Dreaming of the ultimate spirituality and serenity this Ramadan, my plan was to quit my 9-5 job a couple of days before Ramadan started. I’ve always had this fantasy that taking a vacation for the whole Ramadan gives you more space for spirituality and religious rituals. Think of days full of Quran recitation, Zikr, Terawih […]

“This is a man adored by Egyptians. And if he wants to take four wives, we’re at his service.” The man in question is none other than the Egyptian Minister of Defense, General Abd ElFattah Al-Sisi (promoted recently to Field Marshal), and the “we” in “we’re at his service” refers to Egyptian women, according to […]

My cousin’s daughter is smart. She recently summed a deeply rooted societal problem in few words. The little girl is relatively chubby and her mom, my cousin, keeps giving her remarks on her weight and looks. At one point, she responded: “Don’t you see that you are fat too! Plus, you are the one who […]

I have to admit that hijab narratives in media turn me off. Whether because it is exhaustively discussed or because most of these narratives rely heavily on clichés and fallacies, hijab is a subject that seems to me overloaded with notions that are not related in any way to what I see as the core […]

When you google the possible variations of these words: Women, Role & Arab Spring, you will be faced with massive numbers of articles, studies and interviews that examine thoroughly women’s involvement in the Arab Spring. The prevalent sentiment of such works revolves around how it’s newsworthy that “Women played an active role during the Arab […]

Ramadan is here! And although its true essence is all about our pursuit of spiritual elevation, we – Muslims – celebrate it in every way possible. Thus, special memories about Ramadan are engraved in our hearts, and I would like to share some of mine here. 1. I was born in Ramadan: When I was […]

“Backwards” is the word often associated with pre-modern ages, and “oppression” is the word that comes to our minds first when we describe the state of women during those ages. Thank God we live in the modern age where human rights activism has brought women rights that they’ve never had before. Right? Sorry to shake […]

A couple of weeks ago I came across this BBC Panorama  story on “Women at risk” which warns that “some Sharia councils in Britain may be putting Muslim women “at risk” by pressuring them to stay in abusive marriages.” The story presents a case of a couple going to one of the Sharia councils for […]