You sit at the table where “Bismillah” still begins the meal.
Where the adhan once echoed like a lullaby in your childhood.
Where prayer rugs rest folded in corners like quiet witnesses.
Where faith wasn’t taught, it was expected. Lived. Assumed.
You were a girl raised to recite before you could question.
You learned when to say Inshallah and when to keep your thoughts to yourself.
You memorised duaa like poetry, not always knowing what it meant,
only that you should never stop saying it.
God was everywhere.
In your mother’s whisper over your fevered body.
In your father’s silence during suhoor.
In your own fear of being too loud, too curious, too much.
Now, something has shifted.
Maybe gently, maybe not.
You started asking the questions Arab girls aren’t supposed to ask.
You listened to your doubts instead of burying them.
You still fast, but not always for the same reasons.
You still believe, but not in the same way.
And when your mother speaks of God with tears in her eyes,
you stay quiet.
Not out of shame, but out of love.
Because her faith raised you.
Because her God held her when no one else did.
And because part of you still wonders:
What if she’s right?
You don’t want to hurt her with your questions.
And yet, you can’t unmask them now.
This isn’t disobedience.
This is integration.
It’s refusing to choose between your heritage and your hunger for truth.
You want to hold on to the parts that felt holy
The scent of jasmine after wudu’.
The softness in your grandmother’s tasbeeh.
The stories of prophets who wept, wandered, loved.
But you also want space.
To speak your doubts out loud.
To imagine a God who is less angry and more intimate.
To pray, or not, without fear of punishment.
To believe without shrinking.
You’ve learned that being a “good Arab girl” often meant being silent.
But you’re done performing piety for approval.
Your questions aren’t betrayal, they’re breath.
They’re what keep your faith alive.
And yes, in the West, doubt is framed as freedom.
But for you, it’s deeper than that.
It’s mourning.
It’s rebuilding.
It’s reclaiming God from those who used Him as a weapon.
You are not faithless.
You are faithful, in your own language now.
So maybe you won’t go back to the version of God you were handed.
But you’ll carry her voice, your mother’s voice, in your own prayers,
as you carve out space for both reverence and rebellion.
Because this isn’t the end of belief.
This is belief, still blooming.
Still fierce.
Still yours.
This is faith, still unfolding.
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