The Halal Metropolis Podcast

​​Hanan Ali Yahya is a first-generation Yemeni-American raised in Detroit. With over 10 years of community advocacy and leadership experience, her work focuses on developing neighborhoods and cities, with a focus on access, equity, and sustainability. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 2017 where she studied Urban Studies and Entrepreneurship. She is currently Project Manager of the...

Aya is a Lebanese designer, printmaker, cinephile, and coffee junkie currently based in Metro Detroit. She graduated from the American University of Beirut with a BFA in Graphic Design. After moving to the US, she worked at the Arab American National Museum for nearly 7 years before leaving recently to pursue a freelance career. She has a deep interest in art and craft traditions and their preserv...

Nihad Dukhun, artist, master calligrapher and a professor of mechanical engineering. A native of Gaza, Palestine, his interest in custom Arabic calligraphy began when he was in the 6th grade. His work has been exhibited in major U.S. cities and sold in the U.S, Europe, the Middle East as well as Japan. Dukhun holds a PhD in mechanical engineering and is currently a professor at the University of D...

Mike Mosallam is a producer, director, writer for theatre, film and television.  Through his production company, Mike Mosallam Productions, he and his team produced short films: Breaking Fast and Brothers, both written and directed by Mike, along with the short film "Ubuntu," a co-production with the Muslim Public Affairs Council. His feature film debut, Breaking Fast is now available on...

Kamelya Youssef is a poet, educator and literary worker. She's the author of "A Book With a Hole In It" (2022, Wendy's Subway), she's also the co-writer of the play "Kilo Batra: In Death More Radiant" (2021, A Host of People). Her poems and lyric essays have been published by Mizna, The Academy of American Poets, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poet Love and elsewhere. She currently teaches poetry at T...

Salwa Mawari is an Arab American mother, educator, and author. Her book, "Under the Sana’a Skyline," debuted in March 2022. Through her work, she aims to write diverse literature that fairly and accurately represents students of Arab and Muslim backgrounds. Under the Sana’a Skyline is her first book. She is currently working on her second book which will be published in 2023.

Adnan Charara is a Lebanese-American artist who has lived and worked in the U.S. since 1982. With an unquenchable thirst to create since he was a child, he drew, painted, sculpted and assembled his way from Seattle to Boston to Detroit, where he currently makes his artistic home. Adnan works in multiple mediums with several ideas at a time, treating his studio practice like a detail-oriented facto...

Alise Alousi is a poet whose work has appeared in several journals and anthologies, including most recently in the Detroit Free Press and R&R Press. She's a recipient of fellowships to the Fine Arts Work Center, Soul Mountain and Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing as well as a 2019 Kresge Literary Arts Fellowship and a 2015 Knight Arts Challenge Detroit award. Her poetry is forthc...

Bayan Founas was born in Hamtramck, Michigan, raised in metro Detroit and educated at the University of Michigan. She is a poet, educator, youth mentor and activist. She's passionate about making educational reforms in communities of color and in that effort she created a creative writing and arts program called Writing for Freedom in 2016 for youth of color to creatively and collectively heal. Sh...

LuFuki and Tazeen Ayub are cofounders of the Afro-spirit jazz ensemble LuFuki and Divine Providence, who use creative, improvised music to unite and heal hearts. They are also co-directors of the Detroit chapter of GAMA (Gathering All Muslim Artists) and are also cofounders of the Sanctuary of Sound, a venue which hosts spiritual music and meditation sessions. Tazeen is also a full-time instructor...

Ajmal Zaheer Ahmad is a motion picture and commercial director. He was born in Southfield, Michigan, and grew up in West Bloomfield. Through his films, he's also committed to raising the visibility of American Muslims. Ahmad has recently written, directed and produced a pilot for a really cool project called "Crestar and the Knight Stallion," which is the first story about a Middle Eastern-South A...

Hayan Charara is a poet, a children's book author, an essayist and an editor.  He is the son of Lebanese immigrants. He grew up in Detroit, Michigan. He earned a B.A. in English from Wayne State University, a Master's in Humanities from New York University, and a Ph. D. in literature and creating writing from the University of Houston, which is where he teaches now in both subjects.   Hi...

Mark Crain is the executive director of Dream of Detroit, an initiative to combine community organizing with housing and land development to revitalize a neighborhood and build a thriving, healthy community on the west side of Detroit. Dream organizes local residents as well as folks from throughout the metro area Muslim community in the fight to achieve racial and economic justice in Detroit’s ne...

Hajjar Baban is a Pakistan-born Afghan Kurdish Poet. A 2021 PD Soros Fellow and current MFA in Poetry candidate at the University of Virginia, she has poems appearing in Mizna, BAHR Magazine and the Southeast Review. You can read her work here: hajjarbaban.com

Amna Ashgar's works look to the American experience for a multitude of cultural motifs. From her family's Pakistani popular cultural ephemera to Disney movies to Jean-Léon Gérôme's Orientalist paintings, from Hudson River School works to currents of contemporary political thought, Ashgar draws from her own life in the Detroit area where she grew up and now resides, making sophisticated works that...

Endi Poskovic is a visual artist and printmaker. Born and raised in Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina, Endi was educated in Yugoslavia, Norway and the United States. His works have been exhibited worldwide, in numerous international exhibitions. He's received awards and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the U.S. Fulbright Commission, the John D. Rockefeller Foundation and many others. Endi was als...

Abdallah Jasim, also known on social media and by his stage name as Abid Jay. Abdallah is a comedian who born in Tucson, Arizona, and was raised in the Warrendale neighborhood of Detroit. Abdallah studied chemical engineering at the University of Cincinatti. He has performed at comedy shows across the country. Through his comedy has woven together hilarious stories from his experiences as a Muslim...

Nargis Hakim Rahman is an award-winning Bangladeshi American, Muslim writer, who currently is a reporter at WDET 101.9 FM. Rahman graduated from Wayne State University, where she was part of the Journalism Institute of Media Diversity. Passionate about community journalism in the greater Detroit area, her work focuses on giving American Muslims and other minorities a voice in the press. Her work h...