I've been thinking of a new hashtag: #JeSuisL'Autre, or, I am Other.

Talking to my Muslim female friends, one thing resonates profoundly: We all connect to Islam in deeply individual ways. Some are super-religious. Some, like me, are caught in that place between spiritual and secular.

But the deadly attacks in Paris, the ones that inspired that #JeSuisCharlie hashtag, as well as the recent ones in Nigeria and Pakistan, are nightmarish acts of horror that force us Muslim women to collide, reflect, and intersect. We often feel alienated by our many identities, by being marked as Other in the dominant culture we grew up in, whether as women, people of color, or Muslims. After any violent attack done in the name of our shared religion, we unwittingly become symbols of a shared faith, whether we want this burden or not.

We often feel alienated by our many identities, by being marked as Other in the dominant culture we grew up in.

We are asked to share our responses, our reactions. We are expected to denounce the acts of radical extremists. Of course, we do. But we make sure to contextualize, to say that Islam is a religion of peace, not violence. That good Muslims throughout the world are horrified by these massacres. We participate in the collective conversation, both as mourners of the people who were senselessly killed, and as targets of Islamophobia.

"I tweeted #JeSuisAhmed and got the most Twitter action ever," says Afghan-American writer Zohra Saed, "I got such hateful tweets…[as if] I support the idea that atheists burn in hell. But then I got like hundreds of retweets and favorites. I couldn't believe just a hashtag could anger so many and also win so much support." Saed muses that while she knew how to respond to the war in Afghanistan, it's hard to know how to respond to what she calls the "wild Islamophobia" of today's climate.

"The differences within Muslim communities are almost more than the similarities. So it's always so strange to see us all mashed into one definition," says Saed.

Islam has been an important site of grounding and spirituality for my parents, who immigrated to the U.S. after surviving a war in their native Bangladesh in 1971. For my mother, religion is solace. Praying five times a day makes her feel lighter and more connected to the universe. My father, a chemist, possessed a scientist's aversion to organized religion until he found piety in his fifties, when a surgery reminded him of life's fragility. After their pilgrimage to Mecca to experience Hajj, their faith solidified.

I spent my early childhood feeling drawn to religion. Back when we lived in St. Louis, MO, I taught myself to pray using a Xeroxed copy of an Islamic prayer book. I was terrified of Satan, of being a bad girl. But once we left the Midwest for New York, my adolescent hormones kicked in, and I lost interest. A rebellious and pissed off teenager, I concluded that Islam was limiting, sexist. I engaged in passionate diatribes about clothing restrictions. Dietary restrictions. Alcohol restrictions. Sexuality restrictions. I felt drenched in sin exploring my fashion and foodie sense and college hookups, and I loved it. The freedom to blaspheme religion, or rather, to question it, felt like a necessary pushback, a dialogue with something I was born into, but had not chosen. Like all traditions rooted in the past, I wanted to test the relevance of Islam in my life. I needed to test the role of Islam in my life, to see if it had relevance, or it was just a staid tradition rooted in the past.

Now, as an adult, even as I reject aspects of religion that engender guilt or blame, I continue to search for my sliver within Islam that fulfills my desire for connection, justice, and love. The Qur'an has been a source of cosmic, vivid imagery that inspires my imagination as a fiction writer, even if not as a practicing believer. I respect people I grew up with, for whom Islam is an intrinsic part of their lives.

What's more intrinsic than a name, though? Keeping Islam in my name is a mind trip. Once, I conducted a Facebook poll: Should I go by Tanwi Nandini Islam or use Nandini Nessa as a pen name?

The results were a 50-50 split. Keeping my name could spell future trouble, judgment from potential readers, etc. As you can see, I've kept it, because by doing so, I become a representation of Islam that is positive, affirming. I force a tongue-tied double-take from strangers, who have their world flipped on itself, if only for a moment.

Similarly, one of my Muslim childhood friends, Farhana, started wearing her hijab soon after 9/11. She says, "I felt compelled to show people. They needed to know the truth about Muslims. So, if I wore it every day and was a normal person doing normal things, people would realize Islam does not equal terrorism." By making her faith visible, Farhana is a living reminder: People who don headcovers are not bearing a symbol of destruction or evil, but expressing their faith.

This impulse to remind, to represent―"We are good people. We will not hurt you."―is fraught for us. It hurts to see innocent people killed. When we say "not in our name," it is tinged with sadness. There's the sting of insult, because of course we reject this twisted violence. We are critical, not only of the inflictors of violence, but the context of how they came to be violent. More than a decade of war, militarization, deeply ingrained misogyny: These are all roots that connect to the same poisoned tree. And it's not just them, the Other.

There's the sting of insult, because of course we reject this twisted violence.

It's us, too.

"I'm from a Coptic family, though not practicing or aligned with any religious identity now. Copts are a Christian minority in Egypt. The other within the other," says visual artist Katherine Toukhy. "As a raised-Coptic Muslim ally...I feel the urgency of addressing both the hypocrisy of the Western media and foreign policy and the problems around violence, sexism, racism from within the Arab culture at large."

I've long abandoned the term "minority" to describe myself. As a word, I find it ugly; as a concept, imprecise. "Why call yourself a minority, when you belong to a billion?" I remember those words from an Indian professor, who didn't quite understand my collegiate angst. But now, I simply describe myself as a women of color living in the U.S.

"Why call yourself a minority, when you belong to a billion?"

Minority is a shifting identity. In one land, you may be part of the majority. Move across a border, you are other. And for women, other within an other.

For Muslim women living in the U.S., our lineages and pasts connect us to places beyond. And this complicates the simplistic dichotomy of us vs. them. These acts of violence can't stop folks from living and creating and surviving. We make a choice to choose love over violence, each and every day. Ours is an interconnected world: What has happened in Paris must be linked with what has happened in Nigeria to what has happened in Pakistan to the awe-inspiring Ferguson protests happening here. It's not just something happening over there, to those people. Because when we say things like "Oh, that's just how X culture is" —they're sexist, they're racist, they're backwards—you say it enough times, and the current state of affairs is abundantly clear. Our cultures all thrive on creating a big, bad scary Other.

At some point, we realize: They're talking about me.

Tanwi Nandini Islam is a writer and founder of Hi Wildflower Botanica, a small-batch perfume, skincare and candle line. Her debut novel, Bright Lines, will be published by Penguin in August.

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