Muslimah Media Watch thanks Aynur for the tip! The title caught my eye. The blurb promised that: “The Muslim Next Door clears away the misconceptions about Islam and why they flourish –media distortion, confusion about what is cultural rather than religious, the language barrier, and the old tall tales that still persist after thirteen centuries.” […]

This was written by Cycads and originally published at her blog. Come into my parlour: A scene from Nadine Labaki’s ‘Caramel’ (2007) The depiction of liberal Muslim women in film is a moment made of groundbreaking stuff. In a time where the veil is a symbol of subjugation, films about Muslim women like ‘Caramel‘ (2007) […]

Yet another cartoon controversy has hit the Muslim world. This time it’s not in the West, but rather in Iraq. In their September 14th issue, the weekly Iraqi magazine/newspaper, Al-Isbouiyah (or The Weekly), published a cartoon depicting a female suicide bomber holding a lit bomb fuse in her left hand, standing, left arm raised, like […]

It seems that lately there is a lot of focus on hijab fashion. Not too long ago, I wrote an entry for MMW about this issue. Everywoman, a program produced by Al Jazeera English, did a piece on hijabi fashion. The program looked at the fashion choices of a group of hijabis in England in […]

They’re popping up everywhere in harmless-looking packaging: shame cartoons. A quick search online will turn up a multitude of articles, op-eds and full-on rants appealing to women’s sense of shame (One particularly delightful article was titled “I appeal to your sense of shame my Muslim sister.”) And then we have cartoons. The first kind are […]

Guess what? Hollywood is making a film with a female Muslim protagonist! Yes, that’s right. A female Muslim protagonist. The main character in the film is a Muslim woman. For the first time. And what is the name of the film, you may ask? Guess. Just take a quick guess. What’s that? Did you say […]

At 13% of the population, Muslims are a significant demographic in India. However, relations between Muslims and other populations in India, most notably the Hindu population, have not always gone smoothly. Shabana Azmi is an Indian actor, social activist and ex-MP who spoken extensively on various issues impacting Indian Muslims. Some of her views have […]

So this is old. 2005 old. But I just saw it so I’m writing. I’m not the biggest fan of animated cartoon series like South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and American Dad. Mainly because I believe that there are so many underlying messages that you don’t notice you’re exposed to because they’re packaged in […]

Today, let’s briefly re-visit one “frontier” of America’s War of on Terror. About a month or so ago we in the West began to hear about Dr. Aafia Siddiqui (pictured right), an American-educated Pakistani doctor who disappeared from Karachi, Pakistan in 2003, who had all of sudden re-appeared. It is reported that on her way […]

Last year, the British program Dispatches went undercover in a Mosque in Britain to expose “radical” Islam functioning in Britain. I’m sure the main point of that program was to scare inform Britons about radical Muslims who lurk in every corner. The masjid in question is funded partly by Saudi (although many masajid around the […]