Six women from Gaza have appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court to grant them permission to pray at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. While Christian women from Gaza have been allowed to visit religious sites in Israel, Muslim women are generally denied to enter Israel for this reason. Last Sunday voters in Senegal hit the polls, it is for the first […]

Twenty years after the war in Bosnia, there are still refugees living in makeshift camps that lack basic necessities, such as running water. Many of the refugees are elderly women, who are often widowed because of the war, and have nowhere else to go. A Filipino newspaper published a picture last week of a woman […]

Chechnya’s president has openly spoken out in support of honour killings, which leaves Chechen women in fear. Chechnya’s president is known for wanting to make Chechnya “more Islamic than the Islamists.” The Rohingyas are a Muslim ethnic group in Burma/Myanmar, and many of them have fled the country to neighbouring Bangladesh, where they often live in […]

The recent Foreign Policy issue focused on sex drew a number of responses around the internet.  Earlier today, we posted a round-up of some of the other blog posts and articles that were written about the issue; here, Sharrae, Azra, Tasnim, Nicole and I discuss our many thoughts on the issue as a whole and […]

Drug abuse among young women and girls in Kashmir is on the rise, but there actually is no addiction treatment program in the Valley that will actually admit female drug users. They are left on their own, often not returning to the consultations that are available to them. Two days before the one-year anniversary of the […]

The excessive use of tear gas during protests in Bahrain endangers women protesters in particular. Many miscarriages and spontaneous abortions have been linked to this dangerous gas. At Uganda’s Makerere University a student has been denied access to an exam with her hijab, as she was deemed not be ‘legally dressed’ to sit an exam. It […]

We didn’t have our usual links last week, so this week’s list is extra long, and covers both weeks.  Enjoy! Pakistan has passed the “Prevention of Anti-Women Practices” bill, but the fight is far from over, according to activists and legal professionals. The Deutsche Welle features an interview with female politician Sitara Ayaz, who highlights […]

“It’s a matter of principle.” Women have to uncover their faces during the Canadian citizenship ceremony, according to an announcement from the Canadian Minister of Citzenship and Immigration last Monday. Conclusions from a conference on Saudi women, by a male speaker (of course): “Do not look at Muslim women through Western prism!” A major city […]

Online dating has become increasingly popular among Muslims and non-Muslims. Nowadays, there are not only matchmaking sites but a number of pages and blogs that review dating sites. Many of the discussions on Muslim matchmaking sites revolve around their appropriateness and effectiveness in comparison to “traditional” methods. Yet, these discussions oftentimes overlook or ignore the […]

In August 2007, I started Muslimah Media Watch as a place to complain about the way Muslim women appeared in the media. In the four years since, MMW has expanded into a worldwide network of smart, engaging Muslimah writers. We’ve transformed the blogosphere and the classroom with our critical look at media and Muslim women, […]