1. From Literature to the Studio Lights
Your academic background is in English Literature from the University of East Anglia, yet you’ve built a career as a television presenter, journalist, poet, and consultant. How did your literary foundation shape your approach to broadcasting and storytelling? What drew you to the world of faith-based media?
I think literature taught me to be curious about people long before I understood that curiosity would become such an important part of my professional life.
Studying English Literature at the University of East Anglia wasn’t simply about analysing books. Literature takes you inside lives very different from your own. It asks you to consider who is speaking, what has shaped them, what remains unsaid and how the world looks when viewed through somebody else’s eyes. That way of looking at people has never really left me.
When I moved into journalism and broadcasting, it felt surprisingly natural. I have always been interested in the story behind the story. Who is this person beyond the title beneath their name on the television screen? What happened before they arrived here? What matters to them? And sometimes, what are we overlooking because we think we already understand their story?
Faith-based media gave me a particularly interesting space in which to explore those questions.
Muslim lives are extraordinarily diverse, yet they can still be presented publicly through a surprisingly narrow lens. My experience at Islam Channel allowed me to encounter Muslims as artists, entrepreneurs, mothers, campaigners, academics, creatives and simply as people navigating ordinary life.
For me, that is where faith-based media becomes most interesting. It doesn’t have to retreat behind the walls of its own community. It can allow people to tell their own stories from within their faith and culture, while opening a window through which others can see something more nuanced and human.
Perhaps literature and broadcasting are not as far apart as they first appear. Both begin, for me, with the same thing: paying attention to people.
2. The Power of Conversations Under the Studio Lights
For over a decade at Islam Channel, you’ve interviewed creatives, business leaders, charity workers, and community figures. What has been the most impactful conversation you’ve facilitated? How do you prepare for interviews that require both cultural sensitivity and journalistic rigour?
My relationship with Islamic media spans more than a decade, although my years presenting at Islam Channel have taken place at different points during that time.
I have interviewed people whose public achievements are impressive, including entrepreneurs and prominent personalities, but interestingly it isn’t always the most famous guest who stays with you.
Some of the conversations I remember most vividly have been with men speaking about mental health.
Perhaps it is because there is something particularly powerful about watching someone set aside the language we so often use to protect ourselves and speak honestly about vulnerability. Men are still frequently expected to carry difficulty quietly. Within some communities, those expectations can be compounded by culture, ideas about masculinity and the fear of being judged.
Sitting opposite someone who is prepared to challenge that silence reminds you that an interview can occasionally become something more than television. Someone watching at home may recognise themselves in that conversation. They may even decide to ask for help.
That carries a responsibility.
I research my guests carefully. I want to understand their work and the wider context before I meet them. But once an interview begins, I also have to be prepared to put the notes aside and listen.
Some of the best questions I have asked were never written on my briefing sheet. They came from hearing something in an answer—a hesitation, an unexpected detail, a change of tone—and following it.
For me, cultural sensitivity and journalistic rigour are not opposing forces. Sensitivity doesn’t mean avoiding difficult questions. It means understanding enough about another person’s world to know how to ask them.
And sometimes the most important part of interviewing is simply knowing when to allow someone the space to answer.
3. Islamic vs. Conventional Media
From your experience, how does faith-based media like Islam Channel differ from mainstream media in its approach to storytelling and content? What misconceptions do people outside the faith-based media space have about Islamic broadcasting?
There is still a tendency to imagine Islamic broadcasting as Muslims sitting in a studio talking to other Muslims exclusively about religion.
My experience has been rather different.
I have discussed health, fashion, relationships, mental wellbeing, business, culture, creativity and social issues. I have interviewed entrepreneurs, artists and people doing extraordinary work within their communities. These are not exclusively “Muslim subjects”. They are human subjects.
What changes is sometimes the place from which the conversation begins.
Muslims have often encountered versions of themselves in mainstream media at moments of crisis—when Islam becomes attached to a political controversy, extremism, immigration or some other contentious public debate. Of course those stories have a legitimate place in journalism, but they cannot possibly represent the texture of millions of ordinary Muslim lives.
Faith-based media has the ability to turn the camera around.
Suddenly the Muslim woman is not merely the subject being discussed; she may be the presenter asking the questions. Muslim communities are not being observed entirely from outside; they are participating in the telling of their own stories.
But I don’t think that should make Islamic media an echo chamber. We should be prepared to question ourselves too. Good journalism still requires evidence, curiosity and the confidence to have uncomfortable conversations.
I would actually like to see Islamic media increasingly opening those conversations outwards. Faith doesn’t prevent engagement with wider society. It gives us another place from which to enter the conversation.
4. Poetry, Art, and Identity
You collaborate with your husband, fine artist Vaseem Mohammed, creating poetry that responds to his artwork—exploring themes of memory, identity, loss, and faith. How does this creative practice inform your work as a journalist and broadcaster? What does this collaboration reveal about the intersection of art and faith?
There are things I can say in poetry that I could never say in a television script.
Journalism asks for clarity. Broadcasting often asks you to communicate an idea within minutes, sometimes seconds. Poetry gives me permission to remain with something—to sit with an image, a memory or an emotion without immediately having to explain it.
My collaboration with my husband, the fine artist Vaseem Mohammed, grew quite naturally from that space. I began responding to his paintings with words, not so much describing what I could see on the canvas as exploring what the work stirred in me.
His art and my poetry often meet around memory, identity, loss and faith. Sometimes a painting awakens something deeply personal; at other times the words travel somewhere neither of us anticipated.
That process has probably influenced my journalism more than I realised. It has made me conscious of what lies beneath the obvious narrative. Human beings rarely arrive with neat beginnings, middles and endings. We carry memory, contradiction, grief, hope and faith with us.
Art understands that instinctively.
I have never seen creativity and faith as opposing forces. Faith asks us to contemplate: creation, beauty, mortality, suffering, love, our responsibilities towards one another and ultimately our relationship with the Creator. Artists have always wrestled with those questions.
Sometimes an image—or a line of poetry—can reach a part of us that explanation cannot.
5. Ethical Fashion and Faith-Driven Consumerism
You’ve worked as an Ethical Fashion Consultant for Torino Fashion Match and as a Journalist for the Islamic Fashion and Design Council. How does Islamic fashion differ from mainstream fashion in its values and business practices? What role does faith play in shaping ethical consumption in the fashion industry?
My journey into sustainability really began through fashion.
Working with the Islamic Fashion and Design Council and later researching and reaching out to modest-fashion designers, emerging brands and sustainability-focused SMEs for Torino Fashion Match introduced me to entrepreneurs across a rapidly developing global industry.
But it also left me asking questions.
We talk a great deal about what makes fashion modest. Usually we mean what we can see: how much of the body is covered, the length of a dress, the cut of a garment, whether a woman wears hijab.
But what about the things we cannot see?
Who made the garment? What were they paid? Where was the cotton grown? How much water was used? What chemicals entered the environment? What happens to the garment when we no longer want it?
Those questions become particularly interesting when the consumer and the business identify themselves through faith.
Islam teaches moderation, fairness in trade, responsibility towards others and that we should not be wasteful. So I think there is a very natural conversation to be had between Islamic values and sustainable fashion.
That doesn’t mean that something labelled “modest” or “Muslim-owned” is automatically ethical. It isn’t. Equally, the word “sustainable” on a label doesn’t necessarily tell us the whole story.
And this is where my interest has increasingly turned towards SMEs.
Many small businesses genuinely want to do better. But responsible materials can cost more. Supply chains can be opaque. Sustainability standards can feel bewildering, and changing a business model requires money.
So perhaps the question should not simply be, “Why aren’t small businesses more sustainable?”
We should also be asking, “What do they need in order to become sustainable?”
That question eventually led me towards another conversation: access to ethical and Islamic finance.
6. Halal Expo: Bridging Faith, Business, and Sustainability
At Halal Expo London, you served as Executive Assistant, Curator, and Special Projects Director, securing partnerships and shaping the event’s sustainability framework. How did you approach bringing together faith-driven consumerism with global sustainability goals? What were the key challenges in bridging these worlds?
What fascinated me about working around Halal Expo London was the scale of the halal economy and, alongside it, an obvious question: where does sustainability sit within this conversation?
For me, the two should never have been strangers.
The language may be different, but many of the ideas at the heart of sustainability are deeply familiar within Islam: stewardship, moderation, fairness, avoiding waste and our responsibility for the consequences of our choices.
The challenge was turning those principles into something meaningful for businesses.
It is relatively easy to stand on a conference stage and tell an SME that it needs to become more sustainable. It is rather different to be the person running that business, looking at the cost of changing suppliers, trying to understand environmental standards and wondering how any of it will be financed.
That gap between aspiration and implementation interested me enormously.
It also taught me the importance of bringing different people into the same room. Businesses may understand their customers but not policy. Policymakers may understand sustainability targets but not the daily realities of a small halal business. Financial institutions may have products that entrepreneurs do not know exist.
Part of my work has always involved making those worlds speak to one another.
Sustainability becomes much more meaningful when we stop treating it as an abstract global ambition and begin asking what it looks like in the decisions somebody makes on Monday morning when they open the doors of their business.
7. Islamic Economics and Policy
You conducted research into Islamic economics and sustainable development, supporting government and civic engagement efforts including arranging a meeting between Baroness Uddin and Halal Expo representatives. From your perspective, what role can Islamic economics play in sustainable development and public policy in the UK?
The more I have explored sustainability, the more I have found myself returning to a deceptively simple question: what kind of economy are we trying to build?
Sustainable development asks us to consider what our economic activity leaves behind. Islamic economics introduces questions of fairness, stewardship, social responsibility and the avoidance of exploitation. There is a natural conversation between the two.
The UK is an especially interesting place for that conversation. We have a globally important financial sector, an established Islamic-finance industry and diverse Muslim communities that include a growing generation of entrepreneurs.
And yet there appears to be a disconnect.
At institutional level, Islamic finance can be remarkably sophisticated. We talk about sukuk, investment funds, fintech and increasingly green and sustainability-related finance. But somewhere else in Britain there may be a small business owner who wants to avoid interest and has little idea what Shariah-compliant alternatives are available—or even where to begin looking.
That gap interests me.
It becomes particularly important when we ask SMEs to make a sustainability transition. A small fashion company might want to move towards more responsible materials. Another business might need energy-efficient equipment or cleaner technology. The amount required may be relatively modest by institutional-finance standards, but transformational to that entrepreneur.
So alongside developing Islamic financial markets, I would like to see us talk much more about financial literacy, awareness, accessibility and SME support.
It is important for me to be clear about the limits of my own role here. I am not a Shariah scholar, and determining whether a particular financial instrument or structure is Shariah-compliant belongs with appropriately qualified scholars.
My interest is in what happens afterwards: how do we translate ethical financial principles into something people can understand, trust and actually access?
8. Consulting in Ethics and Sustainability
You’ve worked as a Consultant in Ethics & Sustainability, mentored by Roger Prentis and contributing to House of Lords-related policy work. How do you see the intersection of ethics, sustainability, and Islamic finance? What unique perspectives can Islamic principles bring to mainstream ethical policy discussions?
One of the things I learned through my work in ethics and sustainability was to keep asking what sits behind the language.
We have become accustomed to terms such as ESG, sustainable finance, responsible investment and net zero. They are important, but the terminology can sometimes become so technical that we lose sight of the moral question underneath it: what are we financing, who benefits from it and what are its consequences?
Islamic finance brings an interesting perspective because ethical considerations are not an optional layer placed on top of finance. Ideas of justice, accountability, responsible stewardship and avoiding exploitation are rooted in the framework itself.
But I am also cautious about making easy equivalences.
Shariah-compliant does not automatically mean environmentally sustainable. Equally, something described as green or ESG-aligned is not automatically Shariah-compliant. Those are different tests.
The exciting territory is where the two genuinely meet.
We can already see that conversation developing through green and sustainability sukuk, impact investment and Shariah-compliant fintech. But I keep returning to the smaller business.
Can innovation taking place at the top of Islamic finance eventually reach the entrepreneur who needs 30,000 rather than 30 million? Can fintech make appropriate finance easier to access? And perhaps most fundamentally, do small businesses even know what is available to them?
For me, accessibility is itself an ethical question.
There is little point in creating increasingly sophisticated ethical financial products if the people trying to build ethical businesses cannot find their way to them.
The detailed Shariah assessment of those products must, of course, remain with qualified scholars. My role is different. I am interested in the bridge between the principles, the institutions and the people trying to put those values into practice.
9. Journalist, Poet, Presenter: The Multi-Hyphenate Career
You’ve balanced roles as a journalist, television presenter, poet, scriptwriter, and consultant. How do you manage these diverse creative and professional identities? What common thread runs through your work across media, writing, and consulting?
For years I thought I had a rather inconvenient CV.
Journalism sat in one place, television somewhere else, poetry somewhere entirely different, and then along came fashion, sustainability, consulting and policy work. I sometimes wondered whether I was supposed to choose one of them and quietly put the others away.
I don’t think that anymore.
Looking back, the thread is remarkably consistent. I am interested in people, ideas and the spaces where different worlds meet.
As a journalist, I want to uncover the story. As a presenter, I want to create the conditions for somebody to tell it. Poetry allows me to explore the things that resist straightforward explanation. Consulting asks something slightly different again: how can an idea become practical?
Moving between those worlds has also taught me cultural literacy. The language used in a television studio is different from the language of a policy discussion. A fashion entrepreneur sees sustainability differently from a financial institution. A community may experience an issue very differently from the way it appears in a report.
I enjoy finding the point at which those perspectives can meet.
So I have stopped seeing myself as someone with several unrelated careers.
They are different forms of storytelling—and different ways of trying to understand the world and communicate what I find.
10. Advice for Aspiring Muslim Storytellers and Communicators
For someone who wants to build a career in faith-based media, ethical journalism, or values-led communications, what advice would you give? What skills should they prioritize? How can they navigate the balance between authenticity, faith commitments, and professional growth?
Be curious about people.
That would probably be the first thing I would say.
Read outside your comfort zone. Read people whose experiences are completely different from your own. Read literature and history as well as the news. Understand culture, business, politics and the world beyond your immediate community. You cannot tell other people’s stories well if you are only interested in hearing versions of your own.
Then learn your craft.
Passion is valuable, but it isn’t a substitute for preparation. Research properly. Check your facts. Learn how to construct a question and then, importantly, learn when to abandon it because your guest has just said something far more interesting.
Listen.
I think young Muslim communicators sometimes feel they have to make a choice between professional credibility and authenticity. I don’t believe they do.
Faith does not have to be announced in every sentence to be present in your work. It can be visible in how you treat people, whether you are fair, whether you tell the truth, whether you respect the trust someone has placed in you by sharing their story.
At the same time, Muslim media cannot be afraid of difficult conversations. If we want our voices to form part of wider public life, we have to be willing to listen as well as speak and to engage beyond the boundaries of our own communities.
And don’t worry too much if your career refuses to follow a straight line.
Mine certainly didn’t.
Sometimes the thing that appears to be a detour becomes the experience that gives you something distinctive to say.