SACRED X DESIGN
As a practicing Muslim, the most natural extension of my work on sacredness and design involves my own Muslim community. The projects listed below employ design and innovative thinking in order to address a range of needs particular to American Muslims, such as building institutions; facilitating discussions on critical topics; and organizing gatherings that foster community and enrich souls, hearts, and minds.
For more information on these initiatives, or for opportunities to collaborate on similar projects, please feel free to contact me.
Islamic Center of Pittsburgh
As the Operations Manager from 2013-2015, I wore many hats, the most significant of which was helping to overhaul the entire operations from top to bottom, including branding, financial processes, and institutional policies. More details on the branding process can be viewed here.
Masjid Anisa
Masjid Anisa is a new local mosque still in its building phase. As such, the leadership recruited a small team of volunteers to develop an innovative, forward-thinking fundraising strategy. I acted as a design strategist, systematically rebranding the entire organization, including logo and web design, and helped write content for the website, social media accounts, and promotional materials.
Pittsburgh Professional Muslim Network(PPMN) Meet & Greet
Due to its high number of universities, recent tech boom, and affordability, Pittsburgh attracts brilliant students and highly accomplished Muslim professionals. However, in recent years, there were never any opportunities for those professionals to meet, network, and collaborate. With this in mind, I initiated and helped organize one of the biggest professional networking events for Muslims in the city. I designed all promotional materials for the event, including the website. I also developed and led a mini-hackathon at the event, where attendees worked in small groups to design a “third space.”
Youth Expo
The first-ever of its kind in Pittsburgh, the Youth Expo was a day-long festival of workshops, discussions, and lectures exclusively geared towards addressing key issues facing Muslim youth of all ages, such as bullying and Islamophobia, gender and sexuality, and substance abuse. The highlight of the event was the “Taboo Topics” segment, a forum where attendees could submit questions anonymously to a panel of trusted community leaders.
Zoom Discussions
Like many others struggling to navigate Covid-era isolation, I took advantage of Zoom to connect with people online from all over the world. I initiated three different discussion groups over the course of four years. The first group discussed the “cultural imperative”* of Muslims in America, the second delved into topics related to Islamic design, and the third was a book club, where we read and deciphered the complex symbolism of Farid ud-Din Attar’s Conference of the Birds.
*Based on this article by Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah
Artwork by Feruz Temirov
Coffee Mornings
Coffee Mornings is a recent initiative intended to foster community through low-key gatherings with a very low barrier to entry. Often it is difficult for groups to gather due to limitations on space, resources, time, childcare, or transportation. Here, people simply bring their own coffee or favorite drink and show up at a park that is easily accessible by public transportation.
“Mawlid” event
One of the first of its kind and a rare event in Pittsburgh, this was inspired by gatherings common in many traditional Islamic societies known as the “mawlid.” The intention is to bring people together, reflect on the noble qualities of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, and recite traditional poems of praise. The promotional graphic (including the calligraphy) was drawn by me using Procreate.
Ramadan Mubarak postcards
Ramadan is a much-anticipated month of the Muslim calendar. At the first sighting of the new moon*, Muslims often send virtual messages en masse to friends and family to wish them “Ramadan Mubarak” (a blessed Ramadan). As someone who grew up in the pre-internet era, I have a great nostalgia for letter-writing and lament the hollowness of mass-forwarded messages with generic clip-art graphics. Wanting to revive the practice of letter-writing, to send family and friends something personal and tangible, and to get back into the practice of creating art, I decided to design and produce my own Ramadan Mubarak postcards. The calligraphy was done by my father, and the art was done by me using Procreate. The cards reached several different countries across the globe, from Norway to Gambia to Australia.
*The Islamic calendar is lunar