TW: This article goes into depth about Islamophobic abuse, references Islamophobic slurs, and includes physical violence and threats of sexual assault.
*Lived Experience has shaped this beautifully written piece which we think is important to share in our current environment where Islamophobia is so normalised in everything from people’s views about Islam to our government policies which over-police and stereotype Muslim people. ARC has a strict policy about Lived Experience and we only share it rarely and intentionally. We know that sharing experiences of racism and any form of oppression and abuse comes at a cost to our minds and bodies and can compound harm in the form of racial trauma. That’s why all of our guest article writers are paid and offered free racial trauma and embodiment support. You can read more about our view on Lived Experience here.
I did not grow up learning the word Islamophobia. I grew up learning what it felt like. It shapes classrooms, policies, friendships, and even the way you learn to see yourself. It is not just about what is said to you, but what is silently assumed about you before you’ve even spoken.
This is not just a story of being targeted. It is a story of what it does to a person to grow up inside a narrative that constantly mislabels their identity – what it feels like to be told, in different ways, that you do not fully belong anywhere.
Here, I am made to feel like I am not wanted – treated as though I am a problem to be removed.
And back home, I return only to be seen as changed – a stranger in the place my name once came from.
Caught between both, I learn what it means to exist as something misplaced, like a jigsaw piece that no longer fits anywhere it is placed.
For a long time, I struggled to feel at peace with who I was.
Even now, I am still learning what it means to exist confidently in a world where I often expect to be judged before I’ve said a word.
There are moments I catch myself smiling at strangers, not out of friendliness, but out of a quiet need to prove I am not what they might assume me to be.
And it often leaves a heaviness behind, especially when that smile is not returned…
–
Twenty years ago, my parents migrated to a new continent.
They struggled under the grindstone for a decade, paying off visas, learning a new language, adapting to a world that never truly welcomed them.
Why?
To build a ‘better future’ for me.
But deep down – a truth I’ll never be able to tell them – I sometimes wish they hadn’t. I wish they hadn’t left their family, spilt blood, and bent their backs so I could thrive in a country where I don’t belong.
A country that doesn’t claim me.
A country whose people use my hijab to strangle me.
–
I joined Year 7 bubbly and excited – oblivious to the storm that awaited me in secondary school.
Out of 300 students, only five wore the hijab.
By the end of Year 11, there was just one.
Me.
–
Every year, the school was obliged to deliver an assembly under the government’s Prevent scheme, defined as ‘a government-funded programme that aims to stop vulnerable people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.’
Years later, I came across the National Union of Students’ campaign, ‘Students Not Suspects’, and it made me stop and think.
Those three words perfectly captured how I had felt.
They also made me question the purpose of a scheme where, in 2023 – 24, only 7% of Prevent referrals were adopted as Channel cases, despite 6,922 referrals being made.
The assembly echoed the same words, again and again:
‘Jihad.’
‘Islamist terrorist.’
‘Jihadi John.’
‘Al-Qaeda.’
I watched my classmates being indoctrinated, their minds moulded into believing that Islam equaled terrorism.
This is exactly why campaigns opened against Prevent – they targeted Muslims disproportionately.
I listened in horror as they tried to paint my religion of gold in pitiful rust.
Learning about 9/11 in a Year 8 Religious Studies lesson didn’t help either as the phrase ‘Islamist terrorist organisation’ lingered like smoke that refused to clear.
Soon after, the insults began.
At first, the crude: ‘terrorist,’ ‘bomber,’ and screams of ‘Allahu Akbar’ as water bottles were launched down corridors.
But as they grew older, so did their cruelty and creativity.
‘Isis crisis.’
‘Hamasi hijabi.’
‘Shamima Begum’s dead daughter.’
‘Al-Qaeda propeller.’
They even took initiative to carve the twin towers into the table where I sat – complete with planes and smoke.
As a young, naive child, I did the only thing that felt right: the ‘tell a trusted adult’ – I snitched every single time, without fail.
But I didn’t know that by snitching, I was only fuelling their hatred.
Each detention and exclusion deepened their spite, and soon their taunts grew sharper.
Realising this, I stopped reporting them. I thought silence might save me. It didn’t.
So I adapted. I laughed along. I pretended to throw my bag back at them – and when that surprised them, they switched tactics, targeting my appearance instead. That hurt more deeply.
But I couldn’t tell my parents – I didn’t want to break them.
So I stayed quiet – the eldest daughter, growing smaller in her silence.
I still remember very vividly desperately trying to wipe my tears in the backseat of the car, trying to hide myself from the rearview mirror so my father wouldn’t catch the broken sight of me.
But my belief in the purpose of the hijab was strong: to conceal beauty, not erase it. When the sun hides behind clouds, it doesn’t stop shining. Your beauty is still there – you simply choose who it is shared with.
Allah created the entire universe in six days, but He took nine months to create you. He perfected every detail.
Who are we to call His creations anything less than beautiful?
I also came across a reflection that really resonated with me – ‘When Allah (SWT) said, “I test those I love,” I took the pain like it was an honor.’
It reminded me of the Qur’anic verse: ‘Allah does not burden a soul with more than it can bear.’
(The Qur’an is the holy book of Islam, believed by Muslims to be the direct word of Allah.)
With that, I stopped caring about their comments.
I knew what they wanted: for me to take off my hijab, to adjust myself into a Western way of life, to forget my beloved faith.
But I would not let them win.
I turned my pain into purpose.
I studied harder, excelled in every class, topped every subject.
And perhaps that angered them too – that the ‘hijabi girl’ was outperforming them. So the threats escalated.
They followed me around, threatening that I’d ‘never see my family again,’ that they’d rape me, laughing at their own vile jokes.
Still, I felt safe – my father dropped and picked me up from school every day.
Until one afternoon, I was pushed down a flight of concrete stairs – I still remember the pain ripping through me, but what hurt more was the weight of their ignorance.
–
I still didn’t tell my parents.
But my younger brother – who attended the same school – did.
My father involved the police, and Alhamdulillah (meaning, praise be to God), I was never targeted again.
It taught me something profound: when you’re drowning, you must reach for a lifeboat – whether that’s your parents, your siblings, or your deen (faith).
–
By Year 11, I had already decided I would not stay in this particular school for sixth form. Before I left, I sent an email to the deputy headteacher – the one who led those Prevent assemblies.
I told him the school was promoting Islamophobia and that they had completely misunderstood Islam, especially the concept of jihad. Jihad means striving in the way of Allah – a broad concept that can include things like quitting smoking or apologising first after an argument.
It does not automatically mean war, despite how it is often portrayed by Prevent and the media.
He called me in for a meeting.
But instead of listening, he warned that if I ‘supported Shariah law,’ he would have to report me to the council.
One of my favourite quotes, which I try to live by, is from Imam Ali (AS), a highly respected figure in Islam:
‘The moment you start arguing with an ignorant fool, you have already lost.’
–
GCSEs came and went.
Alhamdulillah, I achieved the highest results in my cohort.
But for me, it wasn’t just an academic victory – it was survival.
A few months later, I was invited to a celebration assembly.
I didn’t go.
Because throughout those years, I had studied in darkness, cried over blurred pages, and suffered in silence.
No one saw me then.
And I wanted my absence to finally speak.
I moved to another college and settled in.
I’m the only hijabi in my year, but I’ve come to realise that it is my strength, not my weakness.
A pearl does not lose its worth because it is hidden – and neither does mine.
I still receive threats online from social media accounts but as Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, ‘There will come a time when holding on to your Iman (meaning faith) will be like holding on to hot coals.’
The battle will never truly end, but neither should our sabr (meaning patience). And in holding onto that, we learn to keep going, even when the world does not fully understand us.
–
So to all those who hurt me,
broke me,
and tried to bury me:
.أغفر ل ِك، حتى إذا وقفنا بين يدي هللا، ال يبقى بيننا شيء
‘I forgive you, so that when we stand before Allah, there is nothing left between us.’
Islamophobia tried to name me before I ever named myself, to place me into shapes I never chose.
And yet, even after everything, I am still learning that Islamophobia does not define the shape of who I am – only how I have sometimes been placed in the world. Like a jigsaw piece turned the wrong way in an unfamiliar picture, I have not changed in value, only in how others have tried to position me.
I may not always be placed where I belong, but I am still whole – even when I am misread, even when I am moved between worlds that do not fully recognise me.
