“Our voices, on our terms”

- written by Laura

Back in 2016, science graduate Nafisa Bakkar and her sister Selina, a mum of one (now two), set up, in their words, a ‘ridiculously simple site’ to help Muslim women find stylish but modest clothing. Fashion wasn’t either of their passions, but they knew it was an important aspect of identity for many Muslim women, and that it wasn’t being catered for by mainstream fashion magazines. But then when David Cameron demonstrated in the most outrageous way just how little the governing elite understood what being female and following Islam meant in modern Britain (more on that below), Nafisa and Selina knew they had to take a stand, and they refocused their approach.

The result is Amaliah, a witty, intelligent and stylish platform that showcases and celebrates the hugely diverse experiences of being a Muslim woman today. Yes, you’ll still find super-chic articles on fashion (putting together an on-fleek capsule wardrobe for Ramadan for example), but you’ll also find an astute dissection of Childish Gambino’s This is America video, news pieces about the mosques accepting bitcoin for Zakat, campaigning for the Grenfell survivors, hip travel guides and hilarious recollections of awkward dates. It’s broad and multifaceted – a true portrait of the wide-reaching interests of its ever-growing audience.

After spending several hours poring over Amaliah’s refreshing takes, we were in awe of the ambition and approach of its founders Nafisa and Selina. We were keen to know how they grew the platform from a kitchen table operation to an international publication in such a short space of time and happily for us Nafisa was also up for a chat. Here she is on Amaliah’s early days, its expansion and the importance of self-determination.

We hear we have David Cameron to thank for the birth of Amaliah! Tell us about that tweet and how it drove you to start the platform…

When we started out, we existed as a fashion curation platform. We weren’t passionate about fashion but we realised it played a huge role in the identity of many Muslim women. A few months into our journey David Cameron, who was the UK Prime Minister at the time, said something along the lines of, ‘Young Muslim men are vulnerable to radicalisation because of the traditional submissiveness of Muslim women’. Twitter went crazy and Muslim women started #traditionallySubmissive, a hashtag to celebrate the many achievements of Muslim women. We found ourselves in a dilemma, we were itching to speak out. We had to speak out, but as a fashion company, it didn’t quite fit. This forced us to question what Amaliah was and what it would become. Over time we were overwhelmed with Muslim women wanting to share their own stories and experiences through Amaliah, we soon realised it was time to relaunch the platform to expand what we were doing. And so Amaliah in its current form was born, a place for Muslim women to exist on their terms, share their stories, experiences and truths.

We also then launched our agency arm, insights.amaliah.com, shortly after because we realised Amaliah in itself was not going to touch every single Muslim woman out there. Advertising and Brands have a huge effect on society and culture, we wanted to be able to have an influence on how these touchpoints are created, to ensure that they are inclusive and representative of Muslim women. There feels like there has been this huge ‘diversity frenzy’ with campaigns just popping a Muslim woman in a headscarf in a campaign; we want to go deeper than that. We’ve worked with companies like Pinterest, eBay, WGSN and Stylist.

You’re a science grad, Selina’s a mum, how have the different experiences that you and Selina have faced as Muslim women shaped the site’s content?

This is a really interesting question because I often feel like we have been asked to speak on behalf of Muslim women because of the work that we do. However, we have had to be very mindful of the fact that our experiences and thoughts are not representative of a whole community. What I really want to get across on Amaliah is the diversity of thought and experiences that exist. Often there are pieces that I don’t necessarily agree with or resonate with but it is important to respect that the platform is not an extension of myself and Selina. Our content is very much informed by our community and the conversations we have. We have over 150 contributors who tell us what they want to write about. Sometimes it is just seeing one tweet or Instagram caption and we think that there’s something there and that we should have a conversation about that. For us, it is important that we are constantly trying to seek our more voices and experiences that we don’t necessarily resonate with. If Amaliah has taught me anything it is that the experiences within Muslim communities are incredibly diverse and something that should be respected.

What are the stories or issues that Amaliah has helped raise that make you the most proud?

It is incredibly humbling to hear the small individual stories of our community. When we launched our podcast, which spoke about the struggles of starting Amaliah, someone DM-d us and said thank you for following your dreams so that I can fulfil mine by writing for Amaliah and sharing my voice. In another message, someone said that because of Amaliah they now felt more confident in their identity and the way that manifested for them was that they used to feel quite anxious about asking for a prayer space at the conferences they went to and now they felt really confident about being able to ask for space. A couple of weeks ago, we got a message from a woman who has been following Amaliah for the last two years. She said she had been able to learn more about Islam through our work and this Ramadan will be doing her first fast. Seeing thousands of people interacting with our content every day is great, but nothing beats individual stories like this.

Where would you like the site to be in five year’s time?

We have over 150 contributors to amaliah.com and we also just launched our agency arm. We’ve had contributors from South Africa, America, Australia and visitors from all over the world. We’ve been incredibly humbled by the fact that people have chosen to share their voice on our platform. I remember when we started out we would be like, ‘There’s two people on the site yay’ and one of them would be us! And now we have thousands of people visiting us. What’s been interesting is that our content has resonated with Muslim men as well as people that aren’t Muslim. We hope that our work will continue to spread and it’s incidental that it happens to be written by an incredible Muslim woman. In five years time, I would like us to have really been able to mobilise Muslim communities into action. I would like the platform to mobilise and push for action. In five years I want to see Amaliah grow into a media company that challenges the narrative surrounding Muslims and offers an alternative. In other words world domination.