As Salam Alaikum, dear readers. May the Most High bless your path on this very day. My name is Mariam Alzahrani and I am a young Arab Muslim woman living in the City of Toronto, Ontario. I was born in the City of Dammam, somewhere in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, but grew up in the United Kingdom. For the first few years of my life, Berkshire was my home. And then we left this wonderful place. That's life, I guess.
In 1999, in the tenth summer of my life, my parents Mahmoud and Amina Alzahrani left the United Kingdom and moved to the City of Toronto, Ontario, and we've lived here ever since. Ontario is the most immigrant-friendly area of Canada. I am a proud Saudi-Canadian Muslim woman with one helluva story to share with you. The story of a Muslim lesbian trying to get by in a tough world. My story.
Does that surprise you? The fact that a Saudi Arabian Muslim woman living in Ontario identifies as a lesbian? It really shouldn't. I am a pious Muslim woman who wears the hijab and prays five times a day, as required by the sacred rules of Islam, my religion. I go to the Masjid every Jummah or Friday, and pray fervently in the ladies corner of this sacred place. I am a proud Muslim, just want to make that abundantly clear.
I'm studying civil engineering at the University of Toronto, and hope to make an impact in the world of science someday. We need more Muslim women in the sciences. People seem to think that all Muslim women, especially the ones from Saudi Arabia, are passive and helpless. That is not the case, ladies and gentlemen. I am very much an empowered woman. There's more than one way to be a strong woman, something I try to explain to white feminists time and again.
I believe that western feminists mean well, but they don't understand women from other parts of the world. I am a Muslim woman and a feminist. They don't get it. To them, because I wear the hijab, I am not a strong woman. To white feminists, a Muslim woman is a victim of Islamic patriarchy. I wear the hijab by choice, not because anyone forces me.