The previously unpublished authors crafted their fiction in writing workshops in Leeds, Bradford, and Glasgow. These workshops for young British Muslims aged between sixteen and thirty were convened through a research project entitled Storying Sexual Relationships . Opportunities like this that are aimed directly at people from Muslim backgrounds are relatively rare. We hope the workshops operated as a safe space for young Muslims to write freely about love and desire. This sense of community is important and confirms that there is a thirst for British Muslim writing, particularly for writing that challenges damaging stereotypes. Yet, as well as presenting a counter-narrative to the dominant discourse, the topic of relationships has a universal quality that will appeal to a wide audience. After all, what is fiction about if not love?

In a professional landscape where the marketing of Muslim authors and their work is all too often reductive and misinformed, it is important to discuss frankly and openly the ways in which creative work can be presented to audiences in the UK and overseas with greater integrity. 

For example, when it came to the cover image, we were able to resist initial drafts which dressed both figures in excessively ‘ethnic’ fabrics, replete with paisleys and geometric designs. Crucially, we also worked with the designer on the two figures portrayed. The first figure wears hijab, which comes from an aim not to pander to lazy demands for ‘relatability’: the idea that Muslims are ‘just like you’. To ignore the fact that some Muslim women choose to cover their heads wouldn’t represent progress in depicting difference. However, we asked for the figure with head uncovered to be rendered in an androgynous way, as someone who could be interpreted as male or female or neither. This was with the aim of illustrating the diversity of Muslim women (including those who do not cover their heads), as well as men and gender non-binary individuals; and to avoid implying that all the writers or their characters are straight. 

Given that this project hopes to offer a platform from which the voices of young Muslim writers can be heard, it is worth briefly reflecting on our positionality. We are three colleagues and friends, two of us from non-Muslim, white backgrounds, and the last a third-generation British Muslim with heritage from Pakistan. Two of us are women and one a man, and two of us identify as straight while the third identifies as gay. The team therefore incorporates forms of diversity that we found advantageous in various contexts as the workshops unfolded. Some participants found it easier to open up to someone from within their community or of the same gender or sexuality, whereas others found greater freedom in speaking to individuals from different backgrounds and identities. As middle-class academics occupying positions of power, our very presence can change the conversation, and we have to be careful not to privilege some voices over others. Moreover, the two white non-Muslims among us need to think of ourselves as allies and guard against presenting ourselves as saviours . 

The subject of the collection is love and relationships, which is in part chosen because it differs from the issue-based or problem-centred topics Muslims are often expected to write about. These stories are at once specific and ordinary. In their specificity, they reflect the range of circumstances experienced by Muslims in particular Muslim communities, and ways in which these circumstances are negotiated. In other ways ordinary, the narratives contradict some received ideas about the otherness of Muslims: stereotypes about loveless marriages and tyrannical patriarchs, and about young people who neither know nor express their sexual desires. Stylish but far from shallow, these exploratory stories reflect on racism, sexual fantasy, lesbian desire, bearding, and many other subjects. Characters try to move in the direction of happiness, and authors tell the truth about their lives and connections. 

When young Muslims narrate stories about sexual relationships, real or imagined, they tend to face in two directions and keep two audiences in mind. On the one hand, this can mean negotiating their experiences as Muslims and choosing their words carefully, conscious of what may and may not be easily said or done within their families and social circles. A few of the anthologized authors accordingly decided to write using pseudonyms. On the other hand, authors write back to the wider society in which Muslims all too frequently find themselves stereotyped and misrepresented. 

Our book shows that writing by and about Muslims can be playful and pleasurable, and illustrates how this work can broach difficult, sensitive, and sometimes exciting topics such as desire and love. All this flies in the face of widespread assumptions about Muslims, young Muslim women in particular. And yet, while Muslim writers speak to stereotypes and present fresh and sometimes eye-opening pictures of what it means to be a young Muslim in contemporary Britain, our book insists that they must also be taken seriously and enjoyed for their literary and artistic merits too. 

Whether or not you recognize yourself in these stories and in the characters and storylines they present, we hope that something you read here will inspire you: to read more, certainly, but also to have a go at writing. Notice the characters who are interested in art and dream of becoming writers, painters, or filmmakers. Try and guess which of the chapters are by new writers, and which are by first-time authors who honed some of their introductory work in the workshops we ran. By placing new writers alongside already-loved counterparts such as Shelina Janmohamed and Ayisha Malik, we have a message especially for you: writing is something you can do, find enjoyment in, and even find yourself in. 

  Professor Claire Chambers

University of York, 2020