The Boy Who Cried “Witch!”: Saudis Investigate Domestic Workers for Witchcraft

Last updated on: January 14, 2010 at 12:00 am By alicia

Something decidedly medieval is in the air in Saudi Arabia. Fears of black magic and curses cast by Indonesian domestic helpers have spread across the country, and Saudi employers increasingly feel the need to hire private investigators to check their domestic workers for suspicious behavior and evidence for witchcraft. Investigators, mostly foreign women from neighboring countries, are paid to search for photographs, hair, or clothes belonging to the employers before the domestic helpers are repatriated, reports Arab News. The employers... Read more

Take this Hijab and Love It

Last updated on: January 13, 2010 at 12:00 am By Guest Contributor

This post was written by Jillian C. York, and originally published in the Winter 2009 issue of Bitch magazine. Muslim women, as a group, don’t lack for media attention, but to say their representation in mass media is lopsided would be an understatement: They’re the subject of political, religious, and feminist debates, but their own voices are nearly invisible in the mainstream media, in film, and in books. But the one place Muslim women–in particular, muhajabat, or wearers of the... Read more

Revisiting the Islamic Spirit: Women at the 2009 RIS Convention: Part 2

Last updated on: January 12, 2010 at 12:00 am By Krista

This is part two of Krista’s review of the Reviving the Islamic Spirit Convention. You can see part one here. Dr. Zainab Alwani, an Islamic studies professor and community activist, was the second of the female speakers, on a panel entitled “The Apple’s Rotten Core: The Social Implications of Domestic Violence.” She listed a number of statistics related to domestic violence, including that an average of four women in the United States die every day because of domestic violence. Alwani... Read more

Revisiting the Islamic Spirit: Women at the 2009 RIS Convention: Part I

Last updated on: January 11, 2010 at 12:00 am By Krista

This is part one of a two-part series reviewing the Reviving the Islamic Spirit Convention. Stay tuned tomorrow for part two! This year’s Reviving the Islamic Spirit (RIS) Convention was held in Toronto from December 25-27, 2009. Those of you who have been reading MMW for a while might remember my reflections on it last year (in which I praised the conference, but lamented the very small number of female speakers), and my reflections on the joint RIS-ISNA Canada conference... Read more

Friday Links — January 8, 2010

Last updated on: January 8, 2010 at 12:00 am By fatemeh

The Yemen Observer profiles Dr. Nadiah Al-Kokabany. A 20-year-old girl was auctioned in a Pakistani village last week. Let me repeat that: AUCTIONED. May Allah keep her. The Age examines the Lebanese magazine Jasad. Dia Diwan interviews Kinda Hibrawi. A Dubai couple is facing jail if convicted of issuing forged marriage certificates to sex workers. Ms. Mehdi goes to the White House. More Jordanian women are leaving unhappy or bad marriages. Mideast Youth looks at the history of Iraqi women.... Read more

Shortlist for “Arab Booker”: Where are the women?

Last updated on: January 7, 2010 at 12:00 am By Guest Contributor

This is a slightly edited version of an article written by Susannah Tarbush. A complete version originally appeared in the Saudi Gazette. The shortlist of six contenders for the annual International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF,) announced last Tuesday at the Beirut International Book Fair, is arousing much interest, as in the previous two years of the prize’s existence. There is speculation, for example, over whether for the third year running it will be an Egyptian author who gets the... Read more

Making Arrangements: Are Arranged Marriages Really so Easy?

Last updated on: January 6, 2010 at 12:00 am By Azra

It seems that Muslims seeking meaningful relationships with members of the opposite sex, and how they go about acquiring such relationships in an Islamically appropriate way, have been quite a popular subject. A recent perusal of the blogosphere over the past week brought me to the wonderful blog Organica where Organic Muslimah has a two-part piece entitled “Muslim Dating: The Reality of Our Ummah” while over at altmuslimah, Adam Sitte proclaims: “There are just no good Muslim women out there,”... Read more

Two Girls, One Tired Romantic Comedy: I Can’t Think Straight

Last updated on: January 5, 2010 at 12:00 am By Sara Yasin

I Can’t Think Straight is a film by Shamim Sarif that attempts to deal with culture, religion, and sexuality within the period of an hour and fifteen minutes. The story tells the tale of Leyla, an Indian Muslim, who falls in love with Tala, a Jordanian Christian. Heavy on Orientalist porn and thin on a plot, the film was a major disappointment. Instead of actually providing a critical look into how being a lesbian would be impacted by culture or... Read more

On the Map: Liberation Won’t Be Gained On Behalf of ‘Others’

Last updated on: January 4, 2010 at 12:00 am By Guest Contributor

This was written by Mandy van Deven and originally appeared at Bitch Magazine. Poster 4 Tomorrow is a project based out of France that was founded this year to encourage artists to advocate “on behalf of those who don’t enjoy the same freedom of expression that you do” by designing posters that pronounce an explicitly political sentiment regarding the universal right to free speech. Right away this struck me as problematic. In order to truly work from a praxis of... Read more

Friday Links — January 1, 2010

Last updated on: January 1, 2010 at 12:00 am By fatemeh

Happy (Gregorian) New Year, readers! Here’s to another year together! A recent Cairo conference suggests that the sexual harassment of women is becoming a pan-Arab phenomenon, according to Al Ahram. Iran has barred single women from working for a state firm that operates a huge gas field and petrochemical plants on the shores of the Gulf. Hurriyet Daily News reports that the former director of Boğaziçi University blames women for the lack of women in administrative roles. Uh… The National... Read more