I am a Pakistani-American journalist making things that wrestle with belief and disbelief. My work has won several awards –including Columbia DuPont, Tribeca, Anthem, Signal, and Webby– and reached millions of people.

My book, Sex, Drugs and the Quran: A Memoir and Manifesto from Little Brown, comes out on March 23, 2027. Signed copies are available for pre-order now. It’s a love letter to Islam and unveils a progressive, largely ignored vision of faith, and how my understanding of the religion is not only compatible with modern ideas around sex, politics and everything in between, but informs them in ways we’ve never considered before.

I’m most well-known as the creator and host of the audio series Tell Them, I Am. The show is about the small defining moments in our lives— the voices are all Muslim; the stories are universal. It has been called “quietly revolutionary” by the LA Times and “hypnotic listening” by the New York Times. The audio series was also named one of the best podcasts by TIME, The Atlantic, Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Huffington Post and the NYT Podcast Club and featured in Rolling Stone, Vogue, All Things Considered on NPR, It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders and The Tamron Hall Show.

As part of my mission to dig into spiritual questions, I host a weekly series called Quran Book Club, on Instagram and Substack, where guests of all faiths, ages, gender identities and belief systems read and interpret the Quran with me. I make short educational, viral videos on Tik Tok about the tidbits I find along the way.

With my production company, Dustlight, I most recently built and show-ran Watermelon Pictures’ debut video podcast, The Seeds, hosted by Alana Hadid; and Tia Health’s first-ever podcast, It’s All Connected, on women’s health, hosted by Elise Hu. In 2024, I show ran and launched Zeteo’s flagship video podcast, We’re Not Kidding with Mehdi Hasan. I also built Baratunde Thurston’s video podcast, Life with Machines, from the ground up. In audio, I’ve show run, directed, hosted or executive produced series like Hello, Nature Seasons 1 and 2; Renegades: Born in the USA with Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen, The Michelle Obama Podcast, Mother Country Radicals, The Wilderness Season 3, How to Citizen Seasons 2 and 3, The Big One: Your Survival Guide; and created and hosted the indie, autobiographical podcast, Beginner.

I’ve previously written for McSweeney’s and the Wall Street Journal. If you want to learn how to make a podcast, I have a guide for you.

If you want to collaborate with me, you can reach out to me at misha@dustlight.co or reach out to my reps at CAA:

Podcasts- Josh Lindgren

Literary – Anthony Mattero

Speaking – Crista Spadafore