Muhammed went to Iraq in 2003 to cover the aftermath of the US-led invasion. "I had zero experience, of course, but I thought, being born in a conflict, that I knew everything," he says. "I realised that I knew nothing. I entered a dark place."
He continued to travel to war zones, taking conventional conflict photographs, until he had a realisation. "If I was just showing the destruction and the misery, I was not focusing on the other side of the story – on the people, their daily lives, their resilience," he says. "I found myself looking for beauty amidst the conflict – a smile in the rubble."
Muhammed began to focus on covering the refugees' stories, while also spending more time on the ground. "I started diving deeper into people's lives," he says. "The more time you spend in an environment, the more invisible you become, and you begin to earn people's trust. This is when you get a window into people's lives – otherwise your pictures only show the outside, not the depth of the story."