Zarqa Nawaz

Education

She completed a Bachelor of Science degree from University of Toronto. She completed a second degree in journalism at Ryerson University in 1992.

Career

Initially, Nawaz planned to go to medical school. She worked with Canadian Broadcasting Company Radio, Canadian Broadcasting Company Newsworld, Canadian Broadcasting Company Television"s The National, and CTV"s Canada Department of Administration and Management, and was an associate producer of several Canadian Broadcasting Company Radio programs including Morningside. She has described the goal of her production company, FUNdamentalist Films, as "putting the "fun" back into fundamentalism".

In an interview with Prairie Dog Magazine, Nawaz said her screenplay Real Terrorists Don"t Bellydance was "inspired by movies like True Lies and Executive Decision".

She describes it as a "new genre of film", a cross between a terrorist flick and a comedy: "I call it a "terrordy."" Her use of humour in the television series Little Mosque on the Prairie attracted media attention ranging from Cable News Network and The Jerusalem Post to The Colbert Report even before it aired, prompting the Canadian Broadcasting Company to broadcast it months ahead of its original schedule. Nawaz"s Canadian Broadcasting Company show Little Mosque on the Prairie was inspired by her documentary Maine and the Mosque.

Nawaz felt that mosques would be run differently if imams were recruited from North America instead of being brought from overseas where cultural differences, especially when it came to women, affected how the imams behaved with their congregation. Zarqa Nawaz is the mother of four children and lives in Regina, Saskatchewan.

Random Check (2005) - A young man, late for his wedding, turns to the media after being arrested at the airport as the result of racial profiling.

Fred"s Burqa (2005) - A stolen burqa leads to mistaken identity, a career change and true love. Maine and the Mosque (2005) - documentary about the role of women in Islam, both throughout history and in contemporary Canada, told from a personal perspective.

Achievements

• Her 1992 radio documentary The Changing Rituals of Death won multiple awards at the Ontario Telefest Awards. Her memoir Laughing All the Way to the Mosque, published in 2014, was a shortlisted nominee for the 2015 Stephen Leacock Award.