A little over a month ago, on April 17, a ten-year-old Muslim boy named Abdifatah Mohamud, was brutally murdered in Buffalo, NY by his stepfather—beaten to death more than 70 times with a rolling pin...
The Dictator is nothing more than silly comedy with crude sexual content and a regurgitation of a century old anti-Muslim depictions. In my community advocate role of liaising with the entertainment ...
“Sorry, we’re looking for a doctor.” “We want someone from Pakistan, not India.” “He is too dark.” “We have a gut feeling that he is not the right person for you.” Do these statements sound familiar?...
In exactly one month, I will turn 30. See, you’re doing it too! I can practically hear you doing it. Something as subtle as one raised eyebrow, a slight widening of the eyes, or an uncomfortable shuf...
It is difficult on Mother’s Day not to think about the famous hadith where a man asks the Prophet (pbuh) about who is most deserving of his time, to which the Prophet (pbuh) responded, “Your mother.”...
As a student in Karachi, I met a 10-year-old boy who I’ll call Ali. Ali was a disruptive student; generally what we’d call a problem child or a nuisance. I believe that he came from an abusive home. ...
In April of 2011, 20 year-old Jessica Mokdad was allegedly gunned down by her stepfather Rahim Alfetlawi. The media uproar over the murder was immediate and, unsurprisingly, cloaked under the sensati...
Today is Mother’s Day and I have given serious thought to what I want as a present. I have pointed out things that I need and things that I don’t, but want anyway, to my progeny and their father. And...
I am someone who defies convention. I converted to Islam shortly after 9/11. But that didn’t mean I would become a conventional Muslim. I wanted to know God in a way that made sense to me. Every time...
Two weeks ago news outlets began circling a story about the Egyptian parliament considering a law that would allow a husband to have sex with his deceased wife’s corpse up to six hours after her deat...
Last week, Mona Eltahawy triggered a polemic firestorm with her blanket assertion that Arab mens hatred of women explains the abysmal gender inequities found in the Middle East. Many Arab women are p...
Mona Eltahawy’s article, “Why Do They Hate Us?,” catalogues the abuses against women in the Middle East and demonstrates how Arab countries fall in the lowest levels of world’s standards. She awakens...
Written by Tahmima Anam, The Good Muslim is the story of an educated, “modern” woman who loses her brother to Islamic fundamentalism. And perhaps this storyline is why the book has garnered so many r...
“Gender is not the study of what is evident, it is an analysis of how what is evident came to be,” said Maya Mikdashi at her recent 10-point reminder on studying gender in the Middle East. Unfortunat...
“Why Do They Hate Us,” asks Arab journalist, Mona Eltahawy, in her essay for Foreign Policy magazine. Eltahawy goes on to describe her perception of the treatment of women in the Arab world and ascri...
She’s been called the “Ice Princess in the Hijab.” And I think she rocks. Zahra Lari is a 17-year-old Olympic figure-skating hopeful from the United Arab Emirates. And you can’t miss her because she ...
It has been three months since my story, Why Yes, I’m an Islamophobe, was published. The response to this article, has actually, become a matter of great concern for me now because I did not think th...
Contrary to popular belief, Muslim women have served as revolutionary and heroic leaders. However, in recent years, due to the global socio-political climate, the phrase "Muslim woman" might ...
Western etiquette dictates that there are three topics never to be discussed at a dinner party – personal finances, politics and sex. Somehow my Indo-Pakistani /Muslim compatriots missed the memo on ...
Khadija, The First Lady of Islam, is a recently published jewel of Islamic historical fiction that eloquently narrates the entire life of one of the most honored women in Islam--an exquisite testimon...
I was born in Pakistan, grew up in the United States, lived in Canada, then shifted to the U.S., only to return to Canada and now I’m back in the good ol’ U.S.A. (for now). That’s quite a mouthful wh...
Americas contradictory and passive-aggressive dalliance with sexuality is reflected within its Muslim communities. For some, it is difficult to believe that sexual organs function the same whether th...
The perplexing circumstances surrounding the brutal murder of a young mother, Shaima Alawadi, has had the Muslim American community abuzz recently. As her daughter purportedly found Alawadi’s body wi...
As the facts about the Shaima Alawadi murder case continue to trickle in, it appears more and more that she was the victim of family violence, rather than a hate crime. As somebody who works to preve...
At 82 years of age, Abdul Sattar Edhi is not well known outside of South Asia, but in Pakistan he is a living legend. From humble beginnings as a peddler, Edhi has built a massive social service orga...
One of the most titillating of post-Ottoman Turkey’s “modernization” efforts was the institution of the beauty pageant. The pageants were one way to show that Turkish women were not locked up in thei...
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