The importance of differentiating between Muslim rep and ownvoices.

A thread:

A lot of books by Muslim-identifying authors have been branded as Muslim representation, yet the characters don't show any signs of being Muslim other than having a Muslim sounding name. 1/9

At the risk of seeming like these characters are being policed, we need to address the difference between characters that represent collective Muslim experiences, and characters that represent individual experiences of Muslim-identifying authors.
2/9

Muslim rep generally should be for stories that deal with Muslim-identifying characters & their relationship with faith, their love & struggles with faith vs peer/societal pressure. It should deal with characters engaging with faith or at minimum having Allah-consciousness. 3/9

Stories that deal with a character (who speaks and behaves no differently to a non-Muslim character) being challenged by strict parents/school/community should be labelled as ownvoices. 4/9

Muslim writers are fighting for Islam to be shown positively in the media. It is a harmful disservice to these authors to label issue books as Muslim rep when most of the issues discussed in these books relate to strict parents, communities, authorities, cultural expectations 5/9

Yes there are Muslim women forced to wear hijab. Yes there are Muslims forced into marriage. Yes there are Muslims that suffer abuse. But there are also non-Muslims who are forced to cover, marry, and face abuse in all forms. 6/9

Those non-Muslim stories never have religious labels attached, it's always an ownvoices story. So why should Muslim-identifying authors' works be any different?
The misuse of labelling anything by Muslim-identifying authors feeds the wrongful stereotypes we face constantly. 7/9

For example, the constant misperception that Muslim women are always governed by strict male family members, or that Muslim women are forced to wear hijab, or being forced into marriages without their consent. 8/9

These issues and experiences are not solely Muslim but universal. Issues like these happen in all cultures and countries. So when publishing these stories, it is important they are represented as an individual experience of an author, and not a collective Muslim experience. 9/9