We were raised as Muslim women to believe that our bodies betray us once a month.
That when blood comes, purity leaves.
From a young age, we learned that our periods were not just biological, they were moral. Spiritual. Shameful. As Muslim girls in the Middle East, we were told our periods were ‘najasa’: impure, filthy, tainted. Not metaphorically. Literally.
Muslim men taught us this.
Muslim men interpreted it.
Muslim men enforced it.
And Muslim men benefited from it.
We were told our blood could taint an ocean if we entered it.
That if we showered while bleeding, we polluted the bathtub.
That the water itself became unclean because it touched us.
We were told that after bathing, we had to recite Qur’an versus to “clean” the space, because our bodies alone were not enough. Because water was not enough. Because we were not enough.
While bleeding, Muslim women were told we could not fast.
We could not pray.
We could not touch the Qur’an.
We could not enter a mosque……. and the list goes on…
We were excluded from worship, from spiritual life, from God, not because we chose to be, not because we were ill, but because Muslim men declared us unclean.
A Muslim man could not come near us.
Not touch us.
Not pray beside us.
Not because we were sick, but because Muslim men decided our bodies were a problem.
Our natural cycle was treated as contamination. Our bodies, once described as sacred creations of God, became hazards once a month. And we absorbed this quietly. We learned to whisper about blood. To hide pads like contraband. To apologise for something we did not choose.
We were told this was Allah’s will.
That Allah decreed Muslim women impure once a month.
But this is where I stopped believing.
Because I do not believe God exists.
What I see is Muslim men creating rules and invoking God’s name to legitimise control.
And before this is dismissed as “culture, not Islam,” let me be clear: culture does not invent theology, Muslim men do. When rules about impurity are written, interpreted, taught, enforced, and protected almost entirely by Muslim men, and when those rules consistently burden women and privilege men, they are not accidents. They are design.
I believe the Qur’an itself was authored by Muslim men to regulate obedience, behaviour, and power, especially over women’s bodies. What was framed as divine command functioned as social control. What was called purity operated as hierarchy.
And so I began to ask questions.
If Muslim women are ‘nijseen’ (impure) because of menstruation, then what does that say about the one who created menstruation?
If our blood makes us filthy, why were we designed to bleed?
If our bodies become spiritually polluted, why were they made this way at all?
Is Allah so cruel that “he” creates women only to shame them monthly?
Or is this exactly what happens when Muslim men write God in their own image?
Because this belief does not feel divine.
It feels constructed.
It feels strategic.
It feels human.
It feels like fear.
Fear of Muslim women’s bodies.
Fear of Muslim women’s autonomy.
Fear of anything Muslim men cannot control.
Islam, as it was taught to us by Muslim men, did not help Muslim women understand our bodies, it trained us to distrust them. To see ourselves as impure by default. To believe holiness lived everywhere except inside us.
I was born Muslim.
I was raised Muslim.
I memorised. I obeyed. I internalised.
But I am not Muslim now, because I questioned.
And once you question who benefits, the entire structure collapses.
No just God would design Muslim women to be impure.
No merciful God would exile Muslim women from worship for functioning as created.
No truth worthy of reverence would require Muslim women to disappear once a month to preserve male authority.
Our periods are not impure.
Our blood is not shameful.
Our bodies are not a mistake.
What is impure is a system built by Muslim men on women’s silence.
What is filthy is turning biology into obedience.
What is truly najasa is a religious structure that makes Muslim women feel unworthy of God for being alive in their bodies.
I refuse that inheritance.
My body is not tainted.
My blood is not a curse.
And no God worthy of reverence would ever need Muslim men to make women feel dirty in His name.
