To Be In Between — One Queer Muslim’s Pursuit of Faith

A young Jordan Jamil Ahmed paid close attention to the words of their grandmother Zeenat. It was the 90s, and she was sitting on the floor of her self-made prayer room on the second floor of a Dublin, Ohio, home, giving a lecture on the values of their shared faith.

“You can’t judge how anyone else practices Islam,” Zeenat said. “That’s up to them and God.”

Zeenat, a tailor and Jordan’s amma, decorated the prayer-room walls with calendar cut-outs of images of the Kaaba, the house of God located in the Holy City of Mecca. To the left of the small room was a tall black wardrobe with East Asian decoration holding all of the saris that she sewed by hand. In the middle of the floor laid rows of prayer mats, each in its own unique colors. Jordan’s favorite was the one in maroon; Zeenat’s was green.

It was a world before 9/11, and young Jordan, named after the decade's most popular athlete, was steady learning Islam with their grandmother. Soon after, Jordan also began questioning their sexuality and how they expressed their gender.

Before Jordan’s lesson, Zeenat played the azan — the call to prayer — on a tape recorder sung by her husband’s brother-in-law, who recited the words in a spiritual melody. The room smelled of lavender and patchouli as she burned incense before prayer. When Jordan’s arms, head, and feet were cleaned, Zeenat would stop the tape recorder. Together, they prayed.

In the corner of the room was a shelf with a children's booklet about the prophet Muhammad, the Quran, and other Abrahamic texts. After prayer, Jordan and their amma would go through the books and begin their lesson. 

Jordan would always remember what she shared during prayer:

“All I do is give you guidance and it’s up to you what you do with it.”

On the morning of January 23, 2023, Jordan clocked into a WeWork office space for work at the Muslim Justice League, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When they arrived, Jordan sat down at their desk and spoke with their therapist on a regularly scheduled  Zoom call. After a session that brought them clarity and a phone call with their father Nadeem, Jordan said to themselves, “I don’t think I can do this anymore. It’s wearing on me to a point where I can’t think clearly.”

Typically wearing heeled, black boots and sporting blonde, bleached-tip hair, Jordan, in their early 30s, says their outward appearance is “inherently political.” As a genderqueer Muslim — and going through multiple rounds of “coming-outs” to their friends and family as they grew to understand their identity better, first as bisexual, then queer, and later genderqueer — Jordan inherited both their spiritual and gender identities with every detail of their self.

They’ve been at the MJL for a couple of years as an organizing director, working with the Muslim community in the region to tackle issues of over-policing and surveillance of Black and brown Muslims. But in recent months, Jordan had felt that there were too many challenges to go on any further.

In that moment, Jordan decided they wanted to quit. They immediately began typing a letter: It is with a heavy heart that I tender my resignation.

“Though this decision may come across as abrupt and my need to leave is immediate,” the letter explained, “coming to this conclusion has not been an abrupt process. This decision has weighed on me for a long time.”

Jordan, who has dealt with various mental health problems throughout their life, had no longer felt supported in their work environment. More than a year earlier, they checked themselves into the psychiatric wing of Bellevue Hospital in New York City. The view from their room was of the Empire State Building. After two weeks of rehabilitation and turmoil (“This is real hell. I have never felt an immense lack of autonomy and agency in my life,” they wrote in their journal at Bellevue) Jordan left the hospital and spent the next two months on paid leave.

After finalizing their letter and getting their coworker to read it over, Jordan wrote down all the necessary contacts they made from work into their personal notebook. They then put their work belongings on their boss’s desk (who wasn’t in the office that day) and scheduled their resignation letter to be sent at 6 p.m. that evening.

Jordan then left the office and went straight to their weekly improv comedy class, saying goodbye to the years of work and escaping what felt like a toxic environment.

“I’m somebody where I’ll ruminate on something for a long time, but when I take action, it happens.”

Always around Jordan’s neck is a gold pendant with the name of God in Arabic calligraphy, though wearing gold is “forbidden” in Islam. It’s even worn as they laid down, with their arms and legs spread apart, on the floor of a large and empty studio on the third floor of the Dance Complex on Central Square.

They had just spent the last hour dancing, improvising their every move to a playlist of pop and electronic music they curated. “It feels good to be in my body,” Jordan said to themself, as they laid there sweating and trying to catch their breath.

Jordan was born into a “blended” family. Their father, Nadeem Ahmed, immigrated from Bangladesh at a young age at the height of the Liberation War in the 1970s. Their mother, Tracy Ahmed, is of Indonesian and Dutch descent. Jordan grew up between Marion, Worthington, and Delaware, Ohio, jumping between houses and navigating their parents’ tumultuous divorce around the time the events of 9/11 unfolded. Jordan has also described this period as a time when they realized they were queer but also when they “went into the closet as Muslim in [middle and high] school.” Growing up, their life was defined by conflicts between who they were and who they wanted to be. The fear of being open about their faith, which for a while faded away, only made it harder to be themselves.

Jordan got up from the floor, hit play on their phone connected to the studio’s speakers, and began to dance once more.

There was a lift of the right arm, then a swivel of the left leg. An immediate spin of the body, twisting more and more, and a sudden hop a few feet forward. Jordan was feeling, not thinking, every movement as they registered the music. They first started dancing improvisationally at 19 in college at Ohio Wesleyan University

Jordan’s first relationship was also in college with their now best-friend Danielle Mužina. Their relationship became part of their own individual journeys of their sexuality. Danielle, who identifies now as a lesbian, and Jordan, who is genderqueer, recognize the uniqueness of their friendship.

“We both joke that our relationship was both of our first lesbian relationship,” Jordan said, speaking on Danielle.

“If I hadn’t met Jordan,” Danielle, a Cleveland-based artist and painting teacher, said, “then I would have had so much more temptation to just be okay with the world as given to me … instead of the mutual dreaming that Jordan and I did.”

Before working in the non-profit space, Jordan was also a professional dancer and formed their own dance company, “power//PLAY.” In the studio now where they practiced for the first time in months, it has become a space for healing, rather than work.

The mutual dreaming Danielle always talked about remained. After Jordan quit their job at MJL, they applied to the Harvard Divinity School to further explore the intersections between their faith and sexuality. Their goal with school is to study Islam as a scholar and become a Muslim chaplain — and maybe one day be an Imam at a queer Muslim mosque.

A couple years ago, through Jordan’s exploration of self and lurking through secret Facebook groups, they found a community of people just like them: Queer Muslims of Boston. The independent social and spiritual organization welcomed Jordan, and its members are some of Jordan’s closest friends today. The idea of a queer mosque in Boston has been a conversation amongst group members within the last year and is gaining traction.

In April, during the middle of Ramadan — the Holy month in which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, reflect on their lives, and spend time with family — Jordan will hear from Harvard on whether they are offered admission. This period of transitioning careers in Jordan’s life is nothing new, but this time, it seems as though the direction they’re headed is as clear as ever.

“I feel like it would help me flesh out my theological understanding of Islam and fill in some of the gaps that I feel self-conscious about when I’m in faith conversations,” Jordan said after applying.

Later that day, after dancing until they no longer could, Jordan attended an artist panel at the Third Space in Downtown Crossing to support their friend Sahil Mohan, who would be speaking. In the middle of the talk, Jordan, who was sitting in the front row, where they said they were most “comfortable,” typed something into their phone that resonated with them.

“Make the work and opportunities follow.”

Jordan’s black boots clicked and clacked on a Cambridge sidewalk as they approached a building on the MIT campus, the site of tonight’s weekly halaqa. It’s 7 p.m. on a Thursday and it's also Jordan's 32nd birthday.

As Jordan stood in the building’s courtyard, taller than those around them, they texted Darien Alexander Williams, Jordan’s friend and a Queer Muslims of Boston (QMOB) organizer, to let him know they were downstairs.

Darien’s apartment is the usual setting of Union Square Halaqa, a weekly gathering of queer Muslims to pray, converse, and discuss faith.

Jordan was welcomed to Darien’s dimly lit living room with incense burning. On the TV, a YouTube video was playing a set by a South-Asian DJ named Haseeb Iqbal. He was pulling songs from old-school records, an array of high-pitched vocals from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, setting the relaxed atmosphere of this week’s meeting.

Jordan sat on a cushion on the floor where the seating was arranged in a circle so everyone could see one another. They were one of the first to arrive. In catching up with other members, Jordan mentioned their new drag identity they’ve been working on.

The name they came up with is “Bismillah.” One day, they hope to perform.

“Every time someone has to say my name at a club they will say ‘in the name of God’ in Arabic,” Jordan said, immediately laughing with the group.

Halaqa is as much a social group as it is a religious one. Before rituals, Jordan and friends talked about where Freddie Mercury was from (Pakistan? Zanzibar.), what queer Muslim events are coming up, and which Muslim products come from an ethical supply chain.

Amina Halim — a pseudonym granted to protect her identity out of fear of harm — one of the halaqa members, also informed the group on how she pulled funding for this year’s Ramadan festivities from national LGBTQ+ organizations.

When everyone arrived, there were almost 15 members in attendance, each on different paths in their pursuit of Islam.

The evening commenced with dhikr. The ritual asks Muslims to recite sentences, words, and names to describe God and repeat them as a group. With every line, a bead is counted. Jordan and Darien had encouraged others to pick out their own tasbeeh (prayer beads)in a pile in the middle of the living room where everyone was seated. Traditionally, the dhikr can be repeated for hours.

Group members each took turns leading a recitation of their choosing.

“La ilaha ill Allah,” there is no God but God the group first repeated 66 times. “Subhanallahi wa bihamdihi subhanallahil azeem,” they repeated later, Glory is to Allah and all praise is to Him, glory is to Allah the great.

The chants sometimes sounded like they were being sung, as each person projected the words in their own pitch and tone, bobbing their heads at their own pace. Some members recited with their eyes closed, having had the dhikr lines memorized. Here, there is a range of experiences and all are welcome. At the end of each prayer, the last recitation was chanted very slowly, to signify its ending.

As the prayers ended, so did the air of “seriousness.”

“Banger,” Amina said.

“Did someone say a banger?” Jordan asked, seemingly unaware of who had spoken and laughed with the rest of the group.

Union Square Halaqa was formed many years ago and is now based in Cambridge. Jordan found the group while lurking the private QMOB Facebook group for a few years, while others found it through low-visibility Tumblr pages and Grindr matches. Boston’s queer Muslim community is small, so eventually people make it in one way or another.

This week, Darien texted the members to bring an object with meaning to share with everyone — a spiritual show-and-tell.

For Darien, it was a scar on his chest from a growing cyst he had removed when he was a child and the stuffed bear gifted to him after surgery; for Jordan, the Allah necklace on their neck signifying the taking of time and patience. Every so often, the presentation of items prompted group members to cry.

The night also included group prayer, where each person stood side-by-side collectively. In a mosque, men and women are always separated, and different Islamic denominations pray in different spaces altogether. Here, men, women, non-binary, Shia, and Sunni pray together.

“Oh Allah, please protect all the girls of Iran,” one member said during Dua, the process of asking a request from God.

“Allah,” Darien said “Thank you for opening our hearts tonight.”

On March 13, Jordan was waitlisted by Harvard. They had received an email notifying them of their status and were told a final decision would be made in a month. “So, in limbo we go,” Jordan said, sitting on their bed in their apartment in Cambridge after reading their decision. Minutes later, they called their father and cried.

Yet on the first night of Ramadan a week later, Jordan’s priorities were now on making sure members of halaqa, who were arriving at Jordan's place, were well-fed by sunset, at exactly 7:01 p.m.

The usuals arrived before dinner and huddled in Jordan’s medium-sized kitchen. One member who spoke Arabic recited a prayer before everyone took a bite into a date and a sip of lemonade as the sun rolled over the horizon line. Translated, the member said: “O Lord! I fasted for Thee and have ended the fast on sustenance provided by Thee, and Thee only do I trust.”

The group hugged and proceeded with dinner.

“Where is the world where I can be more genderqueer, more they/them, more safe, more vocal, less silent?” Jordan wrote in their journal on Dec. 23, 2017. “I hate feeling invisible, in [my partner’s] life at home, in mine … I’m the one we can laugh at. Why is my sexuality a joke?”

There were many years when it was difficult for Jordan’s relatives to come to terms with their sexuality, although stable now. When Jordan came out to certain men in their family, however, these moments of vulnerability prompted some members to speak about their own trauma and questioning of their sexuality.

“We’ve never talked about it since,” Jordan said after describing those interactions.

The intersections of their life, both puzzling and clear, were always dominating in their thoughts too.

“The fire has definitely left me longing for substance in some spaces in my life that feel slightly lacking or at least unexplored,” Jordan wrote in an April 24, 2019 journal entry. “I want to know myself as a Muslim. I want to let myself experience that connection and insecurity in a way that allows for change, mistakes, and imperfection. And I very actively want to do it for myself and no one else…”

Jordan spent a Friday afternoon back at their kitchen table, just days before decision day, reading over old journal entries. There were over 10 books stacked on top of each other and Jordan pulled pages through each, chronologically.

It was the first time they read the intimate words they wrote years ago. Though reading with a sharp stare, there was an occasional grin, an “oh interesting,” after finding a goal that was achieved years later or a sentence that resonated.

“[There’s] possibility, I think,” Jordan said as they began crying, thinking about how there was a while where they struggled to realize what it is that kept them going. “Just knowing,” they continued, trying to get the words out, “the shit I’ve been through. To know I can get where I am now makes me feel like maybe all the people who believe in me are right … that really saved my life.”

Sitting by the square dining table perched up by the only windows in Jordan’s kitchen, they propped up their laptop to read the final decision from divinity school. They had just gotten back from work watching over kids in school. It’s a new temporary job as a paraprofessional at the Fletcher-Maynard Academy’s autism spectrum disorder program. For Jordan, it’s something they’re good at, and more importantly, it pays the bills. They had gone for weeks with no employment.

After getting waitlisted they said their expectations were low. Earlier that morning at work, Jordan was notified of the decision but waited to get home to open it up.

“Oh God, here we go,” Jordan muttered under their breath.

…committee deliberations are confidential … we won’t disclose specific reasons … you can apply again this fall…

“Yep, it’s a no.”

They paused.

“Ok, that’s that.”

They laughed.

Jordan seemed unfazed. They said they grieved the rejection just weeks ago after getting waitlisted and now, applying for grants to develop their writing, continue working, and create projects, is what they were wondering about.

“I forced myself not to get hopeful,” they said.

Earlier that week, Jordan responded to an Instagram story of a friend who is putting together an art show, dubbed the “Museum of Process,” and signed up. The show will be hosted at Harvard Divinity School.

Back in their home, Jordan sat with the rejection letter and only new possibilities in front of them.

“I feel like this Ramadan is bringing things that I need in different ways than I expected,” they said. “I haven’t really been able to fast, I didn’t get into Harvard, but other pieces are coming into focus.”

Weeks later, over 80 queer Muslims from as far away as New York City congregated in a large conference room on the second floor of an MIT building to celebrate QMOB’s 10th anniversary in an iftar dinner.

Muslims of all backgrounds, races, Islamic sub-sects, hijabs, burkas, and plainclothes sat side-by-side in rows of long tables. Each person wore a nametag with their name and pronouns. For some people, this was the regular crowd. For others, it was their first time in such an inclusive space.

Jordan, who had helped set up the event alongside Darien and other members, took a seat at one of the tables after grabbing a plate of chicken, rice, and a side of lentil soup.

Ramadan was ending but some things were beginning. Sitting across from Jordan was a young queer couple, both teachers. Noah and Sara — pseudonyms granted to protect their identities — who last participated in a queer iftar dinner in 2015, were shocked to see just how many people were in attendance.

Jordan began talking to the couple about the idea of a queer mosque. “I mean, look how many people are here,” Jordan said with enthusiasm.

The couple, recently married, mentioned to Jordan about their struggles trying to host an Islamic wedding ceremony with an accepting imam. “What imam is going to marry us?” Noah said. Jordan had hoped that one day it could be something they could do — someone they could be.

In passing, Jordan said how some members host a weekly halaqa, where they pray together and discuss faith in a hospitable setting. Noah, who followed Jordan’s every word, asked how one could join.

Jordan pulled out their phone and told Noah to put in her number.

Her face lit up and her eyes went wide. Smiling, Noah felt as though she'd been introduced to something new.

At the age of nine, the young Jordan, wearing an oversized t-shirt and sewn prayer pants, would move into their amma’s home after their parent’s divorce. Praying became more frequent, the extra time spent brought them closer together. Today, Jordan and amma are two of the most religious people in their family.

May 6, 2019, Jordan wrote, “I’m already wondering if I’m looking for culture as much as I am God … I believe good begets good.”