Samra Habib

Samra Habib is a Pakistani Canadian photographer, writer and activist.^[1] They are most noted for Just Me and Allah, a photography project they launched in 2014 to document the lives of LGBTQ Muslims,^[2] and We Have Always Been Here, a memoir of their experience as a queer-identified Muslim published in 2019 by Penguin Random House Canada.^[3]

Samra Habib
Born	Pakistan
Occupation(s)	writer, photographer, activist

Born in Pakistan to Ahmadi Muslim parents, Habib emigrated to Canada with their family in 1991 to escape religious persecution.^[3] They grew up primarily in Toronto and were forced into an arranged marriage as a teenager before coming out as queer.^[4] Habib has also published articles bringing awareness to international social issues like women's rights^[5] the experiences of queer Muslims,^[6] and childcare.^[7]

Just Me and Allah: A Queer Muslim Photo Project (2014)

Source:^[8]

Habib's photography project, Just Me and Allah,^[2] is focused on queer and Muslim iconography in order to spread the hidden culture of queer Muslims.^[8] Habib themselves explains the motivation for the photography project saying "I wanted to show everyone the creative and brilliant LGBTQ Muslims I identified with the most and would hang out with at art shows, queer dance parties, and Jumu'ah prayers. So I picked up my camera and decided to photograph what I was witnessing.".^[2]

We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir (2019)

Source:^[9]

We Have Always Been Here was published on June 4, 2019, and was the winner of the 2020 edition of Canada Reads, in which it was defended by actress Amanda Brugel.^[10] It was also longlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize,^[11] and won a Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir or Biography at the 32nd Lambda Literary Awards.^[12] The memoir has been received as a "...touching story of growing up, finding a home, and discovering oneself against the backdrop of cultural and familial expectations."^[13] by the LGBTQ+ newspaper, Seattle Gay News, on April 1, 2022.

Its title was taken from a quote included in their memoir, We Have Always Been Here. Zainab, a transgender Muslim woman said, " We have always been here, it's just that the world wasn't ready for us.".^[14]