Muslim Pride

Bilal asks his sister Samra Habib, in her new memoir, the same question I am often asked by well-­meaning friends who can’t completely conceal the dismay in their voices: “Why do you need to call yourself Muslim?” This question, I suspect now more than ever, is regularly asked of liberal or moderate Muslims living in the West. I practise very few of the tenets of the faith and disagree with most, having decided long ago that I am not religious. But, like Habib, I persist in calling myself Muslim.

Habib rephrases her brother’s question, to unpack the real curiosity behind it: “Why do I feel loyalty toward Islam when, as Bilal sees it, Islam isn’t always kind toward Muslims like me?” Habib is a dual citizen; she is Pakistani and Canadian. But her dualities go beyond geopolitical labels, in ways that have always...