Muslim Iowa City woman empowers her community

Viana Qadoura has always loved books. They were a luxury when she was growing up in a war-torn country in the Middle East.

But since she moved to Iowa, she has had trouble finding books that represent her Muslim identity. She’s trying to change that.

Qadoura is the founder and director of the Mariam Girls’ Club, a Muslim youth club for girls in Iowa City and the surrounding areas. She’s the social events coordinator for the Iowa City Mosque, called the Al-Iman Center, and plans extracurricular events for its weekend school. She also recently was appointed as a member of the Iowa City Human Rights Commission.

Through her hardships as a Muslim woman in the United States, she has met discrimination with kindness, ignorance with education, conformity with community. And now she’s working on a literary project that will ensure Muslims are properly represented and empowered in her community.

“Nothing daunted me — all the cries, all the bad, the sleepless nights or everything that I went through,” she said. “I have to wipe my eyes. I have to get up in the morning. And I have to say, ‘OK, what's next?’”

‘Like a war zone’

Qadoura moved to the United States in 1996. In 2002, she moved to Burlington, where about 85 percent of the population is white. Her family was the only visibly Muslim family — adorned with hijabs — in a sea of white Christian seniors and religious conservatives.

She said her children were called “terrorists” at school. People would yell Islamophobic obscenities to her as they drove by. Her family was turned away from restaurants because of her Middle Eastern accent.

“We survived there for 15 years. I call it surviving,” Qadoura said. “I had to advocate for my kids and for all the other minorities.”

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She became involved at her children’s schools, giving presentations about Muslim history and culture to combat misinformation. She explained the teachings behind Islam, the meaning behind her hijab. She educated teachers and faculty members. She submitted letters to the editor to her local newspaper.

She also surveyed her local libraries for Muslim representation and found books that talked about Arabs only in the context of politics or terrorism — “not a single book about the reality or the humanity of Arabs or Muslims in the Middle East,” she said. So, she started buying and collecting books more representative of her Muslim faith and culture.

Qadoura donated a $500 collection of age-appropriate books to the school superintendent for the district’s libraries.

“I'm not working for my own benefit because I knew I was going to live there for a few years and then leave,” she said. “But the impact that it could leave those people and try to help them get out of their ignorance … it's a humanitarian thing.”

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Creating community

After living in Burlington, Qadoura moved her family to Iowa City in 2015. There, she breathed a sigh of relief: There were other Muslims and minorities in sight.

The Al-Iman Center has a weekend school that teaches children up to age 14 about Islamic studies, Arabic and the Quran, the Muslim holy book. Qadoura wanted to offer extended support for Muslim children integrating their religious identities into their everyday lives in the Western world.

“We have a big disconnect in our community, where they … teach those things without relating it to everyday living,” she said. “Dual identities is not something they should fear, or that should keep them from excelling or moving forward.”

In 2018, Qadoura created the Mariam Girls’ Club — a social opportunity for young Muslim women to form an empowering community. Qadoura named the club after Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is a central female figure in Islam.

At least once a month, club participants — about 20 Muslim girls in middle school and high school — meet up to talk about their experiences and support each other. They dive deeper into Islamic practices and beliefs, learning together as a community. Qadoura invites successful Muslim women to speak to the girls as role models.

Qadoura organizes optional group bonding activities, like archery, kayaking and fencing. She also coordinates volunteering opportunities for the girls to give back to their community.

“This club is about empowering, uniting and connecting those girls,” she said. “They feel seen, even from completely different backgrounds or cultures. They feel confident enough when they walk into this club that we are Muslims, we adhere to the same faith. They don't have to fake their identity with you.”

1,000 Book Nook

Even in Iowa City, Qadoura struggled to find books with Muslim representation on library shelves. She wanted to fix that — just like she tried to in Burlington.

It started as a project for her children during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, marked by daily fasting from dawn to sunset and ending with the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr. They each searched for books where they could read about people, faith and culture like theirs. Then, they donated the books to their schools.

“I always believed in the power of books,” Qadoura said. “It started by seeing the impact on children when it comes to books and to feel self-represented.”

She wanted to take it a step further and give back to the Al-Iman Center. Within five years, she was able to raise $18,000 that went toward the weekend school and a new project: the 1,000 Book Nook.

The 1,000 Book Nook will be a mini library at Al-Iman Center that will serve young children with fiction, non-fiction and bilingual books for free — each of which represent and empower Muslim people.

Qadoura had collected more than 270 books before she received a $7,500 Racial Equity and Social Justice Grant from the Iowa City Council for the project. It’s the first-ever grant to be granted to the Al-Iman Center.

For now, the books will be housed at the Al-Iman Center for its weekend school students. But for Qadoura, now 45, her dream is to have a public library devoted to Muslim and Arabic books for anyone to enjoy and learn about.

“Somebody has to do the work, and I can’t count on somebody else and wait,” she said. “This is the time to speak. I will never be a bystander.”

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Brittney J. Miller is the Energy & Environment Reporter for The Gazette and a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: (319) 398-8370; brittney.miller@thegazette.com