On Friday I was inspired to by a khutbah at IMI Jummah to re-write my intentions for Ramadan.

Before Friday, my intentions were very simple, almost urgent pleas:

• This isn’t about losing weight, starving, withholding, punishing. When it feels like that, when that voice whispers louder and you start to listen, stop fasting. Be honest with yourself about this one.
• Let anger, frustration, anxiety, stress, dissatisfaction just move through you. Feel it, acknowledge it, then leave it. Heavy, negative feelings will weigh on you more and drain you more.
• The time you would spend on cooking, eating, consuming in any way, use it to be with yourself, be still, be silent. There are no distractions, so be with yourself.

After Friday, my intentions look different.

[1] Surrender to Ramadan.

My body will change. My diet will change. My routine will change. This is all okay. Take this as a lesson in accepting change. My body is not permanent. I have moved through many bodies throughout my life. And I have spent many years controlling my body throughout my life. I am still moving. Take this Ramadan as a reminder of impermanence. Your body is not permanent and you can’t continue to control it. My hairy gender-non-conforming body dominates my life. I watch my posture, my gait. I watch my size, my weight, the space I take up. I’m told my body is desirable and disgusting. I have conversations with myself where I can’t distinguish the two. I do. I equally desire myself and I disgust myself. Every muscle I am friends with and every curve I am enemies with. (My thighs? My hips? I don’t know her.) Every hair I punish myself for and every day I hope there isn’t one more. Of course there will be, my body is always changing. Isn’t that what ‘transition’ literally means? ‘To change.’ Maybe I myself fell into the trans narrative trap of thinking my body would only change once. When I had ‘the operation.’ That I would only have two bodies, ‘before’ and ‘after.’ I void ‘transition’ from my vocab as a way to avoid this trap. But as Ramadan drew near, I realised, I’m still quite trapped.

Today I realise, Ramadan is here and I can free myself, even just for 30ish days. Accept impermanence, starting with your body. My body will change. It has and it does and it will. This is what can come with each roza, what I can learn each night. Be open and surrender to Ramadan.

[2] When you look at strangers, notice something beautiful

For so long I walk through crowds, sit on the tube, go to Muslim spaces or trans events holding so much. Fear, anxiety, defence, hostility. Being on guard. Thinking, how queer/how Muslim do I look today. (Whatever that means.) Thinking how to make myself smaller yet be true to myself yet keep myself safe. Monitoring my surroundings, the people coming through the doors, the men who like to take up space with their bodies, with their voices, catching bits of conversation that sound like danger. Not only is it draining, it isn’t nice. I don’t like moving through the world in this state. In fact it’s this part which doesn’t feel true to myself. I want to actively change that and challenge myself.

When I find myself looking at others, making a judgement, assumption, objectification – reducing someone in any way – I will instead notice one thing beautiful about them, in any way. I will repeat it to myself with sincerity. And then, I will go about my day.

[3] Be closer to yourself and be closer to the divine

When I asked myself at the beginning of Ramadan, ‘what is in the way of my relationship with Allah?’ I have a long list of the ways in which I am out of touch, disconnected, distracted from a relationship with myself. I have a long list of the things I am fasting from this month. For a long time, everything I am consuming is really consuming me.

How can I be closer to myself and therefore closer to the divine? Ramadan is teaching me how.

If I am out of touch with myself, if I am overwhelmed, intoxicated, drowning in consumption, I can’t fast, I can’t give myself to Ramadan. I won’t (re)connect with Islam, I won’t heal with Islam. Because I won’t be present, I won’t be my true self, I will just be everything I am consuming. I think that’s really important about connecting to faith; the further I am from myself, the further I am from the divine. It’s not easy, I know. I have my reasons why I disconnect from myself. But realising how disconnected I am from everyone/everything else has made me… just someone I don’t want to be.

I’m not going to preach ‘just be yourself’ because it’s not easy. It’s not easy to be myself in capitalist societies that revolve around consumption. In cultures that are obsessed with status. Where ‘you do you’ is a slogan, not a way of being. Instead, I am telling myself, gently : t r y .

Allah doesn’t want me to be someone else. I don’t think so. If I was doing things I didn’t want to do, saying things I didn’t believe, my intentions wouldn’t be real. For me Islam is all about niyyah, intentions. Truthful intentions. If I’m doing something that might not be ‘right’ or honest, then I’m honest with myself about why I’m doing it. Being honest with myself means my true intentions are known to me and also to Allah.

I want to set niyyah for myself. In the same way I choose to fast each night, I want to choose each day, gently, to try and be myself.

Ramadan Mubarak my brothers, my sisters and my siblings beyond the binary.