My national identity is first American. My religious identity is first Muslim.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My identity comprises of more than just my faith. I am a proud Muslim, but I am also a liberal, a Briton, a Pakistani, a Londoner, a father, a product of the globalised world who speaks English, Arabic and Urdu.
I've realized that it's important to stop trying to think I'm any one thing. People are confused as to their identity and try to cling to one aspect of that identity to describe what they are: American, Republican, Muslim. These are really incomplete.
My identity is not based on performance; it's based on something that's pre-determined by someone else, and I don't even understand what that is because I'm an African who came to America.
All I'd like to say is that I am a patriotic, loyal American. I love my country and the values that it stands for. And I am a Muslim.
When I started running for Congress, it actually took me by surprise that so many people were fascinated with me being the first Muslim in Congress.
I consider myself to have been formed by a lot of the locutions and aesthetics and principles of the Muslim way of life, and those are an important part of my childhood and my identity.
You have to go through a mental and emotional process to recognize who you really are. I finally recognized that I cannot be defined by one country.
I have one identity, and that's Israeli and Jewish. I don't view myself as an American citizen.
I'm first and foremost an Irishman, by birth, by nature, by soul, but an American citizen through and through as well.
I really didn't grow up religious, and I didn't grow up acknowledging my Muslim identity. For me, I was a British Pakistani.