Women celebrate Middle Eastern beauty

Launched by Palestinian student Sarad Mahmoud, who is based in Florida, the #TheHabibatiTag movement hopes to promote the diversity of non-western women, and men, and has so far been used more than 20,000 times.

The tag has been trending across the US, UK, Saudi Arabia and Kenya - taken from 'habibti', a term of endearment in Arabic loosely translated as 'my love' or 'my darling'.

Speaking to BBC News, Sarad said: 'The only representation we get as Middle Easterners and North Africans in the media is when an act of hate or terror occurs.' 

'Growing up I never saw a woman who looked like me on TV. And because of that, I felt like I wasn’t beautiful.'

Sarad, who describes herself as a feminist, wrote an explanation of the movement which she posted on Twitter.  

'#TheHabibatiTag is a tag started by myself and three other gorgeous women who are Middle Eastern,' she stated.

'This tag is meant to be gender neutral, and it's meant to promote pride, positivity, love and respect inside of the Arab community as well as outside.

'So feel free to post under it and show how prideful we are to be Middle Eastern.' 

Hoards of women from countries including Iraq, Morocco and Afghanistan have uploaded their glamorous selfies, some with and some without head scarfs. 

'I never post selfies on twitter but this tag is da bomb Moroccan,' wrote one Amsterdam-based woman along with a snap of herself posing in a skin-tight red skirt and crop top.

The same woman shared another close-up of her face, with the caption: 'Arabs have definitely the best eyebrows, you can say anything you want but its [sic] true.' 

Yara Assadi, a co-creater of the hashtag, posted a sultry selfie along with the caption: 'Viva viva palestina.'

Several gay men and women joined the movement and shared their selfies.

One Arizona native, who goes by the handle MisterNorthWest, captioned his image: 'everyone's fav gay muslim coming at ya live [sic].'

And a Canadian woman with the handle 'gooeygay' wrote 'Queer and Proud' along with her self portrait. 

Many outlined their mixed heritage, with one Michigan-based woman, Jenna, stating: '1/2 Lebanese 1/2 Palestinian full cute.'

Another called Medina wrote: - 'im not 100% arab so i feel like im ruining this tag, buuut this is me & im albanian turkish & saudi?? [sic]' 

One Texas-based woman, who describes herself as 'Your favorite infidel', stated that she was 'Proud Iraqi/Irani' and shared a selection of photos of her weight loss.

(dailymail.co.uk)