Episode 32: Minara Uddin El-Rahman
“You can’t change people but you can change yourself. You can change your reaction. It’s not you, it’s really about them.”
"Pick your battles."
Minara Uddin El-Rahman, Digital Marketing Manager and Founder of Blog, Hijabi Life, on giving a voice to women of all shapes and sizes
Minara Uddin El-Rahman is a pioneer Muslim lifestyle blogger who founded the popular blog, Hijabi Life, in 2007. As a Muslim American in social media, she felt a void of Muslim lifestyle blogs particularly for women of different sizes.
Minara uses social media as a platform to promote healthy living and to encourage radical self-acceptance, regardless of shape and size. In this interview, Minara gets candid about the hurdles of being seen different and as a result working twice as hard in the professional working space.
Minara currently serves as the Digital Marketing Manager for Zaytuna College, which is one of the first Muslim colleges in the US.
Podcast Details
Find out from the podcast how Minara:
- Navigated multiple careers, including intellectual property law, fashion, blogging, construction management and digital marketing
- Found her passion in fashion through Hollywood and New York’s Fifth Ave.
- Embraced being different and standing out from the crowd, from wearing hijab to accepting her body image to inspiring others to do the same through her Instagram page and her blog, HijabiLife
- Exercises social media responsibility in her digital marketing career, especially with conveying positive images that promote healthy body image and radical self- acceptance
- Dealt with the challenge of being seen different and having to prove herself in the professional work place
- Warns against “he-peating” and women pitting against each other
- Confronted a horrible in flight experience, how it shaped her and how she sees the world
- Correlates success to being content
“Don’t take everything so personally, take a step back, assess it objectively, and pick your battles. Some things you have to let go and you have to be ok with it. Before you do anything, look at the political climate before you come out with guns a blazing.”
About Minara
Minara Uddin El-Rahman is based in Northern California. Born in NY to immigrant parents from Bangladesh, she has multiple passions one of which is fashion.
She is a mom to two beautiful children. Follow Minara @hijabilife on Instagram and her blog page, Hijabilife.