These 9 Arabs made it to 'BBC 100 Women 2018' list

The BBC recently released its "100 Women 2018" list ... and nine Arab women made it.

As the British organization put it, the list includes "leaders, trailblazers and everyday heroes," highlighting influential and inspirational women from across the globe.

Hailing from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq, here's a look at the Arab women who have inspired millions through their work:

Esra'a Al Shafei is a Bahraini civil rights activist, blogger, and founder of several digital platforms whose main aim is to give a voice to the "under-represented" in the MENA region. One such platform founded by Al Shafei is Majal, a platform that addresses issues such as "rights of the invisible lower income migrant workers" and "the stigmatized Middle East LGBTQ community" to name a few.

The 32-year-old was once described as "an outspoken defender of free speech" by CNN reporter Georges Webster in 2010. 

Photographer Boushra Almutawakel has been using art to "provoke discussions about social norms and question the ways people and cultures judge one another," as explained by The Economist. 

She does so by capturing portraits of Middle Eastern women (for the most part) in an effort to challenge the narrative surrounding hijabis in the West. In a 2001 project titled Hijab Series, the 49-year-old aimed to show the various "facets of the veil" through her artwork. 

"As an Arab Muslim woman living in Yemen who has first-hand experience with the hijab, I have mixed feelings regarding this topic. There are certain aspects of the hijab I like and others I don't particularly care for. I don't believe it is black or white. I found the veil to be an intriguing, complex, multilayered topic," Almutawakel said.

Raneen Bukhari - a curator and social media manager - has been focused on the arts every since she was a little girl. Her heavy involvement in her parents' Desert Designs Art Gallery in Al Khobar has turned her into a passionate curator.

She is one of six Saudi women who participated in the Contemporary Collective, which saw the featuring of 27 artworks from British Council Collection in Saudi Arabia. 

"My involvement in the art world is a labor of love," the 31-year-old told Khaleejesque. 

Shrouk El-Attar - a queer Egyptian woman - has been campaigning for LGBTQI+ rights in her country ... through belly dancing. 

Earlier this year, she was named as the "Young Woman of the Year" for her activism by the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR. 

El-Attar was granted asylum in Britain due to her LGBT status, and is currently pursuing a masters degree in Wales. 

"I really 110 percent believe I wouldn't be alive if I was living (in Egypt) the same way I'm living here now," the electrical engineering student said, according to Reuters.

Raghda Ezzeldin is a record-breaking freediver who believes the sport is freedom at its finest. 

Ezzeldin - a financial analyst by profession - founded Egypt Free Divers in 2016 with an aim to provide divers with connections to centers, suppliers, and instructors. 

The 26-year-old gained international media attention after holding her breath under water for more than five minutes.

"For me, something felt off when scuba diving - I found the gear constraining. You have more freedom as a freediver," she said, according to Cairo Scene.

Yanar Mohammed is a prominent Iraqi feminist who is currently the President of the Organization of Women's Freedom in Iraq (OWFI.)

She earned the Gruber Prize for Women's Rights in 2008. Eight years later, she was granted Norway's human rights' Rafto Prize. 

The 58-year-old helps survivors of abuse in Iraq, providing shelters for victims who have escaped violence. 

More than 800 women have sought help through her network, according to BBC.

Nujeen Mustafa is a powerful advocate for refugee youth who fled the Syrian war only to cross borders in her wheelchair. When she was 16-years-old, she traveled from Syria to Germany in a steel wheelchair. 

The 19-year-old currently campaigns on behalf of refugees with disabilities through her work.

Born with cerebral palsy, Mustafa shared her story with the world in a book titled "The Girl from Aleppo," co-authored by award winning journalist Christina Lamb. 

However, her aspirations go beyond just that. The 19-year-old hopes to become an astronaut one day. 

"I still want to be an astronaut – for me it's the biggest unsolved mystery; whether we are alone in this world. I want to study physics at university in Germany. In the meantime, I'm getting the message out that refugees are people, not numbers," she once told The Guardian.

Dima Nashawi is an artist, clown, and visual storyteller who collects and reflects tales from Syria.

The 38-year-old is an artist through and through. Her illustrations about life in exile express not only her longing for a war-torn homeland, but her ongoing relationship with it. 

Dima is also a social activist and has spent time clowning for disenfranchised kids (she says she also does this as a form of therapy.)

"Despite the fluidity and instability of her existence in the past half-decade or so, Dima’s commitment to art and to her homeland are inseparable and have never wavered," writes journalist Zahra Hankir. 

Hayat Sindi is a medical scientist who was the first Saudi Muslim woman in the Gulf to get a PhD in biotechnology and one of the first female members of the Consultative Assembly of Saudi Arabia. 

Currently, she is the co-founder of Diagnostics For All, an NGO that works to provide medical care in remote impoverished areas. 

According to her, "a true scientist should focus on affordable simple solutions to reach everyone in the world." 

She has called on countries in the Middle East to focus on science education, calling for an increase in spending on this field in education. Sindi has been appointed as an UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador due to her work in promoting education, specifically for girls in the Middle East.