I actually really admire you writing about a Muslim character. This isn't often done on FictionPress, and don't be surprised to get grief about it. I wrote one, and even though I myself am Muslim, I get grief about it all the time (which is hilarious.) Sure, he isn't a practising Muslim, and /maybe/ most of us don't say stuff like "Allah save me!" but just the fact that you acknowledged a Muslim character at all is awesome. I always admire that about your stories - the diversity and culture, I mean. It's so different from the typical American high school suburban story.

I actually quite like Ashir. He's hot tempered but lovable (very Arab. Although, as he said, he's not really Arab at all, is he? _) and I love his sister.

I agree with the reviews about the facts in them (non-practising Muslims and their sisters being veiled, etcera) but that doesn't exactly make your story flawed. It's still essentially correct. What happens is, you offend someone. It happens. This is just partly because Muslims like being sensitive in order to defend the sanctity of our religion (so nobody makes fun of it as casually as they do with other religions, which I do see as quite wrong) but also partly because there is so little Muslim literature out there people are just shocked by it all, and the few representations there seem to represent the WHOLE of Muslim culture, yknow? So kudos to you. Other people need to learn to have a thicker skin on the internet.

Sorry for rambling... Great one-shot ;) Pretty cute!

i think the story was pretty cute. :)

and i beg to differ, it seems you know enough about muslims to have written this story. its obvious ashir isnt a /practicing/ muslim, guys. there are many that exist, unfortunately. and this is a story about one of them. just because they arent practicing doesnt automatically make them evil. he was still nice, wasnt he?

how come no one had any problems with the white characters acting in this manner? you still read those, didn't you?

so just treat ashir like you treated them. his twin sister wasn't "totally okay" with everything. ashir even said it was extremely weird for her to have felt sorry for him when he was hungover.

it might give nonmuslims the idea that all of us act like ashir but it's not a story about islam. it's a story about a boy in love. and it'd be nice for him to randomly mention that he's not practicing all that much, but he didn't and that's how the story was written. get over it.

i definitely do agree however that we don't replace Allah with God when speaking english. ha. i've never said anything like Allah save us, let alone God save us. but if the sentence was already going to be in english, then God would be send in english too. because Allah MEANS God. they're not different terms.

anyway great story, as always! :')

Hello, I'm a Muslim reader here and I was about to leave a long review explaining why your portrayal of Muslims is extremely inaccurate, but after reading Fatima's review, I decided that there is no point anymore, because she pretty much nailed it.

Haha this is cute and different. Even if it is a little bit sappy.

oh and i think you ,meant InshaAllah (which means Alah willing) when the mother said MashaAllah (which means praise Allah.)

hey... i only wanted to tell you that among true Muslims drinking alcohol and cussing is not encouraged.. please refrain from doing so in your upcoming stories! It would really make readers like me feel great and want to review your other stories if you act on criticism..! :)

"I'll buy you enough sushi to feed Newfoundland. I'll take you to Japan for sushi right now. I'll buy you a whale. I'll buy you-" i think I creeped out my family with my spastic laughter when i read this.

I love this. It's sweet and humorus great job.

This is so awesome. I loved every minute of its feminist, anti-racist, beauteous amazingness

THANKYOU! SOMEONE PORTRAYS PAKISTANIS LIKE THE TRUE DESI IDIOTS THEY ARE! GOD WE AINT TERRORISTS! Sorry, had to get it out. :P yeah i heart you and ur stories. keep writing!

In the first few paragraphs of this one shot I came to the realization that you were going to take some heat for this story. It's touching on a lot of sensitive subjects, things that people are still deciding in this world on how they feel. Because of that, I wanted to applaud you for having the cojones (heh) to post it, knowing you'd probably catch some flack.

I have no idea if you meant it to be a satire of sorts, or if you were writing for an extreme point of view, or if you legitimately view the characters as within scope. And honestly, I don't care. I thought the humor in the story was amazing, the passion was intense - not just in terms of the sexual tension but the passion for life - and the characters were easy to connect with. On that note, amazing writing, I loved it.

On a separate note, I hope that you still enjoy, and are happy with, your story, no matter what may come at you in reviews. Cause it's a great story _

I'm sorry, but I have to agree with the review left by Fatima. If you don't know about the religion, please at least mention that the boy isn't practicing. It's giving Muslims a bad name. Please have some respect for others, and yourself.

hehe, very cute. love it:).

I also want to echo some of the comments left by other Muslim readers. While it's nice that you're trying to write stories on ethnic or religious groups not typically featured on FictionPress, I think you need to be very careful when you're portraying someone else's culture or religion.

As other have pointed out, all the drinking and lusting and cursing is very much condemned among practicing Muslims. Of course, it is true that there are many self-identifying Muslims who do drink and whatnot, and perhaps those are the Muslims you have encountered in your life. But if those are the people you choose to base your protagonists on, you need to make sure that you're really portraying them.

For instance, it is EXTREMELY UNLIKELY that your typical non-practicing Muslim is going to say things like "Allah save us," or have a twin sister who wears a headscarf and is totally cool with her brother's frat boy behavior. Non-practicing Muslims usually don't have any reference to Muslim stuff in their daily lives (true of both non-practicing elites in Muslim countries, and non-practicing in the West). They might have cultural references, but that's pretty separate. I've read your other work, and I kind of feel like you just took your own desi experience and assumed it would be the same thing for Muslims in the West, but just replacing your Hindu and Gujarati references with Muslim and Pakistani references. (For example, no Muslim ever says things like "Allah save us." If a Muslim's speaking in English, it's typical to just say "God" because that's the same as "Allah." It just seems like you inserted "Allah" wherever your Hindu characters' moms might have said "Ram" etc.)

And then, in the opposite vein, your main character just kept yelling "I'm going to kill him!" I guess maybe he's just over-dramatic, but jeez. Tone it down a little.

I'm not going to say I'm offended, because what's the point of that, and I don't think you had any sort of bad intentions here. But please be more careful in the future when you choose to represent someone else's culture or religion to a pretty mass audience.

Hi deena,

i've always loved reading your stories but there was one thing here that i was questioning about. Is ashir supposed to be a good muslim? because when i read the start of the story, he seemed pretty religious up to the point where he started drinking. it's against islam to consume alcohol. of course, there are many who go against this. just to let you know but of course, this is just from my point of view because this is your story to write. NO HARM INTENDED:)

Loved the ending! This was so cute x3

Thank you