blame my stalker for being deranged, not my vulnerability

on victim blaming

exhausted after lifting my dumbbells, i paused my workout video and took a two minute break. having the natural habit to constantly refresh my emails, i went onto my laptop and saw a notification in my inbox that i had been tagged in a note on substack. clicking on it, i read through what was yet another mention from someone telling me that i shouldn’t be and shouldn’t have been vulnerable online, and to be careful of sharing my emotions, thoughts and feelings on the internet—for it can lead to incidents like harassment and stalking.

if you don’t already know, i posted this seven-part note last week, talking about a man who had been stalking and harassing me online for a while. initially, he seemed to be an engaged, loyal subscriber who was always commenting kind words on my blog-posts. but he was also constantly sending me DMs (despite me expressing my discomfort multiple times at not wanting to privately message a non-mahram) and was begging me for a response all the time through emotional guilt-tripping messages. he also found my tumblr account and admitted to lying about his age to everyone, wrote a blog-post confessing his ‘love’ for me and how i’m going to ‘leave everything behind for him’, and made two fake accounts to DM me under the name of ‘in her shadow’. feeling terrified, to say the least, i felt the need to alert other muslim sisters about his behaviour—especially as he was also engaging with a lot of other women on here and was quite popular.

i didn’t know what to expect. i didn’t know whether people would believe me, if i would look crazy, or if people would blame me. i was also scared about what he might do if he got angry, since i wasn’t sure what he could be capable of. but after talking to my friends and praying on it, i went ahead and posted it, explaining the whole story.

within minutes, i received messages from other women telling me that he was also in their DMs with the same emotionally blackmailing tactics and was constantly spamming them too, begging for a reply. other muslim sisters also started speaking out throughout that day, sharing their experiences and screenshots from their DMs too. after a few hours, he ended up deleting his account, along with the fake ones that he had made to stalk and harass me.

the love and support i received on that day was completely validating, reassuring and comforting. the muslim community really came together to drag this man off the internet, while ensuring that he knew if he returns, it won’t be an easy time for him on this app. many were also giving tips to stay safe and how to spot this kind of dangerous behaviour early on. it was beautiful to see and it was love.

but then came the victim-blaming. lately, all of this has transpired into a lot of discussion about whether or not muslim women should be vulnerable online and share their emotions and feelings—their ‘journal-like entries’—with the world. some have gone as far as to say that women simply shouldn’t be writing on here at all and should take their writing and their stories to female-only spaces. some have made it a point to mention that this stalker specifically targeted girls who have experienced heartbreak or come from ‘broken homes,’ thus making us a target for prey.

being tagged in this, day in, day out, and logging onto substack and seeing all these discussions on my timeline (in the midst of already feeling overwhelmed at my very recent harassment), i found myself very irritable.

before i had exposed this stalker, no one was saying anything negative about my vulnerability. in fact, i have often gotten compliments for it. but as soon as a deranged person comes along and sees my writing as a way to harass and stalk me… now my vulnerability is the problem?

how are we blaming women for using their voices, expressing their emotions and feelings on the internet because of a deranged man? did i ask this man to harass me? did i invite him? do i have my name or my face on here? did i ever mention wanting to find love on substack?

instead of policing men on respecting womens’ boundaries and not using their writing, voices and personal experiences as a way to lure themselves into women’s DMs, we’re now… blaming women?

and what’s worse is that islam is being used as a way to justify these claims—as if islam says that women shouldn’t be sharing their vulnerabilities with the world because it ‘protects’ them from deranged men. so the solution is for me to be silent. and i can already hear the you’re putting words in my mouth argument—by saying women shouldn’t be vulnerable and share their emotions and feelings publicly and should take it to female-only spaces is silencing me. it is telling me that i am the problem and if i stop, i won’t invite a weird man in. that, if i fix myself, then i will be protected.

except… if i do that, the stalking muslim man will still be lurking around. uneducated, untaught, and thinking it’s acceptable to stalk and harass women.

when we’re speaking about vulnerability and whether or not women should be expressing their emotions and feelings to the world just in case a perverted, manipulative stalker studies your writing and comes after you, and whether or not women should be writing and sharing their emotional stories in front of men, let’s look at early muslim women examples.

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early muslim women

Fatima bint Muhammad

Fatima was the daughter of the beloved Prophet ﷺ. in the year of sorrow, which was the year where Khadijah (ra) and Abu Talib passed away, Fatima was known to have grieved so hard over her mother’s death that people were scared about her health and thought she might even die of grief.

when the Prophet ﷺ was returning from the farewell pilgrimage, he had become sick. one day, Fatima went to visit her father and he ﷺ kissed her and whispered something in her ear. then she began to cry. but then he whispered something in her ear again, and this time, she smiled.

Aisha (ra) saw this and said, “you cry and laugh at the same time. what did the Messenger of Allah say to you?”

Fatima replied, “he informed me secretly of his death and so i wept. he then again informed me secretly that i would be the first amongst the members of his family to follow him and so i laughed.” (Sahih Muslim 2450a).

shortly afterwards, the beloved Prophet ﷺ did pass away. Fatima was so grief-stricken that she would be seen around weeping, profusely. she was known to have really, really grieved after her father passed away by crying all day and night.

the elderly men of Medina went to Imam Ali and complained that Fatima cried so much that they can’t sleep. so, he built a house for her which was known as the ‘house of grief,’ where she would grieve her father’s death and weep there.

so, she was publicly emotional and vulnerable. men saw this. can we say this could’ve made her subject to prey? that the daughter of the Prophet ﷺ shouldn’t have shown her emotions and vulnerability to the world because a man could’ve targeted her due to her ‘weakness’?

and, God forbid, if a man did target her and tried to manipulate her by using her grief and vulnerability as a way to stalk and harass her—it would’ve been Fatima’s fault? really?

are there not also girls who have lost their parents and their loved ones and publicly express their emotions and thoughts too—through their writing? but they shouldn’t express it in case a deranged man targets and manipulates them? their public feelings would be the problem?

Safiyyah bint Huyay

Safiyyah bint Huyay was one of the wives of the Prophet ﷺ. she is a descendent of prophet Harun (as), and, before she accepted islam, she was a jew. her father was also the leader of the jewish tribe, banu nadir, in madinah, whom the muslims were fighting. before she married the Prophet ﷺ, she had been married twice already - the first time, she got divorced, and the second, she was widowed.

however, her second husband (before the Prophet ﷺ) was abusive. one day, she had a dream that the moon, rising in khaybar, fell into her lap. when she woke and told her husband, he got angry and started physically assaulting her and punched her in the face, saying, ‘you want to marry Muhammad, the king of yathrib?’ (so much so, that when she eventually met the Prophet ﷺ, he saw bruises on her face).

later on, in one of the battles with banu nadir, her father, brother and husband were all killed in khaybar and she was then taken as a capture of war. in this time, she ended up accepting islam and later met the Prophet ﷺ. he told her that she’s from a noble family and gave her the choice to be free and go back home to them or, if she wanted, she could stay and marry him.

she responded, ‘O Messenger of Allah, I love Islam, and I already believed in you before you invited me, because I have followed your voyage. I no longer need Judaism, and I also no longer have a Jewish parent or brother. but you still give me a choice for me to choose between judaism and freedom or islam? I am not going to choose anything but islam.’

and the Prophet ﷺ married her. but her trials didn’t end here.

remember, she was the daughter of the leader of the jewish tribe that the muslims were fighting at war. when the Prophet ﷺ married her, one day he came out of his tent with Safiyyah (ra) and saw one of the sahabah with a sword. he was scared that Safiyyah might do something to the Prophet ﷺ and wanted to protect him. initially, many people found it difficult to accept her and started saying things like, ‘may Allah take away the jewish woman’ because they thought she would do something to him.

Safiyyah was also known to be very beautiful and was tested with jealousy from the other wives of the Prophet ﷺ too. they would remind her that she used to be jewish while the rest of them were from the same tribe.

it was narrated by Anas:

“It reached Safiyyah that Hafsah called her ‘the daughter of a Jew’ so she wept. Then the Prophet (ﷺ) entered upon her while she was crying, so he said: ‘What makes you cry?’ She said: 'Hafsah said to me that I am the daughter of a Jew.' So the Prophet (ﷺ) said: ‘And you are the daughter of a Prophet (Harun), and your uncle is a Prophet (Musa), and you are married to a Prophet, so what is she boasting to you about?’ Then he said: ‘Fear Allah, O Hafsah.’” (Jami`at-Tirmidhi 3894)

so she must’ve felt like an outcast in her home. she experienced abuse in her previous marriage and it was initially difficult for the sahabah and our mothers to accept her as a muslim after she married the Prophet ﷺ. and at the time, many knew about this and, as this is recorded in the hadith, everyone knew of her difficulty, pain and hardship.

can we say that her vulnerability made her open for a stalker to prey on her? after all, she was physically abused. she was reminded of her past. she was vulnerable. her story is in the hadith so everyone eventually found out about her past, too.

should her story not have been recorded in the hadith, should her story not have been shared around the people at the time of the Prophet ﷺ, just in case a deranged man targeted her?

Safiyah bint Abdul Muttalib

Safiyah was the paternal aunt of the Prophet ﷺ, and the sister of Hamza ibn Abdul Mutallib. she was a poet and used to recite many verses in her life (which automatically debunks the stance that women can’t write in front of men and should take it and their vulnerable, emotional writing to female-only spaces).

it’s said that her son, Zubayr, beat up a man who had slandered him. the slanderer then came to Safiyah to show her what her son had done, and she was proud of Zubayr and recited some poetry:

How did you find Zubayr?
Did you find him a cottage cheese or a date fruit?
Or did you find him a raving falcon?
He is not as simple to overcome or an easy food that be eaten effortlessly!

after the death of the Prophet ﷺ, she also recited poetry:

The day we miss the Messenger of Allah ﷺ is here!
O eyes, shed abundant and plentiful tears!
The day of your death is certainly a day,
In which the sun is wrapped up in darkness though it is shining!

Safiyah would fight in wars and when she heard of the maytrdom of her brother, Hamza, she went to look at his mutilated body. there, she went to his corpse and shed tears in front of everyone and said ‘inna lillahi wa inna ilahi raaji'oon - we belong to Allah and to Him, shall we return.’

she was someone who expressed her emotions, feelings and vulnerabilities through her writing, publicly. she expressed her emotions at war, crying in front of the army, over her brother’s body.

would it have been her fault if a deranged man used these emotions and feelings to manipulate, study and stalk her?

Aisha bint Abu Bakr

Aisha (ra) was one of the wives of the Prophet ﷺ. the incident of the slander was when Abdullah bin Ubayy bin Salul, the leader of the hypocrites, spread rumours that she was having an affair with Safwan bin Mu`attal—which was, of course, not true. these rumours ended up being heard by muslims who began to believe it and talked about this too. even the Prophet ﷺ had begun to change in his attitude towards her and she was greatly distressed, anxious, hurt and cried hard. eventually, her innocence was declared by Allah Himself through verses in surah al-nur.

can we say her vulnerability and people knowing her story of how much pain she was in during this incident could’ve attracted her to prey? if, God forbid, in between the time where many people believed that she did it, a stalking man tried to manipulate her, would it have been her fault?

are you beginning to realise how stupid this sounds?

Sumayyah bint Khayyat

Sumayyah bint Khayyat was the first martyr of islam. her family was one of the first to accept islam and because of this, they were tortured by the Quraish. they even dragged her and her family into a desert to try and force them to abandon their faith. despite this, Sumayyah and her family refused to rebuke islam and stayed strong in their faith. abu jahl, furious at her refusal, pierced her with a spear and killed her.

you could say it was her vulnerability that led to her death. but in the face of powerful men, it was her vulnerability that was her strength. in the face of an enemy, it was her vulnerability that displayed her courage to stick to her faith in the midst of torture. it was her vulnerability that allowed her to hold the honour of becoming the first martyr of islam.

she was proud to die as a muslim. her story of courageous vulnerability inspires many to stand up for what they believe in, even in the face of powerful oppressors.

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whether some of these stories were public at the time of the Prophet ﷺ or initially private—when the hadith began to be narrated, all of these stories became known. the companions of the Prophet ﷺ, and their children, and theirs, were aware of what had happened to these women and the painful experiences they went through in their lives. but the publicity of the emotions, hardship and pain of these women did not diminish any of them, nor did it make them look weak. they became role models. inspiration. a way for people to feel less alone in their struggles—in that time, and for centuries to come.

how many women express their emotions and feelings on losing their loved ones, like Fatima and Safiyah bint Abdul Muttalib, of being a victim of people gossiping about them and slandering them like they did to Aisha (ra), of feeling like an outcast in their own families like Saffiyah (ra), of being abused like Sumayyah?

is it that emotional vulnerability is the problem? or were the early muslim men—the sahabah—educated on how to be a proper, respectful man? is it not that they had good morals and knew how to treat women? was it that they knew the proper laws of islam?

some of these examples mentioned are the wives of the Prophet ﷺ—the mothers of us all. so why are us women, their daughters, told to not be vulnerable and to not publicly share our experiences, emotions and feelings through writing in case a perverted man comes along?

why is our vulnerability being blamed? would you blame the wives of the Prophet ﷺ? would you blame his daughter?

we too have had a traumatic early life. we too have had deaths in our family. we too have been abused. and we deserve to have our stories heard, not silenced. it is the collective muslim responsibility to keep these spaces safe for muslim women by educating muslim men—or, all men, in fact—on how they should behave around women. we are muslims and we should be the first ones setting an example to the world.

do not blame me for my vulnerability. i do not need to take my stories to female-only spaces when i share them to also inspire and encourage people. not when the male companions of the Prophet ﷺ knew the ‘intimate’, emotional and vulnerable experiences of the women of their time.

there are clear guidelines from Allah Himself about the way women should be treated and the way men should act. this stalker was a muslim man who acted in the way that he did and his sins are not my responsibility. not when my face isn’t on here, my name isn’t on here and there is no private information about me. there is a huge difference between being vulnerable and being private. i only share what i choose to share about myself.

i do not feel comfortable sharing my private information, but i will share my vulnerable life experiences and stories in my writing, and you cannot possibly say that if i hadn’t been vulnerable on my blog, he wouldn’t have done this. if he could fall ‘in love’ with someone who is nameless and faceless on the internet, what do you think he’s like with women he can see? online and offline?

by having discussions about women’s vulnerabilities online, you are putting the onus of his stalking on me. he chose to stalk me. the conversation should, instead, be on why he thought it would be okay to stalk a lady. on why he, as a muslim, thought it would be okay to read a vulnerable piece that a woman had written and then use it to manipulate her. this is our brother in islam. yours and mine. i tried my best to abide by islam, i told him at the very beginning that i don’t like talking to non mahram’s in DMs. and yes, i did fall for his emotional, crybaby blackmail, and i didn’t block him much earlier, nor did i remove his paid subscription. that was my mistake and i admit it and have learnt my lesson for next time. but there needs to be conversations where the islamic laws for the hijab on men are discussed.

whether or not you think it was my vulnerability that got me in this situation, i can tell you for a fact that it was my vulnerability that got me out. it was my vulnerability in sharing my story—my emotions and feelings—to expose him that led to him deleting his account. it was my vulnerability that saved many other girls online who were also his victims and had no idea how dangerous he was and the lengths he could go to, and was going to. it was my vulnerability that prevented him from still being in the comments of many women and DM’ing them, begging them for a reply. it was my vulnerability that inspired others to be vulnerable and speak up too.

because by perpetuating the narrative that women shouldn’t be vulnerable online and publicly share their emotions and feelings means that when a woman is in danger or is facing abuse, she will be made to feel like she can’t share her story, stand up for herself or speak up.

because it’s vulnerable, no? it’s a personal experience, no? it’s her emotions and feelings, no?

when you tell a woman to not be vulnerable and she internalises it, of course it will be for all kinds of vulnerabilities. the vulnerability that would keep her safe by speaking up for herself in the face of an abuser is included.

is that what we want? for muslim women to be silent and not share their ‘journal-like entries’ and their emotions and feelings, for fear of harmful men?

we are finally at a time in society where muslim voices—especially muslim women’s voices— are rising and are sitting alongside mainstream influencers, writers and public figures. i didn’t have that growing up in the social media age, where all i saw on my feed were non-muslims. i wish i did. maybe it would’ve helped me to find my deen much earlier. it is important to maintain that, rather than have our own people, from our own community, silence us and tell us to stop expressing our thoughts, feelings and emotions and to ‘take it to female-only spaces’.

in most cases, people who share their stories and emotions through their writing do so because they were not heard or listened to in real life. do not take away this space for women and make them feel like they cannot be heard anywhere. women’s voices are important. my voice is important and i will not be silenced because of a deranged man who made the choice himself to stalk me.

the internet is only going to keep advancing. we live in an internet world now. so, instead of being silent, let’s learn about how to spot dangerous men. let’s be careful and try not to overshare private, security information about ourselves while still sharing our stories, our voices, our emotions and our thoughts. we are writers. to write is to be vulnerable. to be vulnerable is to have courage. we do not have to hide.

we can trust our gut, learn to not be that lenient or patient when our boundaries are being crossed, and learn to not feel guilty about blocking someone. we can learn how to have better boundaries and how to better navigate our internet lives. we can stop (or limit, at the very least) replying to any non-mahram stranger men anymore.

i’m not saying that i’m not going to be cautious about what i share moving forwards. i definitely will be. but i’m not going to stop writing and sharing my vulnerable stories that help other people on their islamic journeys, which has always been my intention and mission through my writing.

so, i beg you, stop tagging me and telling me to stop being vulnerable online. if you wouldn’t blame the early muslim women in islam for their vulnerable, inspirational stories full of emotions if they had gotten a stalker, stop blaming my vulnerability. you can blame the fact that he was deranged and start asking yourself why your immediate thought and reaction was to blame me and other women on here.

quit trying to get me to stop writing my art and sharing what i share. it helps way more people than it does get me stalkers. use your energy to start educating our muslim brothers—who, trust me, are way more of the problem in these kinds of situations than women are.

otherwise, with all due respect, shut up.

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staying safe

that being said, it is important to be vigilant and stay safe. here are some things i’ve learnt through this entire fiasco:

• do not share your private information online, such as your location, your city (or town, if you live in a huge one) or anything that can lead to someone finding you—especially if you’re someone who has your name and your face on your profile. do not underestimate the lengths a stalker will go to find you.

• trust your gut and your intuition. if you even feel like something is remotely off about a person, do not reply and do not be hesitant to block. something i’m learning from what the lovely

  Dr Hajar Tukur
  said in this note: ‘you don’t owe anyone your time, replies, or attention. Being polite doesn’t mean being available.’

• even if they’re a paid subscriber to you, it is not worth it if something is off about them. give them their refund and block them. Allah will provide for you through someone else’s genuine support and will help your writing career with legitimate people.

• do not reply to non-mahram strangers in your DMs, even if he’s begging you for a reply and telling you a twisted story about how your silence is killing him. let him die. he should. think of privately DM’ing a non-mahram as being alone in a room with the opposite gender. think of publicly interacting with them (comments, etc) as interacting with them in a room full of many other people’s eyes and protection.

• be very vigilant and careful with the rise of AI. it can be used to study people, especially women. my stalker was already copying and pasting mine and many other women’s articles onto chatGPT and generating a response—he was most likely using it to also study us based on what we’ve shared, to get us to fall for his words and tactics. there are younger girls on here who may be more prone to fall for these kinds of words and acts. be very careful. use AI detectors such as zerogpt if you’re unsure about whether someone’s comments are bot-generated or not.

• learn the signs of abuse and dangerous men.

• and yes, be extra cautious about what you feel like sharing and think it through before you publish — while still using your voice.

here are some important notes by

M. Saad Yacoob

which share important information on staying safe online:

as well as this note by

Walyullah

which has important advice in the comments from both men and women too:

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regulating your nervous system

here are some things i’ve been doing lately to make myself feel more safe, in light of feeling terrified and mentally/emotionally unsafe due to this harassment:

• talking to my therapist - i highly recommend having a therapist anyway, but talking to a professional about this all has helped me big time.

• wim hof breathing exercise on youtube every morning to release the stress

• exercising - particularly yoga, which incorporates both breathing and movement to release stress and fear in the body

• journalling to let out and process my feelings

• taking time offline and staying more grounded, using the time to spend time in nature or reading a book, or simply connecting more with people in real life

• adhkar - do not underestimate the power of dhikr to both protect you and also help you feel safe

• reciting the Qur’an or listening to it is also very soothing

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grab a blessing:

• la hawla wala quwwata illa billah
  (there is no power or strength except with Allah)

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may Allah protect us all. thank you so, so much to everyone else who hasn’t been victim blaming and has been so supportive, loving and validating. i’ve honestly been overwhelmed at all the love as well and the way everyone came together. it was a beautiful thing to see and to also experience. truly the silver lining of it all, and i can’t put into words how grateful i am. thank you for listening to me, believing me and being so kind. thank you for sharing everything too and helping to keep each other safe. i haven’t replied to all the comments and DMs i’ve received yet, amidst everything going on and everything i’ve been feeling, but i’ve seen it and see you and am inexplicably grateful. may Allah bless you all.

to any young woman reading, i want you to know that your voice matters. your story deserves to be heard. as i said, there is a big difference between being private and being vulnerable. please don’t share anything that you do not feel comfortable sharing, whether that’s private information or vulnerable stories. but do not limit yourself ‘because of men.’ don’t feel afraid. in a world where people think that being vulnerable is a weakness, know that true bravery is the courage to be vulnerable and inspire others in the process.

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sending lots of love, as always,

— SabrGirl ♡.