I’m thinking I’m going to have a lot of trouble with my Rana tag, lol. Do I keep Rana Nazir because it’s easier or do I use Rana Habeeb because it’s future-proof and for consistency or do I switch to whatever her name now will be because it’s gayyyy?
Um, hmm. I think I can understand people not wanting Habeeb in their name but I’d love it, personally.
When I was five years old and moved from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, that was ironically the first real time I was exposed to non-Muslims. I went to an international school and it had all the expat kids. And even then I understood the distinction between desi kids and everyone else but I couldn’t distinguish between Muslim and Hindu kids. I thought all brown kids were Muslim. I’d go home and tell my mom about my classmates and she would immediately know, oh, he’s Hindu. Because certain names were Muslim, certain names weren’t. She could even often make a guess on whether someone was Indian or Pakistani (but was usually wrong and in fact most of the Muslim kids in my class were Indian–and as a matter of fact, despite what you might think from what you know of Partition, for decades after, India had more Muslims than (West) Pakistan).
What I’m trying to get at: it’s Muslims who will immediately recognize what Habeeb signifies. And Kate and Rana Connor-Habeeb? I hope it blows their minds.