MMW Contributors
To contact contributors specifically, you can email us at writers@muslimahmediawatch.org.
Current contributors:
Azra (@azratweets) was raised in the midwestern United States and is currently a graduate student. She recently graduated with an undergraduate degree in English, where she enjoyed studying how gender and culture coincide in literature.
Eman (which means Faith in Arabic) (@EmanHashim) is a 28 year old blogger, writer and ophthalmologist on her way to get her master’s degree from the Faculty of Medicine at Ain Shams University, where she studied Medicine. She was born and is now living in Cairo, Egypt. She has worked in many fields, such as event coordination, radio, banking, and even mobile phones! But her main interest is women, how they are perceived by others and how they perceive themselves, especially in a country which is rich in its diversity of people from different religious, cultural and political backgrounds and women are placed and treated in the middle of all this. You can have a look at her blog here (Arabic) and here (English).
Eren Arruna Cervantes (@ErenArruna) is a university student who focuses her research on politics of gender and women in organized religions. She aspires to engage in Shariah studies and to work with women’s organizations. You can read about her adventures as a new Muslim at her blog.
Fatin Marini (@FatinMarini1) holds a B.A. in English from Brooklyn College. She is Palestian-American currently living in Amman, Jordan. More of her thoughts can be found on writerlyruminations.wordpress.com
Heba Elsherief (@iamsheba) teaches English literature. Her doctoral research at the University of Toronto considers the representation of and reception to Muslim or other marginalized women in novel and media forms.
Krista Riley (@krista_riley) is the Editor-in-Chief of MMW. She has an academic background in women’s studies and sociology, and is currently living in Montreal as a PhD student in Communication Studies, where she is putting her MMW writing background to good use. When not busy rolling her eyes at ever-ridiculous media depictions of hijab, she likes to tap dance, read, hike, canoe, and ice skate, and is learning to play the violin.
Nicole (@cncx) was raised outside of New Orleans, and has a BA from the Croft Institute at the University of Mississippi. A convert since 2000, she has lived in Switzerland (Lausanne and Zurich) since 2004. Nicole is a frequent contributor and commenter to guest/group blogs both in French and in English, and as an active member of the small Swiss tech/social media community she frequently attends related local and European events.
Samya Ayish (@sayish) is a U.S.-born freelancing journalist based in Houston, United States. She got her Master’s degree from the University of Sharjah, and her thesis was about how new media are shaping women’s new identity and role through their blogs. Samya has worked as a social media producer for the Arabic website of CNN, at the Dubai office. She has a profound interest in new and interactive media, and how it is being used as a tool of change, especially by women. Samya blogs in Arabic and you can read her posts here.
Sarabi Nikolanna Eventide (@SarabiNEventide) is a nomadic third-year undergraduate student at New York University Shanghai. She’s obsessed with all things related to language and religion. Born in England and raised in the U.S. she speaks English, French, and Mandarin at varying levels of fluency. Urdu and Arabic are her next language projects, and she’s studying the commercialization of religion, though none of those things are related to her major (Interactive Media Arts). Sincerely, Sarabi Nikolanna Eventide is her personal blog though she admits she’s much more active on twitter.
A woman born to the summer, Sharrae (@_aisharae) is a writer and community organizer based in Canada. She is inspired by the work and resilience of womyn of colour and of those who dance to the beat of their own drum. Committed to critiquing the elements and intersections of racism, sexism, colonialism, imperialism, hetereonormativity, transphobia, colourism, and other systems of oppression in the interpersonal and institutional structures of society is the foundation from where she stands. At any given moment, you are likely to catch her singing or humming in public.
Shereen Malherbe (@MalherbeGirl) is a British/Palestinian writer & author based in both the U.K and the United Arab Emirates. Her passions include championing diverse narratives in literature and writing stories based in and around the Middle East.
Seema Shafei (@seemashafei) is a Libyan Canadian woman who grew up in the south of the United States. She’s currently a student in Canada, studying and working towards a path she is unsure of as of late. She constantly questions representations of Muslims women and is sick of the good Muslim/ bad Muslim narrative. She loves reading books by women of colour, eating fistfuls of dark dark chocolate, and quoting bad TV shows.
Shireen Ahmed is a writer, public speaker and Sports Activist focusing on Muslim women in Sports. She is an athlete, advocate, community organizer, and works with Youth of Colour on empowerment projects and is an avid sports coach and mentor. She loves coffee, cats and football. Follow her on Twitter: @_shireenahmed_ Her website is www.shireenahmed.com
Sya (@syataha) accidentally migrated to the Netherlands from Singapore in 2010 after doing her MA in Development Studies. Historically Javanese and politically Malay, her interests include Quranic hermeneutics, gender, disability, and race in the Nusantara (Malay archipelago). From time to time she weighs the options of getting a cat or a constantly sneezing husband. She blogs at Musliminah in NL and tweets at @syataha.
Tasnim (@TasnimQ) is Associate Editor at MMW and currently a Phd student working on Anglo-Arab literature. She blogs about everything related to art, film and literature from or about the Arab world at Arab Hyphen.
Past Contributors:
A self-proclaimed master in the art of juggling, Afia is a mum, writer, editor and small business owner based in Jakarta, Indonesia. When she has the time, she tweets her random musings at @AfiaRF.
Alicia is a bibliophile and aspiring academic at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She is a Malaysian – born and bred – and loves everything about being one. Her writings on Malay literature and film, and sexuality and racism in the postcolonial context can be found at her blog, Cycads. She identifies as a Muslim-Marxist feminist but tries to be apolitical to stay out of trouble.
Born in Saudi Arabia and raised in Chicago, Amina Jabbar (@AminaJabbar) is a queer-identified, brown, Muslimah settled in Toronto. She has worked extensively in sexual health and anti-homophobia education. A newly-minted physician, Amina is starting her residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Toronto in July 2013. She is also a board member at the Toronto Unity Mosque, a gender-equal, LGBTQ-affirming prayer space. Amina loves searching for the intersections between activism and academia. In her downtime, you’ll likely find her basking in the sun, buried in a book, or unpacking an existential crisis.
Anike (@cosmicyoruba) is a Nigerian writer and blogger currently residing in London. She is passionate about history, sexuality and Islam as it concerns African women, and she blogs as eccentricyoruba.
Anneke is a mom of two girls, living the Domestic Dream in suburban Canada. With a graduate degree in International Development from The Netherlands and a history as a not-so-active women’s activist, she dreams of a career and travelling the world. Other than daydreaming and trying to refine her mothering skills, Anneke likes to spend her time hiking, reading and listening to what is generally referred to as “really bad music.”
Diana was born in Los Angeles, California. She graduated from the University of California Riverside with a BA in Political Science. During her undergraduate education, her studies focused on the political systems of Muslim societies and women’s issues in these societies. Her interests include gender and sexual politics in Muslim societies and the experiences of women within post-colonial societies of the Muslim world. After converting to Islam in early 2008, her desire to learn about the religion from a more traditional perspective grew. Since graduating college, she has been studying Arabic, hadith and fiqh, and Islamic law and methodology through an online Islamic Academy. She also enjoys reading, writing, and watching medical dramas.
Emaan Majed (@emaanmj) is a freelance writer, activist, and student currently living in Dallas, Texas. Her interests include Islam, feminism, American politics, being angry about heteronormativity, and reality show television. She was born in Lahore, Pakistan, and her extensive, sometimes incoherent feminism rants can be found here.
Ethar is a Saudi-born, Egyptian-raised, and Western-educated journalist. She has an undergraduate business degree and is currently pursuing two graduate degrees: one in business and one in television and digital journalism. Hopefully, she’ll be done before she’s old and grey. She likes traveling all over the world for conferences promoting dialogue between different religions and cultures, and enjoys being “the veiled rebel,” a title bestowed on her by a Danish politician. She is the author of 40 days and 40 nights in Yemen, a blog she wrote while in Yemen, which is set for publication by a London based publishing house. She watches Bollywood movies and bites her nails.
Faith began to write about Islam and gender while in college. She recently graduated with a BA in Religious Studies, during which she did independent research on gender norms among Muslim women converts. In the future, she hopes to further pursue these interests as a graduate student. In addition to writing for MMW, Faith also runs a personal blog. She hails from Philadelphia but now lives in Ohio with her husband and her cat. She enjoys reading, figure skating, Bollywood, good food and great music.
Fatemeh (@fatemehf) founded Muslimah Media Watch in 2007 and served as the Editor-in-Chief until 2011. She is an Iranian-American Muslim woman who has a weakness for sticking up for the little guy (or lady). She founded Muslimah Media Watch in 2007 and currently about Islam, feminism, race, and politics for several outlets. All of her writings can be found at her personal site.
Lara is a U.K resident currently engaged in the standard work/motherhood/spouse hat juggling. Less energetic interests include Islamic studies; politics (particularly Nothern Irish politics); feminism, race and class issues; good films; bad tv and blowing the perfect raspberry.
Malika is a U.S.-born-and-bred journalist based in the Gulf (Arabian or Persian, depending on who you ask) with a passion for using the written word to enthrall, entertain and enlighten. This passion for writing has spanned more than 10 years and has bloomed to include a love of all forms of media. She has been blessed, on occasion, to be able to blend her love of writing with her love of travel and has had the great pleasure of working for several major international news organizations in just about every medium there is – from radio, to magazines, to online. Malika spends her down time checking must-visit places off her endlessly growing list and – you guessed it – writing about the experiences.
Melinda is a college student in the United States. She enjoys reading, writing, and browsing the blogosphere. Her interests include analysis of gender, race, and religion, and she spends way too much time on the Internet.
Merium (@MeriumK) has a background in Development Studies and has had the opportunity to work with UNDP Bahrain in several capacities. She has recently returned to Pakistan after a long absence and is actively spending her time reading, writing and making sense of the place she still calls home.
Nicole Hunter Mostafa (@nicolejhm)
Princesse de Clèves is a journalist and freelance translator based in Paris, France. She graduated in political sciences and philosophy. After one year in London, where she studied international journalism, she is now a member of le Mouvement des Indigènes de la République – a social movement in the process of becoming a party – that challenges racism, islamophobia and colonial prejudices in Europe. She is also affiliated to the National Union of Journalists and a supporter of the Ghassan Kanafani Cultural Foundation. Her personal blog comes to terms with a double adherence, to the principles of Islam and to the living memory of social struggles – in the tradition of anarchism basically: “No gods, no masters… (but The God)”. Interests: social justice, feminism, gender issues, Islam, Palestine, postcolonial studies, theatre, poetry, pan-Arabism & islamism, philosophy, education, internationalism.
Ruqia Osman is originally from Somalia, but she was raised in Cairo, Egypt and the U.S. She is currently pursuing a BA in Journalism at the University of Houston. Once she graduates from UH, she hopes to go to UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. She enjoys reading random blogs and writing short stories.
Safiyyah (@SafiyyahSurtee) is a graduate of Arabic and Islamic Studies, currently completing her Masters. She is a student researcher at the Afro-Middle East Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa. She is a freelance journalist and community activist, concerned mainly with Muslim women’s issues. Safiyyah runs her own blogs at South African Muslimah; Lasting Echoes, Loud Whispers; and Today I Heard.
Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) is a white-washed Kashmiri looking for some culture, based in Canada with roots in the United States. She is currently a Masters student in Islamic Studies, writing a political history relating to the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon during the Oslo period. She hopes for her PhD to be a little bit more uplifting. In terms of writing, she knows no bounds – topical or ethical. She is interested in issues relating to western Muslim identity formation, shar’iah in the modern context, civilizational wardrobe wars, everything hip hop, skin-bleaching and state-citizen relations. When she’s not at MMW, she’s blogging at the ever-irreverent KABOBfest.com. She aspires to be paid one day for doing what she does.
Sara Yasin is the snarky alter-ego of a little known Imam who enjoys smooth R&B and gender equality. When Sara is not writing for MMW, she is most likely on Twitter, writing about her fellow passengers on the bus. You can follow her at @missyasin.
Sara Haji is Canadian-born and of East-African and Indian descent. She is an alumna of The University of Texas at Austin, where she studied women’s and gender studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and human rights. She writes about intersections of gender and sexuality, particularly as they are examined through the lens of Islam and the greater Arab world, and she is interested in cultural relativism and the social production of queer spaces. She loves Arabic, French, independent media, and food photography.
Sobia, born and raised in rural-ish Canada, is a PhD student in psychology. Her research interests include identity, acculturation, and psychological well-being of South Asians and Muslims raised in the West. She is looking forward to completing her PhD soon Insha’Allah! Her interest in issues pertaining to Muslims began a long time ago, though have recently become of importance to her. She is a little too political for her own good and can often be found changing her Facebook status to vent. In her spare time she enjoys listening to music (especially Bollywood), reading non-fiction, experimenting with new recipes, or sipping soy lattés in a local café.
wood turtle (@woodturtle_) also blogs at http://woodturtle.wordpress.com.
Yusra was born in Woodland, California and raised in Texas and Arizona. She graduated from the University of Arizona with degrees in Journalism and Near Eastern studies. She’s spent time in Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa and speaks Arabic and Spanish fluently. She currently lives in Washington, DC where she works as a congressional staffer in the U.S. House of Representatives. She serves on the DC board of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and is an active member of the Congressional Muslim Staffer’s Association. She often writes about Arabs and Islam, and is an opinion columnist for Scoop 44, an online news outlet covering the Obama administrtation. She enjoys performing spoken word poetry and maintains 7obsessions, her own blog of freestyle, spiritual poetry. She is a Zumba dance instructor and wants to be an actress one day.