Thank you, Aliaa Elmehdy, for showing us what freedom is<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah I read a news article this weekend about an Egyptian feminist blogger named Aliaa Elmehdy, who in a controversial move\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thank you, Aliaa Elmehdy, for showing us what freedom is\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah I read a news article this weekend about an Egyptian feminist blogger named Aliaa Elmehdy, who in a controversial move\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Muslimah in Progress\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-11-14T14:54:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-11-14T19:42:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/files\/2011\/10\/bismillah2.jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nancy Qualls-Shehata\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nancy Qualls-Shehata\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html\",\"name\":\"Thank you, Aliaa Elmehdy, for showing us what freedom is\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-11-14T14:54:21+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-11-14T19:42:56+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#\/schema\/person\/6218cbef696f8f6c933831dfcc2096b9\"},\"description\":\"Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah I read a news article this weekend about an Egyptian feminist blogger named Aliaa Elmehdy, who in a controversial move\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Thank you, Aliaa Elmehdy, for showing us what freedom is\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/\",\"name\":\"Muslimah in Progress\",\"description\":\"I'm an American Muslimah of a certain age with some pretty strong opinions. Feel free to agree or disagree. You won't hurt my feelings.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#\/schema\/person\/6218cbef696f8f6c933831dfcc2096b9\",\"name\":\"Nancy Qualls-Shehata\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1005ec72c60bd66c283862ff890c47ae?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1005ec72c60bd66c283862ff890c47ae?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Nancy Qualls-Shehata\"},\"description\":\"Muslimah, wife, mom, writer, dispenser of advice. I have been Muslim for over 20 years and my passion is sharing what I have learned in an effort to dispel the misconceptions surrounding Islam.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.muslimahinprogress.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/author\/nancyshehata\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Thank you, Aliaa Elmehdy, for showing us what freedom is","description":"Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah I read a news article this weekend about an Egyptian feminist blogger named Aliaa Elmehdy, who in a controversial move","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Thank you, Aliaa Elmehdy, for showing us what freedom is","og_description":"Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah I read a news article this weekend about an Egyptian feminist blogger named Aliaa Elmehdy, who in a controversial move","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html","og_site_name":"Muslimah in Progress","article_published_time":"2011-11-14T14:54:21+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-11-14T19:42:56+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/files\/2011\/10\/bismillah2.jpeg"}],"author":"Nancy Qualls-Shehata","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nancy Qualls-Shehata","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html","name":"Thank you, Aliaa Elmehdy, for showing us what freedom is","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-11-14T14:54:21+00:00","dateModified":"2011-11-14T19:42:56+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#\/schema\/person\/6218cbef696f8f6c933831dfcc2096b9"},"description":"Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah I read a news article this weekend about an Egyptian feminist blogger named Aliaa Elmehdy, who in a controversial move","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Thank you, Aliaa Elmehdy, for showing us what freedom is"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/","name":"Muslimah in Progress","description":"I'm an American Muslimah of a certain age with some pretty strong opinions. Feel free to agree or disagree. You won't hurt my feelings.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#\/schema\/person\/6218cbef696f8f6c933831dfcc2096b9","name":"Nancy Qualls-Shehata","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1005ec72c60bd66c283862ff890c47ae?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1005ec72c60bd66c283862ff890c47ae?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Nancy Qualls-Shehata"},"description":"Muslimah, wife, mom, writer, dispenser of advice. I have been Muslim for over 20 years and my passion is sharing what I have learned in an effort to dispel the misconceptions surrounding Islam.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.muslimahinprogress.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/author\/nancyshehata"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":183,"date":"2011-11-14T09:54:21","date_gmt":"2011-11-14T14:54:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/?p=183"},"modified":"2011-11-14T14:42:56","modified_gmt":"2011-11-14T19:42:56","slug":"thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/muslimahinprogress\/2011\/11\/thank-you-aliaa-elmehdy-for-showing-us-what-freedom-is.html","title":{"rendered":"Thank you, Aliaa Elmehdy, for showing us what freedom is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ <\/a>Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah<\/p>\n

I read a news article this weekend about an Egyptian feminist blogger named Aliaa Elmehdy, who in a controversial move uploaded a nude picture online in order to express her freedom after the revolution in Egypt.\u00a0 Her move was met with condemnation by Muslims all over the world, but for myself, I have a different view.<\/p>\n

I for one would like to give a hearty \u201cthank you\u201d to Aliaa Elmehdy for showing all us ignorant repressed women what freedom is really all about.\u00a0 Here I am, Muslim for eighteen years, forcing myself to wear this oppressive \u201cmodest\u201d clothing, covering my hair, not letting every Tom, Dick and Harry (or Fuad, Zaid and Ahmed) see me in my altogether.\u00a0 I was under the false impression that I had liberated myself by tossing away the bikini and picking up a Qur\u2019an.\u00a0 I\u2019m so ashamed and saddened that I wasted eighteen years of my life studying and marrying an educated practicing Muslim and having kids and praying and having a business and being what I thought was a dynamic human being.\u00a0 Well, now that I know better, I guess I can finally give up my horrible life and blossom into the free naked woman I always knew I should be.<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m not in Egypt, which is where Miss Almehdy hails from, so I can\u2019t go out and be naked there to support the revolution.\u00a0 I have to be naked here in America, so I have to\u00a0 find some domestic issue to support with my nudity.\u00a0 Occupy Wall Street seems to be the cause of the moment.\u00a0 Perhaps I can fly up to New York and strip down there at one of the camps they have set up.\u00a0 I can stand in all my Lady Godiva glory (minus the artfully placed long flowing hair that in the paintings covers all the nasty bits) and pose with my arms flung wide yelling \u201cI am FREE!\u201d so that it echoes and reverberates in the high steel and glass canyons and inspires others to disrobe.\u00a0 I only hope that the ones so inspired are, you know, in shape, because I don\u2019t want anyone to be subjected to some fat dude dropping his trousers in the middle of the road.\u00a0 That would be oppressive to other peoples\u2019 eyes.\u00a0 Think Peter Griffin in \u201cFamily Guy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Come to think of it, I\u2019m a bit far from New York.\u00a0 I\u2019m not that far from Washington D.C., however, so perhaps it would be more effective for me to be free closer to home.\u00a0 I could strip to protest cuts to medicare; I could disrobe to tell the world I\u2019m against global warming.\u00a0 I could perhaps go starkers in order to let President Barack Obama know that I disagree with his wife\u2019s healthy eating policy and I want to be free to rot my teeth and clog my arteries without her interference.\u00a0 There are so many causes, and so little skin.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so happy that Miss Elmehdy has given me such inspiration, and I can\u2019t wait to get started on my heroic campaign of stripping for freedom.\u00a0 There will be a short delay, though, because first I have to whip myself into shape..\u00a0 I\u2019m all for freedom of expression, but putting this body, this 44 year old body that has birthed six children and has consumed many football night pizzas and sodas and secret stashes of Whoppers and Milk Duds, well, that would be a bit of an, um, overly expansive exhibition.\u00a0 So before I hit the freedom circuit, I\u2019m going to hit the treadmill.\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t take me more than a few months before I\u2019m in suitable shape to inspire.\u00a0 Until then, fear not, gentle reader.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure Miss Elmehdy will continue to offer us great inspiration.\u00a0 After all, once a nude picture gets out onto the internets, it will be there until Judgment Day.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"