Well, readers, it’s 2009 (and 1430). May Allah give us all peace and prosperity in this new year!
- An association of Muslim businesswomen in Nigeria call for the Islamic Hijrah calendar to be used side by side with the Gregorian calendar in varying governmental levels. Many Muslim groups, including Muslim women’s groups, back making the first day of Muharram a national holiday.
- A British department store opens its doors in Tehran.
- The Washington Post looks at female genital cutting in Kurdistan.
- Former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wins the first Bangladeshi election in seven years. Arab News and The Guardian weigh in.
- Yemeni and Palestinian women and girls demand a stop to the Gaza attacks. More from the Yemeni News Agency.
- The News reports that 179 women in Pakistan were victims of honor killing. Other reports confirm that honor killings have risen in parts of the country.
- More coverage on Muslim women organizing swimming lessons in North Carolina. And more yet.
- Jobeda Ali’s film on The Great Hejab Debate for Current TV.
- Two female students were attacked by two men this past week in Hawally, reportedly for not wearing the hijab.
- Saudi Arabia’s The Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice says it treats women arrested for minor social violations kindly. (cough, cough)
- A bright future awaits a young woman after a short life full of pain, enshallah.
- An Egyptian woman escapes slavery in the U.S. More from The Huffington Post via ProgressiveIslam.
- The Huffington Post profiles editor of the Yemen Times, Nadia al-Sakkaf.
- On Iraqi Dana Abdul-Razzaq’s journey to the Olympics.
- Sherry Rehman reminisces about Benazir Bhutto for The News.
- Saudi Arabia’s Labour Office rejects an advertisement for cleaning jobs available to Saudi women.
- The National writes about why Saudi Arabia is the land of “one step forward, two steps back” for women.
- The Calgary Herald profiles Salima Ebrahim, an accomplished young woman.
- On jobs for women in the lingerie sector in Saudi Arabia.
- The Taleban threatens to blow up girls’ schools. WTF, guys?
- Muna AbuSulayman discusses the recent requirements of women to be “Superwoman.”
- A preliminary hearing will be held next week in Aqsa Parvez’s case.
- Saudi Arabia’s morality policy shut down the only women’s park in Yanbu, resulting in a loss of jobs for women.
- More on the upcoming First Women’s Leadership Forum in Dubai.
- The Telegraph reports on the rise of pre-marital sex in Iran. Via ifeminists.
- Women in Ras al Khaiymah, U.A.E., make strides in local business.
- An Arab party in Israel promises to fill 1/3 of the seats won in the Knesset with women.
- Syria Today looks at the increase in divorce rates.
- The L.A. Times profiles an Egyptian matchmaking service.
- The Washington Post re-examines the private issue made public in the case of the Muslim couple in France divorcing over virginity.
- In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, 15 girls were married in mass weddings. The age of the girls is not known.
- Women in Peshawar’s Swat area are facing fewer economic and social opportunities. Via Progressive Muslima News.
- Another rumor about Sahar Daftary’s death. Via ProgressiveIslam.
- More on the eight-year-old girl who was refused an annulment. A Saudi women’s group blasts the judge who refused her an annulment. Via ifeminists.
- The News profiles poet Attiya Dawood. Via ifeminists.
- Egypt’s The Daily News mentions us when talking about soap operas.
- Feministe weighs in on the influx of marriage proposals for the Iraqi shoe-thrower Muntazer al-Zaidi.
- The CIA is using Viagra as a way to elicit cooperation from the Taleban. KABOBfest and Feministe discuss.
- Women’s eNews examines where Pakistani women are after Bhutto.
- Time looks at Dr. Humeyra Abedin and forced marriages. Via ifeminists.
- On Kashmiri women’s participation in recent elections.
- Birmingham-based Ulfah Arts is to hold a showcase to find musicians for a European tour.
- The TimesOnline reports that women who wear the niqab may suffer from vitamin D deficiencies in countries with little sunlight, like Ireland.
- The Huffington Post’s thoughts on Benazir Bhutto.
- Abed Ayoub writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution his opinion that the judge who threw Lisa Valentine out of the courthouse should apologize.
- Sri Lanka’s Minister of Education refuted allegations that certain state-run schools have banned wearing of the headscarf by Muslim girls inside school premises.
- The stoning of a woman from Shiraz, Iran, is upheld after appeals. May Allah protect her.
- A doctor in Saudi Arabia was able to stop the marriages of two sisters, aged five and 11.
- Austrolabe casts a skeptical eye on Australian lawmaker Fred Nile’s aim to “protect” Muslim women from nude beaches
- Violence against Iraqi women continues unabated.
- A terribly offensive article about awesome Wajeha al-Huwaider.
- Five Palestinian sisters died in their sleep during an Israeli air strike. May Allah grant them peace. Via Islamify.
- Middle East Online looks at the increase of male staff in Saudi lingerie shops.
- Iran held a five-day fashion show to promote Islamic styles for women and children.
- A member of the Pakistani group Jamaat-e-Islami says that in Islam, women are not allowed to divorce men, only the other way around.
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response to “In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, 15 girls were married in mass weddings. The age of the girls is not known. ”
Mass marriages are very common in India. They are conducted for the benefit of poor, extremely poor and below poverty line people because parents cannot afford a girl’s marriage, and therefore government agencies and other people pitch in to help. Child marriages are banned in India, and underage brides would surely have been news, but it isn’t the case.
I think one should be careful and not put all the Taliban into a single category. In a sense, the Taliban has become the new Al-Qaeda – people attribute themselves to the group, but it’s not necessary that they have anything to do with the main Taliban.
In some places, the “Taliban” have changed their stance to allow for girl’s education:
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/tomdispatch/2008/12/making-sense-of-taliban.html
See below for an indication of people merely claiming to be the Taliban – perhaps to get some benefits:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/24/afghanistan?gusrc=rss&feed=networkfront
Overlaid on the network of local Taliban are other groups, too – from neighbouring provinces, the south, even from overseas. These latter are often the most extreme. Some units include Pakistanis, others ‘freelance jihadi militants’ from the Middle East, some connected to al-Qaeda. Then there are also pure criminals, borrowing the label of Taliban.
I guess my point was that I’d rather you had pointed out above that a group in Swat, NWFP, Pakistan said it. I don’t know much about him, but he may have nothing to do with other Taliban groups (or vice versa).
It’s kind of like sensationalist newspapers who tend to say, “Muslims order this”, or “Muslims advocate killings”. Too broad a brush.
That Vitamin D article was interesting. Vitamin D deficiency is actually a pretty big problem in a lot of populations, especially in places without much sunlight and in darker-skinned people. (And even when those issues are only somewhat there. I’m a fairly dark-skinned white person, and live in DC, and I was feeling sick a few years ago and the doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong, until one of them thought of testing my Vitamin D levels and found that they were really low. Started taking supplements and making sure to spend time outside, and felt much better.)
IRIN news has a good report on the threats made against girls schools in the Swat region:
That Vitamin D article was interesting. Vitamin D deficiency is actually a pretty big problem in a lot of populations, especially in places without much sunlight and in darker-skinned people.
There was a controversy about this in Canada a few years ago.
Apparently, the quality of the sunlight is such that for only 3-4 months of the year can the skin actually produce Vitamin D via sunlight. In the winter months, even if one gets sunlight, almost none is produced in the body.
Doctors generally always recommend staying out of sunlight as much as possible (for adults) to avoid melanoma and other forms of skin cancer. There was a strong push to rescind that advice, given that Vitamin D deficiencies produce much more serious problems (well, melanoma is serious, but easily curable if found early – as with most skin cancers).
“We have nothing against girls going to school,”
This only highlights the confusion. In the original article, the following was stated:
“Female education is against Islamic teachings and spreads vulgarity in society,”
I’m wondering if the two people saying it have little in common, or are really part of the same organization…
You can see the conflicts on this issue in other ways. They claimed in your article that they don’t ever bomb schools. Yet schools have been bombed. Are they lying? Was it some other group with sympathies towards the Taliban? Was it some other group altogether yet did it in a way to place the blame on the Taliban?
Was the initial quote taken out of context by journalists?
Lots of questions, and all the information I’ve been able to gather on them is fairly contradictory. The only thesis that has stood up is that there are a number of Taliban groups, with varying degrees of fundamentalism, and that there are others committing lots of (other) attacks and the Taliban are getting blamed for it.
Which is why I was saying the phrasing should illustrate the confusion…
Referring to the article about closing the female only park in Yanbu…apparently due to complaints about loud music…did it occur to any of them men that made that arbitrary decision to just ask them to keep the music down as a first warning…let them have a chance to rectify the problem before just closing it down without warning?
Years ago I was commonly making statements that Muslim women seemed to suffer from Vitamin D sufficiency in much larger numbers in countries that observed complete covering more or less…other Muslims complained I was just trying to find excuses not to wear it…seems I was on to something back then.
And referring to the article about not allowing women to have the power of divorce…its only up to men. Considering the Muslim man quoted in the article refers to divorce laws obtained from the Quran and Sunnah as the source for such laws…well all I can say to that is that the Prophet allowed women to decide on divorce…or to take the first steps to initiate it…so WTF! was he going on about…exactly what Quran and what Sunnah was he referring too?
[...] Via Muslimah Media Watch [...]