East meets West and pop meets soul in the latest album from Dutch international music star, Rajae El Mouhandiz, released this past Saturday. But of all the words to describe Hand of Fatima, Sufi-inspired might be the most fitting. The album is a musical meander through the life and times of Rajae, a 30-year-old North […]

“When security disappears in married life, and serenity is not accessible, then it is time to do the thing most despised by Allah.” With these words, Mahasen Saber opens her blog, I want a divorce , and then later her online radio station, Divorce Radio. Saber was married for three years and spent a great […]

The CBC Radio show C’est la vie, an English-language show about “life in French-speaking Canada,” recently interviewed Natasha Ivisic, a woman from the Montreal area who has produced a documentary called Je porte le voile, or “I wear the veil.”  The podcast of the show can be found here (look for the November 29, 2009 […]

Today we witness postcolonial Orientalism coming to grips with its obsession with the hijab. While the white French elite seem fixed on debating its symbols, the British media are asking why women choose to wear it. Once, the obsession was an obvious desire to unveil Muslim women (think postcards of semi-naked North African women during […]

Since 1994, South Africa celebrates National Women’s Day every year on the 9th of August, and more generally the whole month has become one in which the woes of women are highlighted and tribute is paid to their outstanding achievements. The occasion marks a march led by a 20,000-strong gathering of women on August 9, […]

Rabble.ca, an alternative news source in Canada, recently posted a podcast that was originally broadcast on Co-Op Radio in Vancouver, on their show “The F Word,” which looks at feminist issues.  Entitled “Islam, women and feminisms,” this segment features interviews with two Canadian Muslim women, Itrath Syed and Farzana Doctor. The host of the show […]

In the wake of the Sarkozy-Burqa fiasco, last week the BBC radio aired a show on the Women’s Hour program discussing the topic. It is definitely worth a listen, as two strong viewpoints are voiced. The presenter, Jane is joined by Um Abdullah, who wears the burqa and Maryam Namazie, who wants it banned. Emma […]

Sophie Ashraf, also known as The Burkha Rapper, is an Indian Muslim female rapper for whom Muslim identity seems central to her art. This comes across clearly in her following statement on the Blind Boys website: Its like when you really like a band, you wear T-shirts of that band, Well we really, really like […]

Sexy Girls. Arab Beauty that’ll rock your world. Sea, sex and sun. Let the funky Arabs turn you on! The new “Funky Arabs” single by Jad Choueiri, the Lebanese singer known for crooning love ballads, has had over 150,000 views on YouTube in one month. Choueiri spends four and a half minutes singing about how […]

As we all know, pop culture can’t get enough of the mysterious ‘Orient’ and its ubiquitous exotic women. The ’80s New Romanticism movement is a case in point. Known for its exaggerated and often outrageous attitudes to fashion and music, the movement inspired pop musicians to take on faraway locations to shoot their videos: Duran […]