Queer Muslim Identity in the Third Space of Tumblr

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the Tumblr site “Just Me and Allah: A Queer Muslim Photo Project,” which provides a space for queer Muslims to create visual representations and written expressions of their blended identities. Samra Habib, a Toronto-based artist and journalist, began the site in 2014 to feature portraits and written reflections of queer Muslims from North America, Europe, and Turkey. Through an examination of this Tumblr site, the aesthetic styles of the images, and the written reflections, this chapter explores how digital media provide third spaces in which Muslims can produce new forms of religious meaning, expression, and practice without hiding their queerness. Many of the participants in this photo series express that this third space of exploration is often not possible in physical religious spaces, like mosques, or among many queer communities that might be more suspicious of religions, especially Islam. The third space of Tumblr and hybrid visual aesthetics allow participants to formulate expressions of queerness and Islam that complicate presumed dichotomies, formulate religious meanings and practices, and assert alternative expressions of identities.