On November 28th, the Swiss voted in one of their many referendums. The topic of this referendum was the deportation of criminal foreigners. This seems innocent enough, but the Swiss, at least for one local party, found a way to give it an anti-female anti-Islam twist.  Sadly, this initiative, spearheaded (as usual) by the Swiss […]

“Delfts blauw meets hijab” is the title of a new Dutch documentary analyzing the experience of female Dutch converts to Islam and, at the same time, exploring the compatibility (or lack of) between so-called “Dutch identity” with “Muslim values.”  The documentary, created by Janina Pigaht, follows the experience of young Dutch women, Laura, Marion, Djamila, […]

Although the wives of the Prophet are held up as examples for Muslim women to follow, little is told about the human beings behind the women on pedestals. We all get told the same stuff—how Khadija supported her husband, Aisha’s work as a jurist and teacher—but the discourse focuses on their actions, not their persons. […]

Founded by two sisters in 2008, the French webzine Hijab and the City has a unique place in the French cultural landscape.  In an interview given to the online news outlet Rue89, one of Hijab and the City’s stated goals was to “give a voice to those who are often talked about but never talked […]

If you still haven’t figured out that wearing black chadors will save your worldly soul and that wearing lipstick and heels will get you sent to the hellfire, Iran’s “Cyber Group for Promoting Chastity and the Veil [Ifaf]” is here to clear that up for you.  They are sponsored by the Iranian government and have […]

It is said that in Islam, marriage is half the faith.  Yet marriages are increasingly breaking down in divorce or marriage in name only, and examples of healthy marriages in keeping with our deen are becoming scarcer. I was curious to read Suzy Ismail’s When Muslim Marriage Fails–I wondered, do Muslim marriages fail for the […]

June is exam time in North Africa. With some amusement, I read a link forwarded to me from an Algerian website about young women using their Bluetooths and hijab to cheat on their baccalaureate exams.  A quick Google search proved this was a pan-Maghreb thing, as Moroccan and Tunisian media has written on the subject. […]

At the end of April, on the Swiss German-language television show Arena, one of the “rising stars” of the “Muslim scene” in Switzerland, convert Nicholas Abdullah Blancho, was present. With Blancho was an acolyte in his CCIS/IZRS (Conseil central islamique suisse/Islamisches Zentralrats Schweiz) organization, a certain young Swiss convert of Kurdish Alevi origin named Ferah […]

Le Monde, France 24 and Le Nouvel Observateur covered Franco-Moroccan artist Majida Khattari’s Parisian runway show/art exhibit in April. Her show was titled “VIP” (for Voile islamique parisien) and took place at Paris’ Cité Universitaire. The show was atypical of Parisian shows in its choice of subject: a series of veils. Her choice of subject isn’t by accident. […]

Despite her story being told in a series of media alerts posted a few weeks ago on Racialicious, Katha Politt’s blog at The Nation, and here at MMW, Nazia Quazi’s problem is not making the headlines it should. Dual Indian-Canadian citizen Quazi has been held in Saudi Arabia for the past two years due to […]