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I received an email inquiry from a reader and fellow author about how to best to go about incorporating Muslim characters into a fantasy world (specifically, Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V), and the sender gave me permission to post his message and my response to it, since I thought it would be a neat discussion to share. Found your online essay about Samirah al-Abbas--it was very incisive and I am grateful for having found it, especially since you're another Muslim Canadian who's a bit into the deep end of nerdiness. It gets a bit lonely when my sister is the only other Muslim I know who orbits any of the same interests as me.
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If you followed me on tumblr (back when I had a tumblr), you might remember that several months ago, I said I was writing an article in response to something I'd come across, and also promised to share it when it went live. I very much meant to do so much sooner, only the first version of this article was not very good and I needed time away from it to be able to rework it. The finished product, I am proud to say, is loads better and I am really pleased with it! I have currently hosted it on Medium, because I'm still without a job (thanks, pandemic) and Medium allows me to get paid per reader. Which means I would really appreciate it if you could check it out and give my article a read, and also share it around! Happy reading and writing!  Samirah al-Abbas: When No Representation is Better than Bad Representation❝ If someone were to ask me what I identify as, I would answer Muslim, Canadian, and giant nerd, in that order. I might tack bookworm onto it too. Ask anyone who knows me, they’ll tell you I can be found doing one of three things: reading, writing, or interacting with online creative spaces. While I have rarely been unwelcome in those spaces, those spaces have very rarely been inclusive for me or my beliefs as a Western Muslim, largely because Western Muslims simply aren’t represented very well (or at all) in Western media. ❞
 Photo by Mari Potter on Unsplash You may or may not know that I'm writing a Muslim-themed fantasy epic temporarily titled The Chronicles of Mourra (or CofM for short). I've been working on it off-and-on for about a decade now, which means I've been doing research for it for the same amount of time. I'm quite blessed in that I grew up surrounded by easy access to an excellent Islamic education (any and all ignorance is a reflection of me entirely lol). My parents especially instilled in me a love of my history, traditions, and religion. Both my parents are educators and storytellers, in different ways, so that I haven't really needed 'outside' research to create the world of CofM (as it stands now). I base a lot of it on my lived experience! Still, when someone on Facebook asked me if I was able to do my research easily, and lamented struggling to find resources on notable women in Islam, especially in positions of power and leadership, I went on a researching binge and compiled a very non-exhaustive list of resources on magnificent Muslim women. This is more a jumping off point so you can have a direction when researching online (there's a lot of books out there too!) I focused mostly on medieval women, as there's a wealth of easily accessible information out there on all the incredible female companions and contemporaries from the Prophet's (ﷺ) time. (Although, if y'all want a list of them, do let me know and I'll make a part 2 to this!) 1) Via Ballandalus, a truly excellent online resource on Islamic history:
2) Extraordinary Women from the Golden Age of Muslim Civilisation via 1001inventions 3) Women’s Contribution to Classical Islamic Civilisation: Science, Medicine and Politics via MuslimHeritage All these links include references that should lead you to more information! I did my best to make sure they're all credible too. Some standout favourite women I want to learn more about include:
Do you know of notable Muslim women of history that are absent from this list? I would particularly like to find more women from outside the Arab world! Comment below and let me know! Until next time, happy reading!
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