Huda Khattab Biography

Huda Khattab is a British-born convert to Islam, writer, and translator whose work in accessible Islamic literature for Muslim women has remained continuously in print for more than three decades. She holds a BA (Honours) in Arabic from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London, and embraced Islam during her undergraduate Arabic studies. She has lived for many years in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and children.

Khattab's best-known original works are The Muslim Woman's Handbook (Ta-Ha Publishers, first published 1993, continuously reprinted in updated editions), a concise practical guide to daily life as a Muslim woman in a non-Muslim society covering worship, hijab, social life, education, career, marriage, divorce, and health; The Bent Rib, a thematic study of women in Islam; and Beyond the Kitchen: Muslim Women on Balancing Life, Family and Work. Her translation work — primarily through the International Islamic Publishing House (IIPH) — has produced the standard English editions of widely circulated titles including You Can Be the Happiest Woman in the World, Neighbour's Rights According to the Sunnah and the Example of the Salaf, and Backbiting and Its Adverse Effects.

The Muslim Woman's Handbook has been continuously stocked in Islamic bookstores serving English-speaking Muslim women — particularly converts, young Muslim women navigating Western contexts, and teenage Muslim girls — for over thirty years. Her translations remain workhorses of the IIPH English-language catalog and her broader contribution as a writer-translator has been a significant part of the practical English-language Islamic literature available to Muslim women in the West.