This piece was written by a Guest Contributor, Summar Shammakhi. The interim Libyan leader, Mustapha Abdul Jalil declared Libya liberated on the 23rd October. The content of his twenty or so minute speech was a tribute to the February 17 revolution. He thanked all the brave men and women, all the martyrs, all the injured and all who suffered not only during the eight months of fighting for freedom but for forty two years of extreme imprisonment and oppression. Jalil’s... Read more
Women in Afghanistan tend to be depicted as enigmatic objects that defy human comprehension. Media sensationalism and selective reporting bear some of the blame. But thanks to projects like an Afghanistan-based Community Supported Film workshop that trained men and women on how to tell the stories on film, Afghan women are now also using media to represent themselves. The project, named The Fruit of Our Labor produced ten short films that feature different aspects of Afghans’ daily lives. Four of... Read more
TLC’s All-American Muslim, which I previewed last week, aired last night in the United States. The show features a group of mostly Lebanese American Muslims from Dearborn, Michigan as they go about their lives. There has been a stream of reviews, mostly positive from mainstream media outlets and ones that are more questioning by Muslim writers. Regardless of the critiques, the show is the first of its kind to feature an American Muslim community to a large viewing audience. The... Read more
During this years hajj, not only did women outnumber men, for the first time there were trained female hajj guides available. On the first day of the Hajj alone, 20 women miscarried and 7 gave birth. The oldest woman to do hajj this year must have been a 110 (or 109) year old Turkish woman. May Allah accept her hajj and that of all the pilgrims! Oil money is not for men alone: wealthy women investors in the Arab Gulf region are on... Read more
Intersections International, a New York-based nonprofit that “works at the intersection of communities in conflict” to “promote peace through dialogue using direct service programs, advocacy, educational and informational outreach,” recently published a report called the “Muslim LGBT Inclusion Project.” The report is a narrative summary of the research done by the project, which started in May 2010 to identify “how, and under what circumstances, the voices of queer Muslims can be better understood and articulated.” The 70-page report details the... Read more
The election of the so-called ‘moderate Islamist’ party, Ennahda, to the head seat of the government, has put Tunisia at the center of the discussion on the rise of Islamist post-Arab Spring. Media coverage has focused primarily on the alleged ‘inevitable’ imposition of the headscarf on all women and the possibility of great setbacks to the gains made by Tunisian women. There has been little, if any, actual engagement with the evolving positions and campaigns of the party, as substantial... Read more
On Sunday, November 13th, TLC is set to premier a new 8-episode series: All-American Muslim in the United States. As this comes from the same channel that brings American viewers Sister Wives and the Kate+8 debacle, I’ll admit my immediate thoughts surrounding the show are wary, to say the least, when it comes to its ability to portray “what is it like to be Muslim in America.” As I watched clips of video provided by TLC, I realized that the... Read more
This post was originally published at the interrogations of shamshouma. In the last few weeks, The Saudi TV channel MBC has been broadcasting an ad of a Saudi national breast cancer campaign, organized by Zahra Breast Cancer Association. Officially launched on October 10th, the national campaign is led by Princess Hessah Bint Trad Al-shaalan (the Honorary president of the Zahra Breast Cancer Association and wife of Kind Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz) and princess Rima Bint Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, aka Abdullah’ s daughter.... Read more
MMW sends our best Eid wishes to all of our readers! (Image source here) Read more
Saudi activist Suhaila Zein al-Abidin objects to the segregation of men and women in the Shura Council, questioning why ‘mixing’ is accepted in other settings but not in matters related to the Shura council. Arab News answers the question why Saudi men prefer to perform hajj alone: not only are women an additional cost, they are a burden too…. Girls and young women in Somalia earn additional income by making sanitary pads, and because of the pads, they do not have to miss... Read more
Muslimah Media Watch
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In