Nurul Izzah Anwar comes from a political family. She is the current Vice-President of the Malaysian political party PKR (People’s Justice Party), and is also the daughter of Anwar Ibrahim, a former Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister who was jailed in 1999 and banned from politics until 2008 for charges of corruption and sodomy (but arguably because he was […]

This is my marriage contract, certifying that my husband and I went through a “marriage ceremony peformed under Islamic rites”, and that he had agreed to certain “special conditions” otherwise known as ta’aliq. We didn’t pay much attention to the conditions provided to us by the kadi (judge) from the syariah court, dismissing it as […]

Who would choose, on a day dedicated to honouring women in his country, to completely discount all previous work done by its women? That’s exactly what Najib Razak, the incumbent Malaysian prime minister, said during his speech during the National Women’s Day celebration on October 2. In addition to being the prime minister, Razak also holds […]

I have noticed a trend on Facebook of pages created and maintained by male religious teachers in the Malay-speaking communities of Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. CahayaIslam (“Light of Islam”) and Lukisan Dakwah Islam (“Islamic Drawings for Da’wah”) are two pages most intriguing to me for two reasons: because they create and share cartoons that are drawn in the style of manga, which […]

In recent news, Muslim women have been highlighted for their violent actions towards in men in their society. While comparing different articles reporting on the incident of the unnamed Iranian woman (whom I will refer to as the Bad Hijabi for convenience) who beat up the cleric who policed her for her “bad hijab,” I couldn’t […]

For an extra treat this week, we have a second new writer to introduce!  You might recognise Sya from her past MMW guest posts on Ramadan in Singapore and on the Save Maryam campaign, and we are happy to welcome her as a more regular contributor to MMW. Last week I was in London, moonlighting […]