Community Accountability: Believe Survivors

In the Venn diagram of my life, faith and sexual abuse overlap in such a way that informs a value I hold so deeply: community accountability.

In 2019, I shared my very first poem at a Button Poetry Live. I brought my best friend with me for moral support. As I put my name on the list, the alarm bells started to ring loudly, begging me not to recite the piece I planned on sharing. And to be honest, when I decided the month prior to attend the event, I had no idea I would be sharing — or even writing — such a piece.

If you know anything about me, it’s that I would rather be in my bed, cozy with a cup of shah, than on that stage, about to share my truth with a room full of strangers. It wasn’t until the lights dimmed, the host called my name, and I finally took the stage to look out into the blinding lights that I realized what I was doing. Fortunately for me, the room full of strangers quickly melted away and I was alone again, the way I preferred it. The way I thought for so long, Allah wanted me to be.

I shared a poem about being sexually abused by my Quran teacher during my childhood. 

In the poem, I talk about aunties who would rather hide the realities of sexual abuse and assault in our communities to protect transgressors, instead of protecting the young women and children who are actually being harmed. I talk about how if fabric mattered, as the modesty police argue in response to sexual assaults against women, then why does it happen at all?

If fabric or really anything mattered, then why do 4, 5, or 6 year-olds get sexually abused?

I remember the rage in my heart and the vitriol flying out of my lips as I gripped my salmon poetry journal. I remember feeling more seen than I ever had. I remember feeling my voice being heard.

But that’s not the reality for many who experienced and still experience what happened to me. In fact, even when I felt empowered in that moment on that stage, the lights blurred out everyone in that room. As their faces disappeared, so did their hums and whistles, their shouts of solidarity, and their snaps. Their approval meant nothing if the people in my community continued to silence women, girls, and children like me.

The piece I shared during that Button Poetry Live shared only one of my experiences as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Another experience was perpetuated by someone whom our family hosted, someone invited into our home out of kindness and financial necessity. Over the years, events have blurred together, either because of the normal passage of time or because my brain forced me to forget or repress memories to protect me. Either way, I came out of this experience with a lot of confusion, particularly because I could no longer eat a classic Somali food, basto and moos or pasta and bananas. For years I couldn’t figure out why even the smell of the meal made me nauseous, and it wasn’t until years later that I uncovered the reason why: my abuser had eaten that very meal before abusing me.

I told my mother about my Quran teacher and my older brother about the other as a tween, and the experiences did more damage than good. Telling my mother felt clinical — she asked me questions, and even though I was crying and shaking, all she said was to go to bed. We haven’t talked about it ever since. My brother made an offhand joke about my inability to eat basto and moos, and even though I don’t think he remembers it, the comment stayed with me for years. My mother’s silence and my brother’s nonchalance told me what happened wasn’t that big of a deal. That maybe what happened wasn’t as damaging as it felt to me. That I was making it up. 

The ramifications of being sexually abused, and particularly by a religious leader, skewed my sense of morality.

He was supposed to lead by example to teach me about my beloved faith. He was supposed to protect me. Neither of those things happened, and I’m still undoing the trauma and repression.

After these events, I quickly disengaged from faith. For years, anytime I tried to read the Quran, an activity I loved as a child, I would only feel guilt and shame. And until recently, even praying brought me distress. I would pray and fast and make duaa, but it all felt performative. It was a ritual. It wasn’t about me and Allah, it was about me trying to keep everything from overwhelming me by doing the minimum and nothing else. And to be entirely honest, I felt cheated. To be forced to disengage from the one thing I learned would help me with any difficulty because it unfortunately reminded me of the very thing I needed help with — it’s an impossible situation for anyone, let alone a child, to navigate. 

It took nearly two decades of feeling an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt while I prayed to get to a place where I understand that what happened wasn’t my fault. I wish I could say I learned this lesson years ago. It was only a few months ago when I was talking with a close friend that I received the support I longed for as a child. It took my friend asking me if I believed it wasn’t my fault, for me to consider that perhaps it truly wasn’t. 

The Quran says this about sexual abuse: “And those who do not invoke with Allah another deity or kill the soul which Allah has forbidden [to be killed], except by right, and do not commit unlawful sexual intercourse. And whoever should do that will meet a penalty. Multiplied for him is the punishment on the Day of Resurrection, and he will abide therein humiliated” (25:68-69). By equating sexual abuse with murder, Allah is sending a very powerful message of the magnitude of this form of violence. 

This Quranic verse, along with other Prophetic teachings and verses, institutes that each person will be held accountable for their own actions. What’s important to keep in mind is that inaction is just as much an action as actually doing something.

When our communities stay silent and brush aside sexual violence, they are sending just as loud a message as if they had defended a perpetrator.

By establishing that the protection and well-being of others is a right that each of us must fulfill, Allah commands each of His subjects to be aware of what happens in our communities. Allah commands each of us to behave in a manner that is most pleasing to Him. Allah commands us to do so because even if justice in this world is not possible, Al-Hakam, the Giver of Justice, will ensure that justice is imparted for every situation in the Hereafter.

We don’t have to wait until the Day of Judgement to begin the process of healing. We can begin now by believing survivors, by seeing and hearing our truths. By caring for every survivor by holding abusers accountable. By holding ourselves accountable for what we say and do, the ways we perpetuate rape culture, and how we may hide realities of survivors by silencing each other. 

The reason I am sharing this now is not because I’m done healing or because I’m somehow “fixed.”  I am sharing because of how frequently I hear stories like mine. Not only of survivors of childhood or any sexual abuse but also of perpetrators who are faith leaders in whom our communities put so much trust. The reason it took me so long to share my truth is because of what I constantly overheard when women were abused: that they had done something to deserve such treatment. Over and over again, moms and aunties protect faith leaders, uncles, and even fathers and grandfathers, in an effort to preserve a false image of perfection. What breaks my heart is not that we’re being silenced but that we are being silenced by our own.

If I have learned anything from my own beautiful community of incredibly strong women, it’s that there’s no room for passivity anymore. I’m not only going to strive for amplifying the voice and power of Muslim women but to make sure the reason our voices are being silenced isn’t because of us.