We’re exploring a Friday Links format here at MMW. It’s different than our usual. Let us know what you think in the comments! And, as always, feel free to include links to news about Muslim women from the past week in the comments!

News coverage of Muslim women in New Zealand is rare, but the Herald on Sunday ran a great piece on local Muslim women. It was supported by the hard work of Anjum Rahman and a great editorial from the paper itself:

It would take a special meanness of spirit not to admire the young Muslim women in our Insight pages today, building a new identity in their adopted homeland, all the while adhering to the dress code of their Islamic culture and religion.

Abseiling, kayaking, horse-riding and skiing, these women are keen to be New Zealanders, but see no reason to surrender their Muslim identity. “No one has really defined what a Kiwi-Muslim is,” says Aliya Danzeisen, one of the founders of the Waikato Muslim Association. “Traditionally we have tried to assimilate; now it’s about integration.”

The distinction between the two terms may be lost on the many New Zealanders who still wrestle with the idea that this country’s demographic make-up has transformed beyond recognition in barely a generation.

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