A couple of weeks ago Kecia Ali, Juliane Hammer, and Laury Silvers presented the e-book A Jihad for Justice: Honoring the Work and Life of Amina Wadud (the link takes you to a full PDF of the book). The e-book is meant to be a Festschrift, a German word for “a collection of academic essays by students of a significant scholar upon [her/his] retirement,” as described in the introduction. The pieces in this book are largely written by academics, yet... Read more
“Love Marriage and Fairytales” is a somewhat misleading title to a popular Muslim Youtube video, trending in various social media circles, having gone “Muslim-viral,” as my fellow MMW contributor Sana Saeed calls it. This video (according to information discerned from the Youtube account) is an attempt to highlight the most frequent and problematic issues facing marriages today while also pointing towards Allah as the ultimate healer, redeemer and restorer of every marriage. Unfortunately, however, despite the positive message it conveys,... Read more
Addressing sexual harassment in Tunisia is a real challenge, as it is often considered to be a non-issue, especially as Tunisia is viewed to be such an advanced country, when it comes to women’s rights. For many women though, sexual harassment is a daily reality. Afghan Massoud Hossaini was awarded a Pulitzer price for his picture of an Afghan girl, Tarana, in the immediate aftermath of a bomb attack on Ashura. Bangladesh is often thought of a poverty-stricken country, suffering from frequent natural disasters, but... Read more
Long-time readers might remember a post from three years ago, where Sobia and I wrote a guide for How to Write About Muslims. You can click on the title of that post for the full version, but here’s the list of rules we compiled: (more…) Read more
A year ago this week, a French law came into effect banning face veils for women. At the time, the law was subject to much derision for “only” affecting the very specific number of 367 niqab and burqa-clad women (as of 2009) in France, although at its time, the law was thought to concern a couple thousand women. Anything relating to Muslims has long been a political tool in France, be it from the far-right National Front (FN) party, or... Read more
During the past week, inheritance according to the precepts of Shari’ah was a hot topic around the world, from Australia and Pakistan to Tunisia and Malaysia. An overview of the system is available in this article, although, as always, there is much diversity both in specific understandings of inheritance laws and in broader understandings of what “Shari’ah” is. A few days ago, Jamila Hussain wrote an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, discussing issues of equity vs. equality in inheritance laws, while attempting to explain the complex distribution system in Islam. She pointed out that it is easy to forget “that equality for women is quite a modern development.” While discussing Pakistani laws and recent amendments, Hafeezullah Ishaq provided us with an overview of women’s inheritance rights in Pakistan and the challenges they face. Read more
Note: Patheos is going through a site redesign at the moment, as you may have noticed, so we apologise in advance if there are any problems with how MMW is working this week! We should be functioning normally soon. If my Facebook newsfeed is anything to go by, this story has reached possibly everyone who’s interested in it already, but it’s worth sharing anyway. Last week, Adele Wilde-Blavatsky of The Feminist Wire published an article entitled “To Be Anti-Racist Is... Read more
Somali refugee women fear sexual abuse not only by outsiders, but in the home as well. There is currently an increasing trend in reproductive coercion, where husbands force there wives to have as many pregnancies as possible, even though the future for these children is particularly bleak, according to many women. Even though former president Saleh has gone, Yemeni women are still fighting, but now for equal rights for women. The BBC reports that it has been told by doctors that secret... Read more
The ladies of MMW recieved a link to this video on Twitter. For the videophobes and those who don’t want their brain to melt and leak out of their ears, it is a song apparently about hijab called “You Got it Covered.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNAs771kWGY&feature=youtu.be A sampling of the lyrics is as follows: “girl, you’re more than just some skin and a fashion trend” “you remind me that you’re more than just a pretty face/ you remind me that you’re more than... Read more
Around 4,000 academics, scholars and activists gathered from March 16-18th at Pace University’s annual Left Forum conference. As a recent Occupy activist, I was ecstatic to come across a conference that centers on issues of capitalism and imperialism, along with panels that focus on the importance of feminist discourse to envision an alternative world. The Left Forum has been organized annually for many years and its 2012 theme – “Occupy the System: Confronting Global Capitalism” – was chosen in light... Read more
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