27-Year-Old Built 12M-Follower Muslim News Platform

A 27-year-old journalist is rewriting how millions of Muslims get their news, one Instagram post at a time.

Ameer Al-Khatahtbeh runs @Muslim, a media platform with 12 million followers across social media that delivers news specifically for Muslim communities. He launched it in 2019 as a junior at Rutgers University after watching his Yemeni and Iranian roommates struggle during Trump's Muslim ban.

When Al-Khatahtbeh wrote about how the ban affected students on campus, he couldn't find the right outlet to warn other Muslims. So he created one himself.

His formula was simple: cover news the way major outlets do, but center Muslim perspectives and make everything shareable. He writes so a fifth grader and a boomer can both understand.

The platform took off during the first Covid lockdown. When mosques closed and communities couldn't celebrate Ramadan together, Al-Khatahtbeh published constantly to keep people connected.

By graduation in 2020, @Muslim had grown from zero to 250,000 followers. Today it reaches 12 million people internationally.

The content has evolved dramatically over the years. Early on, @Muslim mixed memes with sharp cultural commentary, like discussing why Billie Eilish gets praised for modest fashion while hijab-wearing women face criticism. The tone was light, fresh, and Gen Z focused.

But as the audience grew more global and diverse, Al-Khatahtbeh had to adapt. He stopped using music in TikToks when parts of his community wanted more religiously observant content. Every decision requires balancing different perspectives across an international Muslim audience.

October 7, 2023 marked another turning point. Al-Khatahtbeh was scheduled to promote a fun collaboration video with YouTube channel Cut. Instead, he postponed it to focus entirely on covering Palestine, realizing there would be no appropriate day to return to lighthearted content while major news was breaking.

The Ripple Effect

What Al-Khatahtbeh built addresses a real gap in media coverage. Traditional outlets often overlook Muslim perspectives or reduce complex stories to stereotypes. @Muslim provides context and coverage that resonates with lived experience.

The platform has become important enough that Al-Khatahtbeh logs 13 hours of daily screen time, staying constantly updated. He's interviewed rising politicians, actors like Riz Ahmed, and journalists like Motaz Azaiza.

His accidental path from entertainment journalism student to editor-in-chief of what many consider the leading Muslim media platform shows what's possible when someone sees a need and fills it.

Seven years later, millions of people start their day checking what @Muslim is covering, and that number keeps growing.