precious and rare commodity.

Let’s take that opening paragraph, for instance. The oppression I refer to doesn’t come from within Islam; rather, from the external forces and influences that would have me be self-conscious about wearing the hijab, or not dating before marriage, or accepting that the MAN is the head of the household, or that equality doesn’t mean sameness (which will be further explored, God willing, in later posts) etc, etc.

The REAL Islam I refer to is pretty much everything you DON’T see on TV, or read in the paper, or talk about at your dinner table. Save some exceptions, of course; all the things that elements like apologist Muslims and fear/hate mongering non-muslims would rather you not know.

As for this blog coming to light, the responsibility associated with it would increase exponentially were it to develop any serious readership.

And while there ARE some Muslim men who would prefer, or even falsely believe Islam teaches, that women should not have a voice, I am not referring to that/them. Muslim women are some of the most talked about, lied on, misunderstood members of society worldwide. Yet we are the least heard from. The media at large, be it TV, radio, newspaper or magazine doesn’t allow our voices to be heard in positive ways even when we present ourselves for the task. The Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s of the world are given a forum to further the anti-Islam agenda. The assertion that we are an oppressed class would hold no water if more educated, practicing Muslim ladies were permitted a visible platform from which we could speak the truth of who we are, and more importantly, who Islam teaches us we are. But the image of a woman who chooses the veil, for example, would defeat the more popular and sensational concept of the hijab being a forced practice.

So I will, God willing, speak. I will speak about the aforementioned, and hopefully many other things, from my point of view. I am a Muslim woman, and I have a voice.