I really love all that feelgood interfaith stuff, so I was excited to read Faithfully Feminist: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Feminists on Why We Stay. Ok, maybe I balked a little when I found out MayimBialik raved about it, (where do I begin, her flip flopping on being an anti-vaxxer or not, or her buying bulletproof vests […]

This post is crossposted at the writer’s blog.  Snow in Amman: An Anthology of Short Stories is a collection of eleven contemporary short stories from Jordan translated and edited by Ibtihal Mahmoud and Alexander Hadded, with a foreword by Samir Al Sharif which provides a very brief overview of the Jordanian short story for the reader unfamiliar with the […]

I spent much of my childhood and teenage years obsessed with anime and comics. Growing up in Mexico, I was part of a generation that saw the introduction of strong female characters in mainstream media, including anime, comics and TV shows. No more Candy Candy with her eternal emotional conflicts over boys, and no more […]

*Trigger Warning: Rape, Sexualized Violence, Misogyny* Toronto boasts a wonderfully diverse population. It is probably one of the most diverse cities in the world. And it is also home to the largest Muslim community in the country. There are different Islamic centres, and incredible organizations like Outburst! that advocate for the rights of Muslim women. […]

  In the Skin of A Jihadist by Anne Erelle (not her real name) is a book about a French journalist pretending to be an ISIS fan and interacting with a French-speaking jihadist via Skype. This sentence occurs on the first page: “Do you really love me, Mélodie murmurs, her voice childish and frail.” That one […]

Brick Walls by  Saadia Faruqi is a collection of seven short stories set in Pakistan, featuring a diverse cast of characters, from Asma, a widow struggling to feed her child, to the priveleged Rabia, who finds that wealth does not always protect women, to the precocious ten year old Nida, an aspiring cricketer who is […]

Dear Mona, Some of my fellow Muslimah Media Watch writers put together a roundtable about their thoughts on your book, and as I read it, I decided to explore some of their ideas and thoughts further. This review in the form of a letter stems from the need to address not only the book itself, […]

  Warning for Spoilers!  Loving You Wasn’t Enough is a book about an unexpected love between two Muslim girls. I stumbled upon it randomly on Amazon and was immediately excited by the premise. It a book that claims to explore homosexuality from a Muslim perspective, and it tells a story that is not talked about […]

We will soon have a full review of Mona Eltahawy’s Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution. In the meantime, here is a discussion on the book by three of our writers. Sya: What’s up with books about “the Middle East and North Africa” that are about female genitals, one way […]

I started reading “Recovering the Female Voice in Islamic Scripture” by Georgina L. Jardim a few weeks ago. As I approached the end of the book, I was traveling and got to read the conclusion by the beaches of the Caribbean Sea. I write this as a way of placing myself into the reading of […]