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“Be a man” means different things to different people. It means be strong. Provide for your family. Stand up straight. Don’t show emotions. Be tough. Stand up for yourself. Be masculine. Be ambitious. Be a fighter. Stand your ground.

When I was younger, people said this to me a lot. Unsurprisingly, I suppose, because I was the epitome of a timid pushover, shy and emotional. I was also rather confused, having imbibed a literalist interpretation of our Christian faith which demanded we turn the other cheek in the face of assault. Thus did I never stand up for myself.

But even without that background, I still wouldn’t have been able to anyway, for my arms were like matchsticks, devoid of muscles. I had no strength or speed or stamina. So it was that when a group of boys from a lower year at school harassed me every day for months on end, I had no power to prevent it. Not even my voice could intimidate them, so quiet and slow, and unmanly.

“Be strong,” is what people meant here. Stand up for yourself. Stand your ground. But I never did. Later, at college, even a student with cerebral palsy was able to put me in my place, to remind me how small and insignificant I was. I was an easy target because everyone knew I would not stand up for myself. It’s true: I was not a man. I was a laughing stock, a prize buffoon, defeated by unceasing stares and laughter alone.

Sometimes what they meant was, “Be a man, not a boy.” At university, another student would address me as boy all the time. It used to wind me up, but it was just what he saw. Even then, at the age of 19, I looked much younger than my age. So of course nobody objected when he too would belittle me in front of all of my peers.

At other times, they are speaking of masculinity. In earlier years keeping this blog, writing about relationships and gender roles in particular, I was attacked by fellow Muslims — both men and women — on the basis of my perceived masculinity, or lack thereof. “That doesn’t sound very manly,” one woman declared, deriding me.

Perhaps they were right, for back then I was not a man in any sense. I brought a low income into our household. I was yet to be an adoptive dad. Medical interventions were yet to take an effect. I remained lethargic and unambitious, frequently anxious and blue.

What about now? Twenty years on, can I claim to be a man? Do I feel like one? Do I have any greater impact on the world? Am I any more ambitious? More secure? Any stronger? I suspect that to you, looking in, I am still a boy, still trying to find and establish his place in the world.

I would probably concur. When subsumed in some morass of my own making, I’d address myself that way. “Be a man,” I’ll tell myself. Meaning, get a grip, sort yourself out, rise above this. “Be a man,” meaning work hard, do your job, stop messing around. “Be a man,” meaning do the right thing.

In the end, a true man is one who journeys towards God. The further from Him he is, the less of a man he is. So humbleness is manliness, while arrogance is not. Patience, endurance, forbearance are all part of manliness. To serve your parents, your wife and family is manliness.

May Allah make us males real men. By which I mean, to become servants of the Most Merciful, who serve the best we can.