A pair of Palestinian Muslim friends had already decided on their niche in 2020, as the world was upended and traumatized by the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
San Diegans Halima Said<\/a> and Amira Abudiab<\/a> said they began the nonprofit AMALY, which is Arabic for \u201cmy hope,\u201d because they saw an urgent need for Muslim-centered, culturally responsive mental health care.<\/p>\n Then came this year\u2019s mass shooting<\/a> at the Islamic Center of San Diego.<\/p>\n Doing the work<\/p>\n To be Muslim in America is to occupy a highly unique cultural space, one that can be simultaneously isolating and difficult to explain to those who are not Muslim or of Middle Eastern descent.\u00a0<\/p>\n Compounding the issue is the fact that while Muslim therapists certainly exist, many do not advertise themselves as such, and Muslims seeking help often receive negative assumptions and criticism of their faith from non-Muslim therapists that can badly affect their mental health.<\/p>\n Co-founder Halima Said, also a licensed therapist and Muslim of Palestinian descent who grew up in Imperial Valley, said that while AMALY is intended for everyone, they specialize in therapy for the Muslim and Middle Eastern communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAmira and I are both from the Muslim community in San Diego,\u201d Said said. \u201c[We] recognized there was a need.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Said received her master\u2019s degree from San Diego State University, where she was a graduate of the Community-Based Block Multicultural Community Counseling and Social Justice Education<\/a> master\u2019s program.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI feel very passionate about bringing the work back to the community I grew up in,\u201d said AMALY co-founder Amira Abudiab, 32. \u201cI was ready to go into the field \u2014 really wanting to learn everything \u2014 so I could bring it to our community in a way that culturally made a lot of sense, and so I did a lot of training in severe mental illness.\u201d<\/p>\n Abudiab is a licensed therapist who did much of her early work at crisis residential centers before opening AMALY with her friend Said. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSan Diego is also unique in that we get a lot of refugees as well,\u201d said Abudiab. \u201cPeople that are coming from war, needing to escape something\u2026 there\u2019s a lot of trauma there.\u201d<\/p>\n The ISAD mass shooting <\/p>\n The need for work such as AMALY\u2019s was thrown into sharp relief by the mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego, in which three community members were killed.<\/p>\n After the May 2026 shooting, the work became even more personal for the organization. Halima Said attends the Islamic Center of San Diego, and Amira Abudiab attended school there as a child. In the days after the attack, they hosted virtual and in-person therapy sessions for those affected, as well as healing circles.<\/p>\n That is another way that their beliefs set them apart as therapists. \u201cWe do healing circles, we do believe in collective healing.\u2026 For the most part we always try to be prepared to deal with a crisis,\u201d added Said.<\/p>\n AMALY also specializes in suicide prevention, as suicidal ideation can vary by culture and is sometimes not recognizable to people outside it, as well as severe mental illness and cultural humility training to help non-Muslims understand the stereotypes, stigmas, and microaggressions often directed at Muslims.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis training was created because other clinics would do Middle Eastern educational training on us, and I would sit in on those and think it was horrible because it spread more stereotyping,\u201d said Said.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the quotidian issues that come from simply living through 2026 in the United States, such as eating disorders or addiction, or mental illness. These are just as present in the Muslim community as they are everywhere else.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe just don\u2019t talk about it,\u201d said Abudiab. \u201cMost people from our community don\u2019t utilize these resources.\u201d Sometimes that is due to not understanding how the system works, she said; sometimes it\u2019s due to a bad experience, and sometimes it\u2019s pressure coming from within the community itself. <\/p>\n Virtual and in-person care<\/p>\n AMALY offers in-person therapy sessions as well as virtual ones. These are held at SDSU\u2019s Center for Community Counseling and Engagement, or CCCE<\/a>, in City Heights. <\/p>\n They offer three types of services: Individual and family therapy, workshops and training, and community and group sessions. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd that is our way of trying to cover as much as possible,\u201d said Abudiab. <\/p>\n The care they offer is also supported by the non-governmental organization Islamic Relief<\/a>, providing resources that the organization has been unable to receive from San Diego. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re the reason that we can give 80 sessions and support 30 families,\u201d Said pointed out. \u201cIslamic Relief was able to give us funding, which has been a struggle for AMALY for the past five years. We\u2019re very grateful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n