Category: Visuals
Country: Egypt

About

Heba Amin is a young Egyptian artist whose work addresses the role of urban environment on human behavior.

Heba’s early work revolved around the theme of Bedouin women and the effect of urbanization on Bedouin culture, after she spent time with different Bedouin tribes. She has produced many drawings, paintings, photography, installations, interactive media and projections which have been exhibited throughout the US.  She recently illustrated an award-winning children’s book that profiles women role models from the Muslim World titled Extraordinary Women in the Muslim World (http://www.extraordinarywomen.tv).

Heba says about Muslim women, “The image of Muslim women in the United States is of veiled, oppressed people who have no voice. But in fact, Muslim women have a long history of remarkable achievements.”

Heba was born and raised in Cairo. She moved to the US where she attended Macalester College in Minnesota to study Studio Art. She is currently teaching at the American University in Cairo.

Category: Performing
Country: United States

About

Lady Khadija is a self proclaimed ‘Defender of the Truth’ “…even if it is against myself.” She can be described as a poet, vocalist, musician, songwriter and digitial designer. She uses her voice to serve the voiceless and the oppressed and to serve her Creator. She has had the opportunity to work withTalib Kweli, Tony Award winning, seven time HBO Def Poet Georgia Me, Canadian Smash Ember Swift, Watusi Tribe, Harry Belafonte, and HBO Def Poet Abyss. In 2002 she published her first book of poetry Peace it Together. Lady Khadija is founding member of 144k, a collective of artists/activists and WordSound Alliance a network of artists. 144k serves to evaluate the arts, music, and performance in relation to activism.

Category: Performing
Country: United States

About

Currently a Biology major from San Diego State University, DJ Raichous hails as a Muslim female DJ from the West Coast.  During the day one might find her in class or working at a record store, Stacks SD.  One might listen to her in the morning during her morning “Wake Up Show,” where she has been featured on various radio morning shows along the West Coast from San Diego to Los Angeles.  In the evenings one can listen to her collaborating with other female djs on earthboundradio.com.  DJ Raichous describes her music as hip hop, oldschool, funk, jazz, “turntabilism”, breaks and freestyle.

Category: Performing
Country: United States

About

Actress and standup comedian, Maysoon Zayid, is considered a pioneer as the first Muslim American comedian to successively navigate the competitive channels of Hollywood and American media at large. She is also considered a pioneer for premiering as the first person to perform standup in Palestine and Jordan. Zayid has been featured on Comedy Central’s The Watch List, PBS’S America at a Crossroads: Muslim Comics Stand Up, and in Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess With the Zohan. Her other Hollywood sightings include As the World Turns, Law & Order, MTV, NBC Nightly News, CNN & ABC’s 20/20. She is also currently a headliner on the “Arabs Gone Wild Comedy Tour” Some of her leadership roles include her work as a cofounder and co-executive producer of the New York Arab American Comedy Festival. In 2008, Zayid’s screenplay Little American Whore (LAW) was selected for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab; Zayid has been casted as the lead of production. As a Muslim Arab American Zayid is active in American media and entertainment, Zayid remains connected to her global community through her organization “Maysoon’s Kids” in Palestine. Maysoon’s Kids is a wellness program for Palestinian refugee children who are injured or are living with disabilities.

Category: Performing
Country: United States

About

A description of Liza Garza’s professional accomplishments starts in her home state Michigan, where she received her degree in Performance Activism from University of Michigan.  Since graduating, Liza Garza has dedicated her vocal, written and spoken word talents to a lifelong initiative to promote social change and community activism. Those efforts have been manifested in her book of poetry entitled You Never Knew Until I Spoke.  Shortly following her first publication Garza released her album “Bloom Beautiful” in 2006. Garza was also featured on the HBO special Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam as a poet and vocalist. Her efforts have been merited by Jesse Jackson in an invite to perform alongside Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack at the Rainbow/PUSH coalition’s national march. The Rainbow Push Coalition (RPC) is a multi-racial, multi-issue organization developed to serve social change. In 2006 Garza was nominated for an Emmy award for her work “ I am U of M.” Though she wasn’t awarded the Emmy, Garza’s deep involvement in personal and community reflection, demonstrate her commitment to social change.

Category: Performing
Country: United Kingdom

About

Muneera Rashida and Sukina Abdul Noor were both born in Bristol to Jamaican parents, and have come together to form Poetic Pilgrimage. They have fused African and Caribbean musical trends to bind their progressive message with a creative and unique sound. Poetic Pilgrimage has grown into a well-known hip hop group and has developed a substantial following. Rashida and Noor have achieved this by holding their own in a very male dominated music genre but also through their work teaching youth how to write poetry and express themselves.

Category: Performing
Country: United States

About

Tavasha, or Miss Undastood, began rhyming while attending the Al-Iman school in New York. She eventually realized that the music was more than just a hobby. She started rhyming in ciphers in New York and continued to pursue her art form while attending Borough of Manhattan Community College. She became the first female battle champion in 2003. However, she didn’t want to continue with the gangster attitude and profane lyrics. She just completed a new CD titled “Hijabi Hip Hop 2010.”

Category: Performing
Country: Norway

About

Deeyah was born and raised in Oslo, Norway to a Pashtun mother of Afghani ancestry and a Pakistani father. Deeyah trained within the North Indian/Pakistani classical vocal tradition for more than fourteen years. Deeyah was the target of much criticism because of her courageous choice to follow her dreams of being a musician. After years of suffering constant intimidation and physical threats, Deeyah left Norway in 1996 for the UK. As she faced the same threats in the UK, Deeyah finally left for safety in the United States.

Deeyah has spearheaded an inspiring musical project called “Sisterhood,” which she describes as the collection of previously unreleased songs written by young up and coming female Muslim rappers, singers and poets. Their songs deal with the various challenges thay ehave faced, from the war in Iraq to the hate and racism post 9/11, but also address women’s rights issues, faith and personal experiences of being young Muslim women in Europe and the United States.

Category: Performing
Country: Iraq

About

Born in Kurdistan, Iraq, Sister Haero and her family moved to the United States when she was only 11 months old. Haero decided early on to use her talent in the art of poetry writing, rapping and free styling to introduce Islam to the San Diego Community that she was a part of. She has been invited to make many public appearances to read her poems and perform her work. Haero’s work has helped spread awareness about the role of women in Islam. Haero graduating from SDSU with a B.A. in Journalism. She was one of the founders of the Imam Jamil Coalition that started in April 2002. Haero is now recording an album and also a kindergarten teacher at a private non-profit school in San Diego.

Category: Culinary
Country: United States

About

Yvonne Maffei, M.A., is a culinary educator and the founder and editor of “My Halal Kitchen,” a halal food and cooking blog. My Halal Kitchen’s mission “is to provide home cooks with the tools to prepare halal meals, including those with the necessary substitutions to make every dish halal. It aims to make the lives of readers better by expanding the list of available recipes that are healthy, delicious, economical and halal.” Yvonne Maffei is currently working on a cookbook and continues to write and develop recipes for her blog. She lives in Chicago, IL with her husband.

Category: Literary
Country: Iran

About

Author of Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi is an Iranian novelist. Nafisi lived in Iran until the age of thirteen, when she went to England for secondary school. After her return to Iran in 1979, and remained there for eighteen years. During Nafisi’s eighteen years in Iran, she taught English Literature at the University of Tehran, Free Islamic Azad University, and Allameh Tabatabaii; Nafisi was criticized for not wearing a veil, which actually prevented her from teaching between 1981 and 1987. In her return to academia, Nafisi was subsequently chastised for the content of her courses, which prompted her to invite a select number of female students to come to her house so that they could read and discuss literature freely. Eventually, in 1997, Nafisi left Iran and began teaching in the United States where she authored Reading Lolita and Tehran and her two most recent works Things I’ve Been Silent About: Memories, and Republic of the Imagination. Azar Nafisi’s book, The Other World: Nabokov and the Puzzle of Exile will be published in Spring 2011. Nafisi is currently a Professor and the director of Cultural Conversations at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.

Category: Performing
Country: Egypt

About

Hanan Turk is an Egyptian Actress, who recently (2006) decided to wear Hijab regardless of the roles she was cast to play. Turk came to the decision with a group of Egyptian actresses including Hala Shiha and Abla Kamel.

Before becoming an actress, Turk was a ballerina at the Cairo Ballet Institute in Egypt. She starred in her first movie, “Raghba Motawahesha” in 1991, and since then has acted in numerous films (Dehk We Le’b We Gad We Hob”, “Al-Mohager”, and “Haramiyyah fi Tayland”) and TV series (“Al-Sabr Fel Malahat”, “Al-Mal We Al-Banoun”, and “Lan A’esh Fe Gelbab Aby”). In 2007, Turk was nominated for Best Performance by an Actress at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.

Category: Fashion
Country: Lebanon

About

Aheda Zanetti is a Lebanese-Australian designer, most famous for her creation of the “burqini/burkini”, a special swimsuit designed for Muslim women in 2003. The burquini was recently under scrutiny due to the French attempted ban on the suits, under the cause that they are not secular. In spite of the controversy, Zanetti’s swimsuit line is flourishing, and she continues to provide opportunities for Muslim women to participate in activities, that they might otherwise be excluded from.

Category: Literary
Country: United Kingdom

About

Ilona Yusuf is a British-Pakistani poet, photographer, designer, journalist, and artist. She was born in England, but spent her teenage years in Lahore, Pakistan, where she went to school. Yusuf’s poetry has been published and she is currently the editor for the Amhara Literary Review, a collection featuring pieces written in English by South Asian authors. She also designs furniture, and uses her photography to make prints. She spends her time in both Pakistan and the United States (Arizona) and is married with children.

Category: Literary
Country: Bangladesh

About

Taslima Nasrin is a Bangladeshi writer and poet. Her first book of poetry was published in 1986, and the second published in 1989, was highly successful. In 1992 she received the literary award Ananda in India for her selected columns. Due to the “radical” nature of her works, Nasrin has been subject to many criticisms from Bangladeshi, and Islamic scholars; however many would argue that Nasrin’s works illuminate an Islamic feminist voice. Nasrin has been living in exile since 1994 traveling throughout the West, and other countries in Southeast Asia.

Category: Literary
Country: Iran

About

Tahereh Saffarzadeh is an Iranian poet and author. Saffarzadeh has so far published fourteen volumes of poems. In 2005 she was also named the 2005 Exemplary Personality by the Afro-Asian Writers’ Organisation. Saffarzadeh is also the author of a myriad of books on the principles of translation regarding the Qur’an specifically. She has presented a number of theories, which have contributed to research attempting to account for the shortcomings of translations of the Qur’an.

Category: Performing
Country: Netherlands

About

Bad Brya was born in Amsterdam in 1982 and began writing lyrics as a teenager. Soon she started performing at youth centers and open mic shows and talent shows such as Most Wanted and starred in her own documentary, titled RESPECT.

In 2003, Bad Brya received the best talent award at Uitmark. In 2005, she was one of the supporting acts for the Morroccan band, Kasba. She has toured the the Balkans, Tanzania, and Vietnam. In the spring of 2009, she participated in the Muslim Women Music Makers tour across Europe, organized by the Missing Voices consortium.

Bad Brya’s music shows a wide range of influences including Hip Hop, Rap, Reggae, and Arabic popular music. She was inspired particularly by the message-focused aspects of Rap and continues to provide inspiration with her multilingual lyrics and her eclectic beats. In keeping with her worldly style, Bad Brya’s music has met success across the continents: Her song ‘On my way,’ stayed in the top 10 charts in Morrocco in 2005 for a year. Her debut album “Voice Mail” is currently available through her website.

Category: Performing
Country: Denmark

About

Born to Palestinian parents in Germany in 1979, Abdallah grew up in Denmark, where she continues to live. Abdallah specializes in Arabic percussion, especially darbuka, long considered a “masculine” instrument and overwhelmingly played by men in the Middle East.

One of the few women to play the darbuka professionally, Abdallah was self-taught and has been playing since she was fifteen. Abdallah states that she has faced many challenges in her profession due to her gender and her instrument of choice. In fact, youtube users sometimes post recordings of her playing on YouTube with telling titles like “female on darbuka” and “female playing darbuka.”

Abdallah works as a soloist as well as with the Middle East Peace Orchestra and with Missing Voices, a consortium of Muslim women musicians across Europe. She also support various dance acts with her percussion, including belly dancers and hip-hop dancers.
Abdallah plays traditional Middle Eastern style as well as Western styles such as rock, house and pop on the darbuka and is currently looking to record an album that fuses Middle Eastern beats with Western musical styles. Her music and artistic collaborations reflect this interest in musical fusion and understanding.

Category: Literary
Country: Turkey

About

Elif Shafak (also spelled Elif Şafak) is a Turkish novelist and the best-selling female author in Turkey. Shafak holds a PhD in political science from Middle East Technical University. She writes non-fiction and fiction in Turkish as well as English.

Shafak’s work is characterized by a creative blending of Western and Eastern narrative styles and a thematic defiance of bigotry, xenophobia, and sexism. Her novels, such as the bestsellers The Bastard of Istanbul (2006) and Flea Palace (2004) challenge myths of national purity and present Istanbul as a city that embodies the traditional alongside the new, the Western alongside the Eastern. 

Mysticism is another thread in Shafak’s literary output, weaving in and out of almost all of her works and becoming central to a few. Her first novel, Pinhan (The Sufi) was awarded the “Mevlana Prize” in 1998, which is given to the best work in mystical literature in Turkey. Her second novel, Sehrin Aynalari (Mirrors of the City) explores Jewish and Islamic mysticism against the historical setting of the 17th-century Levant. Her 2010 bestseller, 40 Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi once again takes the subject head-on, interweaving the modern love story of a Jewish-American housewife and a Sufi living in Amsterdam through the story of the spiritual friendship between Rumi and Shams of Tabriz.

A public intellectual cognizant of the sociocultural importance of the novel, Shafak continues to write, teach, and contribute to various daily and monthly publications in Turkey, Europe, and the United States.

Category: Literary
Country: United States

About

G. Willow Wilson is an American author and essayist, who divides her time between Egypt and the United States. Her articles about modern religion and the Middle East have appeared in many prestigious publications, including the Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times Magazine and the Canada National Post. In 2005, Wilson became the first western journalist to be granted a private interview with Sheikh Ali Gomaa following his promotion to the position of Grand Mufti of Egypt.

Wilson’s first graphic novel, Cairo, with art by M.K. Perker, was published by Vertigo in 2007. Labeled a “magical-realism thriller,” Cairo features an eclectic cast of characters: a drug runner, a struggling journalist, an American expatriate, a young activist, and an Israeli soldier, who interact in the magical urban streets of Cairo. In this work, Wilson drew upon real-life events as well as the deep mythology of Egypt, including folk stories of Jinn. Other graphic projects include Air, an ongoing series for DC’s literary imprint, Vertigo, an original graphic novel, as well as Vixen: Return of the Lion, a DC miniseries.

In 2010 Wilson published her critically acclaimed memoir The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman’s Journey to Love and Islam, which chronicles her move from Boston to Cairo and her conversion to Islam. Called “a first-rate memoir and love story that is a delight to read” by The Library Journal, The Butterfly Mosque, is an uplifting, humorous, and insightful coming-of-age narrative depicting the story of a young woman who discovers love and learns to bridge two worlds.

Category: Performing
Country: United States

About

Hena Ashraf is a filmmaker with interests in photography, writing, and new media. Ashraf, whose parents emigrated from India, was born in London and spent her early years in the UK before immigrating to the US. She is a graduate from the University of Michigan with concentrations in Film & Video Studies, and Political Science and she currently lives in NYC. In 2008, she founded the Ann Arbor Palestine Film Festival. In May 2010, she was invited by The World Islamic Economic Forum to Kuala Lumpur to show her work, including her latest film “TruthSearch.”

Ashraf is a fierce advocate for the making and use of independent media, and believes that people can empower themselves by creating their own media to amplify their voices. According to Ashraf it is particularly important for Muslims and other marginalized groups to create avenues outside the film industry through the use of independent media: “We can’t expect huge monopolized media companies, of which there are basically five, who own everything, to accurately represent our voices, or any other community, religious or ethnic.”

Ashraf sees filmmaking as a craft and a way of giving voice to the lived experiences of a community. Her first film “Uzair,” explored life in East London for its Muslim/Bangladeshi population and featured provocative subject matter, including drugs and crime. Since then, her work has remained politically and critically engaged. A short film, “Love Makes Me Silly,” questions representations of love and gender relations in Bollywood cinema. “TruthSearch,” a short experimental film, examines and critiques mainstream media coverage of the Iraq War, contrasting it with the voice of an Iraqi journalist working in Baghdad.

Category: Fashion
Country: United Kingdom

About

Sadia Nosheen is a mother of two and creator of Masoomah. Her interest in jilbabs was born at the university where she studied Law. During that time she started her journey in exploring Islam, and soon began designing Islamic attire. Sadia picked up vital sewing knowledge from her mother during childhood, which was instrumental in cultivating her future in fashion. Growing up, Sadia was challenged, searching for Islamic clothing that was, comfortable and fitting for a young Muslimah in a university and work atmosphere.

Category: Performing
Country: Syria

About

Gaida Hinnawi is a vocalist and composer working at the intersection of the New York Arab and improvised music scenes. Her compositions draw on classical Arabic song, Syrian folk traditions, and improvisations that expand on traditional Arabic maqams (modes) to produce an original and highly personal style marked by great emotional intensity. An acclaimed singer from an early age, Gaida was raised in Damascus and later lived in Kuwait, Paris, and Detroit, where she received classical voice training at Wayne State University. Now settled in New York, Gaida works with leading Arab and creative-music artists such as Amir ElSaffar, Brahim Fribgane, Tareq Abboushi, Omer Avital, and Rufus Cappadocia. She also is a member of other New York-based groups including Ayyoub, Zikrayat, and Tarab Ensemble. Gaida has composed and recorded for major motion pictures, including Jonathan Demme’s Jimmy Carter: Man from Plains, in which she recorded with Gillian Welsh and Alejandro Escovedo. Gaida also maintains a parallel career as a speech pathologist.

Category: Visuals
Country: United States

About

Asiya Khaki is a freelance photographer based in the New York metropolitan area who specializes in portrait, wedding, newborn and event photography. Her passion for photography is rooted in a fascination of people and culture. Through her photographs, she endeavors to tell stories about people in her effort to portray human life in its natural element. She graduated from Barnard College, Columbia University with a degree in architecture. Her study of architecture enhanced her skills and visions as a photographer by deepening her understanding of space and light. She has photographed in many places around the world, including the United Kingdom, India, Ghana, Tanzania, Italy, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, & Lebanon.

Category: Fashion
Country: Iran

About

Neda, a fashion designer, model, published poet and PhD student moved to Melbourne in 2005 on a scholarship to do her PhD in chemistry at RMIT, after having completed her master’s of textile engineering in Iran. She has also launched a fledgling modeling career, often wearing her own designs.

Neda’s passions are fashion and science - a stereotype-busting combination at a time when the clothing choices of Muslim women, especially the face and body-covering burqa, are the subject of intense debate.

Her latest research paper was featured as a ‘hot paper’ in the prestigious peer reviewed international journal of Royal Society of Chemistry, London. She said enjoyed both her rigorous scientific work and glamorous modeling life.

Category: Literary
Country: United States

About

Julie Samia Mair, JD, MPH is the author of two children’s books and a freelance writer. She has published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry in magazines, books, and scientific journals. She writes on a variety of topics, including Islam, public health, and law. She publishes under ‘J. Samia Mair’ in her non-scientific publications.

Category: Literary
Country: India

About

Sheema Khan was three years old when she emigrated with her family from India to Montreal. They wanted a country with a good education system and work opportunities. But mostly, they wanted to leave behind the sectarian violence between Hindus and Muslims in their Calcutta home.

Of Hockey and Hijab: Reflections of a Canadian Muslim Woman is a collection of 50-plus essays by Khan. It is obvious they started as newspaper columns — each is short and tied to new stories about terrorism, sharia law, the balance of rights between people of faith and those who do not want any signs of religion in the public square.

The short essays that form her book cover a range of topics, interweaving personal experiences of interfaith interactions and spiritual journeys as a Canadian Muslim woman with reflections on national and international political issues.

Category: Visuals
Country: Iran

About

Neshat a contemporary visual artist who lives in New York. She is known primarily for her work in film, video and photography. Her work refers to the social, cultural and religious codes of Muslim societies and the complexity of certain oppositions, such as man and woman. It addresses the social, political and psychological dimensions of women’s experience in contemporary Islamic societies. Although Neshat actively resists stereotypical representations of Islam, her artistic objectives are not explicitly polemical. Rather, her work recognizes the complex intellectual and religious forces shaping the identity of Muslim women throughout the world.

The history of Shirin Neshat’s bodily portrayals of this “Islamic woman” is the unwritten chronicle of a mute and concealed femininity. Her photographs show and tell what has been forbidden to show and tell.

Category: Literary
Country: Iran

About

Marjane Satrapi was born in 1969 in Rasht, Iran. She grew up in Tehran, where she studied at the Lycee Francais before leaving for Vienna and then going to Strasbourg to study illustration. She currently lives in Paris, where she is at work on the sequel to Persepolis and where her illustrations appear regularly in newspapers and magazines. She is also the author of several children’s books.

Marjane became famous worldwide because of her critically acclaimed autobiographical graphic novels, originally published in French in four parts in 2000-2003 and in English translation in two parts in 2003 and 2004, respectively, as Persepolis and Persepolis 2, which describe her childhood in Iran and her adolescence in Europe. Persepolis won the Angoulême Coup de Coeur Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Her later publication, Embroideries (Broderies) was also nominated for the Angoulême Album of the Year award in 2003, an award which was won by her most recent novel, Chicken with Plums (Poulet aux prunes). She has also contributed to the Op-Ed section of The New York Times.

Category: Visuals
Country: Saudi Arabia

About

Haifaa Al Mansour is the first woman filmmaker in Saudi Arabia. The success of her short films in the Gulf and around the world has inspired a new movement of independent filmmaking in the Kingdom. Al Mansour is well known for penetrating the wall of silence surrounding the sequestered lives of Saudi women and providing a platform for their voices. Her work is dedicated to fostering direct political, social and economic change for Arab women.

Category: Performing
Country: Somalia

About

Yasmina fled Somalia in 1987 to Belgium and the Netherlands, where she came to work as an actress. She performed in various ensembles and performed with a solo program. In 1998 she debuted the successful novel Idil, A Girl. Her second novel, The General with Six Fingers, was a highly praised novel, which served as her foundation for her third novel. The Blue Room tells the poignant story of two young women. In her most recent worked entitled, “Displacement and Yet at Home” she relays her experiences growing in up in a small Somalian community.

In her essays Yasmine Allas portrays the environment of her childhood and compares it to what is happening in Africa today. Yasmina says that she is happy that Muslim men in the Arab world and Africa are now beginning to realize that their power is shifting to women.

Her works also showcase the movements that are happening among Muslim women in the Netherlands and Flanders, but she notes that the movements need to be faster and further wide-spread. Yasmina urges Muslim women to fight for sexual freedom, saying, “demand your sexual rights, women of Islam, it’s your turn to take matters into their own hands.” She calls on Muslim women to “live and enjoy your way.” Yasmine gets to the heart of the problem in her literary works by addressing the need for Muslim women to struggle in opposition to any form of oppression.

Category: Performing
Music
Country: United States

About

As a songwriter and producer Ms. Zonneveld has worked with many different artists with releases in Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Germany, the U.K., Japan, and the U.S. Her work in Malaysia resulted in an Album of the Year award at the AIMM which is the Malaysian equivalent of the Grammy. She also contributed a song to Keb’ Mo’s album “Keep It Simple” which helped him win a Grammy (2005) in the Contemporary Blues category, a song for the Grammy nominated album “Big Wide Grin” (2003) performed by Grammy winners Keb’Mo’ and Brenda Russell, and to Melissa Manchester’s latest release called “Thank You For Your Faith In Me”. Recently ZuriZuriani contributed three songs for Japanese artist Yuki. Her album ‘Joy’ was at #1 for several weeks.

Taking music and social activism to another level, Zuriani’s latest project Anni Zola, utilizes music and different forms of art to draw in tweens and young teenagers into a more purposeful direction. What she hopes to achieve is for children to be more motivated to care about the society we live in, to respect the environment, and to care enough to give back even if you’re a 10 year old. As a mother, Zuriani feels adults have totally messed up the world, and that it is our responsibility to nurture the next generation, that is Generation Z, to be more responsible than we have been.

Category: Crafts
Embroidery
Country: United States

About

Sister’s Zahiyah and Hadiyah Majeed are the masterminds behind the stunning pieces of Obie K. Jewelry. They are two young American college students who started making handmade beaded jewelry when they were in elementary school. They have honed their craft and launched Obie K. Jewelry in the fall of 2009. Their jewelry line incorporates semi-precious stones, acrylic, plastic, glass, metal, crystal, and wooden beads. They have said, “We are inspired by almost anything and we love to explore our creativity… We hand make our jewelry to the highest standard with love. We make jewelry for every woman.  We love to see the smiles and beautiful transformations that the jewelry creates when someone tries a piece on.”  Their jewelry style is a mixture of bohemian chic, American contemporary, urban, and some ethnic elements. They have hopes of selling in high-end stores and they want to expand their business to clothing, shoes, and purses.

Category: Visuals
Country: United States

About

Anida Yoeu Ali is a first generation Muslim woman who was born in Cambodia but grew up in the city of Chicago.  She began her career in the Fall of 1998 when she started out with performances in poetry.  Anida tackles many fields within the performing arts- her talents and interests include installation, performance, sound and video.  In her work, she explores the use of materials and memories to create and understand the connection between the artistic, political, and spiritual aspects that, together, create a sort of “hybrid transnational identity.”

Since 1998, Anida has been to over 300 colleges/venues with the pan-Asian spoken word ensemble. She has co-founded several groups such as: “Young Asians with Power! Asian American Artists Collective-Chicago; the National APIA Spoken Word & Poetry Summit, and the MONSOON fine arts journal.

Anida has received grants for her artistic work from the Ford Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, the National Endowment of the Arts, and the Rockefeller Foundation.  She has also received recognition for her work in political activism- she was awarded with the Community Activism award by the Cambodian Association of Illinois and also was a recipient of Insight Arts’ Creative Movements Festival Award.

Category: Fashion
Designers
Country: Malaysia

About

Tom Saufi is a fashion designer from Malaysia who tries to combine Batiks with the current fashion trends. She is a graduate from the London School of Fashion and incorporates her national identity with the designs that she creates.

In 2001 she was selected as Designer of the Year and she was also nominated for Designer of the Year in the Malaysian international Fashion Awards of 2005.

She is exporting more of her Islamic apparel to the U.S. as she believes that Muslim women want to be able to be a little more trendy and would like to be able to express themselves through their clothing

Category: Culinary
Country: India

About

Nasima Aziz considers herself to be a poet, a playwright, a writer, and a cook. Originally from Lucknow, she seems to incorporates traditional recipes into her cook books. She has written a few cook books including Mughal Flavours and Indian Vegetarian Cuisine.  She also edited a cookbook titled The Original Organic Cookbook: Recipes for Healthy Living.  Aziz commented in an article in “The Economic Times” that she “tried to make the book reader-friendly with cross- references… It was easy to edit because the book had real substance.”

Category: Performing
Music
Country: Denmark

About

Persian-born Shohreh Shahrzad’s artistic education and portfolio span the visual, performative, and musical arts, representing a new wave of creative and spiritual expression.

Shahrzad was born in Iran in 1968 and started to paint seriously when she was 19. She was educated as an industrial designer and worked in interior and graphic design in Tehran for several years before becoming fascinated by the traditional Iranian frame drum (Daff). She began to study music while teaching painting. In 2003, Shahrzad moved to Copenhagen to study multimedia design and began composing, becoming particularly interested in electronic Ambient music.

Sharzad’s explorative and experimental paintings, which play with shape, color, and texture, seek to express feelings and shy away from the superficial. Her music is similarly closely linked to the innermost human condition. She defines her music fluidly as “my soul, spirit, emotions, pain, joy, nostalgia, love, aversion, and loneliness.” Daff, closely linked to her identity and a source of constant inspiration, forms the centerpiece in most of her musical endeavors.

Shahrzad currently lives in Copenhagen and combines daff, composing, dance, painting and design in order to explore new ideas and foster a sense of balance and spirituality in her work. She performs with Kinnara, an Experimental/Psychedelic/Folk music group. She has worked with Kurdish saz-player and singer Mizgin since 2003. In the spring of 2009, she participated in the Muslim Women Music Makers tour, organized by the Missing Voices consortium.

Category: Country: United Kingdom

About

Sarah Yaseen is a British singer, producer, and musician, who specializes in soulful nasheeds (Islamic spiritual songs) and Urdu nazams. Trained by her father, a well-known nasheed singer in the Oldham area, Yaseen has performed in front of all-female audiences as well as nationally and internationally for audiences of up to 3,000 people. A spiritually inspiring first album, titled PEACE, is currently in the works.

Yaseen hopes to further her tradition’s legacy while reaching a larger audience with her art and fostering interfaith understanding. Thus her songs combine a yearning for the traditional with a sense of connection to the wider world, both formally and lyrically. Her lyrics focus on peace and love and are in Urdu and as well as English. Following her participation in Muslim Women Music Makers Tour, Yaseen was inspired to incorporate the guitar and the tabla alongside the traditional drum in her songs.

2003, Yaseen founded a nasheed group for Muslim girls aged between four and nineteen called WING (Women’s Innovative Nasheed Group), which has performed successfully at many cultural and diversity events, raising awareness of Islam through simple songs of devotion and peace.

Category: Performing
Music
Country: United Kingdom

About

Sarah Sayeed is a London-based MC, vocalist, and musician, who is known for her politically conscious lyrics and unique style of wordplay.  Inspired by committed hiphop artists like Tribe Called Quest and MCs like Roxanne Shante, Sayeed began writing and performing at an early age, cutting her musical teeth on the Manchester live circuit in her early twenties. Since then, Sayeed has performed in live venues across Europe and has recently returned from a recording tour in San Francisco and Toronto. In the spring of 2009, she participated in the Muslim Women Music Makers tour, organized by the Missing Voices consortium.

Sayeed describes her musical style as “hip hop, going into new soul and jazz, roots music, ska, lovers’ rock” and cites a wide range of influences from traditional Bengali songs to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan through Miles Davis and Madonna to the Arctic Monkeys.

Sayeed is known for her bold lyrics, which take women’s rights, independence, and politics as subject matter. She sees herself as a woman musician first and foremost: “I’m here to advocate Muslim women in music, but my work isn’t directly related to my identity as a Muslim. But it’s closely related to who I am as a Muslim woman – or a woman, or a British woman, or a woman from Walthamstow.”

Category: Performing
Music
Country: Denmark

About

Mizgin, who was chosen the official refugee artist of the year in 2007, has followed a challenging and inspiring road to this accolade. Born in an isolated Kurdish mountain village in the East of Turkey, Mizgin contracted polio at the age of two, leaving her partially paralyzed. Unable to go to school and isolated from peers, Mizgin taught herself to sing and play the saz, a string instrument common to the region. Music, which began as a pastime of necessity, soon became an integral way of self-expression.

Mizgin moved to Istanbul at the age of and soon after to Denmark, but her music still has roots in the wild beauty of Kurdish mountains. Her songs, lively folk ballads accompanied with saz and traditional percussion, and reflect the rich history of folk music in the area.

Since 2003, Mizgin has been collaborating with Shohreh Shahrzad, a Muslim woman drummer and performer with Iranian roots. In the spring of 2009, she participated in the Muslim Women Music Makers tour, organized by the Missing Voices consortium.

Category: Visuals
Painter
Country: Jordan

About

She was one of the youngest Muslim artists to have her work showcased at the exhibition Breaking the veil: Muslim Artists around the World. Her picturesque Unity at the exhibition evoked feelings of sisterhood and unity that transcended race, color, religion and culture. She is known for her deep use of color and different human characters.

Category: Visuals
Painter
Country: Iraq

About

Suad Attar is a world renowned Iraqi painter whose work is in private and public collections worldwide, including The British Museum and the Gulbenkian Collection. She has held over twenty solo exhibitions and recipient of many awards. She became the first solo exhibition in the country’s history for a woman artist in 1964. Most Suad’s painting is characterized by an intense dreamlike and poetic sensibility that draws on motifs and symbols from within the traditions of Middle Eastern art. In recent years, her use of rich colors, representations of paradise and of sleeping cities bathed in turquoise blue, have disappeared as the situation in her homeland Iraq has worsened. 

Category: Literary
Country: Iran

About

Naghmeh Samini is an Iranian playwright and tackles in her plays issues that women face in her country. She is an advocate about the progress women are making in theatre in Iran. One of her articles that she presented is called “Intertextuality and writing plays of women in Iran” which she presented at the Woman Playwrights International Conference (WPIC). Some of her work includes: The spell of the Burned Temple (2001) and Told by a Nightmare(2005).

Category: Visuals
Country: Morocco

About

Mehadji presented several performances that incorporated drawing and sound and she also contributed to the feminist review Sorcières, which published her early drawings.
 In the 1980s, Mehadji began to employ unusual media such as gesso and transparent paper on large pieces of raw canvas in order to generate symbolic, highly geometric forms. 
In 1996, Mehadji changed technique and hence style, adopting large oil pastels that enabled her to draw long, continuous lines on raw canvas, generating spheres of pure reds or yellows, which yielded three series known as Gradients, Chaosmos, and Souira.
 
Her recent works display a symbolism related to nature, particularly to the cosmos and the plant kingdom.

Category: Visuals
Painter
Country: Algeria

About

Niati is a painter, singer, and poet. She often accompanies her painting with Algerian songs and reads her own poetry in French in an attempt to bring the past, present, and future together. Her paintings (mainly in oil paintings and pastels) are very much expressive and embody feminist issues and proclaim her objection to stereotyping Arab women. She sees her work as ‘a visual explosion of the mind, an interaction of ideas in space and time’. Her work is influenced by her rich cultural background and consists of strong Arab-Muslim influences from her family and her experiences growing during the French occupation.

Category: Literary
Country: Lebanon

About

Born to a Shi’a family in Lebanon, al-Shaykh graduated from American Girls College in Cairo, Egypt. She worked as a journalist for a newspaper, a woman’s magazine, and for a television channel until 1975, the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War. She lived in Saudi Arabia until 1982 and currently resides in London. Considered a major force in world literature, al-Shaykh’s short stories and novels, originally written in Arabic, have been translated into English, French, Dutch, German, Danish, Italian, Korean, Spanish, and Polish.

Al-Shaykh’s work is deeply conscious of gender and the pressures placed on women by “traditional” social structures of the Arab Middle East. As such, she follows in the footsteps of contemporary Arab women authors like Nawal El Saadawi. Al-Shaykh boldly challenges the gendered notions of obedience, modesty, and familiar relations in her work while celebrating the parts of Arab culture that are empowering to women and refusing to idealize “the West” or depict Arab women as powerless victims.

In addition to her prolific writing on the lived experiences of contemporary Arab women, Al-Shakh is part of a group of authors writing about the Lebanese Civil War. Hikayat Zahra (1980) or The Story of Zahra (1994), for example, poignantly chronicles the struggles of a young woman at the time of the Lebanese Civil war, exploring the connections between gender injustice and military violence.

Locations, whether the desert or the urbanscapes of Beirut and Lebanon, are not mere backdrops in her stories but function as active forces driving the narrative. Al-Shaykh has also been recognized for her formal innovations, her meticulous attention to detail, and elaborate use of the first person narrative.

Category: Visuals
Painter
Country: Saudi Arabia

About

She is well known for her watercolor painting entitled Three Women. She illustrates the Japanese Golden Rule “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil”. It was showcased in the exhibition: Breaking the Veils: Muslim Women around the World.  The painting depicted three veiled women and the first woman was covering her eyes, the second her ears, and the third her mouth. 

Category: Visuals
Painter
Country: Sudan

About

She is well known for her break from the Khartoum School and her contribution to Crystalist movement. Her artwork is imbued with existential and feminist expressions. Ibrahim’s is known for using muted and sombre color in all her subject matter. She illustrates the issues that women in Sudan have to face within their own society. In her pieces, time is motionless while emotions accelerate the depth of the subject’s anguish.

Category: Country: Iraq

About

Her work has a simple expressionistic style and communicates her anger and violence against her adopted country Iraq. Her message is her art is very visual with no words needed to express her rage against war, violence, and injustice. One of her well known pieces is Agression that was showcased in the exhibition Breaking the Veils: Women Muslim Artists around the world. This painting spoke about the political realities and challenges some women face in war torn countries.

Category: Literary
Country: Lebanon

About

Etel Adnan graduated from the Sorbonne University in Paris and continued her studies at Berkley and Harvard in the United States. In 2003, the journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), called Adnan “arguably the most celebrated and accomplished Arab American author writing today.” She first found her voice through painting as a form of expression. She did not want to belong to a particular language oriented culture. Later in life, she switched back and forth between image and writing. She illustrated many poems by well known contemporary artists including her own and wrote several masterpieces in different languages such as Sitt Marie Rose which became translated in more than ten languages.

Category: Visuals
Country: Pakistan

About

Afroze deals with feminist issues in her paintings and graphics.  Her compositions are filled with symbols that represent woman through her various emotions and for her thought provoking imagery. Through her artwork she asks questions of humanity and identity. Her work has been featured in so many exhibitions such as Takhiti Exhibition and breaking the Veils, Muslim Women around the world. 

Category: Performing
Country: United States

About

Sumayya Ali was born to parents who were second generation African-American Muslims.  At the early age of nine, Sumayya was deeply inspired by a certain violin performance at her school and she expressed a strong interest in taking lessons to her parents.  Her mother and her late father happily agreed and arranged for these lessons to take place.  It was these lessons that led Sumayya onto the musical path and that started her career in the performing arts.

After practicing the violin for years, Sumayya transferred to Washington’s Duke Ellington School of the arts.  It was here where she discovered her true talent: singing.  One day, Sumayya began to mock her peers who were vocalists because “they were making this funny sound that [she] never had heard.”  Samuel L.E. Bonds, a voice teacher at the school, was completely shocked when he heard this little girl’s voice- rather than being angry at her for mocking the works of other students, he took her into the studio to help Sumayya start working with her voice.  Sumayya claims that Georges Bizet’s Opera, “Carmen,” was also an extremely influential piece for her and the performance really made her decide that opera singing was the right path for her.

However, Sumayya did not end up as a successful Opera singer without her share of adversities.  As a practicing Muslim, she found it challenging to combine her career as a singer as well as her own values as a Muslim. While she was earning her master’s degree in vocal performance, she was put in a situation when her character, in a play, would have to be kissed.  Sumayya could not abide by this requirement because of her own values and thus had to take a position in the chorus, which was an extremely devastating event for her.

Since that set back, Sumayya has excelled in many ways.  She was a winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition for the Boston District, and has performed in many different operas including Motzart’s “The Magic Flute,” Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Night Visitor,” and many more.

Sumayya finds that her spiritual relationship to the music she performs and the fact that she is also Muslim distinguishes her from other artists in her field.  She claims that “a lot of [her] work is analytical” as she likes to study the musical dimensions.

With regard to her career, Sumayya has been on Broadway’s 2009 revival of “Ragtime,” performed on “American Idol” and Zulu danced with Step Afrika in Vietnam.

Category: Crafts
Doll-making
Country: Indonesia

About

After noticing that her niece was playing with western Barbie dolls that were dressed in inappropriate clothing, Sukmawati decided that she wanted to create some sort of doll that Muslim girls could play with that maintained cultural values.  She worried that these western Barbie dolls that wore tight clothing and had disproportionately sized bodies might have a negative effect on the development of young girls all over the world.  Thus, she decided to create her own version of a Barbie doll that would be dressed in more appropriate clothing and that also would fit well with Islamic values.

Sukmawati named the doll “Salma,” which originates from the Arabic word that means peace.  She has her dolls imported from China and then she designs their outfits in typical Arab dress.  The dolls have the option of being dressed in the typical black abaya but can also be dressed in white colored prayer dresses.  Little girls who play with Salma can put on headscarves that match the colors of her outfits- all of which are full covering.

Sukmawati’s next plans are to export these dolls to countries such as Brunei and Malaysia, both of which have large Muslim populations.  She hopes that these dolls serve as role models for younger Muslim girls.

Category: Performing
Music
Country: United States

About

Having grown up in a home where music was greatly valued and encouraged, Tasleem developed interests in several different kinds of artistic forms at a young age. When she was nine years old she began to explore writing and illustrating. She continued to explore the arts by taking dance classes and piano classes. Her mother, who was also an artist, was clearly an influence on Tasleem’s development in all of her artistic specialties. 

Tasleem likes to express different feelings she has about her faith: growing up on the South Side of Chicago and her cultural experiences that she has from being of both Native American and African descent. She accomplishes this by expressing herself in several different ways.  Tasleem now considers herself to be an activist, an actress, a fashion designer, a poet, a radio host/producer, a writer.  With regard to her activism, she is an avid fighter for children’s rights.  Her music is an interesting hybrid of Hip-Hop, Soul, and Jazz.

Tasleem has been on stage with several artists such as Ali Shaheed Muhammad, Lupe Fiasco, Malik Yusef, Ilysha Shabazz (Malcom X’s daughter), Rock Steady Crew, and more.  She likes to spend her time teaching at various Spoken Word workshops and volunteering as a mentor for youth in need of guidance.  Her debut CD, “Tasleem,” was released in march of 2008- she even managed to release her own fashion line, “House of Firdausee,” the same month!

Category: Visuals
Country: Pakistan

About

Shela Qamer was born in Pakistan and studied art under Ali Imam in Karachi.  When she emigrated to the U.S., Shela decided to further her education in art by enrolling at Washington’s Corcoran School of Art.  In an interview with USINFO, Shela stated that she tries to “maintain some sort of balance and rhythm in my [her] paintings through the use of different colors, textures, materials, and lines.” She experiments with different kinds of paintings varying from images of the earth, Arabic calligraphy, architectural images, as well as trying out abstract paintings.  In her Artist’s Statement, Shela claims that one of her objectives as an artist is to create “unique and vibrant pieces of art work that everyone can enjoy and use to further enhance their environment.”

Recently, over the past 2 years, Shela has used her art to help raise money in charity fundraising events that are typically organized by various non-profit organizations.

Category: Visuals
Mixed media
Country: United Arab Emirates

About

Nayla Al Khaja is exploring new grounds as a female living in the United Arab Emirates.  She is the first female film producer in the country and has been exploring delicate issues such as hidden teen dating and pedophilia in the Muslim world.

Nayla is a graduate from Dubai Women’s College and has a degree in Mass Communication.  She initially started out by having her own travel show on an Arabic Radio Network.  Her show flourished and she earned extremely high ratings. However, Nayla was not satisfied with this and wanted to continue to develop her skills in Film making.  Consequently, she enrolled at Ryerson University and graduated with a Bachelor in Image studies. In 2002, she founded D-Seven Motion Pictures, which is a Dubai based company.

Her first documentary film was titled “Unveiling Dubai” (2004) which was shown at the Dubai International Film Festival.  The media sought after Nayla as she was, essentially, the first woman in the U.A.E. to make a career in film.  Her next project, a movie entitled “Arabana,” developed in 2006. This movie examined the issue of child abuse.  Interestingly enough, the issue of child abuse is somewhat of a taboo in Middle Eastern culture so it was brave of Nayla to dig into this issue in her film.  This movie also had its premiere at the Dubai International Film Festival where it received special acknowledgment for the depth of its composition and substance.

On top of producing and directing these films/documentaries, Nayla has been devoting a lot of time trying to develop a talk show that she hopes will handle touchy cultural issues.

Currently she is working on a film about a couple on their honeymoon and on a documentary about the ruling family of Dubai.

Category: Visuals
Country: Saudi Arabia

About

Huda is an artist who grew up in Saudi Arabia but moved to the United States as an adult.  By establishing herself in both Eastern and Western environments, Huda has developed a unique style in her art that incorporates traits from both of these cultures.  Huda plays with both image and text and thus cannot be categorized into a single category.

Huda is also a lecturer at Dar Al Hekma College in Jeddah and is part of the faculty at the Art Institute of Washington.  Aside from lecturing, Huda also is a visiting speaker and has been to several universities including Portland State University, Oregon State University, George Washington University, University of Pennsylvania, and many more.

Huda’s artwork ranges from painting, to performing, to handling videos.  She has explored many areas of art and sees her future career to be something that helps to “establish robust educational channels between international universities and other universities in Saudi Arabia, leading the Saudi female educators and artists into an outstanding productive and creative educational environment.”

Category: Visuals
Painter
Country: Pakistan

About

Asma Shikoh grew up in Karachi, and found that her society was very limited by both tradition and the after effects of colonial legacy.  In Pakistan, she wanted her artwork to demonstrate cultural and national identities of a developing country.  Her work continued to advance after she made her move to New York City-a place that had a huge impact on her own identity as a Muslim immigrant who was also newly wed.

Between the years of 1999-2001, Asma completed her “Karachi Work” collection. This was an important time for Pakistani society because the American Fast Food Industry had arrived. It was here that Asma was able to express her opinions about how this arrival complicated society- many of her paintings convey the message of largeness and invasiveness of this phenomena.

Between the years of 2003-2005, Asma completed her “Home” collection. She completed this upon moving to NYC from Karachi.  This collection has several interesting pieces that seem to combine the worlds of the west with the ways of the east.  Asma has painted different maps with Urdu writing.  In this collection, she also painted a “Self Portrait,” which is an image of the Statue of Liberty with typical Pakistani accessories.  According to Asma, this painting symbolizes “immigrants, and a new beginning.”

In 2007, Asma’s “Liberated” collection was displayed in Ceres Gallery, Chelsea, New York City.  This work displays the individual conception of creating a “unique national identity.” Her works here include the idea of wearing the hijab in a non-Muslim environment.

Category: Performing
Music
Country: United States

About

Aja was born and raised in Hollis, Queens, NY and it was there that she began to make a name for herself in the music world.  She developed talents in both rapping and singing and, simultaneously, was able to create extremely meaningful lyrics that seem to display concepts of perseverence, reflection, courage, faith, and confidence. 

In 2004 Aja Black and another artist, Big Samir, began performing together in the Midwest.  The two shared similar perspectives and ideas on both religion and music and thus decided to work on a project that they named “The ReMINDers.”  Their sound is thought to bring about awareness through their lyrics.  Both Aja and Big Samir claim that their influences are “The Creator and his creations (Everything).”

The couple took a two year break so that they could raise their children but now they are getting back on track in the music industry and have a debut record entitled “ReCollect.”

We planted together

Weeping Cherry California

Gossiping Together

Around the Tree II

Sharing Light

Salma's Portrait

Category: Visuals
Country: United States

About

“Somehow the messages start appearing as I work.
These messages are of love, peace, sharing and celebration of life.”
—Salma Arastu

Salma Arastu was born in Rajasthan, India and has been painting for more than thirty years. Her work has been influenced by Indian culture and her time living in Kuwait, Iran, and the United States where she currently resides and works.
Her paintings have been exhibited in the United States, India, and Europe. She divides the paintings into series which try to capture thematic essentials. Names of the series include a “Sufi Series” and “Women and lyrical lines.”

In addition to her painting, Arastu has also written several published works of free verse poetry and short stories in Hindi. Her collection of poems “Dard Ki Seedhiyan” (Steps of Pain) was published in 1981 with a grant from Andhra Pradesh Sahitya Kala Academy, Hyderabad, India.

Shortly after arriving in the US, she also became an entrepreneur with the creation of Your True Greetings, a successful greeting card company that uses her paintings and calligraphy to serve Muslim communities in the United States, Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Category: Visuals
Country: Pakistan

About

A renowned Pakistani artist, Lubna Agha works mainly with wood and canvas. Drawing inspiration from various forms of Islamic art—from African woodwork to Turkish architecture to calligraphy—she applies principles of “the rich tradition of ornate, intricate architectural forms and design motifs, where the meditative and ornamental qualities of the original media take on new meaning and beauty.”

Her work also draws inspiration from her personal experiences of womanhood and being an expatriate in the United States.

Her artwork includes Star 1, a large geometric star in graded orange which has been influenced by motifs in Moroccan art. Bookstand 2, acrylic on wood, was inspired after a visit to the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey. Thus, Agha’s artwork converts various styles of Islamic art into modernity.

Her work has been exhibited in art museums and galleries throughout the world—in Pakistan, Great Britain, Japan, Jordan, Switzerland, and the United States.

Category: Fashion
Country: United States

About

Afghan-American designer, Samira Atash designs two different brands: one, SAMIRA ATASH, is described as when East meets West and is inspired by the Silk Road. Her other brand, It’s A Miracle Contemporary Maternity “offers contemporary for stylish women who don’t want to show too much skin.” Through her lines, she blends her Middle Eastern/Islamic heritage with the Western culture she was raised in.

Her designs have been featured in film and television, including Men in Black II, the upcoming Salt, starring Angelina Jolie, and CNN. Moreover, she has been covered by the Washington Post, the Oxygen Network, and National Geographic.

A two-time nominee for Fashion Group International’s Rising Star Award, Atash is also the creator-producer-host of Beauty and the East TV, a video blog which features Muslim/Middle Eastern musicians. Atash has further forayed into film and television through her role in FireDancer, the first Afghan film to be submitted for an Academy Award and the Tribeca Film Festival.

Category: Performing
Music
Country: Mali

About

Oumou Sangare is a Malian singer and known as one of Africa’s most outstanding artists. Using the traditional music of her ancient homeland, Wassalou, Oumou’s songs address many of the social problems taking place in Mali society such as the place of women and polygamous marriages. Her fierce dedication to women’s rights is evident in her song lyrics and her language, as in an interview with The Observer, “‘I will fight until my dying day for the rights of African women and of women throughout the world.” Some of Oumou’s albums include Moussoulou (1989), Ko Sira (1993), Worotan (1996), Laban (2001), Oumou (2003). She released Seya in 2009. 

Category: Literary
Country: United Kingdom

About

Leila Aboulela’s second novel Minaret tells the story of Najwa, an upper-class Sudanese woman, and the challenges she faces after moving from Sudan to the United Kingdom.  Growing up in Khartoum, Najwa flees to London with her family after the coup of 1985 which led to her father’s arrest and execution. The story then unfolds as family problems leave Najwa by herself as she works through the struggles of work, life and love. Two love affairs throughout the novel, one in Khartoum and one in London, lead Najwa to deepen her religious faith. One of the points Aboulela’s makes clear in her novel, and expressed in an interview with the Observer, is her belief that religious identity provides more stability than national identity, ‘I can carry [religion] with me wherever I go, whereas the other things can easily be taken away from me.’

Leila Aboulela was raised in Sudan and moved to London for her Masters. She and her family then moved to Scotland where they lived for several years before moving again to Dubai. She has written two other novels, The Translator (1999), and The Museum as well as a collection of short stories in The Coloured Lights (2001) and was awarded the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2000.

Category: Fashion
Designers
Country: United Kingdom

About

Sarah Elenany is a rising fashion designer in London who has developed a new line for young Muslim women in response to the lack of stylish yet modest clothing. Elenany’s philosophy of ‘inclusive design’ has allowed her to design a clothing range that is attractive to both Muslims and non-Muslims.

As a teenager, Elenany designed her own clothes because she could not find clothing in shops that fit her well while also covering her appropriately to her standards. Although Elenany’s success in the new line has opened her up to the possibility of selling to high-end stores, she has decided to continue on her own to ensure that Muslim youth have a voice in fashion, “Lastly, a lot of people asked me why I don’t just produce clothing then let a big high street chain sell it under their own name. I thought about this, but then based on my experience of Muslims, I really thought there needed to be a brand –a brand which they could feel happy buying from, which would not exploit people who make the clothes and who wouldn’t donate profits to anything Muslims didn’t agree with. So the business ethics also reflect the needs of Muslims.”

Category: Performing
Film
Country: Pakistan

About

Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is a Pakistani journalist and filmmaker who has produced over 13 films for major networks in the US and Britain including CNN, PBS, Channel 4 (UK) and the Discovery Channel. She is the recipient of many awards such as the Overseas Press Club Award, The American women and Radio and Television award, and the South Asian Journalist Award.

Sharmeen’s films document many of the current issues in the Muslim world. Her most recent films include The Lost Generation, a documentary revealing the plight of the new generation of Iraqi refugees, Afghanistan Unveiled, which documents the status of women in Afghanistan several years after the American invasion and Birth of a Nation, which delves into the politics of East Timor.

Sharmeen was the first woman in her family to receive a Western education. She graduated from Smith College with a BA in Economics and Government, and then went on to complete two master’s degrees from Stanford University in International Policy Studies and Communication.

Category: Performing
Music
Country: Pakistan

About

Abida Parveen is a well-known Pakistani singer in the traditions of qawwali, ghazal and kafi, and known to many as the Sufi Queen of music. Abida composes her own music adding to it lyrics from Sufi poetry, and she sings in Urdu, Sindhi, Hindi, Punjabi and Seraiki. Although she is often compared to Pakistan’s Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Parveen says “We are all the same species — all humans have a representative of godliness, so there is really no male/female division. I have been given this gift by the Divine, who does not recognize differences between male and female singing. I am simply a medium, and if you listen to me sing, even over the period of a few days, it will be entirely different because the transmission is from the Divine.”

Abida received her musical training at an early age from her father Ustad Ghulam Haider and later from Ustad Salamat Ali Khan. She began her career in the early 1970’s with her first hit, singing the popular Sindhi song, “Tuhinje zulfan jay band kamand widha”. Some of her albums include Ruh-e Ali, Baba Bulleh Shah and she was awarded the President of Pakistan’s Award for Pride of Performance in 1982 and the Sitara-e-Imtiaz, or star of excellence, in 2005.

Category: Visuals
Painter
Country: Pakistan

About

Trained in the art of Indian and Persian miniature painting, Shahzia Sikander is a painter whose work focuses on the tensions that exist in Islam, Hinduism and Christianity as well as her personal history, politics and sexuality, and particularly that of the role of Muslim women.

Shahzia received an MFA in 1995 from the Rhode Island School of Design and has exhibited around the world. She has won several awards for her work including the honorary artist award from the Pakistan Ministry of Culture and National Council of the Arts.

Category: Visuals
Country: Iran

About

Mehraneh Atashi is a young photographer and artist from Iran.  Mehraneh has has exhibited her work around the world and in the recently published book, Iranian Photography Now edited by Rose Issa. Mehraneh’s work includes photo essays such as Zourkhaneh, Cooling Off, and The fall: Mannequin with a view. Zourkhaneh is one of the most well-known of group, which documents a Zourkhaneh, a traditional center in Iran where men exercise. As women are not permitted into these centers, Atashi made it a point to capture herself in all the photos documenting the men, “It was so hard to gain the trust of these extremely religious Moslems and their agreement to pose half naked in front of me and the mirror, but magic of photography helped me. I made sure to be present in each photo as a subject among the heroes.”

Atashi graduated with a degree in Photography from the University of Tehran in 2002.