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Ruqayyah K. Muhammad (@RuqayyahKMuhammad across social media) was born in the early eighties in Newark, New Jersey, U.S.A., the youngest of eight children of the late Dr. Abdul Baaqee Wilson Muhammad and the late Gloria Zarinah Saleem Muhammad (may God be pleased with them both). She considers herself uniquely favoured to have been born into a family that fostered God-consciousness, self-knowledge, curiosity, service, and love.
After an idyllic childhood spent on the U.S. Marine Corps base in Camp Lejune, North Carolina and in the small town of Andalusia, Alabama, Ruqayyah settled with her family in Atlanta, Georgia where she matriculated at the African-American Muslim-run Mohammed School System and then attended the all-woman Historically Black College/University (HBCU) Spelman College, majoring in Political Science with an emphasis on International Relations. While in Atlanta, she was an active member of the Atlanta Masjid of Al-Islam. She is forever grateful to each of these institutions for providing such unique spaces for the gathering of the extraordinary individuals she was blessed to know and love.
During a semester studying-abroad at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, she fell deeply and irrevocably in love with her now-husband Shaykh Muhammad Milanzi. Following her college graduation in 2004, she returned to South Africa to wed and live permanently.
She and Muhammad live in Dawn Park, a small town near Johannesburg, with their three children Amatur-Rahman, Muhammad Al-Hasan and Faatimah Zahra. Ruqayyah calls herself a “full-time wife and mother” although she fears the phrase fails truly convey the beautiful madness of her day-to-day life. She is an active and dedicated member of the Falaq Islamic Community (@FalaqIslamicCommunity) which, along her husband, their extended family, and a close-knit community, she is working to establish as a model community that can be replicated locally and internationally. Falaq’s emphasis is on the development of healthy and whole individuals, families, and community structures.
Ruqayyah is also a free-lance writer whose work has appeared in such publications as The Muslim Journal, Azizah Magazine, The Flood, and The Atlanta Journal Constitution. In 2018, she established Deep Roots Books (@DeepRootsBooks), an indie publishing company which also provides free-lance editing services. Her first book Khayalami: My Home is a memoir about her life as an African American Muslim woman expatriate living in South Africa written in essays, poetry, short-stories and vignettes.
Her deep desire and passionate prayer is to stand powerfully in her truth, share light in dark places, and inspire others to do the same. Khayalami and Wildflower are her first two books, but she hopes they won’t be her last.
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