Just twenty minutes into the evening, sixty dazzling Muslim women came fitted and hungry to connect and feast. Walking into the room at the Warren Street Hotel in New York City, I felt elevated immediately. Women were from all over the world, including Dubai, from literally all walks of life. We had all made it to the Eid Soirée to discuss business and community. Women offered to babysit, fund startups, and one even put in a formal request for a husband. (That last one was me. Lol, ok, moving on.)
The evening was the creation of Hiba Irshad, founder of cultural studio 25 per cent, and Sana Raheem, founder of Mubarak & Co. — the lifestyle brand reimagining how the world’s two billion Muslims celebrate. Between them, they have built record labels, scaled venture-backed startups into multi-billion-dollar businesses, and quietly become two of the most consequential connectors in their generation. On June 2, they turned that energy into a room. The room was filled with a dermatologist who just launched with Alix Earle, a playwright whose one-woman show has redefined Muslim-American storytelling on stage, a Goldman Sachs managing director who oversees sovereign wealth capital, a chef whose cookbook traces food, memory, and migration across Somalia, and more.
“We are not the first generation of Muslim women to dream big,” Sana said. “We are the first generation set up to build it. Not asking for permission. Not waiting for space. We are the space.” Muslims represent nearly a quarter of the global population and more than $170 billion in buying power in the United States alone, a community of extraordinary scale whose stories have too often been told by others, about us, without us. Less than one per cent of venture capital reaches women founders. Hiba said it plainly: “We talk a lot about supporting women, but support has to move beyond words. Less than one per cent of venture capital funding goes to women founders. Imagine what that number looks like for Muslim women. If we truly believe in one another, we have to back that belief with introductions, mentorship, opportunities, and capital.”
The evening closed with a give-and-get: every woman shared her name, her field, and what she hoped to walk away with. It was the simplest possible exercise, and somehow the most radical thing in the room. We were not waiting to be discovered. We were already here and building together.
The Eid al-Adha Soirée was sponsored by Modest Visions and AYN Studios, with décor by Styled by Sunji. Brand partners included Fable & Mane, ONTU, KAYALI, Liquid I.V., Shelter Skin, Bloom, Nutrops, 4AM, Poppi, Recess, Topicals, Dr. Idriss, and the Revelist.