January 8, 2021

Salar Salim: Loving in the Presence of Struggle My childhood was shaped by conflict. Although I was born in Mosul, the birthplace of civilization, war was a reality I had to endure. At an early age, my family fought desperately to give me some semblance of a childhood. I built forts out of dirt and […]

Anjiya Karim: Despondency Is Not An Option I, Anjiya Karim, a Pakistani American Muslim, want to share my journey of struggle in which I found my inner strength and true identity. Life for me has been like a roller coaster ride with many twists and turns. My life took similar turns after my father’s sudden

Reaz Khan: The Nature of My Deen One hundred years ago – my ancestors sailed to the New World from very different corners of an undivided South Asian subcontinent. They landed in the Caribbean, worked on sugarcane plantations and eventually opened businesses for economic mobility. Their language was deemed as unimportant by their colonizers and

Asad Mirza: Discipline Through Sorrow There have been several challenges and hardships throughout my High School that have shaped me into the person I am. Some comprise of heartbreak, some involve failure, and one particular hardship even includes my older sibling’s death. One thing, however, has remained constant. I have always pushed through and come

Clinton Karim: Success Through Trauma Having been raised by a conservative Christian woman of Ecuador and a misguided, traditional man of the Ismaili religion, my personal life exists as a thin sheet of ice – ready to crack and shatter at the slightest sloppy touch. I was raised by my late half-brother, a man of