Eid mubarak to you all! Many news stories this week did, of course, feature the annual pilgrimage, or hajj, which ends today, Eid ul Adha. The BBC reports that more young Muslims decide to make the pilgrimage, and shares stories of three young British women who did the pilgrimage at a young age. Some female pilgrims from Nigeria […]

This week important progress has been made in securing peace on the island of Mindanao, the Philippines, by the signing of a blueprint of the final peace contract. After over 40 years of violence and over 150,000 dead, fears have been easing in the region, which for one woman led to the end of the […]

Earlier this week, Pakistani child rights activist Malala Yousafzai, a teenager herself, was attacked on her way home from school by the Taliban. She was critically injured, but is in a stable condition at point of writing. More than a hundred activist in northwestern Pakistan have rallied against the shooting of the 14-year-old.  The Pakistani Taliban has provided […]

Swedish furniture giant IKEA erased almost all the women from its Saudi catalogue. This has been going on since the 1980s, when IKEA franchises opened in the Kingdom. Swedes are furious, and IKEA says that they will make sure this won’t happen again. Demonstrators in Tunis have expressed their disgust about the fact that a […]

The Islamists controlling Mali’s northern city of Timbuktu have announced that from now on they will be arresting indecently-dressed women and girls, and any female who is seen on the streets after 11 pm. Many local women feel deprived of their freedom by this new enforcement of “sharia” law, and secretly hope to be liberated […]

The controversial anti-Islam video has caused protests and violence all over the globe. In Afghanistan, a female suicide car bomber attacked a bus in Kabul, killing 12 people. An armed group has claimed the attack and said it was to avenge the anti-Islam film. Following violent protests in Australia last weekend, which partly ended through the […]

Poverty and harsh conditions have led Syrian refugees to take drastic measures in order to save (the honor of) their daughters, marrying them off, even at a very young age. While many husbands are from Jordan, home to many Syrian refugees, there is now a trend too in online trafficking in Syrian brides, who are taken from refugee […]

Palestine’s religious authorities have announced reforms of divorce laws, which would make it easier for women to end the marriage. A court in the Maldives has sentenced a 16-year-old girl with 100 lashes and eight months house arrest, which will take effect once she turns 18 (?), for having sex with a 29-year-old male. His […]

Alaa Morely, the Syrian woman who stated in an interview on Syrian television in June this year that she had fabricated news reports for Al-Jazeera, has fled to Turkey, where she tells about her forced confession. A New Zealand museum will ban men from watching a documentary featuring unveiled Muslim women, as per request of the […]

Somali runner Samia Yusuf Omar, who competed in the 2008 Olympics for her country, has drowned off the coast of Italy earlier this year. According to an earlier profile by Al Jazeera, Samia had been looking for a trainer in Ethiopia to compete at the London Olympics, but had met a lot of obstacles and resistance. Italian newspapers suggest that she […]