MMW Contributor Yusra Tekbali was in Libya during the outbreak of the February 17 Revolution. She was evacuated to Malta, and now speaks to us from The United Arab Emirates, where she is attending Insight Dubai, a conference on Muslim Women’s issues sponsored by Dubai Women’s College. Krista and Azra interview her about her experiences. […]

Angelina Jolie is known more for being the sexier half of Brangelina and her patchwork family, but her luscious lips and film projects are a close second.  The latest controversy regarding the actress’s directorial debut flick in Bosnia is about a Muslim woman. The yet-to-be-titled film is set in Bosnia on the eve of the […]

Most Arab women I know have at one point or another cursed an Arab man and his stubborn adherence to male chauvinism, something that rears its ugly head in patriarchal societies around the globe. This topic usually boils down to this: a man has problem with independent woman. In a song titled “Metlak Mish 3ayzin” […]

Europe’s controversial stance and inflammatory language surrounding the burqa puts Muslim women, veiled or not, in a tight spot. Instead of donning a low profile, some Muslim women are turning to music to speak their minds. European Muslimahs are defying stereotypes by promoting their art and pushing themselves front and center. Take Diam’s, a French […]

Rima Fakih, an Arab Muslim immigrant, won the Miss USA Pageant Sunday night: She beat out four blondes and set off a whirlwind of media coverage stemming from her “stripper” past to her Shi’a background. On the positive side, one idealist commenter compared her to Barack Obama. Another went so far as to say her […]

I’d like to give it up to Hissa Hilal, a Saudi woman who’s caused some controversy for slamming Islamic extremists in an American Idol spinoff called Million’s Poet. Instead of singing, contestants are judged based on how well they recite poems in front of a live audience; a panel of judges, along with thousands of […]

Edina Lekovic, the Communications Director for the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles, says the hardest part of her job is convincing the media to run non-crisis stories about Muslims. Yusra interviews her to figure out what drives the woman we see on TV. Yusra: You work as the communications director of the Muslim […]

Based on his über-liberal political views, I assume Bill Maher has an open mind, and therefore understands that fashion transcends cultures. But for the sake of being a douche, he pretends like he doesn’t in his parody of niqabi women in a skit called “Muslim Dior,” part of his But I’m not Wrong comedy show. […]

September 11, 2001 was different for everybody. But it’s safe to say that U.S. Muslims bore a significant burden. As soon as it was announced that the hijackers were Arab and Muslim, it seemed we’d inevitably be associated with the hereto-unpronounced “tribe.” After all, wasn’t that how America thought of us anyway? In her book […]

While in Rome for the U.N. World Food Summit last week, Libyan leader Muammar al Gaddafi engaged in an unusual form of dawah:  inviting 500 Italian escorts to convert to Islam. The women, employed by Hostessweb agency, were under the impression they were attending a party. The agency advertised for “…500 attractive girls between 18 […]