Over the Christmas and New Year season, Quraysha Ismail Sooliman, South African Muslimah scholar and lecturer in Political Studies at the University of Pretoria, was on her way out of the country with her family. At Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, she and her daughters were stopped at passport control, and one of her […]

As right-wing pundits are gaining momentum in North America, minority groups are unsurprisingly being targeted.  Among the questions being raised is: when does “national security” trump the need to address an instance of sexual assault against women? Muslim women, especially those who wear the hijab or niqab, experience a unique sense of vulnerability in the […]

As MMW’s Artsy Niqab Spotter, man my hands are full!  If I’m not checking out French performance artists or Swiss campaign posters with minarets and niqabs, there are just so many people using niqabs as their accessory du jour and not enough time to write about them all.  I can’t keep up! So I had […]

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011: the day thousands of Egyptians—Christians and Muslims, men and women, young and old—lined the streets of Tahrir Square in non-violent, civil-resistance in attempt to overthrow the regime of then President, Hosni Mubarak. A year later, Wikipedia hosts a page titled “2011 Egyptian Revolution;” Egyptians mourn the loss of their sons, brothers, […]

Just a month ago, here on MMW, I tried to highlight the fact that mainstream media was focusing on Islamists’ statements regarding what women wear, while, in fact, what was even more dangerous was their vision regarding women and child law. I referred in that article to quotations from Dr. Manal Abul-Hassan about allowing female […]

Slate recently ran a piece about Azza al Garf, dubbing her a “culturally regressive trailblazer,” and likening her to well-known American female conservatives such as Michele Bachman and Sarah Palin. Azza al Garf, a female member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party who was recently elected to the post-revolutionary Egyptian Parliament, had not […]

By all standards, 2011 was quite an exceptional year for men and women in the Arab world. It was a year of dramatic transitions marked by the so-called Arab Spring of political democratization and social emancipation. It all started in Tunisia, going through Egypt and Libya in the West, and continuing to drag on in […]

Veena Malik is a Pakistani actress with a special flair for controversy. She first made major headlines after confronting a Mullah who accused her of inappropriate and vulgar behavior while participating on the Indian reality show ‘Bigg Boss.’ Her confrontation was praised by many, as she took a stand against general double-standards thrown at men […]

Shortly after the results of the first stage of the Egyptian parliament elections, everyone started to freak out.  After the majority win of Islamist parties Al-Nahda party in Tunisia and the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) in Egypt, memories from Sudan in 1989, Gaza in 2006, and, most importantly, Iran in 1979 came to mind. […]

As 2011 draws to a close, we at MMW are looking back at our year of posts.  For those who missed posts earlier in the year, or for those who want to look back through some of the things we wrote about, we’ll be going through some of those through the rest of this week.  […]