Last week Muslims worldwide celebrated the Feast of Sacrifice, or Eid-ul-Adha, which also is the last day of the annual Muslim pilgrimage or hajj to various sites in and surrounding Mekka and Medina, Saudi Arabia. In Himachal Pradesh, India, Muslim women were allowed to travel for free within the state on state buses for the holiday. Many Bangladeshi women turned to the internet to buy their Eid goods, which includes cattle for sacrifice as well.
In an excerpt of her book Veiling in Africa, author Peri M. Klemm says that for many female Oromo refugees in Kenya, Islam is not the predominant reason to adopt a veil.
Seemingly innocent home videos featuring girls and women are acquiring a porn-like status in Pakistan, and are endangering the lives of the females involved.
“Honor crimes” are on the rise in Iraq and while they were predominantly occurring in rural areas previously, they are now spreading to the urban centers too.
A woman harvests cotton in the Tajik village of Yakhak. Image by Nozim Kalandarov/Reuters
Harvard researchers say that there is no basis for the claim that “rapidly breeding” Rohingya refugees are threatening Burma’s/Myanmar’s Buddhist identity, and the two-child policy for Rohingya women in some regions is therefore unnecessary.
The Guardian profiles the stories of six British female converts to Islam.
An Afghan mullah, who has been sentenced to 17 years in prison after ordering the execution of a young woman who ran away with her boyfriend on the night of her wedding, says that he did not order the killing and is been held as a scapegoat.
A British doctor claims that bored snipers are targeting children and pregnant women in Syria.
Turkish presenter Gozde Kansu was fired from her job earlier this month, after her dress was deemed unacceptable due to cleavage showing, and this has resulted in a heated debate, which reveals the divide between secularists and Islamists in Turkey.
Asharq al-Awsat speaks to Zahra Eshraghi, Iranian activist and granddaughter of Ayatollah Khomeini, on the future of women’s dress codes in Iran and her desire to start a “color revolution.”
Saudi women activists are preparing for the October 26 driving ban protest.
A BBC reporter tells the story of one brave Muslim woman who saved a baby girl during the riots between Hindus and Muslims in Muzaffarnagar, India.
A French child care worker, who was fired for wearing the hijab at her job, has taken her case back to court.
New York Post profiles female Muslim fighter Ann Osman from Malaysia, focusing on the recent Miss Malaysia controversy and Osman’s revealing clothing during the fights.
A Russian student who was expelled from a Siberian university because of her hijab has been rewarded 150 US dollars for moral damages.
A teenage Afghan girl has won a landmark case against her family members who tried to force her into prostitution.
Single Women is an association in Iraqi Kurdistan that aims to empower local single women and help them to gain financial independence.
An Australian Muslim woman has gained custody over her 6-year-old daughter, after leaving her husband, whom she was forced to marry at age 14.
A rally in Kuwait calls for the closure of mixed-gender coffee shops, where girls and boys come together to smoke shisha/water pipe.
Morocco’s new government boasts an unprecedented five new female ministers, in addition to the sole female minister of the previous government, who was reconfirmed.
Haaretz reports that Palestinian Muslim women and Jewish Orthodox women have surprisingly similar tastes in headgear.
Child marriage affects more girls in Nigeria than in all nations in Western Africa combined, and though it is technically unlawful, it remains very common in some regions of the country, particularly in the north.
Sakinah Ali Mujahid has set up Sisters Need A Place in Minnesota, USA, which aims to provide Muslim women a shelter, when they find themselves without a safe place to stay.
Baby Hassan, due in January, will be the first “prison baby” in Gaza; Hassan’s father has been detained for the last seven years, hasn’t seen his wife since and the child was conceived through sperm smuggled from prison.