Me & My Muslim Friends: Recent Episodes
Yasmin Bendaas & North Carolina Public Radio
This podcast shares the nuanced experiences of my Muslim friends from the inside out. Ultimately, these are conversations on identity: who we are, in all of our diversity, while growing up against a media backdrop of everything we are not. Our goal is to give you thoughtful stories you can relate to, or maybe even something new to think about. And if you’re not Muslim, we made this podcast for you too. Whether or not you have a Muslim friend, you’ll find one here.
Our final episode of our Changemakers season is with Sarah Ahmed — a psychotherapist and CEO of Leena, a national mental health practice that addresses the unique needs of communities of color across Canada. She can be found sharing her expertise online @thepoctherapist through her popular accounts on Tiktok and Instagram.
Today, we’ll be talking to Sarah about why having access to therapists of color is so important, how her own background informs her approach and supports her clients, and the importance of community for healing trauma.
Joining me in the co-host seat is my childhood friend Samia Zitawi, who is Palestinian American.
This season we’re featuring Muslim Changemakers—people whose work has had an extraordinary impact in our community and beyond. And I’m so excited to share our conversation with outdoors enthusiast Ambreen Tariq. Her mission is to encourage Muslims and people of color to experience the natural world. She’s the creator of the wildly popular instagram account Brown People Camping and author of the children’s book Fatima’s Great Outdoors.
My co-host is Dr. Ali Jaffry—a Raleigh-based optometrist and someone who also happens to love travel and camping.
This season on Me & My Muslim Friends, we’re featuring conversations with Changemakers. And on this episode, we’re sitting down with Kashif Shaikh, philanthropist and co-founder of the Pillars Fund. We’ll talk about the characterizations of Muslims in TV + film after 9/11 and how Pillars is backing Muslim filmmakers and writers in an effort to change the narrative.
On this episode of Me & My Muslim Friends, we chat with Ronnie Malley, a Chicago-based musician and playwright whose work often focuses on the untold stories of Muslims. We’ll find out how he became a master of a traditional instrument called the oud, how Muslim slaves influenced the blues, and how his Palestinian heritage shapes nearly every part of his storytelling. We’ll also talk about his more recent work on the soundtrack of the Netflix series Mo, which features comedian Mo Amer.
My co-host is friend Aina Khan, who is a journalist with AJ+.
This season we’re featuring Muslim Changemakers—people whose work has had an extraordinary impact in our community and beyond—and I’m so excited to share our conversation with Melanie Elturk. Melanie is the CEO of Haute Hijab, which she founded in 2010.
We’ll talk about the inspiration behind her work, the joys and challenges of building a major business, and how Haute Hijab has transformed access to modest wear in the United States.
Joining me in the co-host chair for this episode is my childhood friend, Salma Ibrahim.
Today’s guest is someone I’ve been SO eager to have on the podcast. Her name is Sameera Qureshi, and she is a therapist and founder of Sexual Health for Muslims. Her approach to sex education, therapy, and health is grounded in the Islamic framework and the Islamic understanding of the soul.
Unfortunately, most Muslims don’t have access to a comprehensive sex education growing up. We’ll dive into the consequences of that, and we’ll talk about some of the most common issues Sameera hears in her counseling practice.
Join host Yasmin Bendaas and her friends as they chat with Muslim changemakers on the joys and challenges of making a difference in the Muslim community and beyond. From philanthropists to CEOs, our Season 4 guests have built their visions for change from the ground up. Listen to new episodes of Me & My Muslim Friends starting on May 1, 2024. Whether or not you have a Muslim friend, you'll find one here.
In the final episode of our Faith, Ritual and Spirituality season, we explore Islamic practices around death. Friend Tasbeeh Othman shares her experience helping with ritual washing of the body before burial and Dr. Hamdy Radwan joins us to explain Muslim funeral rites along with the age old question: What do we believe happens to us when we die?
In this episode we discuss the fifth and final pillar of Islam: Hajj. Friend Yosef Nofal joins to share his personal experiences of the holy pilgrimage and Dr. Youssef Carter, Professor of Religious Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, examines the spiritual meaning of going through Hajj rituals.
In this episode we discuss the third pillar of Islam: charity. Duke University professor Dr. Mona Hassan joins us to discuss the religious requirements and context behind Islamic giving while Ahmad Quqa of Edward Jones brings a financial advisor's perspective to making halal investments.
In this episode we discuss the second pillar of Islam: prayer. Friend of the podcast Yasmeen Kashef and Duke University professor Dr. Mona Hassan are our guests, as we explore required ritual prayers called salah and voluntary prayers called dua. We also share our personal struggles in establishing regular prayer and the meaning and purpose we’ve found in the ritual.
Duke University Muslim Chaplain Joshua Salaam and WUNC podcast producer Anisa Khalifa join us on this episode to discuss the first pillar of Islam, a declaration of faith called the Shahada. In addition to the Shahada, we dive into the foundational texts and scriptures that provide guidance for our practices and rituals.
Welcome to Season 3! On this episode, Duke University Muslim Chaplain Brother Joshua Salaam and former MLS and Palestinian national team soccer player Nazmi Albadawi join us to chat about Ramadan. We discuss the joys and challenges of fasting (especially as an athlete), exceptions for those who are unable to fast, and how we celebrate this month.
This season on Me & My Muslim Friends we explore faith, rituals, and spirituality. Through discussions of the 5 pillars of Islam and even death, host Yasmin Bendaas dives into the practices that make up our individual spiritual journeys and unite Muslims as a community. Whether or not you have a Muslim friend, you’ll find one here.
Last August, the US pulled out of Afghanistan, ending a 20-year war. The abrupt pullout triggered a refugee crisis, with more than 76,000 Afghan refugees arriving in the US afterward. In this episode, we speak to Mangal Mohmand (who arrived as a refugee from Afghanistan 8 years ago) to discuss his experience and the process of resettling his family in America. We also speak to Asma Khan, president of the Triangle Association of Muslim American Mothers (TAMAM), about the nonprofit’s charitable work which includes refugee resettlement.
Anisa Khalifa, a producer on the Me & My Muslim friends team at WUNC, also hosts her own podcast called Muslim in Plain Sight. The show focuses on coming of age post-9/11 and how our community became both “invisible and hypervisible.” In this bonus episode from Muslim in Plain Sight, Anisa and co-host Khadija Khalil talk to Joshua Salaam, Muslim Chaplain at Duke University, about being Muslim in the military, anti-Black racism in our communities, and Salaam’s musical and professional career post-9/11.
Palestinian-American guests Samia and Abdullah have navigated a politicized identity their whole lives. On this episode we discuss their eye-opening experiences visiting the Palestinian territories, how they’ve maintained their culture and identities growing up in the US, and their hopes for lasting peace.
Guests Nigel Edwards and Amath Diouf join us for reflection on the protests for Black lives in 2020 and how many Black Muslims were finally hearing Friday sermons challenging anti-Blackness. While Black Muslims make up at least 1 in 5 Muslims in America, we often don’t talk about the racism they face both outside and inside our community. In this episode, Nigel and Amath share experiences of what anti-Blackness looks and sounds like—even among fellow Muslims—and what they wish more non-Black Muslims understood.
We’re dropping back into Season 2, where we’re talking about how social justice intersects with our faith. Catch up on our already-released episodes, and join us as we don’t shy away from some harder social justice issues like racism faced by Black Muslims and the occupation of Palestine.
Guests Nida Allam and Lela Ali are two trailblazing Muslim women in politics. As Durham County Commissioner, Allam is the first Muslim woman elected to office in North Carolina, and she recently announced her bid for Congress (no big deal). Ali is Policy and Program Director at Muslim Women For, nurturing vibrant Muslim communities through grassroots organizing. In Part II, we discuss how their activism is influenced by their faith, the burden of representing the Muslim community, and what their message is for young Muslims who also want to step into politics.
Guests Nida Allam and Lela Ali are two trailblazing Muslim women in politics. As Durham County Commissioner, Allam is the first Muslim woman elected to office in North Carolina, and she recently announced her bid for Congress (no big deal). Ali is Policy and Program Director at Muslim Women For, nurturing vibrant Muslim communities through grassroots organizing. In Part I, we discuss their motivations for entering politics and the challenges they face, including Islamophobia. Listener’s note: This episode discusses the anti-Muslim hate crime that took the lives of 3 Muslim students in Chapel Hill in 2015.
Guests Abdullah Dorgham and Ahmed Amer share the same confusion when filling out their race on forms. According to the US Census categories, those of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent are considered white. But Abdullah and Ahmed, who are of Palestinian and Egyptian descent, say that racial category misses the mark on their identity.
Coming up in Season 2, we’ll be talking about how social justice intersects with our faith. And with a community as diverse as ours, there is no shortage of causes to get behind. Join us as we discuss race and racism, pioneering Muslim women in politics, and our hopes for social justice here and abroad.
In this excerpt from Season 1, guests Eiman Ali and Nigel Edwards discuss the Black Muslim experience, including topics like their experiences of racism within the Muslim community, navigating their layered identities, and the challenges of an interracial marriage.
In this excerpt from Season 1, guests Farris Barakat and Belal Ali discuss the emotional and personal consequences of wars in Syria and Iraq, their parents’ home countries.
Guests Kathia Guerrero and Shirley Puente are Mexican and Peruvian converts to Islam. In this excerpt from Season 1, we discuss what drew them to the faith, how they maintain their Latina identity with their Muslim identity, and how they discovered a bigger Latinx convert community than they expected.
The recent and devastating attack in Afghanistan by the so-called “Islamic State” killed up to 170 people at the Kabul airport—demonstrating that the battle against branches of the extremist group isn’t over, while both Muslims and non-Muslims remain in their line of fire. In this excerpt from Season 1, Imam Mohamed AbuTaleb of the Islamic Association of Raleigh walks us through Islamic texts as we refute ISIS’s claim to Islamic teachings. Please note: This episode discusses topics like suicide and sexual violence.
My friends Lynn Zitawi and Sarah Derris were just toddlers when 9/11 happened. We talk about how they learned about 9/11 and navigated the realities of growing up Muslim in a post-9/11 world—including facing bullying at school, 9/11 “guilt” and the aftermath of the War on Terror.
Three friends join me on our last episode for Season 1: Nida Allam, Mohammad Alsalti, & Abdullah Dorgham. But this date is really where the conversation on Muslim American identity started for us — 9/11, when we were sitting in our elementary school classrooms — and both our worlds and the world forever changed.
My friend Abdullah Dorgham joins as co-host as we use the account of Nobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Murad, who was captured by ISIS, to examine the group’s violent tactics. & With the help of Imam Mohamed AbuTaleb of the Islamic Association of Raleigh, we look at Islamic texts to refute ISIS’s claim to Islamic teachings. Please note: This episode discusses topics like suicide and sexual violence.
Guests Farris Barakat and Belal Ali discuss the emotional and personal consequences of wars in Syria and Iraq, their parents’ home countries.
Guests Kathia Guerrero and Shirley Puente are Mexican and Peruvian converts to Islam. We talk about the Latina convert experience as a whole, including what brought them to Islam, how their family took their decision, choosing hijab, and finding community.
On this episode of Me & My Muslim Friends, guests Eiman Ali and Nigel Edwards discuss the black Muslim experience, including their experiences of racism within the Muslim community. Whether it’s going from a black woman to a black woman with hijab, or the challenges of an interracial marriage, we take it on in this conversation.
Get a taste of what we talk about on this season of Me and My Muslim Friends, from the experiences of Latina converts to dealing with wars in our parents’ home countries. Grab some tea and listen in. Our stories might be yours too.