title: Sineb El Masrar
text: # Sineb El Masrar
  
  Sineb El Masrar (born 1981) is a Moroccan-German author, journalist, and Islamic feminist.
  
  She is the founder of the intercultural women's magazine Gazelle and has published several works dealing with the issue of feminism in Islam.
  
  ## Early life
  
  Sineb El Masrar was born in 1981 in Hanover, Germany, and grew up there. Her father was a Moroccan car mechanic who left Tangier for Germany in the mid-1960s, and her mother joined him there in the late 1970s.
  
  She first studied business, then graduated with a degree in education. She experienced discrimination during her job search, as the Catholic schools refused to hire a Muslim.
  
  ## Career
  
  In June 2006, El Masrar founded Gazelle, a multicultural women's magazine, which she runs as editor in chief.
  
  She became involved in German government projects on integration, serving as a member of the "Media and Integration" working group as part of a conference organized by Minister of State for Migration, Refugees, and Integration Maria Böhmer. From May 2010 to 2013, she also participated in the Deutschen Islamkonferenz [de], a German dialogue on Islam.
  
  El Masrar's first book, Muslim Girls: Wer Wir Sind, Wie Wir Leben ("Muslim Girls: Who We Are, How We Live"), was published in 2010. It was rereleased in a pocket format in 2015.
  
  Her next book, Emanzipation im Islam ("Emancipation in Islam"), made headlines when it was published in early 2016. It was the subject of a complaint from the Islamist movement Millî Görüş, which compelled El Masrar to withdraw a passage from the book via a ruling of the Munich district court.
  
  In 2018, she published Muslim Men: Wer Sie Sind, Was Sie Wollen ("Muslim Men: Who They Are, What They Want"), in which she discusses prejudice against Muslim men.
  
  El Masrar lives in Berlin.
  
  ## Political positions
  
  El Masrar calls for an open and critical interpretation of Islam, and she believes that Islam is not incompatible with women's rights. She emphasizes that Islam as a whole should not be confused with Salafism and points to the existence of female imams and an openly gay imam, Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed, in Marseille, France.
  
  ## Selected works
  
  * Muslim Girls: Wer Wir Sind, Wie Wir Leben (2010)
  * Emanzipation im Islam (2016)
  * Muslim Men: Wer Sie Sind, Was Sie Wollen (2018)
  