When picturing a successful artist or painter, many people assume they must have been some kind of child prodigy whose finger paintings were far above and beyond the rest of their class.

When one thinks about the stand-up comic scene, it tends to come across as a male dominated field and not exactly easy to break into as a Muslim woman of colour.

Being the hub of Canada’s oil and gas industry, Calgary may not seem like the sort of city that harnesses creative energy the way cities like Toronto or Montreal do. Take a second look, and you might discover that there’s more to this city than meets the eye.

Edmonton is a city with a small town reputation, and yet it is home to North America’s one and only Muslim Film Festival.

Italian Canadian Nakita Valerio is a community organizer based in Edmonton, Alberta, in addition to running her own editing business at “The Drawing Board”.

Muslim Link’s Aicha Lasfar had an opportunity to interview Deen Squad this summer while they were recording in Ottawa. Accompanied by her husband Ryan Fournier, an Islamic School teacher and long-time friend of Deen Squad’s Ghanaian Canadian Jae Deen and Lebanese Canadian Karter Zaher, the interview explores the group’s journey from Ottawa to Dubai and beyond.

Muslim Link would like to thank Ottawa’s Poet Laureate Jamaal Rogers for providing space for the interview at The Origin Arts & Community Centre.

For some people, the image of a Canadian folk singer can be a specific one. Typically speaking, one might picture a person with a sort of hipster or alternative look. Perhaps they are wearing a very artsy oversized hat or maybe even sporting some tattoos.

In the case of Audrey Saparno, she is a musician who defies stereotypes across the board. A Canadian woman of Indonesian decent, she does not wear quirky hats, fancy boots or any tattoos. She sports a hijab, an acoustic guitar slung over her shoulder, and a bright smile for all to see.

The fashion industry can be a cold and cut-throat world, but one happy-go-lucky Muslim woman is bringing warmth to it, one clothing collection at a time.

Iman Nakhala is a fashion designer from Montreal; arguably the main hub of arts and culture in Canada. Originally from Palestine, Iman was born in Saudi Arabia in 1986 and moved with her family to Quebec in 1993.

“My parents moved us to Canada in 1993 to get a higher education just like they did. I’m bi-cultural and proud of it,” she says.

Like many young Muslims raised in the West, Iman often found herself straddling more than one identity. 

A painting hangs on a wall in Montreal’s Museum of Fine Arts. In varying hues of blue, soft yellow and beige, it is the portrait of a young woman. Her head is tilted slightly, her eyes looking into the distance. She is tight lipped with a resolved look on her face, but most noticeable of all is her sky-blue headscarf, emblazoned with a yellow Fleur-de-Lys- the national symbol of Quebec.

This is a self-portrait of Zahraa Sbaiti, a visual artist from Montreal, Quebec. Born and raised in Canada, Zahraa is 24 years old and of Lebanese decent. She is a student at Concordia University, soon graduating with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts.

While it is home to many brilliant artists, Ottawa is mostly known as a working city and not necessarily for its art scene. Hoping to change the future of art in her city, and perhaps the world, one Muslim woman has a few initiatives up her sleeve.