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 […]

Ramadan is over, and this is normally the time for loads of critical commentaries on soap operas featured on Arab television during the holy month. Several Ramadan dramas like “Al Hassan Wal Hussein” (on the roots of Sunni-Shi’ite tensions) and “In the Presence of the Absence” (on the late renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish) have […]

It’s been a busy Eid week, readers. We’re sorry to divert from the normal Friday links, but are presenting a shortened version this week. We’ll be back to our regular programming next week! A Latina fights stereotypes in her own community about what happens when a woman converts to Islam: “As soon as I started […]

This past Monday night found me, and many others, repeatedly checking the websites of various moon-sighting organizations and local mosques and other community groups, trying to figure out which day I would celebrate Eid al-Fitr.  Some of the moon-sighting websites were still uncertain or had declared Wednesday to be Eid, so when I saw on […]

Image credit here. Happy Eid Al-Fitr, dear readers and supporters!

Steven James (director of the classic American documentary Hoop Dreams) and Alex Kotlowitz’s The Interrupters (2011) looks at the work of a group of violence preventers—the Interrupters—in Chicago. Inspired by an article on CeaseFire—the violence prevention organization the Interrupters work for—that ran in the New York Times Magazine by Alex Kotlowitz in 2004, the film […]

Success magazine looks at Moroccan Olympic runner Nawal El Moutawakel. Nazish Noorani was murdered after finishing iftar, allegedly under the authority of her husband. May God give her justice. Read more on domestic violence and Nazish at AltMuslimah and MuslimVoices. In the Philippines, several Muslim religious groups and organizations have signed a manifesto advocating Muslim […]

This was written by Peter Gray and originally appeared at his blog. Wouldn’t it be amazing to zigzag across the country, visiting mosques and writing about the people that use them? Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq thought so. Now they are on the second leg of a Ramadan road trip fueled by faith, food, and good […]

This is an edited version of the post that originall appeared at Tasnim’s blog.   Google’s doodle today celebrates Nazik al-Malaika, on the occasion of the 88th anniversary of her birthday. The famous Iraqi poet is known as one of the first Arabic poets to use free verse. As Salih J. Altoma puts it: Nazik al-Mala’ika occupies a prominent […]

When a Chinese company manufactured a line of women’s T-shirts with the words “For Hire” on them, Al-Watan published its disapproval at their availability in Riyadh stores. At first, Al-Watan’s comment was on point when they described the T-shirt as “One more way to disrespect women.” But then they featured opinions against the T-shirt: “The […]