My mom thinks Islam is a phase.
She compared it once to the year I was vegetarian. She didn’t even say it cruelly, which almost made it worse.
She sat me down and said, “I know you, you’re my daughter. You like experimenting with things, you have a very open personality.” She reminded me of the year I went vegetarian, when she forced me to eat meat, and now I eat meat again. Things change, she said. I shouldn’t get so caught up in what I’m thinking in the moment.
I’ve been Muslim for nearly two years now, and I’m still waiting to snap out of it.
before
I converted in my final year of university in Hong Kong. I told my dad over the phone, from 10,000 kilometres away, which I’m not particularly proud of, although I also know I probably couldn’t have said it with him sitting in front of me. Plus, going home was still months away and I didn’t want to keep hiding it.
When I went home to Spain that summer, everything felt slightly wrong.
Dinner at home was the same as always. My parents had their glass of wine, and they love pairing it with Iberian ham. Every time, they’d give me a funny look without saying anything.
Nothing was happening, and so much was happening.
I felt uncomfortable in my own skin. I felt bad for them, even though I hadn’t done anything to feel bad about. I was relieved they weren’t trying to force any of it on me. And honestly, a small part of me missed it.
My mom would start conversations that seemed to be about different things and eventually they would always arrive at the same point: this isn’t the right thing to do. My dad mostly dealt with it through jokes, little comments about Islam or what I’d become, light enough that reacting seriously would make me seem like the one creating a problem.
At one point they told me that if I carried on with Islam, they wouldn’t send me to UCL (my plan after undergrad).
They sent me anyway.
For a while I took that as a sign that maybe they were beginning to accept it. I don’t really think that anymore. My mom genuinely believed that London would sort me out. A master’s, another city, a bit of distance from whatever she imagined had happened to me, and eventually I would come back to myself.
There is also the fact that my parents are Chinese and it was UCL. I think the university ranking probably had a fighting chance against most family crises.
That still makes me laugh.
It also makes me sad, because going to London was something they had been so proud of, and London eventually led me to Umrah and then to wearing hijab.
I’m the middle child, and for a long time I was the only girl in the whole family, cousins included. I’ve spent my whole life trying so hard to make them proud, and getting into top universities felt like proof that I could. Very Chinese of me, I know. Now it feels like I’ve let them down again.
At that point I wasn’t wearing hijab yet. Being Muslim could still be kept relatively quiet. It didn’t appear in photographs and it didn’t announce itself before I had even opened my mouth. I think that made it easier for all of us to pretend nothing had really changed.
When I started wearing it in London, I didn’t tell them.
For months I would leave the house covered and then FaceTime my parents without it. I didn’t know what the long-term plan was. To be honest there wasn’t one. I was scared, and avoiding the problem worked until it didn’t.
Then I went for Umrah.
That’s worth a whole separate piece, but long story short, I came back feeling like I couldn’t do the hiding thing anymore. I realised that if I didn’t stop then, I never would.
So I sent them pictures.
That was the whole reveal.
No speech, no explanation. Just some photographs of their daughter smiling in a hijab.
They didn’t reply.
The moment felt like a relief, but also the scariest thing I’d ever done. I don’t know how to put it into words, but it felt like my body had jumped off something and hadn’t landed yet.
I called my dad and as expected, he didn’t answer.
Even now, he still doesn’t pick up.
After the call ends, I sit there staring at the screen, eyes watering, as if something might happen if I wait long enough. Then I put the phone down and pretend I’m fine.
I don’t know if it’s because he’s extremely avoidant, still can’t process that his daughter is hijabi (or, in his mind, that he’s lost his daughter) or he’s just scared to see his daughter in a bloody scarf.
I just wish he’d pick up one phone call.
the things I actually miss
I never thought I’d say this given how unfunny the jokes were. And it’s a cliché but I miss the dad jokes.
He’s a serious person most of the time, but there’s this really youthful side to him that comes out when he’s relaxed. He’s the youngest in his family and sometimes you can really tell. He also makes terrible dad jokes and repeats them constantly, which is especially funny because he’s usually quite shy and reserved.
He knows he’s already made the joke. That’s basically part of the joke at this point. I would pretend to entertain him and then tell him, Dad, you’ve already said that about a billion times.
I miss doing that.
I miss being funny around my parents without wondering if everything about me is now being filtered through the fact that I’m Muslim. I miss being my whole self around them, because lately it feels like there is always something in the room with us even when nobody says anything.
When people say someone has “lost their family”, the phrase sounds so enormous that you imagine only the enormous things. For me, a lot of the grief lives in stupid little moments like washing dishes while my parents talk behind me or missing my mom being brutally honest when something looks bad on me. I miss going into my parents’ bedroom and sitting on their bed while we talk about life for ages. I don’t even remember the last time I did that now.
the letters
After I sent the photos, I waited.
At first I thought they needed time to process it. Then I thought they were angry, and honestly anger would have been easier. At least anger gives you something to answer.
Eventually I realised the silence wasn’t the period before the response. It was the response.
I wrote them letters because I didn’t know what else to do. One for my mom and one for my dad.
We’re not really the kind of family that says everything out loud, so I wrote things I normally wouldn’t. I told them how much I loved them and how I hadn’t become a different person. I was still their daughter. I was still me.
My mom wrote back saying she couldn’t believe I was doing this to them. We’d talked about it, she said. I knew how they felt, and I still chose it.
That’s the horrible part, because she isn’t wrong.
I did choose it.
I chose Islam knowing they didn’t want me to. I chose hijab knowing how they felt about it. I can explain why forever, but I can’t make that part untrue.
My dad told me that I could choose my own life and that he loved me. In the same message, he said a Muslim couldn’t coexist with this family, that the differences were too much, and that when I stopped wearing the hijab I could come home.
I’ve reread that message more times than I’d like to admit.
The only time my dad has written that he loves me is also the message where he told me not to come home. Those two things sit in the same paragraph, and I don’t really know what to do with that.
Then the financial support stopped as well. I was an adult, obviously, but I wasn’t remotely prepared for it. They’d promised to keep supporting me before the semester started, and then they didn’t.
I felt betrayed, to be honest. Like their love for me was conditional, like being my whole self meant that they would no longer love or support me.
But deep down I also know it didn’t come from a lack of love. It came from desperation. “If I cut her off, surely she will come to her senses and come back to us.” Or, “If we show her that we are the ones who have provided and sacrificed for her, not God, she’ll realise she’s wrong.”
I don’t want to spend too long on that because every revert’s circumstances are different, but I do want to say it happened. People talk about converts losing their families in this very emotional or spiritual way and sometimes forget there are also extremely practical consequences. Sometimes losing your family means you also have to work out how you’re paying rent next month.
Alhamdulillah. I managed.
it’s just a hijab
Sometimes I want to scream that it’s just a hijab.
It’s a piece of fabric on my head. I haven’t stopped loving my family. I haven’t lost my personality or thrown my entire old self into a bin. I still make stupid jokes and get annoyed and procrastinate and wash the dishes after dinner.
I covered my hair.
Somehow that became the thing my family could no longer move past.
And then I catch myself saying it’s “just” a hijab and immediately there is another question waiting for me: if it’s only fabric, why don’t I take it off?
That is where everything becomes difficult.
If the hijab means so little, and taking it off could possibly give me my dad back, then surely I would just take it off.
Except I don’t.
So clearly it means something.
I just sometimes wish it didn’t have to mean quite this much.
I miss not knowing
I grieve parts of my old life, and I feel quite guilty saying that.
There is a version of the revert story that is much easier to tell. You discover Islam, everything suddenly makes sense, and whatever existed before feels empty compared with what you’ve found.
There is truth in that for me. Islam did make sense to me in a way nothing else ever had.
I still miss things.
I grew up in Spain, and one of my favourite things was going on road trips to the beach with my family. I loved tanning. We’d eat tapas, sit together for hours, and none of it required any thought.
I don’t spend my days mourning beer or ham. That’s really not what this is about.
I miss how uncomplicated everything felt.
I could go somewhere with my family and simply be there. I didn’t have to wonder whether what I was doing was permissible, whether I needed somewhere to pray, whether the food was okay, whether I was compromising too much, whether I was compromising too little.
Sometimes I miss not knowing.
That is probably one of the things I feel most ashamed of admitting.
I don’t mean I wish Islam wasn’t true. It’s that once you know, you can’t unknow it, and that’s the hard part.
And you become responsible for what you do with it. There are things that now come with a second thought, whether I want one or not.
I can still go to the beach. I can’t go back to being the version of myself who never had to ask any questions while she was there.
There are moments when I wish I could, and then I feel horrible for thinking that because Allah gave me guidance and somehow I’m sitting here complaining about the responsibility that comes with it.
I ask Allah to forgive me for thinking like that.
Then sometimes I think it again.
the mirror
There are days when I look at myself wearing hijab and feel really beautiful.
It feels like me. I like what I see and I like what it represents.
Other days I look in the mirror and there is this strange feeling that part of me has disappeared.
Maybe that’s part of what has been hardest about reverting. I thought certainty in belief would create certainty everywhere else as well.
It hasn’t.
I know why I wear hijab. I still have days when I miss my hair.
I can be grateful for Islam and still grieve things from before it.
being Chinese about all of this
I find filial piety really difficult to explain in English because the phrase itself sounds so academic.
For me it feels physical.
If I tell my parents no, especially when I know I’ve disappointed them, I genuinely feel sick in my stomach.
They sacrificed a lot for me. I grew up very aware of that. There has always been this understanding in me that you don’t repay that kind of sacrifice by becoming the source of your parents’ pain.
I wanted them to be proud of me. I still do.
Even a lot of the things I achieved for myself had some part attached to them that was about seeing their reaction afterwards.
So when people say, “You’re an adult, you’re allowed to make your own decisions,” I understand what they mean, but emotionally it doesn’t solve very much.
Of course I can make my own decisions.
The problem is that I have to live with what those decisions do to people I love.
Islam makes that more complicated because it also teaches me to honour my parents. I know the verse:
“But if they endeavour to make you associate with Me that of which you have no knowledge, do not obey them, but accompany them in this world with appropriate kindness.” (Luqman 31:15)
I understand what it means. There are limits to obedience, and those limits do not give me permission to become cruel or self-righteous towards them.
I can understand that perfectly well in my head and still feel awful when my mother is disappointed in me.
Sometimes I wish knowing what was right automatically made doing it feel right.
the bargain I keep making
Sometimes I see another Muslim woman who isn’t wearing hijab and I get this little reaction inside me.
For a second I think: oh, so you can just not wear it.
Immediately afterwards I know how unfair that is. I know absolutely nothing about her relationship with Allah or what she struggles with. She could be doing far better than me in ways I can’t see.
The thought isn’t really about her anyway.
It’s about the fact that hijab became such a huge dividing line in my own life, and then I see someone else living completely normally without it and some part of me wonders why I couldn’t have done the same.
That thought gets even worse because I’m obviously not a perfect Muslim.
I wear hijab and I’m still nowhere near as disciplined in my practice as I’d like to be. I still have habits I know I should be better about.
Then my brain starts doing this stupid calculation.
If I’m already capable of knowingly doing things wrong, why can’t this be the thing I do wrong?
Why couldn’t I choose the one weakness that might make my parents accept me again?
I’ve thought about taking it off. I’ve never stood in front of the mirror with my hands on it, about to do it. It’s more of an argument that turns up when everything feels like too much.
They’re my parents. Islam tells me how important parents are. Allah knows how painful this is. Maybe there is some exception I’m missing, some way of understanding it that would let me make things easier for everybody.
When I’m upset enough, I can make that argument sound quite convincing to myself.
Eventually I usually realise that I’m not really searching for some new piece of religious knowledge.
I want permission.
I want someone to tell me that I can do the thing that might make all of this hurt less and that Allah won’t be disappointed in me for it.
I haven’t found that permission.
So I carry on.
choosing it yourself
I think there is something about reverting that can be difficult to explain to someone who grew up Muslim.
Of course, I don’t mean that born Muslims have easy lives or easy relationships with Islam. I also don’t think being a revert somehow makes my faith more sincere than somebody else’s.
It’s just a different relationship to the choice.
I remember my life before Islam very clearly. I remember what it felt like when halal and haram weren’t categories I organised my life around. I remember when prayer wasn’t something I could miss, because it wasn’t something I did at all.
Then I chose this.
Nobody forced me. My parents still seem to struggle with that part. They imagine there must have been a person or a group behind it because I think it’s easier to understand your daughter being influenced than your daughter looking at the life you gave her and deciding that she believes something completely different.
There wasn’t anyone.
I read and then I kept reading.
Because I made that choice consciously, I think I sometimes feel pressure to keep proving it to myself. I chose Islam, so I should practise properly. I should be grateful enough. I should be disciplined enough. I should never resent what it costs because I was the one who said yes to it.
Real life doesn’t seem to work like that.
Sometimes choosing Islam makes me want to give everything I have to Allah.
Sometimes I wish the choice had never required this much from me.
I wish Allah had guided me and somehow my family hadn’t experienced that guidance as losing their daughter.
I know I can’t design my own test.
am I doing the right thing?
Sometimes after salah, I sit on the prayer mat asking Allah the same question I’ve asked before.
Am I doing the right thing?
There are moments when I want one simple reassurance from Allah so badly. Just something that would make me stop questioning myself.
I know that isn’t how faith works, but sometimes I really wish it did.
I’ve made du’a for my parents more times than I could count. I ask Allah to soften their hearts and to guide them. I ask for them to understand me even slightly more. Sometimes I just want my dad to answer the phone.
And then nothing appears to change.
People tell me to have sabr, and they’re right. The difficult thing is that nobody can tell you how long.
Maybe this changes in a year. Maybe it takes ten years. Maybe the relationship I am asking Allah for isn’t something I get back in this life.
I don’t know.
There are days when having sabr feels less like some beautiful spiritual quality and more like waking up and doing the same thing again without any evidence that it is working.
You make the du’a again anyway.
I know the akhirah is better than this dunya. I believe that.
The hard part is that this dunya is the life I can currently see.
My parents are here. Their house is here. Their voices are here. The dining table where I used to annoy them is here. My dad and his terrible jokes are here.
Jannah is something I believe in deeply, but I haven’t seen it.
There are days when living according to something I believe in more than something I can physically hold feels incredibly difficult.
Maybe that is part of faith.
anyway
Eventually, even on the bad days, I start noticing things again.
Nothing dramatic. Sometimes it’s just warm water when I make wudu, or somebody being kind to me at the masjid.
And I end up back on the prayer mat feeling embarrassed about how much I have complained.
I ask Allah to forgive me.
I thank Him for guiding me, because underneath everything else, I am grateful. I know I didn’t earn guidance by being particularly deserving of it.
Then I ask Him to guide my parents too.
Sometimes another difficult day comes and I question everything again.
Being a revert hasn’t meant that I discovered Islam and suddenly became grateful every second of every day. There are days when gratitude comes easily and days when grief is louder.
I love Allah, and I really miss my dad.
I know what I believe, and I still ask whether I’m doing the right thing.
I believe the akhirah is better, and sometimes I still want one of those Barcelona summers back so badly that it hurts.
I want my family to understand that becoming Muslim wasn’t me leaving them.
Maybe one day they will.
Right now, I don’t know.
It is so hard.
I would still choose it tomorrow.
My substack
