1. Poetry Slam

2. 2018 and beyond

3. TEDx Talks

4. References

Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan is a British spoken word poet, writer and speaker. She attended Queen’s College at Cambridge University ^[1] where she studied History. She subsequently completed an MA at SOAS in Postcolonial Studies. ^[2] Khan was born in Bradford, UK and is a third-generation Pakistani ^[3]

Manzoor-Khan has contributed to and written for several news outlets, including The Independent ^{[4] [5]} 5 Pillars ^[6] New Internationalist ^[7] Amaliah ^[8] Al-Jazeera ^[9] sister-hood ^[10]

She has appeared on radio stations including Radio 4 ^[11] BBC Asian Network ^[12] the Muslim Vibe ^[13]and Wandsworth Radio’s She Speaks with Katy Davis ^[14]

She has her own blog, thebrownhijabi, which she regularly updates with articles, blogposts, media appearances and podcasts. ^{[15] [16]}

She has also appeared in features for Middle East Eye ^[17]-and Guardian^{[18] [19]} and HuffPost ^[20]

She mostly focuses on Islamophobia, decolonisation, religion, politics gender and race in her writing and performances.

Poetry Slam

In 2017, Manzoor-Khan performed at The Last Word Festival in London’s Roundhouse Poetry Slam, winning the competition with her poem This is not a Humanising Poem. Her performance of the poem, which spoke about how the world values Muslims based on how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ they are considered to be, ^[21] went viral after being posted on the Facebook page of Roundhouse. ^[22][23] Her performance has since been viewed more than 2 million times online. ^[24]

2018 and beyond

Since her performance at The Last Word Festival went viral, Manzoor-Khan began to receive more publicity and opportunities to showcase her work. Describing the period since her performance, she has said that “that sort of publicity was something I couldn’t have imagined and it’s given me opportunities to genuinely pursue this as an art form.” ^[25]

She returned to The Last Word Festival in 2018 with her performance titled LOL, Inshaallah. ^{[26] [27]} The performance is based on Manzoor-Khan’s experiences and insights into the complexities and challenges British Muslim women often face.

In April 2018 Manzoor-Khan joined a group of female playwrights to create a series of plays to be distributed free of charge to the public. The plays centred around the theme of female empowerment and movements. ^[28]

In August 2018, she appeared in a video for The Guardian ), titled “One person can matter’ in which she provided viewers with five ways they could fight for their cause and stay motivated in the process. ^[29] The feature was part of a takeover of the Weekend issue by guest editors from Gal-dem. ^[30]

In December 2018, she was a panellist for a discussion on the influences of heritage and gender can impact writers’ work, held by British Asian Women Writers in the North. ^[31]

In February 2019, Manzoor-Khan appeared in a video for Middle East Eye titled “Citizenship can be weaponised” in which she addresses the potential repercussions of the government decision to revoke Shamima Begum’s British citizenship. ^[32]

TEDx Talks

In 2017, Manzoor-Khan was a speaker at the TEDxYouth@Brum event in Birmingham, UK where she performed a poem titled Funeral of the Authentic Muslim Woman, in which she rejects the idea “that there is only one way to be a Muslim woman,” highlighting the complexities and contradictions that exist within everyone, including Muslim women. ^[33]

In 2018 she gave a speech at TEDxCoventGardenWomen in London, UK titled I’m bored of talking about Muslim Women. In her speech she asks the audience “why are we so fascinated with Muslim women at all?” continuing by saying “the usual conversations about Muslim women focus on what we wear, our bodies and our behaviour, seeing us mainly as victims of sexism,” explaining that such narratives are rarely helpful for Muslim women. ^[34] On the same topic, Manzoor-Khan has said that she believes there to be “a disparity between their (Muslim women) voices and the voices that are platformed…I think it’s because there are certain stories that the media likes to see and that Western audiences want to hear and they’re generally victim narratives.” ^[35]

References

• 1949 Estonian SSR Football Championship
• 1949 Eurobasket
• 1949 EuroBasket
• 1949 Falkland Islands general election
• 1949 FIFA Youth Tournament Under-18
• 1949 FIVB Men's Volleyball World Championship
• 1949 FIVB Men's World Championship
• 1949 Florida State Seminoles football team
• 1949 Geneva Conventions
• 1949 German football championship
• 1949 Grand National
• 1949 Haida Gwaii earthquake
• 1949 Hamilton Tigers season
• 1949 Hamilton Wildcats season
• 1949 Hammersmith South by-election
• 1949 Icelandic presidential election
• 1949 in animation
• 1949 in anime
• 1949 in Brazil
• 1949 in British music
• 1949 in Chile
• 1949 Indy 500
• 1949 in fine arts of the Soviet Union
• 1949 in Fine Arts of the Soviet Union
• 1949 in Germany