Before I get going, I’m 75% deaf, as some of you know, semi-reliant on hearing aids and lip reading. My first languages were Makaton sign and then BSL. I now use spoken English.
There are a lot of issues I find with how deaf people are represented in books, when represented at all. I would love to see more deaf and hard of hearing characters in the books I read- without having to read books specifically about deaf/HoH people- but when I find them, they’re grossly undercharacterized or stereotyped. Authors write them in a way that sets signing language characters apart from speaking characters as if they are inferior, and this makes my blood boil.
Some technicalties
I’ll keep this brief.
You may have heard that “deaf” is a slur and you should use “hearing impaired”. Don’t. I’ve never met a deaf or hard of hearing person who believed that. Use deaf for people who are deaf, and Hard of Hearing (HoH) for people who lack hearing. These can be interchangeable depending on the person. This is why sensitivity readers are a useful part of the beta process.
Sign language is incredibly varied. It developes in the same way as spoken language. Fun fact: in BSL there are at least half a dozen ways to say bullshit, my favourite of which is laying your arms across one another with one hand making a bull’s head sign and the other hand going flat, like a cowpat. It’s beautifully crude, and the face makes the exclamation mark. Wonderful.
There are different sign languages. Knowing more than one would make a character multi or bi-lingual, even if they are non-speaking.
Makaton is basic sign language used by children, and it mirrors the very simple language used by toddlers.
Yes, we swear and talk shit about people around us in sign language sometimes, and no, it isn’t disrespectful to have signing characters do this. Just remember that we also say nice things, and random things, and talk about fandoms and TV shows and what we’re having for dinner, too.
Each signed language is different from another. ASL and BSL? Nothing alike. Just google the two different signs for horse.
Remember that sign language is a language, equal to the spoken word
Therefore, treat it as such. Use quotation speech marks and dialogue
tags. You only need to explicitly state that this character uses signed language once, and then let your modifiers and description do the rest.
It isn’t a form of “sub-speech" or “making hand actions”- sign language is a language all on its own: it has its own grammar rules, syntactical structures, punctuation, patterns, idioms and colloquialisms. For example, “what is your name?” becomes “Your name what?” with the facial expression forming punctuation in the same way that spoken English uses alterations of prosodic tone (inflections). There is even pidgin sign; a language phenomenon usually associated with spoken language.
In the same way that you would describe a spoken-English character’s tone of voice, you would describe a signed-English speaker’s facial expressions and the way that they sign- keeping in mind that these things are our language’s equivalent of verbal inflection.
So please, none of that use of “special speech marks” or italicised
speech for sign. If your viewpoint character doesn’t understand signed
speech, then you take the same approach that would be used for any other
language they don’t understand, like French or Thai. E.g “He said something
in rapid sign language, face wrinkling in obvious disgust.” is a good
way of conveying this. The proof that you’ve done this well is in whether or not you can switch “sign language” for French or something else, and it would read the same.
Don’t be afraid to describe how things are said, either.
Sign language is such a beautiful and expressive way of talking, and to
see a writer do it justice would be truly fabulous. Putting this into practise:
“Oh, I love maths!” She said, fingers sharp and wide with sarcasm. She raised her eyebrows.
“I’m sorry.” He replied and made his face small, but could not keep the grin forming. She was starting to laugh, too.
This is part one of two, for the sake of readability and keeping the information simple as I can. Part two- writing the deaf characters themselves- is coming up over the weekend. See you then and best luck with your writing until that point 😀
This is part of my weekly advice theme. Each week I look at what you’ve asked me to help with, and write a post or series of posts for it. Next week: settings and character development (including heroes, anti-heroes, villains, and every other kind of character).
advice for writing a stutterer from an actual stutterer;
okay no shade at all I just want all of u to learn and grow and become better writers! so here’s a handy tip list!
we don’t stutter on every word. okay, sometimes it can seem it, but honestly, we don’t, so leave a few words in there to give your readers some breathing room.
we stutter more on specific sounds. for me, f and s sounds are big ones. everyone has their thing and most stutterers have sounds that are harder to get out.
we don’t just stutter at the beginning of words and sentences. okay, honestly this is a big one for me. sometimes, a word starts off really well and goes down the drain at the second syllable! and the stutter doesn’t disappear once we’ve made it past the first word – it clings in there, so don’t forget it.
some of us don’t always stutter. some, not all, of us have what’s known as an anxious stutter, which generally comes alongside anxiety disorders. so, while it may be usually present, when a person with an anxious stutter is particularly comfortable with a situation, it tends to get better (or even almost disappear).
we don’t stutter when we swear. this is why some of us can stutter and stutter and stutter on a word and then shout fuck and everything’s cool. as far as science knows, this is because swearing is from a more primitive part of the brain, and so it bypasses the bit that makes us stutter! it’s so cool honestly.
we don’t stutter when we sing. the biggest two reasons for this one is 1) music comes from a different part of the brain to talking (language=left; music=right), and so it once again bypasses the stutter, or 2) ‘easy voice’, which is the voice that people sing in, is softer and smoother, and the sounds are longer so there’s less opportunity to stutter. either option is way cool but we don’t stutter when we sing.
sometimes, we give up on words. after a certain amount of stuttering on a certain word, you may see a stutterer take a deep breath and either try again, or replace it with a synonym. sometimes that word just won’t fit right in our mouths!
we hate it when people try to guess what we’re trying to say or try to speed us up. this might be a more personal thing for me, but there’s nothing I hate more than that clicky sound people make or the weird hand gestures or being told to “spit it out.” because we can’t control this shit and it gets tiring. it’s better just to let the person get it out and take their time with it, so when you’re writing, keep this in mind!
it gets worse when we’re anxious or stressed, and when we’re excited! I get really really stuttery when I’m enthusiastic about the topic of conversation, because I know so much about that thing that I try to talk really fast and my mouth can’t keep up! it’s the same when I’m anxious or stressed – when there’s more on our minds, the more everything gets a little muddled.
I hope this was helpful! feel free to add on and spread around!
I am not a person who stutters, but I am a speech pathologist, so I figured I’d add a bit to this. There are also several different types of stuttering (or the fancy term disfluency).
There are three main types:
The one most people think of is repetition. This can be a single sound repeated like, “S-s-save me a s-s-seat.” Or it can be part of a word repeated like the OP mentioned above where they get stuck on the second syllable. Or it can be whole word repetitions, “Can-can-can-can I go?”
The second type is called blocking or blocks. This is when the air or sound is stopped at lungs, throat, or mouth. It’s kind of impossible to write, but it would look like, “Can…” he seemed to be grabbing for sound, “I come too.” When someone is blocking, there is no sound and typically you can see the strain in the person.
The third type is called prolongation and this when someone gets stuck on a sound. They’re holding on to a sound but their lips, tongue and teeth aren’t moving. It can happen on any sound but it’s more common on vowels. This would like, “Caaaaaaaaaan I come too?”
Disfluencies can last anywhere from less than a second to up to 10 seconds. Typically, it’s from less than a second to up to 2 seconds, which doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but it’s longer than you think.
Along with stuttering, there tend to be secondary behaviors which can come in a variety of types. The most common behavior is escape behavior that people who stutter have developed to try to “get out of” the stutter. Not everyone has secondary behaviors, but they can be things like turning their head to the side, rapid eye blinking, tucking their head, tapping fingers against their leg. This might also be when the rate of speech changes. After an instance of disfluency, a person who stutters might speak the rest of the sentence really fast in an attempt to “just spit it out.”
You might also get what are called “avoidance behaviors”. Avoidance behaviors are not necessarily bad but they might effect the rhythm and rate of speech. This could be talking around a word that’s hard to say or using starter phrases like, “Ya know,” a lot or what we call “anti-expectancy devices”. This would be something like talking in a sing song voice or a different accent or a silly voice because people tend not to stutter when they’re using those different parts of their brain. They might use a lot of filler words like “umm…” before difficult words.
Every person who stutters is different.
If you’re writing someone who stutters or if you’re friends with someone who stutters, the safest thing to do when they start to stutter is to let them say what they were trying to say in whatever time it takes them. Don’t get impatient or finish their sentences. If you’re really close to the person, you can ask them what they want you to do, but most people I’ve talked to (children and adults alike) just want to be able to have their say without constantly being interrupted.
Ok so I was looking for historical slang terms for penis (gotta be era-accurate when writing vintage dick jokes) and I came across….something
some linguist compiled a literal timeline of genitalia slang–a cock compendium, if you will–that dates back all the way to the fucking 13th CENTURY. This motherfucker tracked the evolution of erection etymology through 800+ years, because if he doesn’t do it, who else will? Thank you for your service, Johnathon Green.
Some of my favorites include:
Shaft of Delight (1700s)
Womb Sweeper (1980s)
Master John Goodfellow (1890s)
Nimble-Wimble (1650s)
Corporal Love (1930s)
Staff of Life (1880s)
Spindle (1530s)
As good as ever twanged (1670s)
Gaying Instrument (1810s)
Beef Torpedo (1980s)
and last but not least, the first recorded use of the word Schlong, which was in 1865 CE. Tag yourself, I’m Nimble Wimble
And are the lovely ladies feeling left out? not to worry! Johnathon’s got you covered, gals, because he also made one for vaginas. Highlights:
Mrs. Fubb’s Parlor (1820s)
Poontang (1950s)
Spunk Box (1720s)
Ringerangroo (1930s)
Ineffable (1890s)
Itching Jenny (1890s)
Carnal Mantrap (1890s – a busy decade apparently)
Bookbinder’s Wife (1760s)
Rough Malkin (1530s)
Socket (1460s)
and a personal favorite, crinkum-crankum, circa approximately 1670.
I find it kinda odd how people talk about writing “flawed” characters like the flaws are an afterthought
Like “cool cool we’ve got this perfect hero now to just sprinkle on some Irritability and Trust Issues then microwave for 6 minutes on high until Done”
But I’ve personally found it feels a lot more useful to just… think of the flaws as the Good Traits except bad this time
The protagonist is loyal? Maybe that means they have a hard time recognizing toxic relationships and are easily manipulated by those they want to trust
The hero is compassionate? Maybe they work too hard and overextend themselves trying to help people and then they refuse to ask for help when they need it themselves for fear of burdening others
They’re dedicated to their ideals? Maybe they’re also too stubborn to know when to quit and they have trouble apologizing for their mistakes
If they’re creative, they can also be flighty. If they’re confident, they can be arrogant. If they’re brave, they might be reckless. If they’re smart, they could be condescending. Protective can become controlling, and someone who’s carefree could very well also be emotionally distant
In my opinion, the best “flaws” aren’t just added on afterwards. The best flaws are baked in deep, ‘cause they’re really just virtues turned upside down
This
wasn’t a Masterpost I planned on making and it isn’t one anyone’s
asked for. But I’ve just spent several days re-writing the same
interview scene and I’m sure plenty of writers have been in the
same boat.
So
today I’m talking about leading questions and how you can
use them in interview and interrogation scenes.
A
leading question is a question that somehow suggests it’s own
answer. These are pretty common in everyday speech.
For
instance:
“Have
you been to the beach this morning?”
Compared
to:
“What
have you been up to this morning?”
The
first question gives the person being asked a possible response while
the second is completely open ended, making any information they
volunteer entirely their own.
The
difference is important in any scene involving interviews or
interrogation. A leading question directs the kind of answer a
character is likely to give. In real life they can lead to false
confessions and seemingly contradictory statements. They can also
give someone an idea of what the interviewer wants to hear, helping
someone to construct a more convincing lie.
Let’s
take an example. Say your story has a car accident. A yellow car
comes round a corner too fast, skids and ends up on the pavement.
“What
happened?” “Can you tell me what you saw earlier today?”
These
would be some of the least leading ways to start an interview with
witnesses.
But
a variety of other perfectly naturally phrased questions could lead
the witnesses in various ways.
“Can
you tell me about the accident you saw this morning?” assumes this
witness actually saw the accident.
Prompting
like this can actually cause people to form false memories, adjusting
what they remember to align with what they’re told they should.
This is a natural process and it’s something that happens to all of
us without our conscious awareness of it. Changes generally only
happen to more recent memories and the person isn’t aware of the
change.
Changes
are usually small.
So a
character who didn’t actually see anything might (correctly)
respond with something like-
“Well
I didn’t actually see it happen but-”
Or
misleadingly respond with something like-
“I
only saw a little bit of it. But afterwards-”
“I
saw the car skid but I looked away before it hit-”
A
more direct question can sometimes prompt a more specific false
memory. For instance if the interviewer says:
“So
then your saw the red car come round the corner.”
The
person they’re talking to may start to remember the crash itself as
involving a red car rather than a yellow one.
This
unconscious consensus, the way we adjust our memories to match what
others say happened, is part of why witnesses are usually prevented
from talking to each other prior to being interviewed.
Leading
questions should be avoided
in real life legal proceedings and suspect interviews, but that
doesn’t necessarily mean that avoiding them completely is a good
choice for your story. Leading questions can be used in a variety of
ways-
They can be used to show readers something about the
interrogator/interviewer such as:
Inexperience
They’re not concentrating on the job at hand
Heightened emotional state, not necessarily to do with the matter at
hand
Deliberate attempts to mislead
An attempt to get a false confession by making it look like the
suspect spontaneously confessed
They
can be used to create plot relevant situations for your characters
such as:
A character is falsely suspected because of a misleading statement
A character gave a
misleading statement and
knows someone else is being falsely accused as a result
An
investigator character thinks an interview was mishandled and the
focus of the investigation is wrong as a result
A character’s true
and accurate statement is later called into question because they
were asked leading questions
A character who doesn’t know
anything uses an interrogator’s leading questions to create a
plausible lie, or possibly to get more information from the
interrogator than vice versa
Leading
questions can also be used narratively as a way to show the
fallibility of a character’s memory and the unreliable nature of a
narrator. The reader knows
what happened two pages ago and
they can see how the character’s memory of events changes after a
brief conversation, while the character themselves is completely
unaware of the change.
Leading
questions can be a great device for making a false confession look
natural and understandable to a reader. They can add realistic
confusion to any investigative elements in a story. They can be
honest mistakes or deliberate attempts to scupper genuine
investigation. They can be turned on the questioner and used to
gather information on them.
Be
aware of them when you’re writing and aware of their potential.
[Sources: Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of
Interrogation. Harvard
University Press, S O’Mara
Question!! mod kaye, i know you touched a little bit on the topic of magic being taboo for muslim characters… i wanted to write a magical girl story in homage to a genre i love, with a diverse cast of young women, including a hijabi muslim character. now i’m wondering whether this is sketchy. the magical girls’ powers, in-universe, don’t derive from “magic” but from alien technology/quantum physics/something like that, and to separate her further from anything fantastically “magical”, the muslim character’s powers incorporate electricity and computer technology (as one of her mundane hobbies is programming, this is amplified as a source of her power). is it still inappropriate to create such a character or expect her to be received warmly by muslim audiences? should i consider rewriting the character as a non-magical ally or just scrapping her? i don’t want to lose her, since i like the character and i think the magical girl genre should celebrate all kinds of girls and girlhood. but i want to check myself and be cautious. (i’ve seen artists on tumblr draw hijabi magical girl fanart and stuff too, but i know it’s different when it comes from an outsider/oppressor.)
Hello there!
First of all, may I just say how lovely it is to have a question written to me and so sweetly? Thank you just for that and for your concern about writing a Muslim character correctly!
Like every mod has noted before, no people are a monolith, and as I’ve noted before, Islam is understood and prescribed and practiced in different ways by different people. I’ve said before that even more liberal Muslims I know don’t like the idea of magic as it is used by a Muslim character.
Even with the Beauxbatons headcanon, sorting into Hogwarts houses and – as you pointed out – the new obsession with drawing hijaabis as magical girls and even magical creatures (that, I must note, is not always done respectfully or with the idea of proper representation beyond that hijaabi being used as an “exotic” change) – I still often see a consensus of leaving magic alone when it comes to Islam or else treading carefully, and I think we should respect that.
Of course, in the same vein, there are Muslims who don’t have a problem with it. We’re not a monolith and I’m just noting that so that I’m not erasing them.
(In Islam as I’ve been taught it, magic is viewed as having repercussions of evil and only used for ill purposes. There are several stories where someone was taught magic as a trial of faith, and when they proceeded to abuse it, as expected, they lost their faith and were led astray.)
But, to be entirely honest, I also have a magical girl story, and – in the name of representing the girl in me who loves her magical girl animes – there is a Muslim girl who is a hijaabi. I’ve written down this idea as being possibly magical realism, which would then make the entire world have a dream-like state that, I would hope, would cancel out the whole onus of magic being focused on that one Muslim girl character. It’s definitely still a work in progress, and even as a Muslim girl, I want to do the best by my faith and by my own heart.
That might be one possibility to circumvent any problematic aspect, and I think you’ve already done that: playing around with the atmosphere of the world at large. Reading through your idea, I don’t see anything innately problematic about the idea of this Muslim magical girl and her particular talent. If anything, it reads like a superhero origin, and we all know Muslim superheroes that are accepted and do quite well with Muslim readers.
Personally, I often see magical girls as a brand of superheroes. If we can have Kamala Khan – who, as a side note, is wondrous – wearing her suit and transforming and being awesome as a Muslim heroine, I’m pretty sure there’s a way that we can have our magical girls, too.
I agree with you that the magical girl genre celebrates girlhood and I appreciate your concern with representing different girls, so I hope that in some way, this answer helps you. If anything, my primary suggestion would be to continue to write with an eye for making that Muslim character as full-fleshed and real as you can and keep asking respectful questions from people of the Islamic faith when you need to. If you feel you’re stepping away from the more superhero origin story,
I wish you the best of luck! (And if you ever want to talk magical girls, now you know which mod to look up!)
– Kaye
Generally, I would stay away from Muslim characters doing magic unless it’s established that magic is a norm in the universe you’re writing? Like in Harry Potter, it’s just something that exists and I personally (just me here, not trying to speak over anyone) think there’s nothing wrong with, for example, having Muslims at Beauxbatons. I mean, I actually did like that headcanon, and I was thinking about how it would mesh with them being Muslims. I thought maybe they just wouldn’t do divination because knowing the future seems like it would be something that’s haram no matter what? I don’t know – I mean, I’m a revert and even though I’ve studied Islam a lot, there’s still a lot I don’t know.
-Tasbeeh
I think the gaining powers from technological incidents is a really cool idea and circumvents the magic thing but still gives her powers, and if playing around with technology was a hobby of hers, all the better!
– Yasmin
This is a really old post, but as the OP of the Muslim Beauxbatons headcanon being discussed here I feel like I should say something, both in response to this and to similar thoughts in the 88k++ reblogs and notes (!!!) of that post.
I am writing from the perspective of someone who was born and raised Muslim, of immigrant Muslim parents, in a different Muslim country. I spent 11 years of primary and secondary schooling taking Islamic Studies classes, even taking major exams for them. I don’t personally currently practice Islam nor identify as such; however, the legal systems of my origin country count me as Muslim (it’s on my ID card) and I am still very much culturally Muslim due to my extended family and heritage. So I am not coming from out of nowhere, this is not academic to me – this is all coming from lived experience.
I am immensely frustrated with the overwhelming number of people on Tumblr – it’s only Tumblr – that try to dismiss any possibility of magical Muslims by saying that magic is forbidden in Islam, as though it is such a cut-and-dried case. As you said, Islam is not a monolith, but what’s happening here is that there are entire cultural systems being erased here because of this notion that if it’s currently considered “haram” it was always haram.
For example, there is a significant witchdoctor culture in Malay culture (bomoh/pawang) which I believe started from animist/indigenous beliefs but soon became syncretized with Islam, in a manner similar to how many South American and African cultures syncretized Catholicism with their Indigenous beliefs and spiritualities. It’s not uncommon to see Quranic verses prescribed like medicine, for certain foods and potions blessed with prayers to be distributed as cure-alls, for recognition of mythological beings like orang bunian (a type of fae) or siren-esque sea princesses through ritual and dance (e.g. Ulek Mayang, originally a dance about the appeasement of a sea princess who falls in love with a fisherman, or the Kuda Kepang dances that involve horse spirits). They’re very much magical – and they’re very much Muslim.
However, these cultures are dying out. Part of it is due to the growing skepticism from more modern-day Gen X + Millenial folks who think they’re trafficking in baseless superstition. But part of it is also due to the work of conservative Islamist people in power – police, Government, etc – who think these practices are so anti-Islam that they should be eradicated. Centuries of art, lore, culture, history are being erased or neutered because the ruling powers are being hypersensitive about what is “the correct way of doing Islam”, mostly to the detriment of others – such as immigrants like my family, who are always accused of “doing Islam wrong” in similar ways to POC groups in the US being called “unAmerican”.
So when Tumblr Muslims – who are mostly Western-born or Western-based – start dismissing any notion of Islam syncretic magic with “harammmmm!!!!” it brings up really uncomfortable associations with the people who are eradicating Indigenous and historical practices to assert a very restrictive view of Islam.
(I know that in my parents’ Bangladeshi culture there are people who play similar roles but I don’t know much about that side of things. I do remember having my pencils blessed for good luck and I think I got a name from one such person too.)
My other point of frustration is that in these stories – such as the magical girl system talked by the OP or the Muslim Beauxbatons headcanon – magic is a natural force that one is granted with upon birth. Unlike magic IRL, it’s not really something you have much of a choice over. A Muslim Beauxbatons student would have been born with magic to even get in the school. Hell, we even have canon evidence for Muslim wixen in the Potterverse – look up some of the names mentioned with the Quidditch World Cup and the controversy with the flying carpets. If your counter is “it’s haram”, you’re basically saying their existence is haram even if they can’t help being that way.
Sounds familiar? Because this is pretty much the same thing being told to LGBTIQA Muslims. They are haram because being anything other than cis or het is haram. Even though they were more likely than not born this way.
Are you seriously going to say Allah made them haram? Do you want them to repress their magic just like these people are being told to repress their sexuality? That could be a really interesting plotbunny, but think of the implications of denying a natural force to an entire demographic of people – a natural force that by design doesn’t discriminate.
Hi, I’m white (for the most part, my family has Eurasian ancestry but we didn’t know about this until after my grandfather died) and I’m not Muslim but from discussions I’ve had with a Muslim classmate and with the now-not-on-tumblr petrichorlore I’ve heard that magic in Islam can be harder to categorise than simply magic?
One of the explanations I read was that certain things cannot be imagined and certain things can (the former a square with six sides and the former say a Dragon), and that this distinction plays into whether it is classed as magic, a miracle or something else entirely? The other thing I recall was that the magic that is haram is (if I’m recalling rightly please do correct me if I’m wrong) is the magic that comes from talking to Jinn and Demons? While other apparently “magical” feats can be abilities granted by God/Allah, as a miracle the individual can do? In which case in a world where individuals might natively have magic, wouldn’t that fall closer to the miracle definition than the magic definition? (Might it also affect how they use magic, if I’m recalling this rightly?)
(Please note, these are genuine questions, I am not trying to talk over anyone, just trying to confirm what I recall from other discussions to understand how it all interacts.)
I confess I am coming at this from a similar angle to how I came at Christianity vs. Magic, in that often the specific kinds of magic banned are spelled out. If I recall rightly in Christianity one is forbidden from the forms of magic which involve raising the dead to predict the future, using the bodies of the dead, or communicating with serpents. Is there something similar in the Quran, or is it a blanket thing with the sole exception being feats which are miracles?
Also QED, “quod erat demonstrandum” meaning “thus it has been demonstrated.“
Remember:
e.g. stands for exempli gratia, “for [the sake of an] example”
i.e. stands for id est, meaning “that is [to say]” or “in other words”
This post is a perfect example of why literal translation will get you every time.
Yes, the image in the original post correctly states the literal meaning of each of those phrases.
However, Latin phrases that have entered colloquial English often have very specific connotations that aren’t obvious from their literal translations.
For example, to be “caught in flagrante delicto“ literally means to be apprehended in the act of wrongdoing, but in its customary usage in contemporary English, it typically means to be walked in on while having sex.
more on writing muslim characters from a hijabi muslim girl
– hijabis get really excited over pretty scarves – they also like to collect pins and brooches – we get asked a lot of questions and it can be annoying or it can be amusing, just depends on our mood and personality and how the question is phrased – common questions include: – “not even water?” (referring to fasting) – hijabis hear a lot of “do you sleep in that?” (we don’t) and “where is your hair?” (in a bun or a braid, usually) – “is it mooze-slim or mozzlem?” (the answer is neither, it’s muslim, with a soft s and accent on the first syllable) – “ee-slam or iz-lamb?” (it’s iss-laam, accent on the first syllable) – “hee-job?” (heh-jahb, accent on the second syllable)
– “kor-an?” (no. quran. say it like koor-annn, accent on the second syllable) – people tend to mess up our names really badly and you just get a sigh and a resigned nod or an awkward smile, maybe a nickname instead – long hair is easy to hide, short hair is harder to wrap up – hijab isn’t just covering hair, it’s also showing as little skin as possible with the exception of face, hands, and feet, and not wearing tight/sheer clothing – that applies to men too, people just don’t like to mention it ( i wonder why) – henna/mehendi isn’t just for special occasions, you’ll see people wearing it for fun – henna/mehendi isn’t just for muslims, either, it’s not a religious thing – henna/mehendi is not just for women, men also wear it, especially on their weddings – there are big mehendi parties in the couple of nights before eid where people (usually just women and kids) gather and do each other’s mehendi, usually just hands and feet – five daily prayers – most muslim kids can stutter through a couple verses of quran in the original arabic text by the age of seven or eight, it does not matter where they live or where they’re from or what language they speak natively – muslim families tend to have multiple copies of the quran – there are no “versions” of the quran, there has only ever been one. all muslims follow the exact same book – muslims have no concept of taking God’s name in vain, we call on God at every little inconvenience – don’t use islamic phrases if you don’t know what they mean or how to use them. we use them often, inside and outside of religious settings. in islam, it is encouraged to mention God often and we say these things very casually, but we take them very seriously – Allahu Akbar means “God is Greatest” (often said when something shocks or surprises us, or if we’re scared or daunted, or when something amazing happens, whether it be good or bad; it’s like saying “oh my god”) – Subhan Allah means “Glory be to God” (i say subhan Allah at the sky, at babies, at trees, whatever strikes me as pleasant, especially if it’s in nature) – Bismillah means “in the name of God” and it’s just something you say before you start something like eating or doing your homework – In Shaa Allah means “if God wills” (example: you’ll be famous, in shaa Allah) (it’s a reminder that the future is in God’s hands, so be humble and be hopeful)
– Astaghfirullah means “i seek forgiveness from Allah” and it’s like “god forgive me” – Alhamdulillah means “all thanks and praise belong to God” and it’s just a little bit more serious than saying “thank god” (example: i passed my exams, alhamdulillah; i made it home okay, alhamdulillah) – when i say we use them casually, i really mean it – teacher forgot to assign homework? Alhamdulillah – our version of “amen” is “ameen” – muslims greet each other with “assalamu alaikum” which just means “peace be on you” and it’s like saying hi – the proper response is “walaikum assalam” which means “and on you be peace” and it’s like saying “you too”
As a Muslim this post is so very important and it makes me so happy that it gives the small facts and details that one might be unaware of or confused about.
Queer Fiction Writer 