Talk to me & blogging while muslim

When I first started blogging, I didn’t really advertise the fact that I am muslim, I mean I didn’t hide it, but I didn’t make it obvious. Although I was not new to blogging, I was new to the world of “mommy blogs”, and i wasn’t quite sure how the mommies would react.

As I got more comfortable with my blog, it slowly evolved into something more personal and reflective of me, and I started to write articles about being a muslim mother, and small articles related to Islam in general. My blog readership continued to grow slowly, and I noticed a shift in my comments – I started getting comments mostly from other muslims and less from other mommy bloggers. This is something that I don’t mind, but has always been on my mind.

A little more than a year ago, I read an article (forgot where I read it now) that basically said that one of the biggest supporters of the Bush administration and his “anti-terrorism” campaign, which sadly translates into an “anti-muslim” campaign by many, were ‘soccer moms’, and I realize this is a huge generalization but I have always wondered what these moms would think of my blog, or more specifically, muslim mommy blogs.

My husband started blogging recently and all of the comments he receives are from other muslims, which I have noticed is sort of a trend among muslim blogs, unless they are political or religious in nature (as these genres seem to generate very diverse traffic). A lot of it, I know, is due to the fact that most personal muslim blogs do cater to a muslim audience, and I imagine it’s the same with other religions as well, but when it comes to a blog like mine that really is a ‘mommy blog’, just authored by a muslim women, I wonder if I would have a better chance of success if I was a non-muslim with this very same blog.

This is not to say that I have no non-muslim readers or commenters, I do, and in fact one of my favorite readers, Cakes, is the wife of a pastor! All of my readers, muslim or not, have been the reason I continue to blog, I love the support, feedback, encouragement, ego-boost, and I completely appreciate all of it! There are times when I do see the ugliness of discrimination though.

If you’re muslim with a personal blog, how diverse is your readership? And if you’re a non-muslim, what do you think the chances are of this blog being read by the ‘soccer moms’ referred to in the article?

{Disclaimer: I am not calling all ‘soccer moms’ Bush supporters or anit-muslim, I am just having a discussion based on an article that indicated this was the trend.}