She authored Hagar Poems, which won honorable mention in the 2017 Book Awards of the Arab American National Museum.
She is the recipient of the 2010 Pushcart Prize for her creative nonfiction essay, "The Caul of Inshallah", and the Arkansas Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship in 2002 for poetry.
[5] After her move to Arkansas, Kahf served for a time on the board of the Ozark Poets and Writers Collective, participated in local poetry slams and, after winning a spot on "Team Ozarks" with Brenda Moossy, Lisa Martinovic, and Pat Jackson, represented the region with the all-women team at the 1999 National Poetry Slam in Chicago,[10] Kahf was a founding member of RAWI,[11] the Radius of Arab American Writers, established in 1993[12] Kahf is currently a member of the Syrian Nonviolence Movement.
[6] Kahf's work explores themes of cultural dissonance and overlap between Muslim American and other communities, both religious and secular.
Syria, Islam, ethics, politics, feminism, human rights, the body, gender, and erotics often feature in her work.
In her poetry book Emails From Schherazad,[4] Kahf explores many different Arab and Muslim identities and practices, frequently using humor.
[1] Kahf won a Pushcart Prize for her creative nonfiction essay, "The Caul of Inshallah," about the difficult birth of her son, first published in River Teeth in 2010.
[18] Kahf's work on "Sex and the Umma" "earned her a torrent of attacks...the author, though at once playful and mischievous verbally and thematically, seems to be putting across an alternative image of Islam...a more progressive...one" says Layla Maleh.