Hijabi women make appearance in Maroon 5’s 'Girls Like You'

CAIRO – 6 June 2018: Maroon 5 released a video clip called “Girls Like You” on May 30, and it’s now #46 on trending music videos on YouTube.

The clip starred a variety of celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Gal Gadot, Rita Ora, Ellen Degeneres, Cardi B, Camila Cabello and two hijabi women: Amani Al-Khatahtbeh and Ilhan Omar.

Amani Al-Khatahtbeh is an entrepreneur and is the editor in chief of MuslimGirl.com. At 23, she became the first hijabi woman to hit the Forbes 30 under the age of 30. She is also labeled as a Media Titan by the New York Times.

Khatahtbeh was born in New Jersey and then relocated to Jordan with her family to escape Islamophobia. At the age of 17, with her high-school friends, she founded the website MuslimGirl.com, on which she began publishing articles. Now, she is living in New York and works for a major media organization.

Ilhan Omar, the second featured hijabi woman, is a Somali American politician from Minnesota. In 2016, she was elected as a Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, making her the first Somali American Muslim hijabi woman elected to office in the United States.

Ilhan was born in Mogadishu and was raised in Baydhabo, Somalia. After the eruption of the Somali Civil War, Omar and her family spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya. She graduated from North Dakota State University with a Bachelor’s degree in political science and international studies.

Ilhan was granted the title “Firsts: Women Who Are Changing The World” by Times Magazine for a special project on 46 women who broke barriers in their respective discipline.