“President of Chicago Police Union said all Muslims ‘deserve a bullet.’’ “Austria’s hijab ban lifted.” These are just a few of the news articles written recently by Muslim.co, the first and only publication and online community founded, managed, and created by and for Millennial and Gen Z Muslims -- and all others interested in the international Muslim youth community.
A new publication that is quickly becoming a significant and influential voice in the media, Muslim.co recently broke the news that Rihanna's Savage X Fenty fashion show used a song that included an Islamic hadith. Because Muslim.co’s story explained why many members of the Muslim community felt her use of the song was inappropriate, Rihanna posted a heartfelt public apology on Instagram in response.
Muslim.co has nearly 650,000 Instagram followers, and although it just launched its TikTok account in September 2020, it already has 200,000 followers. On January 13, 2021 Facebook notified Muslim.co that it had given it the address Facebook.com/muslim, so Muslim.co now predicts its numbers will soon be soaring on Facebook, given the exciting and innovative YouTube videos it plans to share through the platform.
Who is behind Muslim.co, driving its incredible international success? The origins of Muslim’s founding is as fascinating as the site itself. Its founder is 22-year-old SC&I alumnus Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh ’20. He started working on what today is Muslim.co in 2017 while he was a Rutgers undergrad. He was inspired to launch his own media company when he realized that no publication existed that was dedicated to keeping Gen Z and Millennial Muslims informed.
Today, 14 days into 2021, Al-Khatahtbeh’s success with Muslim.co has been recognized by Forbes, who included him on its prestigious 2021 Forbes 30 under 30 list for Media, making him, at 22 years old, the youngest and first Gen-Z Muslim to make it on the list in the Media category, and the second Al-Khatahtbeh to make the list. The first was his sister Amani, another Rutgers alumna (a political science major) who was included on the list in 2016 in recognition of her founding of MuslimGirl.
To point out that as a Rutgers sophomore Al-Khatahtbeh was rejected by Forbes when he applied to work there as an unpaid social media intern is a way of encapsulating his story. He has been incredibly successful because he has never given up, his passion for Muslim has never diminished, he works incredibly hard, and he is willing to take risks and take advantage of every opportunity he can find.
“The SC&I faculty members who inspired me the most were Steve Miller, Juan González , Avi Lewis, and Naomi Klein, it still amazes me that I was able to take undergrad classes with faculty of that caliber. It was an incredible opportunity, and I am very grateful for it.”
The origins of Muslim.co began when Al-Khatahtbeh launched a newsletter he called “The Post Up” and a related Instagram page. He sent the newsletter out via MailChimp every Friday, and for content he aggregated headlines from international news organizations. “In Islam, Friday is a spiritual day, Yawm al-Jum’ah, the Day of Assembly,” Al-Khatahtbeh said. “So I referred to the newsletter as a “Post-Jummah digest” – meant to be read after prayer. It was my idea that people could open the newsletter after prayer and read all the news related to their Muslim identity that they might have missed.”
But his dream was to go way beyond a newsletter and found his own publication as a vehicle to share news he would write and create himself with a team of Muslim writers. Through a series of coincidences and contacts Al-Khatahtbeh cultivated during his years at SC&I, which stemmed from his incredibly hard work, dedication, and guts, he ultimately received the support he needed, and he launched his company in 2019. Muslim.co is a news outlet, media publication, and online community supported by a staff of fulltime and freelance news writers and creators. Muslim.co’s mission is “to promote an accepting environment for all Muslims, regardless of their practice, and help guide Muslim youth in navigating their faith, and ensuring a safe environment to do so.”
When he launched “The Post Up” newsletter, he was a second-year journalism and media studies major at SC&I, and during that time, a series of incredible opportunities began to appear which culminated in his ability to launch Muslim.co when he was a senior.
The first was an email forwarded to JMS students from Steve Miller, a faculty member he had not yet met but had heard about. It was from the Asian American Journalists Association, asking, Al-Khatahtbeh explained, “’are you a person of color trying to start your own media company? Apply to the AAJA Catalyst Entrepreneurship Program.’ I applied – it was a rigorous process -- and I was one of very many people whose application was approved.”
Al-Khatahtbeh asked Rutgers and SC&I for help with the funding he needed to be able to attend Catalyst, and he received it. “Catalyst helped me get where I am now,” Al-Khatahtbeh said. “Only 12 out of hundreds of applications were accepted, so we were each assigned a mentor. Mine was Christina Shih, who is Senior Vice President of Business Development at the News Revenue Hub (fundjournalism.org). She not only helped me as part of Catalyst, but she later let me know about an opportunity to apply to the Knight Foundation for more funding to help me launch Muslim. She also let me know about NewsPack, a version of WordPress for upscale media publications. It is very expensive, but I wanted it so Muslim.co would look as professional as possible. Because of her connections, she helped me secure a major discount. She is my go-to, if I ever need a resource for anything, I can reach out to her or Steve Miller. They are the best.”
It was 10 p.m. and Al-Khatahtbeh was at a restaurant on George Street called Chai Chenek ordering dinner with Rutgers friends when he received the email from Shih informing him about the Knight Foundation application and urging him to apply. “She said, the deadline is midnight tonight. So I only had two hours! It was a long application, but I was really devoted, and it was really nice of her to reach out to me. I had my laptop in my bag with me, so I pulled it out and in the middle of dinner with my friend Alyssa and I started filling out the grant application. All of my friends went into New York City after dinner, but I went home to make sure my application had been received and was ok. Chai Chenek has excellent food, but there was music and there were a lot of people and it was loud, and I did the whole app there so I wanted to be sure it was ok.” It was ok – and his application was approved.
In another stroke of luck -- luck earned from hard work - Al-Khatahtbeh received an invitation to attend The World Muslim Community Council in Abu Dhabi when he was a Rutgers junior. It was exam week, and the last day of an internship, when he received the invitation. “I knew very little about it – I knew I had been selected because they said I was “a leader of the Muslim youth community in the US” – they had noticed Muslim.co - and that the conference was arranged by the Royalty of the United Arab Emirates. So I knew it was a really big deal, but I didn’t know if they would pay for a hotel, or food, or anything – and I knew I would have to take my exams over there. But they sent me plane tickets and I just took a chance and got on the plane.”
What did he get out of the conference? In addition to learning an incredible amount of valuable information, and a week with a personal driver, and a stay at the exclusive Paramount Hotel, and fantastic tours of the desert, he said he “built the greatest connections ever.” These included a Muslim-American from Silicon Valley who ended up being so impressed by Muslim.co that he helped with funding the beginning of it, and a new mentor: Lisa Vogl, an American and the founder of the Verona Collection. “She is the only Muslim woman who has a fashion line in major companies such as Macy’s – and other stores who sell hijabs. She is now helping us connect with her factories and suppliers to help us create our own merchandise to sell, to help us start earning revenue that way, ” he said.
He thinks it was all of this exposure might have resulted in Forbes selecting him for its 30 under 30 list, which he said has been a very powerful asset. “I am only 22 and sometimes when I go to certain spaces I feel some people don’t take me seriously because I am young. For example, I was in a meeting with TikTok, and I remember on our first zoom meeting, I was with older people in their late 30s. I could tell they thought it was so strange that I was so young. So letting them know I am on the Forbes 30 under 30 list helped me prove that I know what I’m doing. Once I told them that, they got it. So it gives me the respect I need to do the work I want to do.”
During his four years at SC&I, Al-Khatahtbeh was also very involved in the journalism department, writing for Kairos Magazine, including the story “Wearing Hijab in Trump’s America.” When he was a senior, he also worked with Professor of Practice and Director of the Journalism and Media Studies Program Steve Miller to turn a JMS class into an independent study that enabled him focus on the development of Muslim.co.
“The SC&I faculty members who inspired me the most were Steve Miller, Juan González , Avi Lewis, and Naomi Klein, it still amazes me that I was able to take undergrad classes with faculty of that caliber. It was an incredible opportunity, and I am very grateful for it.”
Miller said, “Ameer is one of the most innovative and forward-thinking students I have had the pleasure to teach. He has always been inquisitive, thoughtful, and creative. I loved that he was willing to speak his mind and was ready to discuss anything. He is a great example of and for our students because of his desire to disseminate information on multiple platforms and in different environments. I was fortunate to have him share his ideas for Muslim with me and they reinforced my feeling that he was a person with great dreams who was willing to work hard to make them a reality. I am flattered that he believes I was an influence on his education, but I believe I learned as much, if not more, from him than he did from me.”
In addition to his mentors at SC&I, he said he is also indebted to his sister for her assistance and advice. “My sister helped me out so much. She motivated and guided me in the very beginning so without her and her knowledge I probably wouldn’t have been able to have the guts to move forward with Muslim.co. She did it all before me, so I wasn’t by myself. She taught me ‘never take a no’ and said ‘Ameer, when someone says no it does not mean no -- you have to keep on working and moving forward.” It was all because of her -- it was her mindset that inspired me to keep going after what I want. In the end, if something is your passion nothing is going to stop you from achieving your goals.”
More information about the Journalism and Media Studies Program at the Rutgers School of Communication and Information is on the website.
Photo: Courtesy of Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh ’20.
