Desi Making Waves

By Elaine G. Flores

Ausma Khan Offers Girls Something New with Muslim Girl Magazine

Girls and young women looking to curl up with a magazine have plenty of choices if they don't mind reading about boozed-up, felonious and unmentionable-doffing starlets. But mags focused on girls they can relate to are rare—rarer still if the readers are Muslim. That's where Ausma Khan steps in with Muslim Girl Magazine (MGM). The idea came about when, "The publisher attended the Islamic Society of North America Convention. There were a lot of young women talking about growing up in America and they saw the marginalization and isolation....They really get neglected."

Khan was hired as editor-in-chief in August 2006 to help launch the bimonthly publication from the Toronto-based execuGo Media. The first issue, which targets the 15 to 25-year-old demographic, debuted January 2007. Circulation is now 25,000 readers and the editor notes, "We're hoping to get up to 100,000."

Khan's route to the media world was somewhat circuitous: "I'm a lawyer by training. I was teaching human rights law at various universities in Canada and Northwestern most recently," she says. Though she doesn't have a background in journalism, she is a writer whose short fiction has been published in Her Mother's Ashes, an anthology of female South Asian writers. And Khan, who grew up in Prince Albert, Canada before moving with her family to Toronto, understands the market MGM targets. "My siblings and I were the only non-white people in our school. I personally didn't have any difficulties," she notes, adding, "You get absorbed by the dominant culture when there is nothing else."

Khan says, "One of things we aim for is inclusion."

Perhaps this is why one of the main aims of Muslim Girl Magazine is to promote inclusion. At first glance, it's clear that the magazine reaches that goal with strikingly diverse cover images, which include different ethnicities. Khan reports, "We do have a policy that cover girls are from very different backgrounds and some wear head scarves, others don't wear head scarves. We're reaching out to various groups."

Another goal is to make sure that this reach keeps expanding. "One story we want [to] do that we haven't done yet is a major feature on [a] girl of Turkish descent. We have a number of shorter profiles. In the December issue, we're doing a feature called, "Girls Around the World", and we've got about three or four Turkish girls who have written in, but those are quite small profiles. We haven't done a major feature on a Turkish girl, but we do have plans for that in 2008."

Some of the subject matter is what you'd find in most youth-oriented magazines, such as this summer's obsessions, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and High School Musical 2, as well as the requisite beauty stories. "We don't frown on hair stories, but we want to focus on real girls and their accomplishments," says Khan.

What you won't find are fleshy fashion spreads of girls with eye-popping cleavage. Khan adds, "We address any topic from a point of the Islamic values we live. We wouldn't want to promote the over-sexualization of girls." While the fashion stories are popular, she points out: "It's the kind of fashion that we do. We don't want very scantily-clad girls."

Another distinction is an emphasis on human interest stories. "I'm always glad when we do stories that connect girls to other girls. I think it's hard for a person of faith to fit into an area that's secular," says Khan. "We want to show girls who make a difference and are part of the fabric of American life."

There is much more to come. "We have plans at some time in the future to expand to international editions, but we don't know ourselves if that will just be the American version just marketed internationally, or local editions. We are soon going to have our entire magazine available online for a fee, so in a sense that will be international because I'm sure a lot of people from overseas will subscribe to that."

Girls can also expect a MySpace alternative. "We are having a new digital presence go live October 1 [2007], and that's going to involve multimedia. It's essentially a place where we offer content from the magazine, but we also offer an opportunity to our readers to create their own space to interact with other Muslim girls."

For more information, check out www.muslimgirlmagazine.com.

Elaine G. Flores is a feature writer for Soap Opera Digest, columnist for the St. Louis American and freelance writer. She is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and lives in New York.

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