A Founder’s Story: How Mikey Muhanna built afikra | عفكرة

Who is the real Aladdin? What was happening in the Arab world during the West’s Roaring Twenties? Why is the evil eye, evil? Mikey Muhanna, who had spent over a decade working at firms Morgan Stanley and PwC, set out to find the answer to these questions when he founded afikra | عفكرة in 2014.

It all started on a Brooklyn rooftop, where a small group of friends began discussing how little we all knew about the Arab world’s cultures and histories.

Today, afikra | عفكرة is a global community, education and media platform with over 60,000 members of all nationalities who meet worldwide with the purpose of reframing and reclaiming the naratives about what the Arab world was, is, and might be in the future.

With thanks to Mikey Muhanna