Rahim Thawer and Maryam Khan eds., "Queer and Muslim: On Faith, Family, and Healing" (U Regina Press, 2026)
July 29, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readIn late 2021, two queer Muslim professionals—Raheem Thawer, a psychotherapist and PhD candidate, and Maryam Khan, an associate professor of social work—put out a call for personal narratives about queer Muslim life and mental health. The response was overwhelming, and the result is their edited anthology Queer and Muslim: On Faith, Family, and Healing (University of Regina Press, 2026). The book is deliberately not an academic treatise. It contains poems, letters, interviews, meeting minutes, and conversational pieces. It is designed to be read by aunts and uncles, by people waiting in parking lots, by anyone who would never pick up a journal article. And it has already reached those readers: after the Toronto book launch, Thawer’s cousins sent photos of their parents reading the book in bed and in the car.
The Legacy of Imam Muhsin Hendricks
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What you'll learn
- 1 (02:32) **Introducing the Editors and the Anthology’s Origins** - Raheem Thawer (psychotherapist) and Maryam Khan (social work professor) join host Shobanag Xavier to discuss their edited volume *Queer and Muslim: On Faith, Family, and Healing*.
- 2 (09:08) **Remembering Imam Muhsin Hendricks** - A tribute to the late South African imam whose spirit of generosity and love pervades the anthology.
- 3 (15:27) **Deconstructing Western Mental Health** - The editors frame the anthology around Western psychology, Muslim spiritual traditions, and decolonial perspectives.
- 4 (23:42) **Reframing the “Reconciliation” Question** - The anthology rejects the imposed question of how to reconcile faith and sexuality.
- 5 (27:43) **Maryam’s Chapter on Self-Care as Collective Care** - Maryam’s piece in the “Family and Identity” section redefines self-care beyond consumerist individualism.
- 6 (38:39) **Psychedelics, Spirituality, and Altered States** - Raheem’s conversational piece with Shafiq Kamani explores drug use as a journey of identity and liberation.
- 7 (44:57) **Centering Joy Alongside Grief** - The anthology’s final section insists that queer Muslim life is not only about suffering and resilience.
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Show Notes
Rahim Thawer and Maryam Khan's new edited volume Queer and Muslim: On Faith, Family and Healing (U Regina Press, 2026) is a powerful anthology that brings together writers, activists, and scholars who meditate, reflect, and share stories of queer Muslim life, that contains the complexity of rage, grief and resilience but also joy, love, and healing. In the process, Thawer and Khan deconstruct the limitations of western centric formulations of mental health and wellness, which is often individualistic and commodified, and invite readers to think through a decolonial approach that honours Muslim spirituality, religiosity, and culture, which can help us shift towards collectivistic and liberatory goals of healing. This anthology is a great resource for those who are mental health practitioners, and relevant to those who think about gender, sexuality, and Islam.
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