Ahl e Kahf - Our Team

Kubra is an interdisciplinary writer, researcher, educator, and cultural practitioner. Her work moves across literary and cultural research, exploring literature, memory, identity, and the intellectual traditions of the East. With a background in English Language and Literature and Education, she brings experience in research, editing, teaching, creative writing, mentorship, and cultural work. She is drawn to overlooked narratives and to the ways literature and language preserve histories, carry ideas across generations, and shape our understanding of people and places. Kubra is the founder of Kahf, a collective rooted in Al-Mashriq—the East, its stories, memories, and intellectual traditions. Kahf is a space for readers and writers drawn to its literary and cultural worlds, seeking to recover forgotten narratives, renew conversations across cultures, and bring overlooked voices into dialogue. Through Kahf and her wider practice, Kubra hopes to nurture a living literary community where histories are remembered, ideas travel, and the many threads of the East continue to meet, speak, and find one another.

Tanzeel is an architect and researcher working at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, art, and cultural research. Growing up in Kashmir, her work is informed by an interest in how places are shaped by layered histories, social change, and the everyday experiences of the communities that inhabit them. Her research examines architecture and urban space as reflections of broader social and cultural conditions, particularly in environments undergoing uncertainty and transformation. Her interests include place, memory, identity, belonging, and the ways communities adapt to and reinterpret their surroundings. Alongside architectural research, Tanzeel engages with artistic and cultural practices as forms of inquiry and dialogue, exploring the connections between the built environment and the social, political, and cultural life surrounding it. Her practice is grounded in an interest in how architecture and creative practices can help observe, understand, and communicate the complex relationships between people, places, and their histories.

Badrunissa Bhat is a scholar at the Shaikh ul Alam Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies, University of Kashmir. She holds a Master’s in English Literature and Language and is pursuing doctoral research on “Metaphysics of Love: A Study of Amir Khusrau, Yunus Emre, and Lal Ded’s Poetry.” Her interests include Sufism, perennial philosophy, ontology, cultural studies, and medieval Persian, Urdu, and Kashmiri poetry and literature. She is also an abstract Sufi artist and installations specialist, with exhibitions in Australia, Turkey, and Scotland. A fellow of Beyond Borders Scotland’s Women in Conflict 1325: Art as a Tool for Peacebuilding Fellowship, she currently serves on its Advisory Board, contributing to initiatives at the intersection of art, culture, and peacebuilding.

Sheenam is a scholar of literature with a keen interest in the intersections of literature, identity, culture, and resistance. Her academic work centres on Black Literature, through which she explores the ways Black writers have used literature to articulate identity, challenge dominant narratives, preserve cultural memory, and give voice to experiences shaped by race, history, and social structures. Her thesis on Black Literature reflects her engagement with questions of representation, marginalisation, belonging, and the politics of voice. She is particularly interested in how literary texts become spaces of resistance and self-expression, allowing communities to reclaim narratives that have historically been overlooked or misrepresented.

Chayma Benchikh is an English Studies graduate with a strong interest in literature, writing, and storytelling. Over the past five years, she has been involved in youth work, civic engagement, community initiatives, and international projects, developing experience in communication, content creation, and working with diverse voices and perspectives. Her background in literature shapes her approach to editing—with curiosity, attention to detail, and a genuine appreciation for each writer’s voice. She enjoys helping ideas become clearer, more coherent, and engaging while preserving the personality and intention behind the original work. Beyond editing, Chayma is passionate about education, culture, social change, and creating spaces where young people can express themselves and share their experiences.

Ahmed Yar Khan designs and builds Kahf’s digital home, the website that carries the collective’s writing, research, and conversations to its readers. Working across design and development, he shapes how Kahf’s literary and cultural world is experienced online.