The Feeling Muslim Project

My name is Karla N. Kovacik and I am the Founder and Director of Feeling Muslim. I'm also an American convert to Islam. I'd like to give you a little history about Feeling Muslim and why it is such an important organization for women and men converts all over the United States. The idea for Feeling Muslim began as I was working on my M.A. in Islamic Studies at the University of Georgia. One of my educational goals was to conduct activist research that would benefit American Muslims, and particularly American converts to Islam. To meet that personal goal, I designed and conducted the study "Feeling Muslim: An Intimate Portrait of Identity Cultivation among American Female Converts to Islam." Many of the questions I asked came from my own positive, negative, and neutral experiences as an American convert to Islam. I especially wanted to know if other women converts were having similar negative experiences, and if so, from their perspectives what could be done to change that. What started as a small survey resulted in the largest study of American female converts ever conducted, with 459 full and partial responses, of which 257 were full responses by participants self-identifying as U.S-born female converts to Islam. Reading through the candid, heartfelt responses of these women has brought me immense joy, belly laughs so intense I could hardly breathe, and at times, overwhelming sadness. While I am working on numerous publications of the findings, I felt I must do something with the wealth of information these women entrusted to me.something to help others in similar situations.something just for us converts. To that end, I established Feeling Muslim as a Not-for-Profit organization dedicated to providing educational, spiritual, emotional, social, and financial support to women and men all over the United States in various stages of conversion to Islam.