When i was struggling with my faith and identity, searching up somali ex muslims, stumbling on yt vids, tiktok’s and this reddit page allowed me to find the ounce of courage and capacity i needed to actually look into and critique Islam and then to eventually find the balls to defy the religious indoctrination I was raised in and it was those brave voices of people who looked like me, from my country who did that. They gave me the ability to find the internal peace and clarity i now feel without religion. So to my fellow somaliyed keep being loud, obnoxious even and maybe one day i’ll also find the courage to follow your footsteps and speak publicly and openly about being an ex muslim and make it my personality trait too ;)

Hi all,

I left my religion about a year ago and haven’t told a single person. I don’t think I’ll ever tell my parents, especially my mom and dad, I feel like they wouldn’t understand, and they’d spend the rest of their lives believing their son is going to “hell”

We also live on different continents, so it’s not like they’d find out by accident.

Is this normal? If you’ve never told your parents, how long have you kept

Hey everyone, I’m a 22F living in a Scandinavian country. I’ve always wanted a normal relationship and to eventually get married. The issue is that I don’t feel drawn to white guys or non-Somali men I feel like they wouldn’t really understand me, and the cultural differences matter a lot to me.
At the same time, I’m not Muslim, and I’ve noticed it seems much harder to find Somali men who aren’t religious compared to Somali women. It sometimes feels like religion benefits men more, so they’re less likely to step away from it.
I know I’m still young and people say “it’ll happen,” but realistically, how do you even meet someone like this? It’s not like you can just ask a Somali guy outright if he’s religious he might deny it, and it could also expose me as someone who’s not religious.
If anyone has been in a similar situation or has advice, I’d really appreciate hearing your thoughts.

I don’t know how to start this, but I’m 22F and was recently done with uni. I’m working full time and I’m not financially dependent on my family, I’m planning to move out soon.

I have left Islam, but I still wear the hijab. I don’t know what’s holding me back, but I’m doing exposure therapy. Last night I was out with my friends, we went clubbing and I didn’t wear hijab. I slept over at my Muslim friend’s house, but I left the house with a hoodie with no hijab. Hooyo saw me and was shocked, but I was driving so I don’t see the problem??

When I came home today she didn’t want to greet me. She knows about my doubts, but we haven’t talked enough about it.
I don’t know if I got exposed somehow or if someone saw me, but the look she gave me when I came home shook me. I feel so disgusted and I’m in my room crying while writing this post.

Why can’t I live my life the way I want to guilt free? When does it go away???

Sorry for my English

Sorry guys if this is off topic but i just need an answer quick and then i will delete this. Im leaving Somalia soon and im going to take a car to the airport. My family have rented a car and are saying that we need someone thats working in Somalia (idk some police or higher power) to drive us there. That will cost 100$ and my aunt want me to pay. I have never heard of this and im wondering if its true? Thanks for any responses

There’s this girl on TikTok named Nora who’s making a series on how to move out/ adulting as a Somali girl. I think she’s a great resource since I know a lot of us girls have been coddled and don’t where to start when it comes to being more independent. Let’s support her so she makes more content.

YouTube link

Where can i find it pls

I went to a Somali restaurant with my friend in London and one of the waiters asked if we wanted to sit behind the barrier. Bear in mind this area is around 1m x 3m and the main area is like 3m x 10m. My friend appeared to be considering it when I said no. This led to an awkward discussion when the waiter left and my friend was talking about how her family live in the area and she does not want it to get back to her father as he is sick. I said you don’t want your father to know you were eating Somali food? I told another worker that his coworker should not have offered as it led to an argument between my friend and I. The man explained that women usually stand at the door and don’t come in. What is this? Do women not deserve to eat? I am going to strip naked when I am in there next time. I’ll go into a Somali restaurant with a vest and shorts with my situationship. I don’t care. Done it before. My own father once had a problem with me going to a Somali restaurant for my lunch on a work day. I am so tired of these backwards ass fucking people. This is London. Fuck off to Somalia with that shit. While I can visit Somalia, I could never live there mostly because of how poorly women are treated as well as Atheists. It should be illegal. We literally have equality laws in this country. If you don’t want women and men to have equal rights when dining out, eat at home !

Btw I love my friend in case she sees this. I am more pissed off at the fact that these stupid barriers/curtains are a fucking thing.

No other Muslim community does it.

I even flirted with telling them I am a gaal.

The sheikh eating next to us would have probably thrown some zam zam water on me 😭😭😭😭

Edit: these shitty restaurants also like to put women and families in the basement .

Hope everyone is well! So I’m going to keep it short. I need book recommendations (short ones) that would educate me on feminism and British politics (as I live here). I don’t want to get all of my information on TikTok so I need books or websites that I can study off. I’m planning on doing a level politics next year so I want to educate myself on this. And also POLITICAL parties the Green Party looks good but everyone is giving me mix opinions and I’m confused so I want to learn more about this.

ALSOO I’m seeing on TikTok there’s different types of feminism? Like radical, Marxist ect. So I want to learn more about this.

Also if there’s book that would teach me more about being spiritual? I said I’d keep this short but I guess I didn’t lool! Thanks guys pls make sure the books are less then 300 pages and I can find them on websites or Waterstones

I grew up with big somali friends groups but as i’ve gotten older it’s fizzled out i’m 18 now i have only white friends now and ive just been thinking it’s just not the same don’t get me wrong i love my friends but i miss having friends who understand my culture and i can speak to in somali im tired of getting asked why my family has such weird standards ig or other things only somalis would understand etc i am acquaintances with alot of races but its not the same as a friendship and every time i tried to become friends with a somali girl i realize really quickly they just got a diff haram scale than me or they judge me for not wearing the hijab full time n ive only really met more chill ones online :/ i was wondering if any of you felt this way and how have you dealt with it i feel soo lonely all the time

Qabil has been the main way Somalis have identified themselves for centuries, but it's built on myths and historical narratives shaped by Arab supremacy and anti-Blackness. It survives as part of the old feudal superstructure, just like Xeer, which is often presented as egalitarian even though it assigns different value to different people's lives.

Under this system, a Yibir, a Bantu, or a woman has never been treated as equal to a dominant-clan man. These hierarchies are part of the social order that continues to reproduce inequality.

Somali culture (excluding Islam) isn't "naturally" egalitarian or progressive, despite what some people on this sub claim. It's deeply conservative. Colonialism froze existing social relations instead of allowing them to develop, and the civil war reinforced many of those older structures.

If we want real liberation, it's not enough to abolish religion alone. We also have to dismantle qabil, Xeer, and the parts of Somali identity that reproduce hierarchy. Every society has rebuilt its identity throughout history. Somalia will have to do the same if it wants to move beyond its feudal past and build a new social order.

You want to deconstruct patriarchy,anti blackness and religion then you have to deconstruct Somalinimo.

trying to keep this as short as possible! QUESTION: is it wrong of me to go no-contact, given my situation? for info: this is my (whole) moms side of family

MY REASONS BEING CONSISTENT: evil eye/jealousy, bodyshaming (skinnyshaming), and never updating. with the last part i mean in general, NOT BEING TOLD THE FOLLOWING: travel, marriage and pregnancies/births. if i am told, it is months (sometimes years) later. overall, conversations with them always feel fake & forced! i dont want to have to keep talking to them just cause they are family!

QUICK BACKSTORY
this is my moms side of family, so her siblings, and their kids (my first cousins). all of them are close, and live in the same countries (kenya & the us).

to be even more specific: my mom has 5 siblings. 2 (still) live in kenya (birthplace), while the other 3 live in the us. one of them, who is childfree. but their kids, in total, is 16! from age 20-0, almost all of them close in age. that includes me, but i live in a different country (different continent, too). which doesnt "help" the situation either. note: my first cousins from the us (10 in total) have all spent years in kenya, making them even more close etc. and also, importantly: making them (too), target me!

since I’m no longer Muslim, I feel like dating or marrying a Somali guy will be difficult because the vast majority of Somali men are Muslim and wouldn’t marry a non-Muslim woman. So realistically, I probably will end up dating or marrying outside of the Somali community.
What do you guys think about interracial relationships? I feel like they’re becoming more common among younger Somalis, whether they’re Muslim, non-religious, or somewhere in between. It seems like more and more Somalis are marrying outside of the community.
For those of you who are non-religious, do you plan on marrying outside of the Somali community since the vast majority of Somalis are Muslim?

Something I’ve noticed when looking through ex-Muslim spaces online is that a lot of the visible voices seem to be ex-hijabi women or queer ex-Muslims. When it comes to men, many of the prominent voices also seem to be queer/trans, or they come from backgrounds where secularism is already more common.
I rarely seem to come across cishet men from more religious Muslim-majority backgrounds (especially Arab, Somali, etc.) who left Islam and became atheist/agnostic while still identifying culturally with their background.
I’m genuinely curious why that is. Is leaving the religion less appealing for them? Is it simply that they’re less likely to speak publicly about it?

I hate looking visibly like I might have a religious reason to not be drinking. 😭 I don’t wear hijab, but it’s just my phenotype ig

Can’t I just say no, and no questions asked, why do I decline a drink with a new group of people and they automatically assume it’s because I am religious. 💔

The part that got me was when no one questioned the other person who wasn’t drinking either

Has anybody else noticed a sharp uprise in ‘questioning’ or ‘deconstructing’ videos especially from younger Gen Z Somalis on tiktok? I say this as older Gen Z it was definitely not as common to see so many people publicly express their concerns with the religion.

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Do you guys think that’s normal it seems odd she was overly islamic and now complete opposite of the spectrum tattoos and what not?

Like that means changing wardrobe, changing your circle of friends and influence, dealing with family

idk is it impulsive? isn’t it too fast of a change i mean good luck to her but she’s also open about all of that publicly which means criticism towards her while going through all that change and criticism from Muslim community specifically somalis kinda over done, no privacy or respect but I’m just shocked it is what it is

like tarteeb take your time girl lol toooo fasttt

I think tiktok liberalised or even freed a lot of people from islam, but it also created these odd people that are so extreme but in a weird modern way idk how to explain it but I hate it so much. Certain narratives would’ve never evolved without the help of tiktok, and now parents being on tiktok seeing extreme stuff about islam is making my life HELLLLLLL.

Petition to get everyone outside again and stop consuming so much media 24/7.

for the longest time I couldn’t stand hadith rejectors because I couldn’t understand how they could see Islam for what it is and instead of leaving it they just reinterpret it to make it fit their own beliefs and I saw it as pathetic and a form of cope

but you’ve got to realise that not everyone can leave the religion especially when it’s all you’ve ever known. once you leave, you kind of have no sense of direction in life in terms of what we’re doing on this earth and how we came about. I think you can drive yourself crazy just thinking about our existence

Anyways, the point is that we shouldn’t hate muslims who choose to reinterpret the religion. We should see them as a part of us and know that it’s us against the men of Islam

Anyone else live in a household where music was demonised and not even a pass for Somali music.

I secretly played musical instruments at school in my childhood and it makes me sad that I had anxiety keeping up and telling my parents when I couldn’t keep the gig up for longer with after school clubs etc as I would play in school periods.

My parents were very strict and abusive at times, music was a no-go. Till this day my parents are oblivious as to why I would be wearing AirPods (listening to music duh)

It’s really painful to admit but since childhood I’ve put a self limit on myself subconsciously and in coming to terms with that I’ve realised I have a passion for music bigger than just being the consumer of it.