Tuesday, March 24, was the second celebration of International Muslim Women’s Day. This holiday was created by Amani Al-Khatahtbeh last year, as she felt that women needed more representation and a platform for their voices to be heard. At 17 years old, Al-Khatahtbeh created a blog called MuslimGirl.com for women of the faith to talk with each other and tell their stories. What started as a small personal blog has grown to have thousands of followers – the website reached over a million visits last year.
CNN interviewed the creator of the website to see what she had to say about the importance of a platform for young Muslim women. She explained how having a site like this is especially essential in today’s political environment, where Islam is misrepresented. She said, “One thing I’m really proud of with MuslimGirl is that we have never attempted to cater to any specific outside audience…And in a very beautiful way, naturally, half of our audience became non-Muslim — people outside of our religious background that started to come to Muslim Girl as a resource.”
For Muslim Women’s Day this year, the theme was ‘Muslim women talk back to violence.’ The hashtag #MuslimWomen’sDay and #InternationalWomen’sDay were trending on Twitter. In honor of the day, people shared social media posts from Muslim women and posted messages to support those in their lives that celebrated the holiday.
Muslim women from the University of Massachusetts shared their thoughts on the importance of Muslim women’s voices being shared with the world. Muneera Issa, a Muslim woman who attends UMass Amherst said, “ When I was growing uo, there wasn’t much representation of other Muslim women in the media, so this being a day where Muslim women are celebrated shows that other young Muslim women have people to look up to. When they are given a day to voice their own personal struggles, it’s important for people to know they’re not alone.”
The fact that this day is receiving more attention this year is crucial in shifting people’s minds on the topic of Islam, and in understanding the women’s voices who often don’t get to be expressed. It is especially important that the voices of not only Muslim women in the U.S. share their voice, however Muslim women from all over the globe who have different experiences.
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