Picture this: Wheels rolling down the road, your board gliding like a floating cloud. For a brief blissful moment, time seems to slow down and you feel unstoppable. The passersby blur in the periphery, as you feel the earth beneath you and the wind flowing through your hijab. It’s just you and your skateboard against the world.

Even during the rise of skater girls in the 90s and Y2K pop culture, intersectional safe spaces for women of colour within the already niche sphere of female skaters, remained scarce. However, representation of hijabi skateboarders became more visible in advertising and art in recent years through Nike ads or women of colour in films like ‘Skater Girl’ on Netflix. Yet iconography of Muslim women on skateboards often serves to create an Orientalist juxtaposition between a supposedly “oppressed object” and their “liberating vehicle”; or more cynically, to capitalise on the Muslim market.

Skater Uktis, a global crew of Muslim female skaters, hopes to change all of that. Hafsah Mohammed, a member of the Skater Uktis’ head team, explains, “As many people may know, the current skate scene is very much the opposite of what our target audience is and what our sisterhood consists of — Muslim women. Some of our team members have mentioned that they have attended skate parks and were greeted by stares and mild hostility. But this is just another motivation for us to keep the movement thriving and occupy spaces unapologetically.”

Hafsah, along with Amna Z and a small group of their university friends in London, established Skater Uktis just before the pandemic. It was a way to bring Muslim sisters together over a shared love of skateboarding, both online and in open air spaces.

They were inspired by the need to create a safe space where Muslim women felt confident and nurtured by other Muslim women. The movement quickly expanded internationally, with teams setting up overseas. The project now spans over 20 countries including: Norway, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Australia, USA, Canada, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Tunisia, Iraq, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. 

Platforms like Zoom were instrumental in facilitating this set up, so people could join in from any location in the world and from all walks of life to share their lived experiences with fellow Muslim women. Skaters around the world are now encouraged to find their local Skater Uktis rep to become a member and attend upcoming meet-ups in their country of residence.

What makes the Skater Uktis’ movement stand out is that they deliberately avoid tokenizing Muslim women on skateboards or seeing it as a “progressive” escape from Islam. Instead, it defines itself as an “organisation that merges the worlds of Islam and skateboarding to foster personal development and cultivate exceptional leaders”. Its aim is to implement Islam in everything they do.

Hafsah stated, “We wanted to combine faith and skateboarding as a means of ethical leadership for Muslim women across the board. We are taught by our beloved Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ) that we should strive to do things with Ihsan (excellence) and to be in spaces that help us grow our leadership qualities. You need mental, as much as physical resilience to persevere in this sport and a lot of this comes from prayers.”

Skateboarding humbles you in the sense that, no matter how skilled you become, you are bound to make mistakes, trip and fall. Similarly, it’s inevitable for humans to sin. The urge to give up whenever you’re not immediately good at something new is tempting, but it is essential to persevere if you want to nourish both personal and spiritual growth.

Hafsah, continued, “We are taught that keeping ourselves healthy is a key element in Islam. Our bodies are to be returned to our Creator and we should take the utmost care of our bodies. With skateboarding, one is always falling and failing, which gives them a chance to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Similarly, when one is learning about Islam, they undergo the mental hurdles of also understanding their strengths and weaknesses to become more knowledgeable.”

On top of skating meetups, Skater Uktis regularly run online spiritual sessions to bring Muslim women together in order to strengthen their faith and boost their iman.

Skating isn’t just about the community; it is also associated with hipster culture and resistance against mainstream norms in favour of self-expression. Skater Uktis embodied this spirit of resistance by co-organising the “Skaters against Genocide” coalition bloc. They skated to protests and have voiced their support for Palestine, Sudan, Congo and all communities suffering from genocide. 

Hafsah commented, “Skating has been proven by many writers, researchers and even skaters themselves, on how it can be used as a form of resistance alongside a form of expression in countries like Palestine. As Maen Hammad (2023) writes ‘Skateboarding allows us to zoom into the global pitfalls swarming our surroundings, our space.’ The skateboarding scene has become more and more political since the situation in Gaza. The history behind it comes from a form of rebellion from all the outcasts who didn’t want to be put into a box.”

Personally, as a beginner skateboarder myself, I’ve enjoyed attending various Skater Uktis events, including a unique Iftar this Ramadan. I experienced a wholesome sense of community and got to know the inspiring women behind it. One thing that stood out to me as I began my skateboarding journey with them was the many metaphorical parallels they emphasised between skating and Islam. For instance, the idea of maintaining balance and keeping on the right path, whilst putting your faith in our Creator to keep you steady.

Much like I noticed the Islamic insights in Martial arts in the past, I was encouraged to purify my intentions so that any act I engage in, could be an act of worship too. I definitely found myself reciting ‘Bismillah’ and ‘Ayatul kursi’ whenever my fears of skating got the best of me.

Skater Uktis have come a long way since 2020, earning several notable achievements. They have been recognised by big sporting brands such as Vans Middle East in their ‘Keys to the Kingdom’ campaign, highlighting trailblazers who are changing the skateboarding world in more ways than one. They were also featured by Reebok in their ‘The Invitation Surrounds You’ campaign, highlighting women who are changing the skateboarding world and inspiring the next generation. 

The Skater Uktis crew has presented an exhibition & workshop at ‘Al Burdah Festival’, a multidisciplinary platform, engaging in cutting-edge dialogues around the present and future of Islamic arts and culture. The project has also been commemorated by Vogue Arabia in the September 2022 issue, shedding light on ‘Young Movers and Shakers of the Arab World Who are Driving Change Everywhere’, as well as being featured in the publications Gal-dem and Eko magazine. They were also invited to speak on a podcast for the Design Museum about ‘Skateboarding Communities and Wellbeing’.

More recently, the movement has been the subject of a short documentary film by director and producer, Mehek Azmathulla. The film premiered at BFI Southbank, as part of the Dialled in ‘Unbound Archives’ series in March and more recently in Skate & Surf Film Festival (Milan- June 1st- June 2nd) and London Indian Film Festival (26 June – 4th July).

Mehek said the “wheels” first started turning for her when she came across a Skater Uktis reel on her Instagram feed. “Popular media paints a very narrow picture of skateboarding. But stumbling upon Skater Uktis shattered these preconceptions. Suddenly, I saw skateboarding not as just a sport, but as an inherently ‘public’ act. It defies the need for a designated arena; the streets are your runway really. Being a Muslim girl and choosing to do something so ‘public’ was intriguing. I wanted to explore the public and the personal. How one’s personal relationship with faith coexists with something as ‘public’ as skateboarding.”

Reflecting on the work, Hafsah said, “The film touches on the essence of sisterhood in the skate scene which reflects the need to support one another in spaces beyond the skate scene too. How it helps us navigate difficult experiences for example, hostile interactions in the skatepark but also, the better experiences like seeing the representation of Muslim women of colour, like oneself, also in the skate park. The film also highlights how most Muslim women share the feeling of societal pressures on how a woman should behave and what kind of activities they should and shouldn’t engage in.”

Amina Zarma, a Skater Uktis representative in Nigeria, was featured in the film saying, “My religion wasn’t the thing stopping me from skating. It was actually society and culture and rules that dead people have set.” 

Saara Grillo, a skater team member from the UK can be seen in the film saying, “If a boy was to fall, no one would bat an eyelid, but if it was a girl, it’d just be something comical to everyone.”

Another skater member, Amna Masoud from New York, who was showcased in the film said, “Taking even just the hijabi part out of it, when you’re looking at a guy skate, it’s like alright cool he’s doing a sport that he likes. But when people look at women skating it’s like ‘Oh they’re making a statement that women can skate too.’ Why does it have to be like that? Why can’t we both just enjoy a sport?”

Amna also explained, “I definitely incorporate prayers throughout my skating. There’s even been a couple of times when I’m trying to get a trick down…I say my little prayers and then I’m more comfortable with it and I have a little faith that I’m going to be okay.”

Picture yourself getting back onto your board, this time with unapologetic clarity. Ignore the stares and free yourself from other people’s judgements. Remember, it’s not the hijab that oppresses you, but the oppressive people projecting their preconceived notions onto you and your hijab. After all, you’re just a girl pursuing a hobby she loves. Embrace the thrill and exhilaration of the moment and use the adrenaline to keep moving forward.

Imagine how defeatist it would be to fall down off a skateboard and then decide to spend the rest of your life on the ground. Similarly, falling into sin doesn’t mean that you have to stay in that dark place. The real winners are the ones who will get back up and strive for Ihsaan (excellence) in all that they do. No matter how far you’ve deviated, it’s never too late to repent and turn back to Allah. 

Skateboarding is a lot like life, you will falter, you will get hurt, and your iman will have highs and lows. However, it is important to remember that the pain is temporary, and the journey is short. Just as you balance between the air and ground on your skateboard, this dunya is the world that exists between heaven and hell. You simply have to ride the waves of life to get to your destination.

If you’re eager to join a sisterhood of like-minded skating enthusiasts, you can visit Skater Uktis to start your journey and find out more!