Archives: Muslim Women

Muslim Women Description

Princess Reem Al Faisal

Granddaughter of the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Princess Reem Al Faisal is a well-known photographer whose work has been exhibited throughout the world.

Al Faisal graduated from Manarat High School in Jeddah and studied Arabic Literature at the King Abdul Aziz University. Wanting to study photography, she moved to Paris where she attended the Speos School. She began traveling and taking photographs; her collection reflects her travels to China, Egypt, Florence, Istanbul, Jeddah, Japan, Medina, Syria, and Venice. The subjects of her photographs include Muslims in America, the Nation of Islam, and landscapes. Al Faisal is well-known for her wide black-and- white photographs. Her most recent project documented the experience of Hajj and required several years to complete. She is one of the few women to have photographed Hajj extensively.

Al Faisal has two publications, Diwan Al Noor: A Photographic Journey through Light, Water, and People and The Hajj. She has had several exhibitions of her work in Dubai, Bahrain, Egypt, Palestine, China, Singapore, Korea, Spain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the United States. Her collections can be viewed in the Sakakin Center in Ram Allah, Palestine; The National Museum of Seoul Korea; and The National Gallery of Jordan.

More recently, she founded the Empty Quarter Gallery in Dubai, the only gallery to solely exhibit photography, and has also helped to open a branch of the Speos photography school in the same city.

Hassiba Boulmerka

Hassiba Boulmerka was the first woman from an Arab or African nation to win a world track championship, as well as the first Algerian to win an Olympic medal. Algeria’s best known female distance runner, Hassiba began running at a young age. Throughout the late 1980s she began making a name for herself on the international stage. It was during this time that conservative Islamic elements in Algeria condemned her and her role as a prominent female athlete. The continued harassment forced her to relocate her training to Europe. Despite this setback, she competed in the 1500 meter race in the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. She won the race, earning Algeria its first gold medal. She continued her professional running career, participating in the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta. However, she sprained her ankle in the semi-finals and then retired from professional sports in 1997.

Since then, Hassiba has continued her work advocating on behalf of female athletes. She was elected a member of the Athletes’ Commission of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and in 1999, she lobbied the group to put more pressure on governments that discriminate against female athletes.

Daisy Khan

Daisy Khan is an award-winning speaker, author, activist, commentator, and the founder of Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE), the largest global network of Muslim women committed to peacebuilding, gender equality, and human dignity.

Formerly, Khan served as Executive Director of American Society for Muslim Advancement for eighteen years, where she was hailed as a bridge builder for promoting cultural and religious harmony through groundbreaking intra faith programs like Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow and inter-faith arts programs like Same Difference, Cordoba Bread Fest. In her grassroots efforts to combat anti-Muslim bias she created “Today, I am a Muslim Too Rally with 100 Interfaith organizations. When Khan saw an unprecedented rise in violent extremism causing intense scrutiny and distrust of Muslims she published WISE Up: Knowledge ends Extremism in collaboration with 72 authors to develop narratives of peace by creating a counter-momentum to the rise in hateful rhetoric.

Khan believes that women’s leadership is essential to solving societal issues. “we need to remove structural barriers to Muslim women’s leadership, to enable them to use their resolve, passion and humility to bring societies into greatness.” She founded the first global Muslim women’s Shura (advisory) Council to amplify Muslim women’s scholarship. The Council uses an egalitarian interpretation of scripture to publish position papers against issues such as child marriage, domestic violence, female genital mutilation, and many others.

Khan lectures in the US and internationally on numerous topics; Muslim women, Islam in America, Islamophobia, and extremism. Her audiences are varied: prestigious think tanks like CFR, universities, congregations and women’s and youth groups. Recognized as a global think tank thought leader, Khan has been featured in powerful periodicals such as Time Magazine, The Guardian, Newsweek, and The New York Times and appears regularly on TV outlets like CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC. As advisor, she has appeared in documentaries like PBS’s Three Faiths, One God, Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet, and National Geographic’s Inside Mecca.

Her memoir, Born with Wings (2018) depicts her spiritual journey as a modern Muslim woman and her circuitous path to leadership. She is a recipient of two dozen awards and honors including the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award, Edinburgh Peace Award, Interfaith Center’s Award for Promoting Peace. More Magazine described her as “a Link between Moderate Islam and the West,” Women’s E-News named her “21 women of the 21st century” and Glamour Magazine listed her among “7 Women You Must Follow on Twitter.” Listed among Time magazine 100 Most Influential People she was ranked among the “Top Ten Women Faith leaders” by The Huffington Post.

Born in Kashmir, she spent twenty-five years as an interior architect for various Fortune 500 companies. In 2005, she dedicated herself to full-time community service and building movements for positive change, both in the United States and around the globe.

Baroness Pola Uddin

Baroness Pola Uddin is known for being the first Muslim and Bangladeshi woman to have been elected into the House of Lords. She has dedicated her life to social reforms and equal rights.

Uddin first came, with her family, to the United Kingdom at the age of thirteen. Three years later, against the wishes of her family, she married Mr. Komar Uddin. They have five children. Uddin began her professional career in the late 70’s when she developed and led many community working groups, including distinctly women- centered projects. In 1989, she became the first Bangladeshi and Muslim woman to be elected as Local Councilor in the London area. Four years later, she became the first Deputy Leader of the same area. In 1998, she was raised to the peerage and elected into the House of Lords as Baroness Uddin of Bethnal Green. Since then, she has chaired the Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic Task Force and the Women Councillors cross-party Taskforce. In her role as Chair, Uddin has hosted outreach events across the UK to encourage women, particularly those from ethnic minority communities to get involved in local politics.

In addition to her role, Uddin serves on the Select Committee on European Affairs and is a board member of Autism Speak UK and a patron of several associations, such as Orbis International, Student Partnership Worldwide, Bethnal Green and Victoria Park Housing Association, Women’s Housing Forum, Women’s Aid, Brit-Bangla and The Dame Vera Lynn Trust.

Sheikha Aisha Bint Faleh Bin Nasser Al-Thani

Sheikha Aisha Bint Faleh Bin Nasser Al-Thani has been a leader in the field of education. She graduated from the University of Qatar with a bachelor’s degree in education and in English literature. She then earned a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Hull in England. She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in corporate governance at the City University in the United Kingdom.

She is also a member of Qatar’s Supreme Education Council, the body responsible for mapping out the educational strategy in the country. She is serves on the Board of Directors of both the Zaytuna Institute, an Islamic educational institute in the United States, and Reach Out to Asia, a charity helping Asian countries reach the ”Education For All” goals established by UNESCO. Additionally, she is the chairperson of Al Fateh Group, a group of primary and secondary schools in Qatar that emphasize the British curriculum and instruction in moderate Islamic studies. She is founding director of Doha Academy, one of the schools in Al Fateh Group.

Gonca Aydin

Gonca Aydin is Vice-President of the Union of Muslim Theologians and Islamic Religious Researchers in Germany. Ms. Aydin co-founded the Union in 2007 which seeks to lead a dialogue about Islam, build bridges with other religions, and discuss ways to teach about Islam in German Schools.

Ms. Aydin is a leader in promoting inter-religious and intercultural dialogue in Frankfurt, Germany. She created the Interfaith and Intercultural Women’s Network, a group of about 40 women from various religious, cultural and occupational backgrounds. She has worked as an instructor for inter-religious dialogue at DITIB-Frankfurt (The Turkish Islamic Union of Religious Institutes). For her interfaith activities, she received an award from the mayor of Frankfurt. She was selected by the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) as one of the People of the Week. Ms. Aydin is also a respected theologian and frequent participant in discussions about Islam.

Ms. Aydin attended Dokuz Eylul University in Izmir, Turkey, where she studied Islamic Theology. From 2003-2007 she was at the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe University, studying Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as the pedagogy and sociology of religion.

Fawzia Afzal-Khan

Fawzia Afzal-Khan is Professor of English at Montclair State University in New Jersey. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from Tufts University in Boston. Her most recent books are A Critical Stage: The Role of Secular Alternative Theatre in Pakistan and the best-selling edited collection, Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out.

Syracuse University Press is publishing her memoir, Growing Up With Girlfriends Pakistani-Style, in Spring 2010. She is author of many articles on Pakistani politics and Islamization published regularly in Counterpunch and is an invited speaker at national and international conferences. She has lectured around the world and is the recipient of several fellowships, including the W.E.B Dubois Fellowship at Harvard University, a Rotary Fellowship, an American Institute of Pakistan Studies grant and a Fulbright Scholarship.

Additionally, Fawzia is a trained vocalist in the North Indian Classical tradition, and also performs fusion with jazz musicians. She is a writer and performer with the experimental theater collective, Compagnie Faim de Siecle of which she was a founding member, and with Ajoka (a leading alternative Pakistani theatre company). Fawzia also acts in a one-woman show, Scheherezade Goes West.

Deeyah Khan

Deeyah was born in Norway to a father of Pakistani heritage and a mother of Afghani heritage. She is one of the few women who have trained with the venerable musicians, Ustad Fateh Ali Khan and Ustad Sultan Khan. Deeyah, dubbed the Muslim Madonna, has released critically acclaimed albums in Europe.

Because of her public image, Deeyah has faced criticism and harassment from elements of the Muslim community, forcing her to move from Norway to the United Kingdom and eventually to the United States. However, she has continued her musical career and her activism on behalf of women’s issues. Deeyah is an avid supporter of ASHRAM, a shelter for battered women in the United Kingdom. She is also an advocate for ICAHK, the International Campaign Against Honour Killings.

Deeyah is currently working with Freemuse, an organization that supports freedom of expression through music. She has also organized a compilation album of female Muslim artists, called Sisterhood, which she independently produced.