This guide is a light-hearted insight into some of my experiences embarking on Ramadan for the first time. It goes without saying that this might not apply or be relevant for everyone, but I wanted to share it nonetheless, so others who might be fasting for the first time don’t feel alone in their Ramadan […]

International development policies have been my bread and butter for the past two years, both academically and professionally. When I first entered this field, I wanted to understand why development programming was only guided towards non-white people. Didn’t the world overall need “development”? As I soon learned, the word “development” as it is used in […]

A few days ago, Malaysian online news platform Malay Mail Online reported on how some married Muslim men in Malaysia are using “halal speed dating” to find a second wife. Halal Speed Dating (HSD) is a matchmaking platform for Muslims, co-founded by Malaysian couple Munirah Tunai Shamsidi and Zuhri Yuhyi. Together they run matchmaking events […]

Last month, Beyonce released her latest visual album, Lemonade. And the responses have been numerous. On CBC’s q, Naila Keleta-Mae called it masterful and discussed the legacy that Beyonce is creating. Courtney Lee listed the lessons about Black womanhood she sees, over at Sojourner, and the presence of God and Christianity in the album, over […]

The hijab is in the news again. For whatever reason, people just can’t seem to stop talking about it. This time, a Muslim woman is being denied the right to wear her hijab to The Citadel, The Military College of South Carolina. After being admitted, the young woman, who has remained unidentified, was called by […]

In Copenhagen, a swimming club has recently started offering female-only sessions to allow more girls the opportunity to swim. Since it began, the program has drawn around 246 girls of non-Danish origin (interestingly, it is much more difficult to find information on whether any girls of Danish ethnic origin also take part). The numbers are […]

Trigger Warning: This post contains discussion of underage rape and of transophobia Four months ago, the Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times ran a few articles on a case involving Malay Muslim transgender man Zunika Ahmad, 39. He had been charged with 20 counts of sexually penetrating a girl, a minor who was between the age of 13 […]

In the UK, Sadiq Khan, the first Muslim MP for Labour, is campaigning to be the mayor of London. In recent news, comments from an interview with him stated, ‘Questions need to be asked about why Muslim women wear hijabs’. Now at first glance, I thought this must have been quoted wrong. After all, being […]

Radical Islam is invading Paris’s elite political science universities; or at least that’s what opponents of Hijab Day would have everyone believe. On Wednesday, April 20th, students at Sciences-Po organized a hijab day. Salaam Sciences-Po, the Islamic reflection group behind the event, invited people to don headscarves in opposition of Islamophobia. While Hijab Day has […]

So the French are talking about their enduring obsession, Muslim women and their clothing, again. I am a little late to the ball game on this one, but between a needed vacation and Handshake Gate in Switzerland, I had to walk away from the hate to keep my own sanity. Laurence Rossignol, the French Minister […]