Satin Tashnizi

When it comes to the Emerald Project, Satin Tashnizi is passionate, protective and grateful. She sees the magic that the Emerald Project works in the way that it shapes the lives of its team members. 

Tashnizi is the executive director of the Emerald Project, a non-profit organization that “seeks to combat the misrepresentation of Islam.” One of her goals for the Emerald Project, now that the 2017 travel ban has been lifted, is to make it easier for Muslims to practice their faith. 

And now that it’s Ramadan, it’s the perfect time to pay attention to the spiritual discipline Muslims display in accordance with their faith. On the last evening before the crescent moon marked beginning of the month of Ramadan, Tashnizi was at Beans and Brews composing a document to help employers and teachers better appreciate how Ramadan would affect their employees or students. It’s a time when Muslims might be tired or hungry during the day, and when a friendly greeting like “Ramadan Kareem!” would be appreciated.

With a new position at work, Tashnizi is having an easier time balancing work and faith during Ramadan, but another challenge faces Muslims as they fast and celebrate. COVID-19 precautions limit gatherings for Iftar, the after-sunset meals that follow a day’s fast. As expected, 2021’s Iftar gatherings are smaller and often include interaction via Zoom. Non-Muslim friends and colleagues who acknowledge these challenges will help Muslims feel more connected to their communities.

Emerald Project also plans to host a Muslim Youth Conference at the University of Utah. It’ll be an opportunity for high school and college age boys and girls to talk about their backgrounds and struggles as they practice their faith. Once COVID-19 restrictions relax at the University of Utah, Emerald Project will be ready to schedule the Muslim Youth Conference on campus.

In the meantime, Emerald Project team members continue to meet and plan and dream. What formed as a reaction to a travel ban has evolved into a charitable organization dedicated to the true spirit of Islam, and Tashnizi is eager to get to work.

Nora Abu-Dan

Nora Abu-Dan and Emerald Project have taken aim at the 15-30 age range of Muslim youth. It’s a group that speaks more English than older demographics, and it’s a group that’s more likely to be stirred in the social media mix. A common language and engaged social media experience increase the interconnectedness of young Muslims. 

Abu-Dan is the chief operating officer for Emerald Project, and she’s determined to unite the Muslim community or umma, which is one of the Emerald Project’s five goals. With almost two billion Muslims in the world, there’s a huge diversity of language, race, ethnicity, and culture represented in Islam. 

In 2019, the Emerald Project hosted an Iftar at the Islamic Society of Bosniaks Mosque in Salt Lake City, UT. Iftar is a meal after sunset during Ramadan’s daily fast, and Iftars have a festive vibe that made for a welcoming experience as Muslims from many cultures and backgrounds gathered in this mosque. For many, this was their first time visiting this mosque. Communities of Muslims in Salt Lake self-segregate into different groups, but this Emerald Project Iftar helped bridge those divides.

Abu-Dan remembers feeling out of place as a Muslim with parents from Palestine who attended a majority-Pakistani mosque. She spoke Arabic and the Pakistanis spoke Urdu. She has fasted for Ramadan since she was six years old, but in school, she felt like the only Muslim in elementary and junior high. In high school, she met Muslims from different backgrounds, but she felt pressure to assimilate and strip away her Muslim identity.

With that experience in mind, Abu-Dan plans to create an educational space for conversation where it’s safe to discuss questions about Islam and faith struggles — a space where asking ‘why’ isn’t seen as disrespectful, but rather sincere curiosity.

In the end, Abu-Dan figures that this younger generation of Muslims is better at mingling than their parents’ or grandparent’s generations. She’s hopeful that Emerald Project can reduce the internal disputes that keep Muslims from different backgrounds from interacting more often. And with a strong Instagram game, Emerald Project is using its Canva grant to create informative graphics and interviews. 

Ermina Mustafic Harambasic

As a fundamental goal, Emerald Project supports young Muslims as they explore their identity, and Ermina Mustafic Harambasic’s faith journey serves as an example of the circuitous path Muslims tread as they navigate struggles with their faith. As director of sponsorship & outreach for Emerald Project, she hopes to “build a bridge of unity by engaging in important conversations with others.”

Mustafic Harambasic’s family fled Bosnia in 1998 after a war in Bosnia that included the genocide in Srebrenica where more than 8000 Muslims were killed. Facing this inhospitable climate, her family emigrated to Utah when she was one year old.

As a child, she recited surahs, but she didn’t speak Arabic, so she didn’t understand what she was proclaiming. Mix in a few years of teenage indoctrination, and she started to experience Islam as a cultural touchstone rather than a spiritual religion. Misrepresentations of Islam in the media started to distort her perception of what it meant to be a Muslim.

It wasn’t until she reached college that she embraced her identity as a Muslim. Two classes pushed her to decide what she believed and who she wanted to be. A world religions class introduced her to many religions, including her own. Religious skepticism she read about in a book on atheism convinced her to dig deeper into Islam. And Emerald Project’s Islamic lessons on Sundays help, too.

World Interventions was another class that influenced Mustafic Harambasic’s identity. She studied the war in Bosnia and learned about what happened to Bosnian Muslims. Her parents had told stories, but academic research hammered it home — she realized that if she didn’t carry on with her faith, that Islamophobes would have successfully stripped it away from her. 

It’s now time for another twist on Mustafic Harambasic’s path: marriage! She married Mirza Harambasic in November. They’re discovering Islam together and learning from each other as they fast and pray together. “There are roles for men and roles for women, and they’re both valued equally,” she said. 

Emerald Project gave her a platform for her voice that lets her push back against media stereotypes as she engages young Muslims in conversations about their identities. She emphasizes that “God is all forgiving, and that it’s OK to screw up as you continue to make progress.”

Taha Abdallah

Taha Abdallah worked his way up from Emerald Project ambassador to director of special projects & programming at Emerald Project. He’s a political science and middle eastern studies at the University of Utah, and he’s passionate about Emerald Project’s goal to promote the accurate use of information regarding Islam and Muslims.

One of the most prominent misconceptions is that Muslims are all from the middle east. Indonesia is actually the region with the highest number of Muslims. In fact, “most Muslims don’t speak Arabic, aren’t OK with terrorism and aren’t afraid of pork products,” Abdallah said. Many media stereotypes about Muslims have cultural and regional roots — not roots in the Quran.

As Emerald Project combats misinformation, they start with their own communications. Several Islamic scholars serve on Emerald Project’s advisory board, and the team is quick to turn to What’s App with questions before making public statements. A recent Instagram graphic needed clarification whether to state “Ramadan Kareem!” or “Ramadan Mubarek!” as a preferred greeting. “Ramadan Kareem!”

The advisory board also fields questions about fasting and Ramadan. Is the COVID vaccine halal? Does a vaccination break the Ramadan fast? This attention to detail sets Emerald Project on a scholarly foundation.

Abdallah has even encountered misinformation in his classes at the University of Utah. In classes, he’s heard that women have no rights, that women should be beaten or stoned for adultery or that Muslims all look a certain way. 

And as with any religious text, extremists can find ways to draw disinformation and out-of-context stances on either side. According to Abdallah, Muslims who seek to kill infidels or Islamophobes who fear the establishment of a Caliphate in the U.S. are both incorrect.  

Abdallah is passionate about Emerald Project’s conferences and programming. He sees these events as an opportunity to combat misinformation. And “Inshallah,” as he says, the Muslim Youth Conference will happen as soon as it’s safe to gather at the University of Utah.

Nour Bilal

Emerald Project’s goal to make Utah more welcoming to Muslims couldn’t be better embodied than in Nour Bilal who serves as an ambassador at the Emerald Project. Her family was the first Syrian refugee family to arrive in Salt Lake.

The war started in 2011, and her father was briefly arrested in 2012. After another arrest and three months in prison, it was clear that he needed to flee. He went to Lebanon, but his family remained. Eventually they reunited in Lebanon and applied to the United Nations for asylum. 

Long story short: Bilal and her family finally arrived in Salt Lake on November 26, 2014 — without winter clothes, of course! A series of case workers, mentors and Catholic Community Services volunteers helped Bilal and her family settle into an apartment. Her father is now a chef, and her mother is finishing a personal training certificate.

Before arriving in Utah, Bilal had heard stories about Americans, and she wasn’t impressed. She’s convinced that the warm welcome she received in Salt Lake made all the difference to her socialization and education. She also recognized that she shared values with devout members of other faiths — the importance of marriage and family, for example. And the people she met seemed eager to help.

Make no mistake, she was ready to fight. She had heard about hijabs being pulled off and stories of bullying, but she gradually relaxed into her identity as a Muslim in Utah, and now she’s convinced that mentors and friends she met in Salt Lake made her who she is today.

As an ambassador for Emerald Project, Bilal is now in a position to help other Muslims as they arrive and settle into their lives in Salt Lake, but she still remembers the transition she made from refugee to successful SLCC student.