Navā/Voice

The Center of Muslim Experience in the US (CME-US) is launching an online magazine and building a digital resource for public engagement called Navā/Voice. The inaugural volume will focus on American Muslim women’s everyday leadership. 

Leadership does not require a formal title or public role. It takes place every day among families, mosques, workplaces, neighborhoods, activist spaces, or quiet moments of decision-making and reflection. These are stories of lived experience(s), not only professional achievement(s). We invite everyone who identifies either as a Muslim woman or has affinities with them to submit short narratives about themselves or somebody else they may know who has demonstrated remarkable capacities towards everyday leadership.

Navā/Voice will accept submissions on a rolling basis with an initial curated selection of 10 stories, and our hope is to continue to grow with new themes and topics of relevance to our community. Consequently, this resource will serve as the foundation for building the Public Commons initiative within the Global Muslim Digital Repository.

We invite you to share your story and be part of a growing conversation that centers Muslim American women as authors of their own stories and on their own terms.

Fill out the Submission Form

Navā/Voice is committed to uplifting the stories, creativity, and lived experiences of American Muslim women. To help maintain clarity, respect, and authenticity in this shared space, please review our editorial guidelines before submitting.

1. Who Can Submit

We welcome submissions from Muslim American women across diverse backgrounds, generations, cultures, and geographies, including but not limited to South Asian, Arab, Black, Indigenous, immigrant, convert, and diasporic communities within the United States. Contributors do not need to be professional writers or academics. We value clarity, honesty, and personal voice over scholarly language or academic jargon.

2. What We Publish

Submissions should take the form of written stories or personal narratives that reflect everyday leadership, grounded in lived experience and meaning-making in daily life. This is a public-facing project rather than an academic publication. Authors should provide authentic stories and, if possible, suggest ways to verify the story. Submissions should be shared in a form that reflects the author’s intent and requires minimal editorial intervention.

Pieces may be:

• 3000-3,500 words for essays or narratives
  (Longer submissions are welcome; we may request edits for focus.)

3. Themes We’d like to Consider

• Care as Leadership — How everyday acts of care in families, mosques, schools, and neighborhoods function as powerful, often invisible forms of leadership.
• Moral Authority Without Title — The ways American Muslim women lead through ethical example, trust, and credibility rather than formal positions.
• Holding Institutions Together — Women’s behind-the-scenes labor that sustains mosques, nonprofits, schools, and various other community networks.
• Leadership Through Translation — Navigating and mediating between cultures, generations, and institutions to make Muslim life legible and livable in America.
• Crisis Management as a Way of Life — How women respond to Islamophobia, racism, gendered violence, and family precarity with pragmatic, everyday leadership.
• Teaching by Living — Leadership enacted through modeling faith, resilience, and civic engagement in daily life rather than public platforms.
• Imagining Futures — Muslim women’s leadership in education for preparing the next generation of Muslim women leaders.
• The Art of Leadership — Making meaning and change through art, literature, and other creative expressions that contribute to the aesthetic/cultural fabric of America.

4. Tone & Voice

We value:

• Authentic, lived experience
• Clear storytelling
• Respectful, compassionate tone
• Honest emotional expression
• Creative risk-taking

We avoid:

• Generalizations that stereotype or shame communities
• Language that targets specific individuals

Your voice matters most—write as yourself.

5. Originality & Rights

• Submissions must be original work.
• Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but please inform us if published elsewhere.
• If we accept your piece, you grant us non-exclusive digital publishing rights.
  (You retain full copyright and may publish your work elsewhere.)

6. Review Process

Timeline for the First Cycle

Submissions for the initial cycle of Navā/Voice are currently open and will be invited on a rolling basis, with a closing date of June 5th, 2026. The editorial team - Hamza Iqbal, Yasmin Saikia, and Chad Haines (ASU) and Samina Salim (University of Houston) will review the submissions and collaborate on the editorial curation. A first curated collection will be made available on CME-US’s website in Fall 2026.

Here’s what to expect:

1. Acknowledgment
   You will receive a confirmation within three business days of our receipt of your submission.
2. Editorial Review (June 2026 through August 2026)
   Pieces are reviewed for clarity, alignment with the mission, and sensibility.
3. Editing
   We may suggest light edits for flow, clarity, or structure—always in collaboration with you.
4. Communication
   You will receive one of the following:
   • Accepted (with or without edits)
   • Revision requested
   • Not selected (with optional feedback)

7. Community Standards

We aim to cultivate a space that:

• Elevates compassion over hostility
• Encourages dialogue, not division
• Honors differences within various Muslim identities/subjectivities
• Protects marginalized narratives from harm or misinterpretation

Questions? Thoughts? Want support in shaping a piece?
Email us anytime at: [email protected]