Ikram Foundation staff, donors, supporters and scholarship recipients gather at the organization’s fundraising dinner Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026, in Falls Church, Va. The annual event brings together the community that makes the foundation’s mission possible. (Kanwal / Films by Kanwal)

The Herndon-based nonprofit invests in divorced and widowed Muslim women pursuing degrees, restoring dignity one grant at a time

BY JUMMANA ALZAHRANI, STAFF WRITER

There is a particular kind of courage it takes to start over. 

In a small office in Herndon, Virginia, a few miles from Mason’s Fairfax campus, a quiet experiment in second chances has been unfolding for the past decade. Ikram Foundation, established in 2014, provides educational grants to divorced and widowed Muslim women pursuing degrees and certificates across the country. The connection to Mason runs deep as every member of the foundation’s staff is a Mason alum.

For 15 of those women, that support has meant the difference between dreaming of a degree and actually earning one at Mason. 

For the women the foundation serves, this naming is intentional. 

“Ikram is derived from the Arabic root ‘karamah,’ which translates to dignity, honor and generosity,” Executive Director Somayyah Ghariani said. “It is the same word used when the Quran speaks of the inherent dignity bestowed upon all children of Adam.” 

Ghariani said it speaks to the belief that dignity is not something a woman loses when she loses a husband. It is something she carries within her, something that education can help her fully realize and pass on to others.

Ghariani knows the university well. 

“I’ve been in this area in northern Virginia for over 20 years now,” Ghariani said on the Muslim Philanthropy Podcast in 2021. “I went to school at George Mason University. I got a bachelor’s degree in communication and psychology, and after that I started my journey with Muslim nonprofits here in the Northern Virginia area.”

The foundation’s mission is specific because the need is specific.

“Ikram Foundation’s a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization,” Ghariani explained on the podcast. “We’re located in Herndon, Virginia … and our mission is to empower divorced and widowed Muslim women with education.” 

“So we provide educational grants specifically to divorced and widowed Muslim women all across the United States.”

According to records provided to Fourth Estate, the foundation has supported 15 beneficiaries who attended Mason. They came from Syria, Sudan, Pakistan, Palestine, Algeria, Morocco and the United States. 

They are mothers and immigrants, women who have lost partners and women who have left them. They studied mathematics, civil engineering, cybersecurity and childhood education. They are, in many ways, beginning again. 

For the women Ikram Foundation serves, this journey often comes with added layers of complexity. In many cultural contexts, a woman’s identity can become closely tied to her role as a wife, and when that role ends through divorce or widowhood, she may face social isolation or quiet judgment from within her own community. The stigma is not rooted in Islam itself, but in cultural expectations that can leave women without the support systems they once relied on.

Some find themselves navigating family disapproval or financial uncertainty at the very moment they are trying to rebuild. Returning to school in this context becomes more than an academic pursuit. It is an act of reclaiming independence and dignity. 

Being a divorced or widowed woman pursuing higher education often means carrying a weight that others do not always see. It can mean sitting in a classroom after putting children to bed, studying during lunch breaks at work and wondering if the money will run out before the semester ends. 

Ghariani and her team see this weight. Program Director Saman Quraeshi, who first came to the foundation as a client herself, said the organization built itself around the belief that these women are worth investing in, not despite their struggles but because of the strength those struggles have forged. 

“We don’t just write checks,” she explained. “Every dollar that leaves our hands carries the weight of someone’s trust behind it. We have an obligation to be honest with that money and to stretch it as far as it will go.” 

It is this belief that guides how every scholarship is funded, every dollar is accounted for and every woman is supported from application to graduation.

That trust has ripple effects. A woman who receives a scholarship and completes a degree becomes an example. Her children watch her study, persevere and graduate. Other women in her community see what is possible, which can lead to collective impact.

“This financial grant represents more than just education to me,” Fatmeh Kassem, a single mother and survivor of domestic violence, said. “It is a pathway to independence, stability and the ability to financially support my children on my own.” 

The women Ikram supports are not abstractions. They are the Sudanese mother studying civil engineering while her children do homework beside her. They are the Algerian woman earning a paralegal certificate, building a new life in a new country. They are the Pakistani student pursuing early childhood education, pouring into other children the care her own have witnessed her fight for.

Through the Ikram Foundation, a scholarship is never just a scholarship. By investing in one woman’s education, the organization invests in everyone her life touches.