Meet the occasional editor-in-chief of Islamic Media

1 am During Ramadan, Palestinian journalist Amir Al-Khatahtbeh sits side by side in a crowded Yemeni café in New York, a place that comes alive after evening prayers. Everyone is loud, high on caffeine, and happy to be out. His phone is ringing. Urgent: Israel bombs Tehran.

He looks at his friends, then creates a post and taps “Post.” “Did you just post?” They ask. He apologizes and goes home to watch the news.

That’s how Al-Khatahtbeh, 27, has spent the past seven years. He runs @Muslim and has over 12 million followers across platforms, 6.7 million on Instagram alone. He interviewed Zahran Mamdani, Riz Ahmed, Mo Amer, and Moataz Azaizeh.

@Muslim’s success dates back to Donald Trump’s first term as president. Al-Khatahtbeh, a Rutgers University student planning a career in entertainment journalism, witnessed the effects of Trump’s Muslim ban through his Yemeni and Iranian roommates.

When he wrote about how the ban affected students on college campuses, he was unable to find the right outlet to reach out to other Muslims and warn them that their universities may not be able to protect them. That’s when he decided to create a space for Islamic media.

This comes with 13 hours of screen time. He says he finds it embarrassing, but the confession is tinged with pride. “I have to stay informed. I get the news the same way everyone else does.”

But everyone else is not the actual editor-in-chief of Islamic media.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Carla Certain: At what point did you realize that this could be something much bigger?

Amir Al-Khatahtbeh: When I first launched @Muslim on February 15, 2019, I was already working in social media. I’ve seen every transitional moment in social media. I was chronically online.

It occurred to me: What if I were to cover the news the same way I write a post for Vice News, in this style, but the story centered around Muslims? When I started creating news this way, Muslim news, it took off immediately. I think it was the first time the Muslim community saw this style and way of conveying news to them.

I make sure it’s digestible, so a fifth grader can read it, but also a baby boomer. I make sure it’s shareable. I think by having this formula for every post, it took off pretty quickly. I launched it in my first year of college, and by the time I was a senior, we had already amassed 50,000 followers.

When I was old, we had Covid. The first closure was during Ramadan, and the first closure during Eid. Everyone was on social media during that time. I really took advantage of that moment. We cannot pass through our mosques. We can’t go out and celebrate Ramadan or Eid, so I have to make sure that I build this platform and post and post and post to make sure that we still have that form of celebration or worship during Ramadan.

That’s when @Muslim really exploded. When I graduated in 2020, @Muslim had amassed 250,000 followers. I said, well, there’s something bigger here, and I’m going to keep doing this.

Is there a balance between attracting younger generations and representing being Muslim?

It’s been a lot of trial and error, to be honest with you.

We were doing a lot of fun content. We were making Islamic memes, and then we also had conversations about the latest news. It was a combination of all these things, whatever was trending on Islamic Twitter or TikTok, we were aware of it. It was a very refreshing, Gen Z-centric look at topics we care about. We had a whole conversation about how Billie Eilish said in an interview that she dresses modestly and is celebrated, but when a Muslim woman wears the hijab, she is considered oppressed. We’ll have these really intense conversations. And then I pivoted.