Yasmine Mohammed Podcast

Iffath is a former member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, a messianic sect of Islam considered heretical by most mainstream Muslims. Growing up in the USA in the state of Tennessee, she struggled with the multitude of restrictions placed on her, especially since she was female. The inner conflict she experienced led to decades of depression and self-loathing. A series of events beginning with t...

Xehra is a professional fire performer, artist and activist who started her journey of independence by faking a marriage to return home to America after her family forcibly moved her to the Middle East. She now strives to inspire women to deprogram the oppression of shame culture through free movement, embracing their sexuality, and dancing with the fire that she was told to fear.

Sarah Edmondson has been a working actor for 25+ years, but she is most well-known for her real-life role in the downfall of the notorious NXIVM cult. In 2019, Sarah published Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life, an acclaimed memoir chronicling her harrowing experience. Her story as a whistleblower has also been featured in the CBC podcast “Uncover: Escaping...

Elise Evans is a Women’s Rights Activist. She has been called the Katniss Everdeen of Saudi Arabia. Her passion and work highlight the draconian laws which keep women in a system that declares them minors until they die. Raised by a Saudi stepdad as a Saudi included molestation, prolonged confinement, physical & mental abuse, and more. She was subjected to the Male Guardianship Law, which stri...

Sara was born in a (mostly) secular family in an extremely religious country. She left Iran when realized she would never see her 30th birthday if she stayed any longer. Since last September, and the start of the revolution in Iran, she has started talking to her therapist more about her experiences in Iran, which led her therapist to diagnose Sara with PTSD, severe anxiety, minor depression and p...

Collin May has a Master of Theological Studies degree from Harvard, a political philosophy degree from the Ecole des hautes etudes en sciences sociales in Paris, and a law degree from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada. While at Harvard, he studied the falisifa with the world’s foremost expert on medieval Islamic philosophy, Dr. Muhsin Mahdi. On May 25, 2022, the Alberta government appointed...

Jasmine grew up following the Jain religion in India. The religion has a very small following of 6 million worldwide and comprises little more than .5% of the population in India. She had questions about Jainism from a very young age. She was different from others - she noticed that early on: where others accepted the beliefs and status quo, she wanted to know why. Her curious mind always had ques...

Lois grew up in a Nazarene family in Kansas City, Missouri, going to four church services each Sunday and one on Wednesday. By the time she was 17 at a Nazarene College, she was going to chapel every day. But despite all this constant connection with her faith, she still had doubts. She had doubts ever since she was a young child. She still had doubts even while she was a professor at a Christian...

Elnaz is an Iranian American women’s rights activist born and raised in Iran where she graduated as an engineer and was a business owner. She moved to the US in 2008 and worked in Tech companies including Google for more than a decade. After a decade in America, she decided to become vocal about the treatment of women by the Islamic Republic of Iran: she produced a weekly podcast with Women for Su...

For this very special episode of Forgotten Feminists, I will be speaking with a woman who certainly is not, and never can be, forgotten: Asra Nomani. Asra is a journalist, author, activist and one of my personal heroines and mentors. Asra is a woman of tiny stature who takes on the most goliath of fights against Islamic extremism and secular extremism as manifested today in what is referred to as...

Anne was raised by a Palestinian father and American convert mother. However, unlike most American girls, she was homeschooled and forced into hijab. Her suffocating home life pushed her to attempt suicide at 17. When she was hospitalized, it was the first time in her life that she’d spent the night free from the grip of her family. “I came away from that experience with a single conclusion: I was...

When Deb was 19, she escaped the cult her mother had joined when she was 11. After eight years trapped in a cult, she was alone. She had zero life skills, no money, and no place to live. She was terrified, but she was free. She knew she would make it; she just didn’t know how! Eventually she married a Muslim man and had a son. Her son is a conservative Muslim living in the UAE where his wife and d...

Dorothea grew up in the UK to a Pakistani family. Her independent spirit and determination was always a hinderance to her family and community around her. But yet, she persisted. Today Dorothea is able to let her authentic self shine in her life without restrictions.  She uses her negative past experiences to inform her important work as as a healthy relationship and harmful traditional practices...

Nada, author of Gaslight Avenue: Based on a True Hummus Story, upset the town when she swam against the tide. Now this Palestinian-born Canadian writer and womanist is addicted to helping other women reckon with the same patriarchal world she escaped from to live their best lives with full bodily autonomy, free of religious toxicity, misogyny, and conformity.

Lina grew up a minority Christian in Cairo, Egypt. Frustrated with the sexist society around her, she moved to Canada in her 20s. Here she discovered that, in the name of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, people in the West fail to realize that within every cultural community, there are some unique minds and souls that think differently, and they deserve an equal opportunity to be heard and to exp...

Ellaf came to America as a refugee from Iraq when she was just a baby. When she was 14 years old, she was sent back to Iraq to get married. After years of sexual, mental, and physical abuse, she found the courage to escape. Join me as we listen to Ellaf tell her story of not only surviving a child marriage but of thriving as a graduate student, an entrepreneur and the proud mother of three childre...

Jaleh is the author of 'Public Secrets of Islam'. She was born in Iran under this current Islamic regime. She has always been a fierce supporter of women and against the brutality of political Islam. Her public criticisms have meant that she can no longer return to her homeland. In 2015 she survived an attack by an ISIS supporter at a free speech event that she had organized. Jaleh will...

In some ways Anya and I are total opposites and in other ways, we lived parallel lives. While I was tyrannized by a far right ideology, her experience was that of tyranny from the far left. Anya is from the Soviet Union. As everybody else there, she was heavily brainwashed into the communist ideology. While she didn't have to wear a hijab, there was plenty she was forced to do, think, and say...

Hanna was born and raised in America with two Moroccan immigrants as parents. Her morals developed through immersion in a society that treasures individual liberties and the simultaneous exposure to the pitfalls of collectivistic culture within Islamic societies. Today, as a gay ex-Muslim, Hanna is an adamant defender of human rights and, more specifically, freedom of speech. As a Critical Thinkin...

Leorah is native Sudanese but was born and raised in Saudi Arabia where, along with her brother, started to learn Quran and Islamic Studies as soon as she could speak.  From there, their lives took very different paths- After enduring many years of abuse, as well as being buried under a niqab and being subjugated under Islamic laws, Leorah is now married to the man of her dreams. She is married to...

Samira is half Arab, half Danish, however growing up the cultural and religious values of her father were way stronger thank her Danish side. When she became a teenager, the conflict between her two cultures caused a lot of turmoil and confusion for many years. She eventually felt the only way to free herself from the dichotomy was to leave Islam. But the break was a painful one. Her family disown...

Iman escaped Saudi Arabia where she was treated like property in 2003. She graduated medical school and escaped to Canada where she now is witnessing the erosion of freedoms and is sounding the alarm through her podcast "One Godless Woman". For her unapologetic and fierce activism, she being sued by a Muslim Brotherhood entity in Canada. Iman will tell us all about her journey from muzzl...

Aisha is my first cousin 🤍 Her dad was my favorite uncle. Aisha grew up in New Jersey with her mother and sister when her parents divorced. In college she met a man and fell in love, the only problem was- he was Jewish. Her mother disowned her when she decided to marry him. To protect her younger sister from being "tainted" by Aisha's influence, she took her and left for Egypt with...

Rabyaah grew up in Yemen before coming to the US at the age of six. She is the founder of Arab Women’s Voice and she co-founded the Yemeni American Coalition for Change to support grassroots movements in the Middle East during the Arab Spring. Rabyaah was also chosen as a national Bernie surrogate in the 2020 Presidential race. Rabyaah began to question the extremists in her community and the Isla...

Elizabeth was born in the UK to a British-Italian family and grew up as a (semi/non-practicing) Christian. Following her own spiritual journey alongside a cultural exploration of Arabic language and culture, she later converted to Islam in her early 20s. Having since left Orthodox Islam, she is an advocate for liberalism in Islam. An award-winning activist, passionate about protecting human rights...