Recently, I’ve come across two articles on marriage, each published months apart in the New York Times.  The first is an introspective piece that advocates marriage within a Western setting, and the other addresses the apparent prevalence of free-will marriages in Pakistan.  While the first discusses a past romantic relationship and how the author eventually […]

The other day, I stumbled across a piece on the increasing number of Muslim students at Catholic colleges in the United States.  The New York Times article is the result of interviews with students and administrators at several American Catholic institutions.  Also accompanying the article was the usual array of pictures depicting Muslim women in […]

“I don’t think there’s ever been a time in my life when I wanted to pray. My mom always made me think that as Muslims, we should. But as soon as I stopped caring about what Mom thought, I stopped praying altogether. But today—right now—I really want to pray.” (Rebels by Accident, p. 150) Rebels […]

“And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters To a Young Poet, Letter Four (16 July 1903) My earlier post on Ramadan was a nostalgic look back to simpler times, when […]

For me, growing up as an expat, Ramadan has been largely about celebrating my Pakistani heritage.  Living in Buenos Aires, in the late 80s when Muslim communities were still a rarity, the act of observing and celebrating such an occasion was often relegated to a handful of Pakistanis who were able to brave sundown in […]

After spending the past few weeks delving into President Obama’s foreign policy strategies, discussing the Rochdale case and surviving steamy temperatures of over 45 degrees Celsius, I was looking forward to covering something upbeat and inspiring. The appearance of Pakistani sous chef Fatima Ali on Chopped, a cooking competition on the Food Network, provided the […]

In Obama and the Middle East: The End of American’s Moment?, a new book by one of the foremost scholars on Middle East politics, Fawaz A. Gerges looks at America’s progress (or lack thereof) in the Middle East.  Paying special attention to President Obama’s policies in the region, Gerges argues that the United States is […]

In light of several interesting comments to my previous post on the Rochdale “grooming” case, I decided a follow-up piece was in order. Much of the furore surrounding the case has been with respect to race and its alleged role in the attack, specifically: does the “Asian” (Pakistani and thereby Muslim) origin of the attackers […]

A group of nine men of Pakistani and Afghan origin were sentenced to jail recently for using alcohol and drugs to “groom” white British girls for sex.  The abuse took place in the town of Rochdale, near Manchester in northwest England.  The men, aged 24 to 38, were employed as taxi drivers, and included a […]

In a 2010 television interview, quoted in a more recent article (I was not able to find an original recording of the interview), Pakistan’s highest-ranking female squash player, Maria Toor Pakay, spoke on the rights of women in Pakistan: “Girls don’t get any rights. They cannot go out of the house. They cannot do whatever […]