Revolution never arrives without its victims. The lives it changes and swallows within its jaws are the same lives who endured decades of violence, decadence, and impoverishment by the very systems that it wishes to replace. The revolutions in the Middle East deeply reflect the contradictions between the joy and pride of toppling a dictatorship […]

One of the more colorful Muslim figures in Switzerland making the media rounds the past few months is Aziz Osmanoglu of Basel, who was recently on trial for hate speech charges.  The court case was based on Osmanoglu’s statements made to a Swiss TV show, which essentially added up to saying that it was “Sharia-compliant” […]

In Obama and the Middle East: The End of American’s Moment?, a new book by one of the foremost scholars on Middle East politics, Fawaz A. Gerges looks at America’s progress (or lack thereof) in the Middle East.  Paying special attention to President Obama’s policies in the region, Gerges argues that the United States is […]

A few months ago, while reviewing one of my friend’s profiles on Facebook, I was surprised to see the amount of discussion that Shari’ah rulings regarding marriage provoke in the West. My friend, an orthodox Sunni Muslim and avid follower of the Hanbali school, had commented in a picture from 2010 that depicted Malaysian women […]

Certain topics related to Muslims seem to go on and on like broken records in European countries. If it isn’t headscarves, it is swimming lessons (like these stories from Germany, Finland, and Norway).  This spring, a story about yet another Muslim family refusing swimming lessons made headlines in Switzerland.  In Basel, the families of five […]

To people of a certain age, the word Supergran might bring to mind a Scottish superhero from the 80’s, but this week a headline about an Afghan “supergran” was a world away from Saturday afternoon TV. The article tells us that Zarifah Qazizadah is Afghanistan’s only female village chief; in fact, she’s only the second […]

During the Egyptian elections campaigning, women were, of course, targeted by those looking for votes. Akher Kalam – “Final Words” – is one of the most viewed TV talk shows in Egypt.  As with most Egyptian media outlets lately, it has been paying much attention to the elections, and its coverage of women’s issues in […]

I was rather excited about Francois Hollande winning the French elections this month.  I hoped that five years of hateful, fear mongering policy towards Muslims by Sarkozy and his minions would come to an end and that Hollande, for all his supposed blandness, would bring some low-key normalcy to the French presidency. There was one […]

If you ever wondered about “Islamization” and the so-called return to the Caliphate, recent debates arising from a number of Muslim countries regarding the “Islamization” and the status of Muslim women bring important questions to the table. First of all, it raises the question of what really is the “Islamic state” and what describes it. […]

In the past few weeks, Chechnya has been in international news after the president of the independent republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, made few remarks supporting and justifying honor killings.  After years of war in the region, including the First and Second Chechen wars, Chechnya has undergone a challenging road to reconstruction. Although it seems that Kadyrov’s […]