Friday Links

Nadia Manzoor is on a crusade to use humor and honesty to talk about the challenges she faced as a young Muslim immigrant coming of age in the US, through a web comedy series called “Shugs and Fats.”

The French government is under growing pressure to make a clear ruling on whether schoolgirls can wear long skirts in state schools, after sending home around 150 Muslim girls for turning up in long skirts or robes.

Atheela Abdulla is not the first woman IAS officer in the state, but what makes her special is the fact that she has emerged as the first civil servant in Hijab, and she is determined to work for marginalized sector.

A women’s footy team made up predominantly of Muslim players will help break down cultural barriers when it plays a historic curtain-raiser at the Melbourne Cricket Ground next month, in Australia.

An Icelander Muslim has been told to show proof of her faith in order to be allowed to wear a hijab in a passport photo, the request regarded by Muslims as “terribly funny”.

Nervana Mahmoud writes on the recent statement by Egypt’s top Islamic scholar about women who reject Hijab.

Shocking figures reveal 92 per cent of married women in Egypt have suffered female genital mutilation. The statistics were revealed by the country’s Minister of Health Adel Adawy, who said that most females undergo the procedure between ages of nine and 12.

Ahmad Tharwat, a public speaker and the host of the Arab American show “Belahdan”, writes on why the West is fixated on Muslim women’s wardrobes.

Many single mothers are lonely and in need of support; it is the Ummah’s responsibility to help them, they are still our sisters in Islam, but if everyone shirks this responsibility then who is left to help these women? Misbah Akhtar writes about the challenges faced by single Muslim mothers.

Long constrained by cultural and religious conservatism, women’s football could make rapid advances in the Muslim world with the holding of the first female World Cup in the Middle East.