Wael Abdelgawad (born May 2, 1965) is an American-born novelist, web developer and martial artist, best known for founding one of the first online Muslim matchmaking services, and for his fictional portrayals of American Muslims. As a columnist for the multi-author blog MuslimMatters.org, he has published a series of online novels that have garnered popular attention from Muslim readers. His writings are often quoted on social media websites such as

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

. Wael is the founder of Zawaj.com, an online Muslim matrimonial service. Founded in 1998, it was one of the first such services created, and is the oldest still extant. Abdelgawad also founded the popular IslamicAnswers.com website, which provides advice to people with marriage and family problems. In 2010, his blog IslamicSunrays.com was nominated for a Brass Crescent award. Wael is the author of ''Pieces of a Dream'', a novel set in San Francisco and depicting the spiritual journey of a taxi driver and Iraq war veteran named Louis. The novel belongs to the relatively new English-language genre known as Muslim fiction.

Background

Wael Abdelgawad's parents were both Egyptian-American scientists who immigrated to the USA shortly before he was born. Wael grew up in California, attended junior high school in Libya, and high school in Saudi Arabia. He studied English literature at

California State University Fresno California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California. It is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers bachelo ...

as well as

Fresno City College Fresno City College (FCC or "Fresno City") is a public community college in Fresno, California. It is part of the State Center Community College District within the California Community Colleges system. Fresno City College operates on a semester ...

. At FCC he was editor of the university literary magazine, Potpourri. He has held jobs including literacy tutor, librarian, San Francisco

bicycle messenger Bicycle messengers (also known as bike or cycle couriers) are people who work for courier companies (also known as messenger companies) carrying and delivering items by bicycle. Bicycle messengers are most often found in the central business di ...

, taxi driver, daytrader and web developer. Since 1998 he has been working as a webmaster and writer. Wael was a resident of the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Go ...

for many years, then lived in

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

from 2005 to 2008. He now resides in

Fresno Fresno () is a major city in the San Joaquin Valley of California, United States. It is the county seat of Fresno County and the largest city in the greater Central Valley region. It covers about and had a population of 542,107 in 2020, maki ...

, California.

Martial arts

Abdelgawad began his study of martial arts with

Shotokan Karate is a style of karate, developed from various martial arts by Gichin Funakoshi (1868–1957) and his son Gigo (Yoshitaka) Funakoshi (1906–1945). Gichin Funakoshi was born in Okinawa and is widely credited with popularizing "karate do" throug ...

at the age of 14, according to his martial arts biography, and continued his studies with arts such as

HwaRangDo Hwa Rang Do, also known as "The Way of the Flowering Knights" () is a comprehensive Korean martial art that was developed in the 1960s by Joo Bang Lee and his brother Joo Sang Lee. Hwa Rang Do as a martial art has multiple areas of focus includ ...

Hapkido Hapkido ( , , also spelled ''hap ki do'' or ''hapki-do''; from Korean 합기도 ''hapgido'' ) is a hybrid Korean martial art. It is a form of self-defense that employs joint locks, grappling, throwing techniques, kicks, punches, and other stri ...

Pekiti-Tirsia Kali Pekiti-Tirsia Kali is a style specific to Filipino martial arts. Pekiti-Tirsia Kali was founded in 1897 and is the system of the Tortal family. The sole heir and guardian of this system is Leo Gaje. Pekiti-Tirsia is strictly a combat-oriented sy ...

Silat is the collective term for a class of indigenous martial arts from the Nusantara and surrounding geocultural areas of Southeast Asia. It is traditionally practised in Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Southern Thailand, Southern Philip ...

, Shorin-Ryu, Kokodo Jujutsu,

Jeet Kune Do Jeet Kune Do is a primarily wing chun kung fu inspired eclectic martial arts philosophy heavily influenced and adapted by the Taoist personal life philosophy and experiences of martial artist Bruce Lee. Overview and philosophy Jeet Kune ...

and

Aikido Aikido ( , , , ) is a modern Japanese martial art that is split into many different styles, including Iwama Ryu, Iwama Shin Shin Aiki Shuren Kai, Shodokan Aikido, Yoshinkan, Renshinkai, Aikikai and Ki Aikido. Aikido is now practiced in around 1 ...

. He holds multiple black belt ranks. In 2013 he founded his own style, Hammerhead Hapkido, which incorporates techniques from Silat, and focuses on close quarters fighting and transitions from strikes to joint techniques, as well as knife defense.

Appearances

Abdelgawad was a featured speaker at the annual ICNA-MAS convention held in Baltimore, Maryland in April 2017, where he discussed the use of fiction in normalizing the American view of Islam and Muslims. He also spoke at the Islamic Society of North America's (ISNA) 54th annual convention in Chicago in June 2017.

Personal life

Abdelgawad has one child, a daughter named Salma, born in 2006.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abdelgawad, Wael 1965 births Living people American writers of Egyptian descent Islamic fiction writers