Can you be fully African and fully Muslim – or do you have to choose? In this first episode of The African Muslimah podcast, host and author Na’ima B. Robert shares her own journey of navigating this question and finding that the answer changes everything.
Before she took her shahada, Na’ima believed a lie that held her back for years: that becoming Muslim meant leaving her African identity at the door. That Islam didn’t belong on African soil. In this honest, personal spoken essay, she unpacks where that belief came from, what Islam’s history in Africa actually looks like – including the story of the First Hijra to Abyssinia – and what it means for African Muslim women to claim both identities without apology.
This episode covers:
- Why the question “African or Muslim?” is the wrong question entirely
- Islam’s arrival in Africa in the 7th century and what that history means for us today
- The legacy of Nana Asmau, African Muslim scholar, poet, and women’s educator
- What Na’ima witnessed in Senegal and Guinea that changed everything
- A message for every African Muslim woman who has ever felt she had to choose
The African Muslimah is a flagship series on One Nation Media (ONM), an intimate, honest exploration of how Islam shapes the identity, choices, and impact of African Muslim women across the continent and diaspora.
