Muslim Biography

By the time he was twelve, Taymullah Abdur-Rahman (born Tyrone Sutton) was a rising pop star, recruited as part of the RB group Perfect Gentlemen, with a top-ten hit, national teen magazine covers, and an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. However, after his music career peaked, Abdur-Rahman found himself back home, with little to show for his success. He quickly became a teen father struggling to survive in Roxbury, MA. Seeing Islam as a way out of his hard-scrabble environment, he happily converted.

When Huda meets Hadi, the boy she will ultimately marry, she is six years old. Both are the American-born children of Iraqi immigrants, who grew up on opposite ends of California. Hadi considers Huda his childhood sweetheart, the first and only girl he's ever loved, but Huda needs proof that she is more than just the girl Hadi's mother has chosen for her son. She wants what the American girls have - the entertainment culture's almost singular tale of chance meetings, defying the odds, and falling in love.

Though she'd loved, taught, and protected him when he was younger, Tony Weedor's Muslim mother, Manifah, disowned him after he abandoned his imam training to follow Jesus. Tony finished college and went to work for a missionary agency. After barely escaping civil war in his native Liberia, he spent three years in a refugee camp with his wife and daughter before being brought to America, where he graduated from seminary and began a career in international ministry. Now, Pastor Tony Weedor returns in the wake of 9/11 to a Liberia devastated by war hoping to reconcile with "Mama".

Find Another Dream, written and performed by Maysoon Zayid, is the true story of how a Muslim Jersey girl with cerebral palsy creates her own path to stardom. The daughter of Palestinian immigrants, as a child she dreamed of one day dancing on Broadway. As a teen, a bubble-bursting choreographer told her to “find another dream”, so she set her sights on becoming a soap star, undeterred by the fact that the odds were against her.

A “thought-provoking, myth-smashing” exploration of American identity and a passionate call for a more tolerant, interfaith America (Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State) There is no better time to stand up for your values than when they are under attack. Alarmist, hateful...

The inspiring and critically acclaimed all-American story of faith, family, hard work, and perseverance by Olympic fencer, activist, New York Times bestselling author, and Time "100 Most Influential People" honoree Ibtihaj Muhammad At the 2016 Olympic Games, Ibtihaj Muhammad smashed barriers as...

From the acclaimed writer, director, and star of the hit documentary The Muslims are Coming! comes a memoir in essays about growing up Iranian-American in a post-9/11 world and the power of comedy to combat racism. Negin Farsad is an Iranian-American-Muslim female stand-up comedian who believes...

Egyptian-born and London-raised, Alya Mooro grew up between two cultures and felt a pull from both. Where could she turn for advice and inspiration when it seemed there was nobody else like her? Today, Mooro is determined to explore and explode the myth that she must identify either as ‘Western’ or as one of almost 400 million other ‘Arabs’ across the Middle East.

Objective Troy tells the gripping and unsettling story of Anwar al-Awlaki, the once-celebrated American imam who called for moderation after 9/11, a man who ultimately directed his outsized talents to the mass murder of his fellow citizens. It follows Barack Obama’s campaign against the...

The just-discovered story of how two enigmatic circus performers and the cultural ferment of the Gilded Age sparked the Black Muslim movement in America Delving into new archives and uncovering fascinating biographical narratives, secret rituals, and hidden identities, historian Jacob Dorman...

Long ago, Muslim women rode into battle to defend their dreams. They opened doors to the world’s oldest library. They ruled, started movements, and spread knowledge. Today, Muslim women continue to make history. Once upon a time, they were children with dreams, just like you. Discover the true stories of 19 unstoppable Muslim women of the 21st century who have risen above challenges, doubts, and sometimes outright hostility to blaze trails in a wide range of fields.

Ray Norman spent most of his life living in far-flung corners of the globe, working on long-term development projects and living out his calling as a Christian professional. By the time he arrived in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania around the turn of the millennium, he was veteran of life as...

Al-Hasan al-Wazzan - born in Granada to a Muslim family that in 1492 went to Morocco - became famous as the great Renaissance writer Leo Africanus, author of the first geography of Africa to be published in Europe (in 1550). He had been captured by Christian pirates in the Mediterranean and imprisoned by the Pope; when he was released and baptized, he lived a European life of scholarship as the Christian writer Giovanni Leone....

Beginning with a sweetly funny, moving account of her arranged marriage, the author undercuts stereotypes and offers the refreshing view of an American life through Muslim eyes. In chapters leavened with humor, hope, and insight, she recounts an immigrant's daily struggles balancing assimilation with preserving heritage, overcoming religious barriers from within and distortions of Islam from without, and confronting issues of raising her children as Muslims - while they lobby for a Christmas tree!

Part memoir and part how-not-to guide, The Wrong End of the Table is everything you wanted to know about Arabs but were afraid to ask, with chapters such as “Tattoos and Other National Security Risks,” “You Can’t Blame Everything on Your Period; Sometimes You’re Going to Be a Crazy Bitch: and Other Advice from Mom,” and even an open letter to Trump. This is the story of every American outsider on a path to find themselves in a country of beautiful diversity.

When Jenny Jones and her three children move from their Washington home to that of Jenny's in-laws in the West Bank, the village of Safa seems like a haven. Sheltered from much of the area's troubles, Jenny considers the village to be the ideal place for her children to explore a part of their identity they deserved to know more about. In spite of its pastoral charm, Safa is far more complex than Jenny had imagined.

Explains the attraction of Muslims to their faith, and discusses the challenges contemporary Islam confronts, and how we might imagine an Islamic theology and identity ready to face tomorrow Islam is often associated with and limited to the worst of the world—extremism, obscurantism, misogyny...

Born in Britain, Saira Shah was inspired by her father's dazzling stories to rediscover the now lost life their forebears knew for 900 years within sight of orchards, snow-topped mountains, and the minarets of Kabul. This is Saira, part sophisticated and sensitive Western liberal, part fearless (even fierce) life-gulping Afghan, falling in love with her ancestral myth, chasing Afghanistan.

Blessed Ramon Llull’s ultimate act of final perseverance was not one single decision made by grace, but the culmination of a life spent adhering to the will of God. The Memoirs of Blessed Ramon Llull is a thrilling narrative, reading almost like an action novel. In this autobiographical work, he humbly details his triumphs as well as his own weaknesses and disappointments. Due to rivalries between Catholic leaders, Bl. Ramon’s missionary zeal faced indifference from within the Church as well as resistance from without.

This book is a way to open a window into the world of ex-Muslims that is still a mystery to most people living in Western countries. Due to this being an autobiography, it also has a lot of personal details that are not directly linked with religion. The progression to its goal is gradual, but like any journey, we find meaning in the details.