2001: Driver’s Education on a warm spring day. Despite years of riding in cars, I felt the tremors of Western decadence between my legs once I sat behind the wheel. My hijab felt a little looser, and I was overwhelmed with so many haraam thoughts that I could not hear a word that my driving […]

The Huffington Post’s coverage of Islam and Muslims has sometimes missed the mark, and at other times has made some good points. This is due in part to the utilization of op-ed writers in various sections, including the Religion and Science section, which leaves coverage and conversations open to the inspiration of a wide variety […]

Following the lead of the always reliable Daily Mail, Jezebel recently published a post declaring how awful it is to call your child “Jihad,” suggesting that this is tantamount to naming a child “Hitler.” Cassie Murdoch starts by drawing a parallel to the story of a New Jersey couple that named two of their children […]

Libya’s new interim government, which was announced on November 22, has been tasked with preparing for elections scheduled for next June, when voters will select an assembly to write the new constitution. As expected, given the challenges of rebuilding the country after four decades of dictatorship and nine months of war, the choice of ministers […]

Look at pictures of real live white women wearing hijab! All the exclamation marks in existence could not hide that these are the usual soundbites in a story that gets repeated more often then Home Alone at Christmastime. The problem with these statements being that not only do they erase the experiences of convert from […]

This piece was written by a Guest Contributor, Summar Shammakhi. The interim Libyan leader, Mustapha Abdul Jalil declared Libya liberated on the 23rd October. The content of his twenty or so minute speech was a tribute to the February 17 revolution. He thanked all the brave men and women, all the martyrs, all the injured […]

The election of the so-called ‘moderate Islamist’ party, Ennahda, to the head seat of the government, has put Tunisia at the center of the discussion on the rise of Islamist post-Arab Spring. Media coverage has focused primarily on the alleged ‘inevitable’ imposition of the headscarf on all women and the possibility of great setbacks to […]

Nisreen Mansour al Forgani, centre, with fellow Gaddafi female militia members. She is now under armed rebel guard in a Tripoli hospital. Picture: AFP Gender roles are nowhere more prominent than in war, as we see male political and military leaders taking the most visible roles in armed conflicts, promoting the tendency to see the […]

I found it refreshing to see pictures of a young Iranians taking part in a water pistol fight in Tehran in The Guardian. Until I realize that every single picture is of soaked women. Anyone else feel weirded out by this? That’s the kind of side-eye I’m talking about, sister. Image via Amir/Demotix/Corbis. I’m confused […]

By guest contributor Wood Turtle; a longer version of this post was originally published at her blog. At what point does religious inclusion become too much for a public school board to handle? Apparently, it’s when the menstrual cycles of 12-year-old girls become the center of public debate. Every week for the past three years, […]