Two weeks ago, a mother in a headscarf was threatened by a woman with a knife while she was trying to pick up her children outside their school.  According to an article published on the website of the Collectif contre l’islamophobie en France (CCIF, Collective against Islamophobia in France), the woman screamed, “What is wrong […]

*names changed to protect privacy I came across an uplifting piece by David Sim of the IB Times featuring gorgeous photographs of Syrian girls envisioning their future career goals. They pose as a radiologist examining X-Rays or as an architect holding building and project plans. The series is called “When I Grow Up” and was […]

An Australian boxer talks to Maria Khwaja Bazi of Fair about being a Muslim woman and someone from an ethnic background. Some Muslim women say they feel insecure in wake of Paris and San Bernardino attacks. As a result of that, many of them learn self-defense moves in a class near Nashville, Tennessee. London Fashion […]

All too often, art relating to Muslim women blurs the lines between challenging and mimicking stereotypes. Other times, Islamic art is reduced to “calligraphy and rugs.” There are, of course, spaces that cultivate and present a diverse selection of Muslim art, but these spaces are too few. Western narratives tend to prefer to portray Muslim […]

“Ask a Muslim” events have become frequent in the West with the rise of Islamophobia. Now, a restaurant in Melbourne has offered a chance for members of the local community to ask Muslim women any questions they have. As the leader, Hana Assafiri has taken it upon herself to lead group question and answer sessions […]

Leila Aboulela’s The Kindness of Enemies, her fifth novel, explores the complexities of loyalty, religion and of nationalism, and the human yearning for belonging. The story is structured as two parallel narratives, a third person historical narrative set during the 19th century Caucasian war, and a contemporary narrative narrated in first person by Natasha Wilson, […]

Christiane Amanpour talks to Nobel Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai and Syrian Muzoon Almellehan, a Syrian refugee, about the importance of education for girls. Ahd is a Saudi Arabian actor, writer, director whose second short film in which she also acted, “Sanctity”/ “La sainteté”, financed by France’s CNC, won the 2012 Doha Tribeca Development Award, received […]

Valentine’s Day used to be a big day for me when I was a teenager. While the original “cupid” is more than a little problematic and the capitalist, gendered and heteronormative nature of the holiday is absolutely real, in urban middle-class Mexican society it was often considered an “opportunity.” An opportunity to make your feelings […]

Writing (for Muslimah Media Watch and other platforms elsewhere) has opened up many opportunities to collaborate with other activists from around the world. In particular, some articles I wrote on female circumcision (and also male circumcision) a few years ago attracted a lot of attention from activists and filmmakers, and a fresh round of conversations […]

In a recent VICE News short documentary, The Kohistan Story: Killing for Honor, producers Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Saad Zuberi, along with host Hani Taha, tell the story of five young women and three young men who were killed in Kohistan, KPK, Pakistan in an apparent “honour killing.” As VICE explains: “In May 2012, a grainy […]