There is something about making and enacting a life decision as colossal as rerooting—a choice so deeply intertwined with reckoning with your past and projecting into your future—that catapults you acutely into the present. For those with young families and busy lives, who are accustomed to the constant grind of daily survival and planning for one life event after another, the present is a strange and alien domain. It is an arid and hostile territory for those who are constantly chasing tomorrow.
The present is a sensory plain, one in which your senses are languidly heightened, much like a predatory animal. You become acutely aware of the minutiae of your surroundings in a way that escapes you when you are consumed by meeting work deadlines or preparing the evening meal. Suddenly, you hear the small, echoing drips of a leaking tap and notice the discerning crack in the wall. The present gives you pause in a discomforting way because the stakes are unnervingly high. It forces you to address thoughts and feelings that are routinely tucked away to unpack at another time in the nebulous terrain of the future. It offers an opportunity to gauge the here and now as a barometer for a planned future, recognizing that this very moment will pass into the oblivion of yesterday, perfectly illustrating the fleeting nature of our imperfect and temporary selves. It stands as the antithesis of time as we are supposed to inhabit it—the illusory part of life we are supposedly invested in yet perennially remote and absent from.
Being cognisant of your position in this gap between the past and the future—the fleeting, blink-and-you-miss-it step on the treadmill of "now"—grants a strange spatial awareness. While you might not ordinarily be conscious of the social structures that constitute you as an individual, such as the school, the office, or the neighborhood, being dislodged from them creates a necessary kind of dwarfing. You understand that you are a disposable component, and you suddenly feel very small in the grander narrative of time and history. So much of human identity is invested in feeling part of a greater network, shaping how we view ourselves, that to be absolutely broken off contextualizes your smallness in unsettling ways. People often stick resolutely to concepts that grant a sense of identity, acting like quietly stubborn barnacles floating blissfully into a planned future, anchored within a three-dimensional nexus of time, space, and a familiar local high street or secondary school.
Geography remains one of the key determiners in the way human beings identify and situate themselves in this world. As humans, our very dye is tribalist in nature, and we tether ourselves crudely to the material ground we inhabit. This dynamic exemplifies the futility of our material selves and demonstrates how arbitrary and superficial national or cultural branding can be. People identify with or against the flag they sit under, the postcode they live in, or the football team they feel closest to. This tribalism encompasses everything from an angry, fragile, and exclusionary skin-headed nationalism to an achingly melodic terracotta folk culture focused on the nostalgia of the earth and soil. It sears a loyalty that can be belligerent and ugly, or deep and beautiful, yet ultimately somewhat senseless. It plays directly into grand narratives that people are possessively wed to, feeling coded in and from them to the point of feeling bereft and formless without them.
The concept of "home" embodies the wonderment of language perfectly. It is simultaneously universal and specific; people are immediately aware of it while remaining unaware of its personal implications for others. For such a small bolt of a word, it evokes a vast amount, bearing the colossal job of tethering individuals completely to one concept and space. Its unassuming, monosyllabic structure serves as an ideal vehicle for the personal contours of its meaning, its economic nature designed precisely for human use. It is familiar and worn, much like the places people impress upon and shape through their existence.
For Muslims witnessing the earth-shattering atrocity of children being killed on an hourly basis on account of a shared identity, nothing that was once deemed natural can be assumed or taken for granted any longer. Those axioms carried unquestioningly in back pockets have disappeared without warning overnight, leaving a cold, gaping space in their place. British Muslims, in particular, have known for quite some time that this sense of belonging, tribalism, and nationalism comes with a strange and telling sense of discomfort.
National rhetoric concerning belonging draws a distinct line at the Muslim, a reality reinforced by recent events. Social anxiety is built entirely upon the identity of the Muslim on both micro and macro levels. Street-level experiences and daily headlines communicate a clear message: to belong is to not be Muslim, and to be Muslim is to not belong.
Witnessing the state of public discourse and feeling surrounding Muslims in the wake of recent race riots provides a renewed sense of perspective. Hotels housing Muslims have been targeted and exits blocked, illustrating how simply existing as a Muslim can feel like a crime punishable by death in the British Isles. Beyond the lawlessness of the streets, when Muslims merely exercise their absolute civic right to make a mark on a ballot paper and the media industry responds in total panic, it necessitates a deep interrogation of the assumptions upon which citizenship, legitimacy, and humanity are based. Evidently, a conspicuous, Muslim-shaped hole exists in these popular concepts.
Conversations surrounding Muslim migration have taken on a detached, sober tone as many witness these predictable events with a resignation and weariness born from growing up in the contemporary media climate. This hostility is becoming more than a mere footnote in the story of modern Muslim discourse and movement; it is now a relevant part of how British Muslims perceive themselves and their space on earth. It also enables a semblance of understanding what it means to be a traveler, recognizing that life is transitory. Making a conscious decision to change place and time on earth requires an effort anchored in the everyday realities that people usually shroud in deflection. Recent events have served as a catalyst for that sobering reflection.
While there is a renewed acknowledgment of these motivating factors to leave, social media has also been increasingly dominated in recent years by Forex traders rhapsodising about moving to Muslim countries for material benefits—even though many Muslims are not chasing the capitalist dream. Despite anxieties regarding the liberal ruination of Muslim children, some individuals have moved for affirmative religious purposes rather than purely defensive, reactionary ones. What unites these diverse motivations is the sometimes weak foundation of belonging for Muslims in the UK. This is not to say they do not or should not call it home, but rather an acknowledgment of the precarious nature of that home.
While much of the Muslim cultural canon has fixated on the shared sentiment of diaspora, the feeling of being the "other," and the repetitively quaint narratives of henna-tainted fingertips and eating with hands, the current historical moment demands a departure from this diaspora twee. It involves inverting that story. For those in a position to do so, it represents an upturn of passive consequence and cultural stagnation. It is not about looking backward at cultural spaces with a strange and contradictory proximity—the "motherland"—but rather acknowledging the geographies known most intimately. These are the streets grown up in, the ubiquitous smell of the concrete pavement that forms part of sensory DNA, and the places where individuals are repeatedly told they do not belong. It is an acknowledgment of a lack of maternal homeland, a recognition that one may belong to a house, a street, or a neighborhood, but less so to the wider country as currently governed.
Leaving a place that delegitimizes your existence—despite it being the only place you have ever fully existed in, conceptualized yourself in, and formed a cultural topography within—is an unnervingly deep experience. It involves divorcing from space, time, and a sense of social and cultural connectedness. Leaving forces individuals to reckon with all states of being: who they were, what they are now, and what they want to be. It allows them to see themselves in terms of their place on earth and the story of time. It is a commitment to the unknown, a total excommunication from what little sense of belonging previously existed, and an acknowledgment of the futility of that endeavor. It questions both the reassuring narratives that have come to define people and the narratives of hate used to pigeonhole them. Ultimately, leaving contextualizes things that were once large and defining as no more than a mirage, revealing that what was yearned for as "belonging" may not be as important as once believed.
Moving to a Muslim country and experiencing a blunted but more direct kind of otherness—where one does not speak the language, understand etiquettes and customs, or feel deeply rooted—brings to mind the millions who experience the spatial and temporal fluidity of home. It forces a reconceptualization of the self, drawing on different parts and discovering new internal resources.
Despite recent events, leaving for many Muslims is not a defiant or reactionary choice, just as Islam is not the dark underbelly of western liberalism; human existence remains whole, complete, and independent of external meaning-making. Leaving is about the endeavor for something better, in spite of the comfort of familiarity. The measure of that improvement remains personal, rooted in individual values, choices, and faith.
While the heart is often viewed as the domain of faith, it is frequently the brain that mediates the relationship with Islam. People may long for something that cerebral awareness tells them is not right for them as believers. Leaving London, for instance, can be abjectly painful. As a city loved for its grey, everyday presence, it has served as the backdrop for every rite of passage and life experience. Like a tacit, bemused, and wise old friend bearing non-judgmental witness to every embarrassing quirk, it has mediated relationships and personal development.
Saying goodbye to that moment in space and place in time grants a new sense of awareness, historic and geographic context, and a renewed consciousness. It enables individuals to be more purposeful while figuring out how new environmental resources can bolster their lives. It represents a testing daily reality, but also a new chapter approached with the hope of making the most of the journey.