On June 25th, Salwa Bugaighis was shot dead at her home in Benghazi. A human rights activist and lawyer, Bugaighis was a charismatic figure who played a leadership role in the uprising and in the women’s movement, supporting a campaign which sought to establish minimum quotas for female lawmakers in parliament as well as being […]

This post was written by Brooke Benoit and originally published on her blog. This Ramadan is hard. Right smack in the middle of summer, these are the longest fasts of my Muslim life, it’s hot, and the kids are home all day. Well, my kids are always home all day, but I’m sure that’s an […]

Back where I grew up, in the United Arab Emirates, we never decorated for Ramadan or Eid. We used to celebrate with lots of food and prayers, but lights and sparkling decorations were never part of that celebration. We were actually happy with the Ramadan atmosphere: shorter school hours, having Iftar after hearing the Maghreb […]

Fasting during Ramadan is one of the easiest duties for me as a Muslim. Even though I’ve struggled with my faith and with praying five times daily, I always maintain my fast, and passionately too. This year I started fasting on Mondays and Thursdays, according to Sunnah, after considering it for a while. My mother […]

As Israel continues its offensive on Gaza, the death toll is rising fast; many of them are women and children. Nigeria’s military has released the news that it has arrested several female Boko Haram recruiters. As well, about 60 women escaped their presumed Boko Haram captors earlier this week. The escaped women were captured mid-June of […]

How is it that the first week of Ramadan has already gone by? It’s been a bit of a struggle for me to let go of some of my commitments to spend more time on reflecting this month. With the fasts being as long as they are (~17ish hours, if I’ve done my math correctly), […]

This post is part of a series of nightly reflections, and was originally written on June 30. Tonight, my reflection is dedicated to all my sisters reading this, as Surah Al Imran was recited in thousands of masaajid around the world and it is a chapter of birth and of life …of Maryam (as/peace be […]

Originally published at the author’s personal blog, Identity Crisis. Perhaps it is absurd of me to think that Ramadan will ever be a time of peace and refection for me. From the moment I converted, my patience, my love for Islam and my faith have been constantly tested. Beyond the struggle of belonging to a […]

I am in that phase of my life where I am exclusively breastfeeding, I have a three-month-old baby, and it’s Ramadan. This is that elusive phase where I can get away with not fasting. The question remains: should I? Considering that I have been blessed to fast all my adult life, and part of my […]

Human Rights Watch has issued a report on how the war in Syria has affected women. Several human rights organisations accuse Egypt of allowing (sexual) abuse and torture to be used against its female prisoners, despite the promise to fight sexual harassment. Recently, Egypt adopted a new law that makes sexual harassment punishable by law, […]