Books on Muslim Identity by Muslim Women

Love, Hate, and Other Filters

by Samira Ahmed

American-born 17-year-old Maya Aziz is torn between worlds. There’s the one of a good Indian daughter: attending a college close to her suburban Chicago home, and being paired off with an older Muslim boy her mom deems “suitable.” And then there is the world of her dreams: going to film school and living in New York City—and maybe (just maybe) pursuing a boy she’s known from afar since grade school, a boy who’s finally falling into her orbit at school.

Learn More

Not The Girls You're Looking For

by Aminah Mae Safi

Debut author Aminah Mae Safi's honest and smart coming of age novel is about how easy it can be to hurt those around you even if —especially if—you love them.

Learn More

A Place For Us

by Fatima Farheen Mirza

A Place for Us focuses on an Indian-Muslim family living in Northern California, striving to find a balance between tradition and modernity. The family of five is left to search for home in a metaphorical and literal sense.

Learn More

She Wore Red Trainers

by Na'ima B. Robert

When Ali first meets Amirah, he notices everything about her—her hijab, her long eyelashes and her red trainers—in the time it takes to have one look, before lowering his gaze. And, although Ali is still coming to terms with the loss of his mother and exploring his identity as a Muslim, and although Amirah has sworn never to get married, they can't stop thinking about each other. Can Ali and Amirah ever have a halal "happily ever after"?

Learn More

Rebels by Accident

by Patricia Dunn

Mariam is the only Egyptian at her high school with super traditional parents. So when she sneaks into a party that gets busted, Mariam knows she's in trouble...big trouble. Convinced she needs more discipline and to reconnect with her roots, Mariam's parents send her to Cairo to stay with her grandmother, her sittu.

Read More

A Very Large Expanse of Sea

by Tahereh Mafi

It’s 2002, a year after 9/11. It’s an extremely turbulent time politically, but especially so for someone like Shirin, a sixteen-year-old Muslim girl who’s tired of being stereotyped. Ocean James is the first person in forever who really seems to want to get to know Shirin for the real her. It terrifies her.

Does My Head Look Big In This?

by Randa Abdel-Fattah

When sixteen-year-old Amal decides to wear the hijab full-time, her entire world changes, all because of a piece of cloth...

Read More

White Teeth

by Zadie Smith

Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book.

Read More

All-American Muslim Girl

by Nadine Jolie Courtney

Allie Abraham has it all going for her—she's a straight-A student, with good friends and a close-knit family, and she's dating cute, popular, and sweet Wells Henderson. One problem: Wells's father is Jack Henderson, America's most famous conservative shock jock...and Allie hasn't told Wells that her family is Muslim.

Read More

The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali

by Sabina Khan

Seventeen-year-old Rukhsana Ali tries her hardest to live up to her conservative Muslim parents’ expectations, but lately she’s finding that harder and harder to do. But when her parents catch her kissing her girlfriend Ariana, all of Rukhsana’s plans fall apart. Rukhsana realizes she must find the courage to fight for her love, but can she do so without losing everyone and everything in her life?

Read More

Love From A to Z

by S.K. Ali

When she gets suspended for confronting her Islamophobic teacher, Zayneb heads to her aunt’s house in Doha for an early start to spring break, where her path crosses with Adam’s. Adam, who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which he is desperately hiding from his grieving father.

Read More

You Must Be Layla

by Yassmin Abdel-Magied

“With her long skirt and headscarf Layla certainly stands out at her new high school. Everyone thinks they know her, just from a glance. But do they? And does Layla really know herself?”

Read More

The Chai Factor

by Farah Heron

Thirty-year-old engineer Amira Khan has set one rule for herself: no dating until her grad-school thesis is done. Duncan, the small-town baritone with the flannel shirts, is driving her up the wall. As Amira and Duncan clash, she is surprised to feel a simmering attraction for him. How can she be interested in someone who doesn’t get her, or her family’s culture?

Read More

Internment

by Samira Ahmed

Set in a horrifying near-future United States, seventeen-year-old Layla Amin and her parents are forced into an internment camp for Muslim American citizens.

Read More

Zara Hossain Is Here

by Sabina Khan

Zara's family has waited years for their visa process to be finalized so that they can officially become US citizens. But it only takes one moment for that dream to come crashing down around them.

Read More