Slate recently ran a piece about Azza al Garf, dubbing her a “culturally regressive trailblazer,” and likening her to well-known American female conservatives such as Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin. Azza al Garf, a female member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party who was recently elected to the post-revolutionary Egyptian Parliament, had not […]

The Huffington Post’s coverage of Islam and Muslims has sometimes missed the mark, and at other times has made some good points. This is due in part to the utilization of op-ed writers in various sections, including the Religion and Science section, which leaves coverage and conversations open to the inspiration of a wide variety […]

On the morning of June 30, 2009 a quadruple-murder case rocked the city of Kingston in Ontario, Canada. Four women were found dead, submerged in the Rideau Canal, in their Nissan Sentra. At first it seemed as though boaters had come across a teenage prank gone awry or the victims of a horrific car accident. […]

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 […]

This year the Women’s Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) held its third global conference in Istanbul Turkey. The conference, titled “WISE: Muslim Women Leaders at the Frontlines of Change,” lasted just four days, from October 14 to October 17, 2011.  It included panel discussions, debates, and training sessions. This year’s conference was centered […]

HBO is set to air “Love Crimes of Kabul” at 9pm tonight as part of their documentary films summer series. This intimate documentary goes inside Badam Bagh, a women’s prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, to tell the stories of three women who are being accused of committing “love crimes” or more commonly termed, “moral crimes”. Among […]

I recently had the opportunity to see Zehra  Fazal preform her musically-inclined comedy show titled “Headscarf and the Angry Bitch” at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.  Her one-woman show centers on a fictional character named Zed Headscarf who tours around mosques, giving lectures in order to educate congregants about Islam through her folk songs. Her “lecture […]

I stepped into a cozy loft, decorated minimally with Moroccan style tapestry and into an experience I won’t easily forget. The Light in Her Eyes, a documentary film following the story of  Houda al-Habash, the founder and teacher of an all girls’ Qur’an school in Damascus, Syria, sparked my interest about a year ago where, […]

“An identity neither begins nor ends on a stretch of land, for identity lives within the heart and consciousness. Land erodes, land evolves; it is plundered, and it is cultivated. It is not the master of its destiny. An identity is elusive; it can be neither contained nor defined by standards other than its own. […]

Deaffinity is a group whose mission is to “help break barriers and improve the quality of life for the BME [black and minority ethnic] D/deaf community.” While advocating on behalf of the deaf community, Deaffinity provides culturally sensitive services to the Deaf community, such as their Youth leadership and Engagement program, and is also involved […]