The Glass House, directed by Hamid Rahmanian, is a documentary of the lives of a group of young women at the Omid e Mehr day center in Tehran. These women deal with a range of issues, including drug addiction and sexual, physical, and verbal abuse. Omid e Mehr’s staff provides these women with social services […]

Lubna al-Hussein’s recent trial for wearing pants has received a lot of attention in the media. Most of the attention has been focused on the “backwardness” of indecency law that apparently prevents women in Sudan from wearing pants in public. The law itself doesn’t actually describe what is “indecent” but it seems to be understood […]

Looking at the title of Mark Milke’s editorial, “The 21st century-style subjection of women” I have to admit that the first group of people that didn’t come to mind was Muslim women. Maybe it’s because Muslims are usually portrayed as being stuck in the middle ages. However, my first impression was wrong and the editorial […]

This past week a woman was murdered in an apparent honor killing in the Gaza Strip. She was beaten by her father who thought she was having an affair. May Allah have mercy on the soul and forgive the sins of the woman, named Fadia, and may there also be justice for her death. Unfortunately, […]

Whenever I encounter Asra Nomani’s works or see her in an interview, I usually wonder,“What is her point?” I don’t say this derisively. Is she trying to speak about gender inequality among the ummah? Is she trying to deal with gender norms in her own South Asian community? These questions formed in my mind as […]

If you’ve been following coverage of the fallout from the recent Iranian elections, you have been bound to see images of women in the streets as part of protests against the election results. In fact, the Western media has put a feminine face on much of its coverage of what is happening in Iran connecting […]

A recent anti-discrimination campaign in the Netherlands is using a poster of a hijabi, whose face is hidden behind the photo of a non-hijabi, as part of an advertising campaign to fight discrimination. The poster appears at bus stops, and says “Do you have to let yourself at home when going out?” At first, I […]

I have begun to read Khaled Abou El-Fadl’s Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women again. My first attempt was about two years ago while I was still finishing my Bachelor’s. The book is not easy to get through and the first time out proved to be a massive failure. This time is […]

It seems as of late, the media has taken a very keen interest in the personal details of the lives of Muslim women. My fellow writers here at MMW have discussed this phenomenon. The Associated Press is now adding to this by telling us how Hamas is getting in on the matchmaking business. The title […]

In the past, I have been critical of Muslim organizations for their relative silence on issues affecting women. So I was pleasantly surprised when the entire February/March edition of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)’s magazine, The Message International, was dedicated to domestic violence. The front cover was nice with a picture of street […]