Huda Himmat is a freelance entrepreneur with a master’s in international law from the University of London. Until recently, she was the vice-president of Board of Trustee of FEMYSO (Forum of European Muslim Youth and Student Organizations), whose headquarters is in Brussels. She is the daughter of Ali Ghaleb Himmat, who was born in Damascus in 1938, a naturalized Italian since 1990 and resident in Campione d’Italia. He is co-director of Taqwa Bank, the Bank of the Muslim Brotherhood and head of Islamic Gesellschaft in Deutschland, founded by Sa’id Ramadan, the father of Tareq and Hani Ramadan. Huda Himmat grew up in Campione d’Italia and is a spokesperson of the “Islamic Community of Ticino.”
Her writings can be found in the book, Islamophobia and its Consequences on Young People, by Ingrid Ramberg. In it she discusses the effects of Islamophobia on young men and women and their struggles growing up Muslim in England. She recently launched her new Web site, Bellissima Scarves, which features clothing, “that are both in conformity with the Islamic dress code as well as elegant and fashionable.”
Aminah Assilmi, 65, served as the Director of the International Union of Muslim Women. Her accomplishments included collecting millions of signatures for petitions that were presented to the United Nations in support of the thousands of women who were abused and raped during the ethnic cleansing campaigns in Bosnia.
Despite health issues Ms. Assilmi maintained a rigorous schedule of speaking engagements around the nation and the world. She was instrumental in the U.S. Postal Service’s 2001 issuing of the “Eid” stamp, which marks the two main Muslim holidays.
She started and laid the foundation for the Center for Muslim Women’s Studies, which would serve as an educational center for new converts, as well as a summer camp for children. Equally important, Ms. Assilmi advocated fiercely for Muslim women’s rights and equality within the framework of Islam. She drew on her knowledge and love for Islam to demand equity for Muslim women wherever it was denied to them.
When Tahani Al Gebali, a prominent Egyptian lawyer, was appointed in January 2003 to be the country’s first-ever female judge, she herself hailed it as a landmark for Egyptian women. Until recently a member of the Nasserist Party, El-Gebali has spent her career as a lawyer. Graduating from Cairo University’s Faculty of Law in 1973, she later earned a diploma in Islamic Shari’a, or Islamic law, and was the first woman elected to the board of the Lawyer’s Syndicate in 1989, being re-elected in the following round of elections.
In 1992, she was the first woman elected to the Permanent Bureau of the Union of Arab Lawyers. She is also a legal expert at the UN, an international commercial arbitrator and a lecturer at the Arab Institute for Human Rights in Tunis.
Rafiah Al-Talei is a news writer for the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, a non-profit corporation that operates the Arabic-language Alhurra TV and Radio Sawa network. She has served as editor-in-chief of Al Mar’ah, Oman’s only Arabic and English-language women’s magazine, as well as a frequent contributor to the online magazine Gulf in the Media. An experienced journalist specializing in media and women’s rights, she has served as an editor and weekly columnist for Oman’s leading daily newspaper, Oman, and was the contributing editor for the Oman section of Freedom House’s 2005 report, “Women’s Rights in the Arab World.”
As a candidate in 2003 for a seat on Oman’s Consultative Council, she educated people in her local district regarding the democratic process. Drawing on her experiences as a journalist and political candidate, Ms. Al-Talei’s fellowship project examined the political challenges confronting Omani women today and identified ways to increase their involvement in the political process. In 2007, Ms. Al-Talei co-founded an NGO called the Gulf Forum for Citizenship, based in Woodbridge, Virginia.
Maliha Alshehab is a Saudi writer who has made a name for herself as an outspoken advocate of women’s emancipation in Saudi society. From 2007 to 2010 she was a columnist for Al Watan, a leading Saudi newspaper. Due to the controversial nature of her articles, particularly on the issue of child marriage, her column was terminated and she for some time, could not find another Saudi media outlet to publish her work. She is currently a weekly columnist for the Kuwaiti paper Al Rai and published her debut book “Saudi Woman: Image and Voice.”
An active speaker on many American campuses, Alshebab highlights domestic violence abuses Saudi women face, as well as what she calls the “paralyzing” effect of male guardianship. Alshebab is also a board member and contributor for Al-Waref Institute, an Islamic organization devoted to increasing the knowledge of the Middle East among Americans.
She has published numerous articles through a variety of outlets on Saudi women and their human rights struggles, as well as her publicly renowned work entitled “No Guardianship.” She earned several awards, including the King Faisal University Award and the Imam Mohammed University award, for many of the articles she has written.
Hammasa Kohistani, was the first beauty contestant of Muslim origin to be crowned Miss England, at the age of 18. She was crowned following a two-day competition at Liverpool’s Olympia Theatre and was chosen from among 40 contestants.
After her parents were forced to flee Afghanistan, they immigrated to Tashkent in central Uzbekistan, where Ms. Kohistani was born. She speaks six languages including Russian and her mother-tongue Persian. Ethnically, she is a Tajik from Afghanistan.
She won the competition dressed in an ivory white chiffon and silk ball gown, which had been designed and made by her mother. She later said: “When they announced that I had won I thought I had misheard. I hoped they hadn’t, but it took a second to sink in.”
She is known as Miss Maya after the Asian fashion house that sponsored her and has reportedly been offered a part in a forthcoming Bollywood movie. She has also graced the cover of Asiana Magazine in 2004.
After Khawla Al- Kuraya obtained her medical degree from King Saud University, she enrolled in the Pathology Residency program at Georgetown University Hospital in 1995 in Washington, D.C. She obtained her board certification in clinical pathology and completed her fellowship in Molecular Diagnostics at the National Cancer Institute in the United States.
She is a consultant and the principal clinical scientist at the King Faisal Hospital and Research Center. She was also appointed as the director to the Department of Human Cancer Genomic Research, as well as director for the Research Center for Children’s Cancer. She has produced many internationally peer reviewed journals and has presented her findings in global summits as well as local conferences.
Dr. Al- Kuraya is also a member of several associations and institutes such as the College of American Pathologist, the American Association for Cancer Research and the United States-Canadian Academy of Pathology. In January 2010, King Abdullah conferred the prestigious “First Rank King Abdulaziz Medal” on Dr. Khawla Al-Kuraya in recognition of her achievements in science that have made her a prominent international figure in cancer research.
As a scholar and member of the royal family of Bahrain, Al Khalifa has used her skills and status to encourage the entrepreneurial spirit of young Bahrainis, and to promote women’s rights. She earned her Bachelors degree in Management (1998) and Masters degree in Social Policy and Planning (2002) from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and is a graduate of Young Enterprise, Junior Achievement in the UK.
In 2005 Al Khalifa founded a nonprofit organization called inJAz Bahrain, a member of Junior Achievement Worldwide, to provide young people with a hands-on business and economic education so they will be prepared when seeking employment and more likely to succeed. She became the Executive Director working with a Board of Directors in leading the private sector organizations of Bahrain.
