Tooli Shariah

Batoul (Tooli) Shariah is a Jordanian-born scholar, advocate, and 2024–25 Oslo Scholar at Columbia University’s School of General Studies, where she is double-majoring in human rights and Middle Eastern studies. Raised between the deserts and the urban streets of Amman, Tooli learned early to adapt to shifting circumstances and transform hardship into opportunity.

She aspires to establish a policy and research initiative dedicated to translating indigenous Bedouin traditions of gender dignity into enforceable legal protections. Her vision bridges grassroots activism and policy reform, focusing on combating gender-based violence, ending discriminatory detention, and restoring women’s roles within tribal legal systems.

Tooli’s path reflects her belief that leadership begins with service. In Philadelphia, she worked long hours in early childhood education, pioneering literacy methods that caught the attention of the city’s mayor. She earned her associate’s degree with highest honors from the Community College of Philadelphia, joining the first graduating class of Octavius Catto Scholars. Her story was featured by CBS News Philadelphia and celebrated on CCP’s official platform for academic excellence and leadership.

At Columbia, her scholarship and activism focus on indigenous rights, gender justice, and culturally grounded legal reform. As an Oslo Scholar, she investigates nonviolent resistance strategies within Bedouin communities facing state-led displacement. Her work is deeply informed by lived experience, combining academic rigor with the wisdom of her Bedouin heritage.

Beyond the classroom, Tooli builds communities that cross lines of culture, belief, and background. She founded Lunch with Strangers, a cross-cultural gathering at Columbia designed to foster dialogue and understanding, and is developing a peer support network for low-income, immigrant, and first-generation students, rooted in the Bedouin principle of mutual responsibility.

Her leadership extends across borders. She has worked with the royal families of Dubai and Bahrain, the Italian Mission to the United Nations, and grassroots women’s cooperatives in Jordan. She has collaborated with historians to recover Ottoman-era land records tied to Bedouin heritage and supported Syrian refugee women in launching sustainable businesses based on traditional skills.