I have begun to read Khaled Abou El-Fadl’s Speaking in God’s Name: Islamic Law, Authority and Women again. My first attempt was about two years ago while I was still finishing my Bachelor’s. The book is not easy to get through and the first time out proved to be a massive failure. This time is […]

News media reported at the beginning of the month that Saudi Arabia will hold its first beauty pageant, now in its second year. This pageant, unlike the standard pageants that feature contestants in various outfits and judge them on their appearance, is looking for “Miss Beautiful Morals.” The contest, open to women ages 15 to […]

You know things are sad in the world of news about Muslimahs when “Muslim women value sexy” seems like not a bad headline.  After all, it’s a nice change from “Muslim women are oppressed,” “Muslim women are passive objects and could not possibly have any personality” and “Muslim women need the West to rescue them.” […]

I wrote a post last week on the flogging that took place in Pakistan’s Swat Valley and my thoughts on the video. This week, Randy Cohen, a columnist for The New York Times, wrote a piece on the ethics of what took place in Pakistan, as well as the recent law proposed in Afghanistan. While […]

The recent release of a video showing the flogging of a girl by the Taliban in Pakistan has created a stir across the web. Various articles have been published about it, both on mainstream news sites and blogs.  The reason for the whipping remains unclear: media outlets report intercourse before marriage, rejection of a marriage […]

After Sobia’s post last week about The Other Half of the Sky, a Tunisian film that tells a story about a woman’s experience with inheritance laws, I was interested to see this article, which talked about other cracks that women may fall through in another shariah-inspired legal system.  In this case, Mariam Mokhtar is writing […]

One of the most common questions that the media, and maybe even non-Muslim in everyday life, have for women who wear hijab is “how do you do [insert whatever said activity here] in hijab?” It is probably also a question that Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir gets often, since she is a star high school basketball player in […]

Salam waleykum, readers! I have lots of announcements! altmuslimah, a kind of “sister” site to altmuslim, launched today. It’s a wonderful site that discusses gender and Islam in an intelligent, thoughtful way, and it’s put forth by many of the same people who are behind altmuslim, with one notable addition: me! I’m serving as associate […]

The Big Picture usually does an excellent job compiling a diverse set of photos. So it’s especially hard to believe that the blog couldn’t apply that diversity to the gender of its subjects. Women are in only four of 32 photos — that’s 12.5 percent. At the same time, there are multiple pictures of elephants and orangutans. And many, many photos of men. One would think that only men represent the world’s most populous Muslim country.

Muslimah Source is a new site that is geared towards Muslim women. When I visited the site, I was hoping for something a little different from the norm. Usually sites catering to Muslim women have sections on relationships, health & beauty, motherhood, how to emulate female companions (sahabah) of the Prophet (saws) and dress (i.e. […]