Muslim Lifestyle

Noorain Khan

Issue 44 May 2008

At 23, Noorain Khan has lived, studied, and travelled the world, including stints in Pakistan, working at a women’s rights NGO, and in Egypt studying Arabic. Yet this Muslim American woman of Pakistani descent describes the last 18 months spent in the UK as perhaps her most interesting and formative endeavour abroad. This June, Noorain will complete an MPhil in Migration Studies at St. Antony’s College Oxford, where she is currently a Rhodes Scholar.

From working with the Mayor of Washington DC, to winning the Girl Scouts USA Young Women of Distinction Award 2002, Noorain’s achievements are as diverse as her interests. In London, she has undertaken extensive research on immigrant Muslim women and Islamic modest dress, with the belief that today’s policy discourse demands a better understanding of the diversity and identities of societies.

Despite being set to attend Harvard Law School in the US this autumn, Noorain couldn’t resist sticking her fingers in a few other pies. She is cowriting a college women’s self-improvement book titled “I’m Not Perfect, But I’m Everything Else” as well as a self-reflective book looking at Islamic veiling in western diasporas. The phrase ‘woman on a mission’ doesn’t even come close.