Deen Queens

three [asiya]

ASIYA

Asiya heaved, trying to control her rapid breathing with great difficulty. She held herself from screaming out in pain, not wanting to alert her daughter that something was wrong between mama and papa. Sofia was almost one years old, a chubby little thing with all the curiosity in the world but this was one thing she couldn't bare her daughter to discover.

"Get out," her husband snarled, pale skin reddening with every passing second as grey eyes grew stormier. "The papers are signed, get out of my house and take that merzost of yours with you!"

Abram stormed off, pushing past the furniture he had torn apart when he attacked her and slammed the door hard, spewing profanities in his native Russian. They had argued yet again about her bisexuality, him pushing and shoving until she felt blood in her teeth and splinters in her skin. Asiya was trembling, her body sore and her lip torn but inside, she felt victorious. The twenty-two year old had been stuck in the lifeless marriage for so long that now her divorce papers were finally signed, she felt a freedom she couldn't have ever imagined.

It seemed strange that once upon a time she had actually liked Abram, had enjoyed his company and had thought him rather charming. He was as different to her as the sun was to the night sky, a foreign fascination at the time. She was a Canadian-born Mexican student on an exchange programme in Leeds at the time they had first met and instantly, there was a connection. Her family were horrified when they learnt she was pregnant out of wedlock, even more so when she told them of her plans to get married so suddenly. At the time she had thought it romantic, to be swept off her feet in a whirlwind but the truth couldn't be further.

Abram was a monster behind closed doors, anger filling every pore until he was bursting at the seams. But in front of others, and especially in front of his family, he acted as the perfect Muslim son, despite his inherent lack of belief in God.

When she first met the charming young Russian man with the wide smile and grey eyes, one of her very first thoughts were how she would do anything to make him stay beaming at her like that. The first few months of her pregnancy hadn't been too bad, but once her bump started showing, he had panicked. And with his panic, came his fury – a cycle they had never broken out of.

Born as Maribel Mendoza, she had decided early on to change her faith and get married, before her daughter was born. She had always been fairly spiritual and was a big believer in God, despite the many people who told her that her sexual orientation was wrong, a big fat sin. How anyone could claim God was the most Loving but still spread hatred in His name was beyond her. It was daft. She was still a person – a person who deserved just as much respect as anyone else, regardless of who she found attractive. And besides, the people who told her how much she was sinning were the same people who were sinning in their own ways.

A prime example of this hypocrisy would be her husband.

He constantly told her that God ordered the death of People Like Her, a target on her head the very moment she had flippantly referenced her bisexuality. But he himself was a monster: made up of anger and hatred, relishing in nothing other than hurting her. How could anyone claim that a sexuality was a sin but fail to see that intentionally pushing someone away from God would also be a sin, a much bigger one?

Sometimes Asiya wasn't sure what she believed anymore, her faith growing rocky with every punch he threw at her and every time he stomped on her – both literally and figuratively. But she had chosen her name in remembrance of one of the four most respected and beloved women in Islam, the wife of the Pharaoh, a man so evil that he was claimed to be worse than Satan. The Asiya who raised Moses, from the story she whispered to her daughter at night, had been nothing short of a warrior. She lived with the biggest oppressor and yet, she still rose with strength and power and belief.