December 1st was World AIDS Day, and among the many AIDS-related stories from various places were some involving Muslim women. Tahmina Haidar is a 26-year-old Tajik woman, a widow, and HIV-positive, but she sees her infection as her destiny, which, she says, has affected her life also in a positive way.  Faghmeeda Miller is from […]

Last Friday Malaysian activists slammed the wedding of a 12-year-old girl to her 19-year-old boyfriend and said they are renewing their calls on the Malaysian government to outlaw child marriages. The girl’s father allegedly said that it is better for his daughter to get married, than to do something “improper.” Female Genital Mutilation is said […]

Journalist Abigail Haworth shares her experience about the day she attended a religious event in Indonesia, where 248 girls underwent genital mutilation in return for a cash handout and a promise of spiritual purity. Genital mutilation is on the rise in Indonesia, where the practice is deemed by many to be an Islamic requirement for women. This weekend […]

After the parents of 6-year-old Bibi Roza in Pakistan’s Swat valley protested against the decision of local elders to marry her off in order to end a feud, a local court found the decision by the elders to be illegal, and since then five arrests have been made. As long as victims of domestic violence […]

The decision that women could not enter the Haji Ali dargah, a Sufi shrine, just off the coast of Mumbai, India, has caused international outrage. While some claim that this is just enforcing Islamic law (according to some, women should not visit graves), others were worried that other shrines would soon follow suit. On Thursday […]

Last week Muslims around the world celebrated Eid ul Adha, or Feast of Sacrifice, which is as well the end of the pilgrimage. Especially for this celebration, The National featured the story of Lady Evelyn Cobbolds, who might have been the first British woman to have gone on hajj. Some women in Saudi Arabia have […]

Eid mubarak to you all! Many news stories this week did, of course, feature the annual pilgrimage, or hajj, which ends today, Eid ul Adha. The BBC reports that more young Muslims decide to make the pilgrimage, and shares stories of three young British women who did the pilgrimage at a young age. Some female pilgrims from Nigeria […]

This week important progress has been made in securing peace on the island of Mindanao, the Philippines, by the signing of a blueprint of the final peace contract. After over 40 years of violence and over 150,000 dead, fears have been easing in the region, which for one woman led to the end of the […]

Earlier this week, Pakistani child rights activist Malala Yousafzai, a teenager herself, was attacked on her way home from school by the Taliban. She was critically injured, but is in a stable condition at point of writing. More than a hundred activist in northwestern Pakistan have rallied against the shooting of the 14-year-old.  The Pakistani Taliban has provided […]

Swedish furniture giant IKEA erased almost all the women from its Saudi catalogue. This has been going on since the 1980s, when IKEA franchises opened in the Kingdom. Swedes are furious, and IKEA says that they will make sure this won’t happen again. Demonstrators in Tunis have expressed their disgust about the fact that a […]