Who We Are
A humanistic community
Leading ethical lives based on a progressive philosophy
We are a community of humanists who have rejected organized religion but maintain strong ties with the diverse cultures of Muslims worldwide. We create spaces for personal growth and emotional support in order to lead joyous and compassionate lives. We pursue viable alternatives to faith-based communities that allow us to flourish together.
Our Story
How We Got Started
When translated into English, An-Nas means “the people” or “humanity” and is commonly known among Muslims as the title of the Quran’s final chapter. We take the well-being of humanity as our starting point. An-Nas was founded at the end of 2018 by Hannah Abbasi, Noura Embabi, and Ginan Rauf. Known to each other for years, they had engaged in several secular, ex-religious spaces. Together, they created An-Nas to focus on a humanist alternative that resonated with freethinkers who wanted to situate themselves at the intersection of humanism and social justice. With an interest in focusing on issues like racism, classism, and sexism, they sought to represent their values and long-term goals in the secular community.
Where We Are Headed
An-Nas is a progressive platform that works at the intersection of inclusive humanism and social justice. We strive to create communities that provide emotional support and opportunities of personal growth for humanists who have rejected traditional religious faith but maintain various forms of solidarity with our communities and marginalized groups. This is consistent with our view that all cultures have the potential to enrich human lives and contribute to the creation of a more inclusive humanism in a North American context. Our long-term objective is to help shape a world in which individuals can lead fulfilling personal lives through the cultivation of reason, compassion, collective struggle against inherited forms of bigotry, and a deep engagement with the humanities.
Our Founders
Hannah Abbasi
Executive Director, Chair of Safety Committee
Hannah Abbasi is a transplant to New York City from Austin, Texas. As an adult, Hannah has also lived in Qom, Beirut, and Cairo. At the University of Texas at Austin, Hannah studied Religious Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and History with a minor in Arabic Language. She went on to study at howza (Islamic seminaries) in Iran and Lebanon.
Hannah first moved to New York City in 2012 to work in AmeriCorps VISTA. Hannah continued working in non-profit youth development at prominent community organizations serving Arabs and Muslims in New York City. Hannah transitioned into public education in 2016 as a high school teacher at a transfer school for new immigrants with a high Muslim population. Hannah teaches ESL Social Studies courses guided by social justice and with an aim of developing responsible global citizens. She completed her Master’s of Science in Education from the City College of New York in 2018.
Hannah brings to An-Nas her experience in the secular Muslim community as a former City Organizer and an Executive Board President. She is also socially and politically active and believes in building bridges across lines of faith and culture.
Ginan Rauf
Director of Program Development
Ginan Rauf is an activist, educator, photographer, oral historian, and mother. Ginan received a doctoral degree in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and a joint MA degree in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies from Brandeis University.
Ginan has taught in various institutions of higher learning including Brandeis, Rutgers, University of Connecticut, and the University of Bridgeport, among others. She is the co-founder, along with her son Sherif Ahmed, of a company called Narrative Lives, which produces oral histories using various mediums including photo essays, videos, and audio recordings.
Ginan is a secular humanist and feminist committed to promoting critical thinking and a nuanced knowledge of human cultures. She is a founding member of An-Nas: Humanists Rising from Muslim Communities.
Noura Embabi
Director of Membership, Chair of Screening Committee
Noura Embabi is a secular humanist and community organizer. She attended Queens College in New York, where she studied Communication Sciences and Disorders, Anthropology, and Counseling.
Over the last 10 years, Noura has conducted ethnographic studies and oral history projects, including a study of a Baptist congregation in Queens, ethnographies of young Muslim women wearing the niqab at Queens College, and oral histories of individuals who stutter in Mumbai and Pune. More recently, she has worked on documenting the life experiences of secular women who are members of ex-Muslim organizations.
Noura holds a Master of Arts in Speech-Language Pathology and previously worked as a therapist with individuals who stutter in the US and India. She is currently pursuing graduate education in Women’s and Gender Studies.
An active member of the secular community in New York for the past 6 years, Noura brings prior experience as a membership officer to this role as Director of Membership of An-Nas, where she aims to cultivate community, safety, and personal fulfillment for its members.
Board Members
Nada Kittaneh
Director of Operations
Nada Kittaneh graduated from Rutgers Business School in 2016. During her time at university, she cofounded a Muslim feminist organization, with the help of the Sadie Nash Leadership Fund, to empower Muslim women to seek meaning and community in their lives outside of traditional Muslim spaces, such as MSA’s and mosques. Through this work, she learned that the problems of religious superiority, patriarchy, abuse, and injustice her work tried to address were only the tip of the iceberg. The more she studied and read inside and outside of religion, alongside invaluable mentors, she came to realize the importance of a humanistic philosophy that understood the different social, cultural, and historical dynamics that define our world as it is today. Her professional work remains in finance but her passions live in the fields of literature and psychology. Outside of An-Nas she works in supporting and studying the fights toward gender, environmental, and animal justice around the world.
Ahmad Shwieke
Director of Research and Communications
Ahmad Shweike is a civil lawyer with a passion for human rights and an interest in philosophy. He attended Birzeit University as an undergraduate student and Sorbonne-Paris for his master’s degree in financial and economical law.
Ahmad’s views on religion, feminism, and philosophy are shaped from years of studying, living in different continents among different cultures and traditions, and developing an identity as a secular feminist. He also volunteers at the local animal shelter on weekends and helps to foster animals as an attempt to give back to a world he thinks has given so much to humans.
Ahmad views the world through a lens of morals and human rights and has written extensively on human rights, particularly in post Arab Spring societies. He also believes that improvement on living conditions for humans, animals, and the Earth as a planet can only be sustained through a comprehensive improvement of education.
Ahmad’s views on freedom are shaped through his life as a Palestinian under Israeli occupation. He believes freedom is not simply freedom from physical shackles; it is freedom from restrictions both on life conditions and the ability to express one’s views in lifestyle and in thought.