Re-writing the Muslim Narrative: How Twin Sisters are Trailblazing a Space for Muslims in Storytelling
The Sisters of Shaherazad Shelves
My twin sister and I are the youngest of seven kids to Bangladeshi Muslim immigrants living in New York. When I was fourteen, I started writing stories during my spare time between school hours and home prayers. Around this time, my older brother was pursuing higher education as an Islamic scholar in South Africa. He told me to use my writing talent for the sake of Allah—but I wasn’t sure how I could do that.
Eventually, as I read my way through the books in my high school library, I saw a stark disconnect between Muslims in the media and the everyday Muslims I saw in my community.
Mainstream books skew Islam as either 1) a backward culture that the protagonist must overcome and redefine or 2) a superficial aesthetic in which Arabic or South Asian names and Islamic architecture are used, while everyday practices like prayer, charity, or hijab are foregone. This observation paved the way for Shaherazad Shelves years later.
The story of Shaherazad Shelves took root in 2020 when I attempted to get my writing published. I wrote books ranging from contemporary fiction to fantasy romance with one thing in common: a Muslim reading my story would not see their religious beliefs ridiculed. So when literary agents and editors at big publishing houses said they wanted underrepresented and diverse stories, I thought this was my opportunity to use my talent for the sake of Allah. I was wrong.
I was met with rejection after rejection. Around the two-year mark (and after numerous edits), I stopped tearing my stories apart, thinking something was wrong with me, and realized that what I was going through wasn’t unique—this was a manufactured phenomenon. Like many of the other Muslim writers I met along my journey, I noticed a discouraging pattern: If you wrote a happy Muslim, a practicing Muslim, or a Muslim who isn’t at war with their religion or family, such a story would fail to land literary representation and not be seen by editors at publishing houses with access to libraries and bookstores all around the world. In other words, “Muslim representation” is curated by literary agents and editors to look a certain way.
Beyond spreading the word on social media about the misconstruing of Islam and Muslim identity in publishing, I wasn’t getting anywhere—and I wouldn’t if I kept begging the very perpetrators of anti-Muslim stereotypes to finally pick me. It was time to do something myself.
Still fueled by my older brother’s advice to serve Allah with my skills, I put together everything I knew about the book industry to become a publisher and opened Shaherazad Shelves in 2021 with the help of my twin as one of the first Muslim-run, women-owned publishing houses in the United States. Lofty goals (and a minor in English) can only take you so far, so I enrolled in UCLA Extension’s Editing & Publishing course to ensure I would do justice to the stories I publish.
Though Shaherazad Shelves was borne of my journey, it ceased being about me as an individual; it offers the Muslim community a place in the world of books and media without having to sacrifice, minimize, or whitewash our faith or culture.
What is Shaherazad Shelves?
The name “Shaherazad” is named after the story of Princess Shahrezad, who told 1,001 stories every night to keep herself from being killed.
Here at Shaherazad Shelves, we aim to tell 1,001 stories to a cutthroat Western world to keep our Muslim identity alive, metaphorically speaking.
Shaherazad Shelves does everything a traditional publishing house does—editing, cover design, and marketing at no cost to the author—but at a scale exponentially smaller. I like to think this makes the process more personal and more meaningful for the potential author.
Since Shaherazad Shelves is completely self-funded, it makes it easy to burn out. I take work off on Fridays, Eid, Ramadan, and random days every few months to destress and prioritize spiritual health. With the help of editorial interns, Shaherazad Shelves has been able to acquire and publish manuscripts for three years and counting. (While my twin no longer works for Shaherazad Shelves, she remains its number one supporter.)
How does Shaherazad Shelves work?
Shaherazad Shelves has three different imprints. Shush Books and Saladeen Books are our imprints for Muslim-focused narratives; Sorra Books is our imprint for Muslim-friendly narratives that don’t require a Muslim main character. Both types of books are considered Islamicate (referring to something that is derived from Muslim practices but isn’t quite tied to the religion itself), and I believe this approach—publishing the Islamicate—is the best way for Muslims to foster our own literary space.
The books I have published so far vary widely to encompass the breadth of the Muslim experience. Iman Bajwa’s coffee table book, Musafir, captures Iman’s love for travel and Islam. Spanning continents, Musfafir contains social commentary accompanied by breathtaking imagery from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States. Kataru Yahya’s adult novel, Home Is a Silhouette, touches on everything from family to faith to Ghanaian society. Arva Bhavanagarwala’s adult romance, A Little Bit of Love, focuses on the love story between a young couple managing Indian cultural expectations. These books tell stories affirming and expressing the lives of Muslims—the good and the bad—without resorting to stereotypes or vilification of Islam. The current book for Sorra Books is Patchree Jones’ Skylight, a middle-grade story about a seventh grader who finds a hidden Thai kingdom in the sky. Though this novel doesn’t have a Muslim protagonist, the story allows Muslim children a place to escape and see themselves through the expression of culture and morals.
One of our main business practices at Shaherazad Shelves is transparency. That’s why I have an initial call with prospective authors to ensure my editorial vision aligns with the author’s. I also tailor contracts to the authors’ needs regarding issues such as royalties, language rights, and author copies. I also provide legal amenities such as copyright protection and ISBNs. One particular practice that sets Shaherazad Shelves apart as a Muslim-run press is that an author’s royalties after death are given to a charity of their choice as sadaqah jariyah.
Building a publishing house—or any business—from the ground up isn’t easy. But Muslims, specifically Muslim women who face the brunt of anti-Muslim prejudice, deserve to tell our stories and express ourselves.
With Shaherazad Shelves, we can reclaim our voice, rewrite our stories, and honor our Muslim ancestors and scholars who’ve faced arduous and fulfilling lives to foster Islam in their families and communities. And for the Muslim children who pick up our books, seeing their names and their faith where they never have before will make it all worthwhile.
In the end, our success will be due only to Allah!
Samiha Hoque is a Bangladeshi-American writer, editor, and co-founder of Shaherazad Shelves, the leading publisher of Muslims in fiction. She was a Climate Justice Fellow at the University of Maryland in 2024 and holds a B.S. in the Earth and Environmental Sciences with an English minor. Samiha is the author of the picture book A Country of Beautiful People. Her essays have won the Dean Myrtle Saxon-Jacobson Award in Expository Prose and were nominated for the Brooklyn Non Fiction Prize.