Ready for the World.

Muslim Girl magazine, published bimonthly since January 2007, targets the 400,000 women, ages 18-24, in the U.S. and Canada, who practice Islam. It’s the only beauty and lifestyle publication that does.

“It’s a huge, niche population that’s very underrepresented,” says Ausma Khan, editor-in-chief of Muslim Girl, and part of the original planning group that created the periodical. “And yet Muslims are in the media all the time, overrepresented in very negative ways, where their stories are constantly being told about them from the outside, and their own voices are very rarely added to the mix.”

Ausma Khan is the guest today on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, August 8, 2 pm ET.

In their preliminary research, Khan says her team kept hearing girls and young women in both countries speak about “a sense of exclusion and alienation and isolation” from the dominant national and cultural discourse.

“They felt that they had a lot to say about representing themselves,” notes Khan, “talking about the contributions that they make every day in their daily lives. We thought putting the magazine together would really enable them to have their voices heard, and tell their stories.”

You can hear Ausma Khan’s thought-provoking ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state, you can check out our stream on the web. If you miss the live show, check out our archive for up to two weeks after broadcast.