Meet the Founders: Introducing Tawahan, the New Arab Magazine for Arts & Philosophy
Sanad Tabbaa and Majeed Malhas
In conversation with Leonie Böttiger
Tawahan, a new online magazine for arts and philosophy, was launched earlier this year with the mission “to give up-and-coming, Arab voices a platform to share their thoughts and artistic achievements, whether in Arabic or in English.” Here, the platform’s founders, Sanad Tabaa and Majeed Malhas, speak about their motivations and hopes in founding this new initiative, and share how you can get involved.
Leonie Böttiger: To start us off: can you tell me a little bit more about the team at Tawahan? Who are you, what are you passionate about? Do you have clearly divided responsibilities or does everyone do a bit of everything?
Sanad Tabbaa and Majeed Malhas: Tawahan’s founders are Sanad Tabbaa and Majeed Malhas. We met at school in Amman, Jordan, and became closer while doing our bachelor’s degrees at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Sanad was doing history and philosophy, and Majeed was in anthropology. Over time, our interests began to coincide, both of us focusing on the creation (or manufacture) of different forms of Arab identity, and questions of Arabness.
Tawahan is entirely volunteer-run and non-hierarchical, and as a result we all do a little bit of everything based on our availability and our inclinations. Everyone on the team has a day-job alongside other projects, but luckily we’re expanding, if slowly. In general, though, Sanad handles the creative side while Majeed handles the critical-thought section.
LB: Where did the inspiration for this initiative come from? Do you have previous experiences in the world of art and philosophy that shape how you are approaching this new project?
ST: I first had the idea for an Arab-based arts and philosophy magazine while living in Canada, still doing my bachelor’s and, as always, writing on the side. I had noticed that while there were spaces for Arabs who were interested in writing political content, there were very few dedicated to people like me; Arabs who were interested in critical thought and creative writing.
While publications dedicated to critical thought remain largely, and firmly, within the Ivory Tower, the stories I was sending out relied on certain cultural touchstones or viewpoints that simply did not make sense to the audience that I was pitching to. How was that fair? How were we, as Arabs, OK with consuming literature and critical thought publicly, but only creating it privately? I knew that there were writers and smart people who wanted to write around me but didn’t have the opportunity, so I thought ‘why not create the opportunity instead of complaining about it?’
MM: I’ve been trying to find ways to bring critical theory and political analysis, especially their practical relevance, to a wider, non-academic audience in the Arab world for a long time now. That impulse started years ago when I was volunteering at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver. The museum was actively rethinking curatorship, moving beyond its Eurocentric roots and focusing on Indigenous voices and narratives. That experience really shaped how I understood cultural work as something political, something that could challenge dominant histories.
Later, during my master’s in anthropology in the UK, I started experimenting with writing more publicly. After graduating, I also helped launch Spheres of Influence, a youth-led digital publication focused on underreported stories in global affairs.
Despite all my efforts, I kept hitting the same wall. Whether I was writing for academic journals, museums, or magazines, the people I was actually trying to reach—Arabs interested in culture, politics, or art—weren’t reading it. Either the style didn’t land, the platforms just weren’t speaking to the region, or whatever have you. That’s when I started reading more into Edward Said’s reflections on Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci, particularly his concept of the “organic intellectual.”
What stuck with me was Said’s belief in amateurism, not as being unserious, but as refusing the overly professional, sanitized way we’re taught to communicate as academics or experts. He saw intellectual work as something performative: you don’t just think or analyze, you speak to people, you move them, you reach them where they are. That really resonated with me, especially in the Arab context, where so much political and cultural knowledge stays either locked up in academic spaces or flattened out in media headlines. I came to believe that in the Arab world especially, where the political and historical stakes of knowledge production are often bound up with colonialism, authoritarianism, and social rupture, the realm of aesthetic expression—through poetry, visual media, storytelling, and public dialogue—offers a more meaningful route to communicate critical theory than the traditional routes of academia or even formal journalism.
That’s what pushed me to start thinking more about new ways of writing, speaking, and creating, ways that are aesthetically resonant, emotionally honest, and intellectually grounded without being alienating. Over the years, I had talked about this frustration with Sanad often, and eventually we decided to stop just talking about it and start building something ourselves. I wanted to help build a space where art and critique could coexist, and where people who cared deeply about philosophy or storytelling could express themselves without having to choose between being “serious” or being accessible. That’s the kind of space I hope this becomes.
LB: What space, what opportunities would you like to see Tawahan create? Who, and what are you looking to publish? Who is your ideal reader?
ST: My interests lie in philosophy and prose writing, fiction or nonfiction. What I would love it to provide opportunities for early-stage writers who have those same interests a platform to share their work and to get feedback; to have that initial push that allows them to produce in earnest. As with any editor, I’d love to publish works that challenges boundaries and has something new to offer, some deep thought and emotion to play with and negotiate, but first and foremost the goal is to provide a platform for Arabs.
With that in mind, I’ve noticed that there’s a large population of young Arabs that are curious about works produced by people like them, about things that they care about which are written in an accessible fashion. My ideal audience is exactly that group; young Arabs who want to engage with literature and critical thought, who want to contribute to the conversation, any conversation, but cannot find the space to access those thoughts and stories.
MM: I want Tawahan to carve out a space where Arab writers, thinkers, and artists don’t feel the need to flatten themselves, or their voice, to be understood. So much of being Arab today is already a politicized existence. And when we try to make sense of that, whether through storytelling, reflection, or even just letting ourselves feel it, there’s often nowhere to put that without it turning into either a prison sentence or a depressive spiral. I want Tawahan to be a place where that reality can exist without being sensationalized or overexplained.
What I’m interested in publishing are works that carry that weight. The kind of writing that doesn’t shout politics in capital letters, but lets it simmer and be implicit. I don’t think we need to always spell things out. Sometimes calling a spade a spade is the least interesting thing you can do. What I think is more interesting is how politics sits in the textures of everyday life, in the phrasing of a memory, in the way someone chooses to describe a silence or a city. I’m drawn to essays, stories, poetry, and visual work that trust the reader to feel those implications without needing to be handheld through them.
My ideal contributors are people who may not have published before but have something urgent to say or feel, even if they’re still figuring out the form. Maybe they’ve been sitting on a half-finished piece, unsure if there’s a place for it. I want Tawahan to be that place, for Arabs who are thinking, reflecting, grieving, wondering, writing, especially those who feel like their voice doesn’t quite fit anywhere else.
LB: What’s the relationship between English and Arabic pieces? From your website, it seems like a lot is available in both languages, but maybe not everything—do you generally publish bilingually? Who translates pieces?
ST: At present we don’t publish fully bilingually and our Arabic and English pieces are wholly separate. We do translations on occasion (usually solicited), and generally from English to Arabic. It’s my belief, however, that many works are best enjoyed in their original language. We’re happy to cross-publish translated works, but we don’t aim to translate everything. Maybe someday, though!
LB: You say one of your aims is to provide feedback and editorial input to new writers for free—how does this work from a practical perspective?
ST: The way I see it, the only thing I have to offer to writers in exchange for their labour is my own. At present the team is paying out of pocket for the costs of running the magazine and the way I’ve been putting it in conversation is ‘I’m doing it for love of the game.’ This, of course, is a lie.
The Algerian philosopher Malik Bennabi said “one does not cease to be colonized until one ceases to be colonizable.” Colonizability in this sense refers, essentially, to a particular mindset in which one consumes and is beholden to intellectual currents without contributing to them. I don’t see Tawahan merely as a space for arts and culture (though I certainly hope it will be), I see it as part of a larger movement ongoing since the late 2000s of addressing this shortcoming through Arab revitalization, a movement which includes ArabLit, Jadaliyya, Mizna, Ma’azef, Hudood, 7iber, MadaMasr, afikra, and many, many others.
The work we all do is not just cultural, it is existential. We must produce arts and ideas in order to challenge the present preconception that we, as Arabs, are less than human. I don’t see this preconception as being limited to those who colonize us, but jarringly and routinely present within ourselves.
Practically, we hope to remain independent as long as possible and hope to finance Tawahan in the classic fashion; by selling physical and digital copies or through subscriptions. This looks unlikely, and we’ll probably have to register and apply for grants at some point. It is a tricky situation as we want to pay writers and editors, and we want this platform to survive, but we don’t want to compromise our mission. For now, and until we can find a solution, we’re keeping it afloat through pure stubbornness. Wish us luck!
MM: At the moment, we’re covering the costs ourselves and offering editorial support on a volunteer basis. It’s important to us that emerging writers can access thoughtful feedback without barriers. Long-term, we’re exploring more sustainable options like subscriptions, print editions, and eventually grant funding. The priority is to grow slowly and carefully, without compromising the independence or integrity of what we’re trying to build. We’re also constantly looking for people to collaborate with, support, and learn from along the way.
Sanad Tabbaa is a Jordanian former historian, part time philosopher, and occasional travel writer. He writes short stories and edits Tawahan, the Arab Magazine for Arts and Philosophy, from his hometown of Amman.
Majeed Malhas is a freelance journalist and PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Toronto. His writing has appeared in Jacobin, +972 Magazine, Jadaliyya, and other publications.