Islam has a rich, vibrant history and present, with nearly 2 billion followers across the globe today. Since its origins more than 1,400 years ago, Islam has inspired a wide array of writers, thinkers, and creatives from a breadth of backgrounds and cultures. Celebrate the diversity and vibrancy of the Islamic world with these outstanding must-listen Muslim authors, along with audiobook recommendations for where to start listening.
Sabaa Tahir
Sabaa Tahir is a must-read YA fantasy author who grew up in the Mojave Desert in her Pakistani American family's motel. She started writing her New York Times bestselling fantasy series An Ember in the Ashes—featured among the Audible Essential lists for the best fantasy and best series of all time—while working as a newspaper editor. Tahir has now published multiple fantasy series, graphic novels, and standalones.
Where to start: All My Rage
Although Tahir is known for fantasy, her realistic 2022 novel All My Rage is a great place to start. It's told through dual timelines: one historical from newlyweds in an arranged marriage in Lahore, Pakistan, and one contemporary of best friends trying to keep a family-owned motel in California afloat. The novel's many accolades include the 2022 National Book Award, and the powerful multicast audiobook—narrated by Deepti Gupta, Kamran R. Khan, and Kausar Mohammed—was named Audible's Best of the Year in 2022.
Khaled Hosseini
Khaled Hosseini is one of the most internationally recognized, acclaimed contemporary authors. Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965 to a diplomat father and high school teacher mother. His family was granted political asylum in the United States when Hosseini was 15. They then moved to California, where Hosseini was a doctor before publishing his debut novel, The Kite Runner, which has been adapted into a film, multiple stage plays, and a graphic novel. Outside of writing, Hosseini advocates for the rights of refugees and founded the Khaled Hosseini Foundation in partnership with UNHCR.
Where to start: A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Kite Runner may have introduced the world to Hosseini's work, but I recommend starting with his 2007 novel A Thousand Splendid Suns. It tells the story of two Afghan women in an arranged marriage to the same man who form a powerful bond that grows stronger as Kabul comes under Taliban rule. The audiobook is narrated brilliantly by Atossa Leoni, who also played the role of Soraya in the 2007 film adaptation of The Kite Runner.
Mohsin Hamid
British Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid writes novels about contemporary Pakistan with speculative and dystopian elements. Though he was born in Lahore, Hamid has lived across the globe. He studied international relations at Princeton and law at Harvard, and learned creative writing under Toni Morrison. Since his 2000 debut novel, Moth Smoke, he has published four additional novels that explore the lived experiences of modern Pakistanis.
Where to start: Exit West
Check out Hamid's Booker Prize-shortlisted 2017 audiobook Exit West, narrated by the author, which follows Saeed and Nadia as they are forced to flee from civil war in their unnamed city. They escape through a series of fantastical doors leading to random places in other countries. It's a profound story that speaks to the danger and uncertainty of life as a refugee, and a film adaptation starring Riz Ahmed is currently in the works by the Obamas' Higher Ground Productions.
Zeyn Joukhadar
Zeyn Joukhadar is a phenomenal queer Syrian American author. His debut novel, The Map of Salt and Stars, won the 2018 Middle East Book Award. His 2020 sophomore novel about a closeted Syrian American trans man, The Thirty Names of Night, won Stonewall and Lambda Literary awards. Joukhadar is currently busy adapting The Thirty Names of Night into an experimental, immersive theatrical production.
Where to start: The Map of Salt and Stars
Start with Joukhadar's The Map of Salt and Stars, an epic novel about the Middle East and North Africa with both contemporary and historical timelines. It follows two young women on mirrored journeys: one in medieval Syria who disguises herself as a boy to apprentice under a mapmaker creating a map of the world, and another who moves from modern New York to Syria with her widowed mother to create hand-painted maps. It's a gorgeous audiobook brought to life by actor Lara Sawalha.
Ayad Akhtar
Pulitzer Prize winner Ayad Akhtar is a Pakistani American author famous for his writing both on the page and for the stage. Born in New York, Akhtar grew up in Wisconsin, which is the setting of his 2012 coming-of-age novel American Dervish. Akhtar's four plays won multiple awards and honors. In 2023, Akhtar announced he's joined the team of writers adapting the Academy Award-nominated film La La Land into a musical.
Where to start: Homeland Elegies
Ayad Akhtar's autofiction novel Homeland Elegies plays with elements of memoir, essays, and nonfiction. It's an inventive father-son story about life as a Muslim American in a post-9/11 world. The protagonist shares Ayad Akhtar's name, and the audiobook is aptly narrated by the author himself.
Naguib Mahfouz
Naguib Mahfouz was an iconic Egyptian author who published 35 novels, 26 screenplays, 5 stage plays, and hundreds of short stories in his 70-year career. Born in Cairo in 1911, Mahfouz's politically nuanced work earned him a Pulitzer Prize in Literature. As of this writing, he remains the only Egyptian to receive the award.
Where to start: Palace Walk
Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy follows one family in Cairo from the Egyptian Revolution against British colonial rule in 1918 through the end of World War II. The first in the series, Palace Walk, was published in Arabic in 1956, but its insights into human nature and Egyptian politics still resonate today, especially on the audiobook by award-winning narrator Neil Shah.
Tahereh Mafi
Tahereh Mafi, an Iranian American writer born in Connecticut, tells stories for and about young people—from YA fantasy to middle grade chapter books. Her listener favorite dystopian fantasy series Shatter Me stars a 17-year-old girl whose touch can kill, and it's written in an epistolary diary format with intertextual edits. Mafi's books play with form and often blur the lines between reality and fantasy.
Where to start: A Very Large Expanse of Sea
Tahereh Mafi's A Very Large Expanse of Sea is about a hijab-wearing, music-loving, breakdancing teenage girl named Shirin who faces anti-Muslim discrimination in post-9/11 America. As a result, Shirin, played brilliantly by narrator Priya Ayyar, constructs a protective wall around herself that she doesn't think anyone can break—that is, until she meets Ocean James.
Nadia Hashimi
Afghan American author Nadia Hashimi draws inspiration from her family's history and culture for her bestselling adult and children's books. Hashimi was a pediatrician but pivoted to writing with her 2014 debut, The Pearl that Broke Its Shell, which explores the historical and contemporary lives of women in Afghanistan. Hashimi advocates for children and women in Afghanistan through the Afghan-American Foundation and the US-Afghan Women's Council.
Where to start: When the Moon is Low
Start with Hashimi's When the Moon is Low, poetically narrated by Sneha Mathan and Neil Shah. Fereiba found love in her arranged marriage with Mahmoud and lives a peaceful life in Kabul with their three children. But when the Taliban rises to power, her family becomes a target, and Fereiba is forced to run with her children in search of safety and freedom.
Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī
When it comes to classic Muslim authors, Rūmī was a legendary game-changer. Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, also known globally as Rumi, was a 13th-century Islamic poet, scholar, and mystic whose work continues to reach across borders, religions, ethnicities, and time. Born into a family of Persian theologians in the Balkh region in 1207, Rumi’s writings explore themes of love, spirituality, the human condition, and connection to the divine.
Where to start: The Essential Rumi
Experience some of Rumi's most influential poems and never-before-published work in this modern translation of The Essential Rumi. Engagingly narrated by actor Robertson Dean, it's a perfect introduction to Rumi's writing, built out with contextual explanations to help listeners better understand Rumi's place in history and continuing influence on the world.
Uzma Jalaluddin
Uzma Jalaluddin is a rising-star author of sharp, funny, and engaging romance and women's fiction. Born and raised in Toronto, Jalaluddin draws inspiration from Jane Austen's classics. Jalaluddin's 2019 debut novel, Ayesha at Last,is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, and her 2023 novel Much Ado About Nada retells Persuasion. Two of Jalaluddin's books are currently being adapted for the screen.
Where to start: Ayesha at Last
Ayesha at Last was Uzma Jalaluddin's first novel, and it's also the perfect place to start listening to her audiobooks. Ayesha, portrayed with charm and heart in audio by narrator Roshni Shukla, dreams of being a poet, but she's stuck teaching to pay off her debt. She's open to love but not to arranged marriages. Then she meets Khalid, whose traditional views go against everything Ayesha believes, yet she's annoyingly attracted to him. But when an arranged marriage is announced between Khalid and Ayesha's younger cousin, all three must reconsider what they really want in love.
Sarwat Chadda
Sarwat Chadda writes action-packed fantasy and adventure novels inspired by Indian mythology. Chadda is a lifelong gamer who looked to fantasy novels and Dungeons & Dragons as an escape from his career as an engineer. In 2009, he began engineering his own new worlds with his debut YA paranormal thriller, Devil's Kiss. A prolific traveler, Chadda draws inspiration from his own adventures and a variety of mythologies and cultures.
Where to start: City of the Plague God
Check out Chadda's middle grade Sik and the Dragon Goddess series, starting with City of the Plague God, narrated with humor and style by actor Vikas Adam. Modern Manhattan is threatened by the ancient gods and plagues of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and 13-year-old Sik's normal life at school and his family's deli is interrupted when he learns he's immortal and might be the key to saving his city.
Hala Alyan
Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American poet and novelist whose work explores the impact of war and political turmoil on families and identity. A clinical psychologist, Alyan's writing also deals with mental health and trauma. She's lived across the US, as well as Kuwait and Lebanon. Alyan has published four poetry collections, as well as the novels Salt Houses and The Arsonists' City.
Where to start: You're Not a Girl in a Movie
Experience the magic of hearing Alyan read her own poetry with the Audible Original You're Not a Girl in a Movie. These nine powerful poems explore Alyan's loss of homeland, the generational impacts of displacement, and the innate beauty of human life.
Hafsah Faizal
Hafsah Faizal is a young author to watch, known for her YA fantasy novels set in ancient Arabia. Born in Florida, raised in California, and currently residing in North Carolina, Faizal's fiction is influenced by her love of travel and experiences as a Muslim American. After writing her first novel at 17, Faizal's first traditionally published novel, We Hunt the Flame, was released in 2019, and she is currently executive producing a television adaptation of the book.
Where to start: We Hunt the Flame
Explore Hafsah Faizal's magical worlds with We Hunt the Flame, the first in her Sands of Arawiya duology. Two young characters have complicated feelings about their roles in their kingdom. Zafira is the Hunter, but if she revealed she's a girl, her community would reject her acts of bravery. Nasir assassinates his sultan father's enemies as the Prince of Death, but his secret compassion could be seen as weakness. When Nasir is tasked with killing Zafira, an ancient evil awakens. This award-winning audiobook comes alive with immersive dual narration from Fiona Hardingham and Steve West.
Tahmima Anam
Groundbreaking author Tahmima Anam was born in Bangladesh and raised internationally, bringing a wide variety of experiences and cultures to her writing. Anam received a PhD in anthropology from Harvard and an MA in creative writing from the University of London. Her 2007 debut novel, A Golden Age, received the First Book Prize, and her following three novels have received a variety of awards and honors of their own.
Where to start: A Golden Age
Start with Anam's debut novel, A Golden Age, inspired by her family's experiences during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence. Rehana's quiet life in Bangladesh is interrupted when the fight for freedom begins, and her two college-aged children join the revolution. Rehana is drawn into the conflict to protect her children and her homeland. Actress and writer Madhur Jaffrey's narration of the audiobook makes it an unforgettable listen.
Nadifa Mohamed
Somali British author Nadifa Mohamed is shaping the future of Muslim and African literature with her novels, short stories, essays, and articles. Born in Somaliland, Mohamed and her family temporarily moved to London when she was a child, but it became permanent when the Somali civil war prevented them from moving back. Her 2010 debut novel, Black Mamba Boy, draws inspiration from Mohamed's father's childhood in colonial Yemen.
Where to start: The Fortune Men
The Fortune Men is a great introduction to Mohamed's body of work. It's inspired by the true story of Mahmood Mattan, a merchant sailor wrongly accused of murder in 1952 Wales, a man whom Mohamed's father knew. It's a layered, emotional tale of real-life injustice, dynamically narrated by actor Hugh Quarshie.
S. A. Chakraborty
S. A. Chakraborty is the author of the bestselling Daevabad Trilogy and The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. Born and raised in New Jersey by Catholic parents, Chakraborty converted to Islam as a teenager and developed an interest in Middle Eastern history and culture. The Islamic faith and community play an important role in Chakraborty's life and writing, and her fantasy and sci-fi novels have a basis in Islamic mythology.
Where to Start: The City of Brass
Dive into Chakraborty's audiobooks with The City of Brass, the first book in the Daevebad Trilogy, set in 18th-century Cairo. Nahri, played by celebrated narrator Soneela Nankani, is a con woman who offers fake palm readings and healings to Ottoman nobility. But when Nahri's faux magic accidentally awakens a djinn warrior, she's drawn into a fantastical world she thought only existed in myths.
