Hajar Ali

Hajar Ali (born 1978 or 1979)[1] is a Singaporean entrepreneur, founder of Urbane Nomads and the website Travel Like a Humanitarian. She was the first recorded woman to cross the Rub' al Khali, the "Empty Quarter" of the Arabian Peninsula.

Ali has a master's degree in strategic studies from the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore, now the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies; her thesis "[applied] James C Scott’s model of peasant resistance to the daily transgressions of Iranian youths against the ruling mullahs".[2][3][4] She previously worked as a real estate agent.[5]

Ali founded Urbane Nomads, a bespoke luxury travel agency, in 2008 after conceiving the idea while traveling in Patagonia.[6] A lover of horses, she likes to include riding in the company's trips.[1][3] She later launched Travel Like a Humanitarian, a website on which NGOs can advertise travel offerings.[6]

In March 2012, she made the first known crossing of the Rub' al Khali by a woman.[3][7][8][9] She intends to make a future expedition to the pole of inaccessibility in Antarctica.[4][9]

In 2011 Ali was included by Singapore Women's Weekly in its annual "Great Women of Our Time".[1][8]

She serves as the editor of Mensa Singapore's newsletter[10] and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. She considers Singapore her home,[5][11] but as of November 2015 lives in Istanbul.[2] She has a Bengal cat named Loki.[5] Ali is a practicing Muslim but does not wear the hijab.[2]

References
  1. "Great Women of Our Time: Finance & Commerce: Hajar Ali (32) Founder of Urbane Nomads" Archived 2017-02-11 at the Wayback Machine, Singapore Women's Weekly, 2011, at Urbane Nomads (pdf).
  2. Hajar Ali, "Travelling in the Age of Terrorism : From the perspective of a Muslim woman and tourism professional", Medium, November 24, 2015.
  3. Correne Coetzer, "Hajar Ali: Woman across Arabian Desert", Trek news, ExplorersWeb, April 12, 2012.
  4. "Why It's Good to Be Hajar Ali, World Traveler", Seeker, July 23, 2012.
  5. Tay Suan Chiang, "Quarters of an urban nomad", The Business Times, October 25, 2014, at Singapore Property News.
  6. Eren Cervantes-Altamirano, "The luxury of travelling to remote places", Aquila Style, October 21, 2014.
  7. Janice Ponce de Leon, "Ali stakes claim as first woman to cross Empty Quarter", Gulf News, April 7, 2012.
  8. Aristotle Nandy, "Singaporean Becomes First Woman to Cross the World's Largest Sand Desert", Waves Lifestyle Issue 14, November/December 2012, pp. 30–33.
  9. Cassie Lim, "In A Niche Of My Own – Hajar Ali", Be Movement 1, October 2012.
  10. Management Committee, Mensa Singapore, retrieved September 21, 2016.
  11. "I Heart My City: Hajar’s Singapore", Beyond the Guidebook, National Geographic, October 28, 2015.
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