Name: Wan Nur’Elya Izzanie binti Zakariah

Nickname: El

Age: 21 years old

Siblings: 4 (I am the youngest)

Hobby: sleep, eat and spend time with family

Skills: communication skills, take pictures and videos

Kuliyyah: KENMS (bussiness administration)

What’s good enough for men is good enough for her and nothing less. Even though she is young, she won’t compromise her dignity or her beliefs for anyone. She does her own thing regardless. But it’s not easy.

Eventually, she secludes herself from all the haters and literally puts up a curtain to block them out. Then, the Qur’an tells us, the angel Gabriel appears and unexpectedly tells her she is to going to have a son.

Now what? What will people say? What will they think? Who is going to understand? Who will believe her? What if she is shunned and has to live as a total outcast? She withdraws to a remote place, presumably to avoid society’s harsh, misogynistic judgement about her situation – a situation they know nothing about.

The irony of being judged by people who don’t really know you always hits me hard. The fear of what people will think of me as a Muslim woman cuts both ways – when I’m not ‘Muslim enough’ for my family, or when I’m ‘way too oddball Muslim’ for my friends.

When I read this, I think about how much time and energy I used to spend just trying to hide different parts of myself from everybody. Parts of myself I wish I had been able to be proud of, parts of me I’ve had to negotiate with and nourish in a way my non-Muslim friends never had to struggle with.

Surah Yusuf offers strategies, it encourages while at the same time gives warnings, and it gives accounts of man’s past while also predicting the future.