Whenever I encounter Asra Nomani’s works or see her in an interview, I usually wonder,“What is her point?” I don’t say this derisively. Is she trying to speak about gender inequality among the ummah? Is she trying to deal with gender norms in her own South Asian community? These questions formed in my mind as I read Nomani’s latest piece, published in Marie Claire, titled “My Big Fat Muslim Wedding”. In the piece, Nomani goes off on so many different... Read more
Three family members have recently been charged in the deaths of three teenage sisters and a female relative. The three girls–Zainab, Sahar, and Geeti Shafia–and their father’s first wife, Rona Mohammed, were found dead in a car that had been submerged in the Rideau Canal. Innaa lillahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji`oun (to God we belong and to God we will return.) Because the three accused of the murder are the parents and older brother of the girls, and because the... Read more
Last weekend, Natalya Estemirova was murdered. There are pictures of her burial ceremony, which was stopped by police officers. May Allah give her peace and justice. A South African Constitutional Court has ruled that widows of polygamous marriages deserve to inherit a share of their deceased husbands’ estates. Dilshad Ali attends the WISE conference in Kuala Lumpur, where the Global Muslim Women’s Shoura Council began a “Jihad Against Violence.” More from The National. A woman has been charged with blackmailing... Read more
Marwa El Sherbini is in the ground away from those who love her most. She did not want to die, she did not choose to die. She was murdered. In Germany the Muslim community is ethnically homogeneous, with the vast majority being of Turkish ethnicity. Even without her headscarf, her coloring and ethnicity means that Marwa would have still looked like an ‘Auslander‘ and a Muslim one at that. Yet, all over the media she is dubbed as the Headscarf... Read more
Fatemeh already pointed out the obviousness of the title in last week’s Friday Links, but Hamida Ghafour’s article “Lewd stares distressing for women,” published in the U.A.E.’s The National newspaper, is worth a closer look. Although it seems to promote resistance to sexism and sexual harassment, it does so in a way that perpetuates – even strengthens – discrimination based on class and race. For example, take these two paragraphs, towards the beginning of the article: Western women are targets,... Read more
This was written by Allison McCarthy and originally appeared at GlobalComment. Tina Brown’s ploys for self-promotion are numerous, but her latest piece, along with a follow-up interview on CNN, takes the cake. Brown, former editor for noted U.S. magazines such as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Talk, has always maintained some problematic notions of feminist politics in her writing. She is also an adamant Hillary Clinton supporter, prepared to defend her candidate’s political representation at all costs. Unhappy with... Read more
This guest post was written by Rochelle Terman. Shadi Sadr, the prominent Iranian lawyer and women’s rights defender, was violently arrested by plainclothes security officials on her way to Friday Prayers on June 17, 2009. Sadr was the latest causality amidst the ongoing crackdown of Iranian civil society following the disputed Iranian election on June 12. Since then, hundreds of activists, intellectuals, and dissidents have been arrested without cause or due process. While all of these arrests are disturbing and... Read more
If you’ve been following coverage of the fallout from the recent Iranian elections, you have been bound to see images of women in the streets as part of protests against the election results. In fact, the Western media has put a feminine face on much of its coverage of what is happening in Iran connecting feminism once more to Western interests in Iran and the region as a whole. Robert Dreyfuss’s op-ed for The Nation explores women’s role in the... Read more
Salaams readers! Goodbyes are rarely easy and I’m horrible at them. So this goodbye won’t be very well done. I have recently decided to leave MMW. At this point my PhD work hangs over my head and is feeling quite neglected. However, my time with MMW has been amazing, loads of fun, and very educational. Not to mention how grateful I am for the friends I’ve made as a result of MMW. Thanks Fatemeh for the wonderful opportunity to write... Read more
Genius headline of the week: lewd stares distressing for women. You don’t say! TwoCircles.net reports on a study of maternity care and births among Muslim women in Mumbai slums. More on Marwa el Sherbini’s murder and global reactions: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. More on France’s burqa ban: here, here, here, and here. Hundreds of the men, women, and children killed in the Srebrencia massacre have finally been buried. May Allah grant them peace and... Read more
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