Why Does Dalia Mogahed Silence Other Women? | Fadwa Wazwaz

For years, I have watched a particular pattern unfold in Muslim public discourse — a pattern that is painful, familiar, and rarely acknowledged. It is the pattern of women’s ideas being absorbed, repackaged, and amplified by others with larger platforms, while the women who first articulated those ideas are quietly erased. They find other women, like Dalia Mogahed to claim the work and project while working to erase the woman who began the project.

In 2007, I wrote a commentary for The Minnesota Daily titled “Islamo‑Fascism: A Very Racist Concept.” In that piece, I explored how Islamophobia functions not only as public hostility, but as a form of psychological and emotional abuse. I wrote about:

• shaming
• projection
• emotional blackmail
• the denial of self‑acceptance
• the silencing of Muslim voices
• and the way constant criticism becomes a tool of domination

These ideas were not widely discussed at the time. There was no vocabulary for “internalized Islamophobia.”

These are themes I wrote about long before they were fashionable, long before they were institutionalized, long before they were packaged as “thought leadership.”

It is about erasure.

It is about the irony of watching a woman who speaks often about “amplifying women’s voices” repeat ideas that women without platforms articulated years earlier — without acknowledgment, without recognition, and without even the awareness that someone else carried this intellectual labor before her.

We met in person when I invited her to Minnesota to support her work and promote her book. After that meeting, I began to notice something unsettling: ideas I had articulated years earlier were suddenly appearing in her circle — copied, repackaged, and presented as original insights.

My reflections only seemed to gain “credibility” once they were echoed by someone with a larger microphone. A few years after we met, concepts I had written and spoken about were coming back through my own feed, now attributed to members of her circle — including her own sister, Yasmin Mogahed.

If we are going to talk about elevating women’s voices, then we must also talk about the women whose voices were ignored, dismissed, slandered, or overwritten — even by those who claim to champion us.

My 2007 piece stands as a record of what I saw, felt, and understood long before the language existed to describe it. I wrote it without institutional backing, without a platform, and without the safety of a public persona.

Here is her video claiming my thoughts as her own. This is not an isolated event.

It is historical and hysterical.

They claim to want to help Muslims, while erasing Muslim voices and claiming their ideas.

If I complain, they fabricate nonstop stories that have no evidence, to drain me in fighting smear campaigns.

The Institutional Playbook of Erasure

The “Absorb and Rebrand” Loop: Well-funded organizations monitor independent writers and grassroots thinkers because that is where the most authentic, raw insight is born. They strip away our names, pair our insights with institutional branding or data, and present it as their own corporate discovery.

The Smear as a Diversion: When an independent voice attempts to reclaim their work, the institution rarely engages with the facts of the plagiarism. Instead, they shift the focus by fabricating personal narratives, psychological diagnosis, starting smear campaigns, or questioning our credibility or sanity.

Calculated Exhaustion: They know they have more resources, legal backing, and public relations power. The goal of the drama and the rumors is to mentally, emotionally, and financially bankrupt you so that dropping the issue feels like the only way to survive.

What I cannot understand is how she can publicly share a quote like:

“They wanted everyone else to be silent while they spoke. But on that Day, the opposite will happen. The tyrants will be silent.”

— and never once pause to consider how it applies to her and her sister and circle’s own behavior.

There is no record of her, her sister, or members of her circle ever acknowledging my work, my writings, or the ideas they now absorb and use. Not once. For years, they have spoken about amplifying women’s voices while overlooking, erasing, or repackaging the voice of a woman Dalia personally met — a woman who supported her, invited her to Minnesota, and shared insights long before they appeared in her circle.

How can someone speak so confidently about silencing and tyranny, yet never reflect on the silence she and her circle has imposed on others?

What makes this even harder to reconcile is that she and members of her circle are scheduled to speak at the 2026 ISNA Convention — an event built around the theme “Persevere, Interconnect, Be God‑Conscious, Strengthen Each Other for True Prosperity.”

These are beautiful principles.

Yet they ring hollow when the same voices elevated on these stages have quietly erased the contributions of women. When you visited Minnesota, I supported your work and helped promote your book. I’m asking you now to extend the same “support” by sharing or mentioning my books. This is a simple matter of practicing the principles you’re speaking about, especially strengthening one another and interconnection.

My experience with them reflects the opposite: erasure, not interconnection; slander, not strengthening; selective amplification, not true prosperity for all women’s voices.

The Qur’an asks plainly: “Why do you say what you do not do?”

These principles are to be lived, not performed on stage for Men and Women of the City.