This post was written by guest contributor Nicole J. Hunter Mostafa (@nicolejhm). Ladies, let’s be honest: hijab is a tired topic for us Muslimahs. We still debate, discuss, and attempt to define it, but pretty much everything has been said at some point or another. But for some, it apparently never gets old. And now, […]

After converting to Islam, I struggled with my community’s views on art, women and the combination of both. Having grown up in a society that prides itself on a variety of artistic movements, and being part of a very artistic family, I felt uncomfortable accepting my Muslim community’s idea that art is prohibited in Islam. […]

The Darfur Sartorialist is an exhibition launched by Portuguese urban engineer, humanitarian and photographer Pedro Matos to showcase the colourful clothing and trendy fashion sense of women in Darfur, Sudan. Matos was in Darfur for three and a half years with the World Food Programme when he started taking these photographs in a country where […]

Nausheen Tobassum, a 17-year-old Indian girl, shares her horrific story as an “one month wife,” and reveals the scope of the sex tourism business in Hyderabad, India. More and more young Afghan men and women meet each other on Facebook; in a society where dating is strictly prohibited, many young men and women have (multiple) relationships online. […]

This post was written by guest contributor Yasmin N. Ali. I was seventeen years old when I first encountered, in full force, the hierarchies that are often built into many Muslim communities.  Back then, I was fighting to make my debate team coed so I’d get one more year of experience before I graduated high […]

This post was written by guest contributor Yasmeen Nizamy. “Sexual harassment is a crime that’s inexcusable!” This is the title of the campaign that HarassMap started recently, coinciding with the launch of their annual report on the latest statistics and analyses on sexual harassment in Egypt (the report is not yet available online, but I […]

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to catch up with director of the documentary film “Hip Hop Hijabis,” Mette Reitzel, who followed the lives of UK-based hip hop duo, Poetic Pilgrimage. Poetic Pilgrimage consists of two Muslim convert women, Tanya Muneera Williams and Sukina Owen-Douglas, who have shaken the U.K hip hop scene. […]

Zainab Bangura from Sierra Leone is the new UN Special Rapporteur on Sexual Violence in Conflict; she says that her life story makes her confident that things can change, and that one day sexual violence will be history. She visited Somalia last week, where she stated that 70% of the sexual violence that takes place in the camps is […]

Last October, I wrote a post discussing FEMEN’s tactics to “liberate” Muslim women in France. Since then, FEMEN has hit the media again with their International Topless Jihad Day campaign, which was said to be in support of Amina Tyler, who despite her association with FEMEN has condemned  the burning of Islamic symbols and the […]

This post was written by guest contributor Rana Nazzal (@zaytouni_rana). I attended a talk last month by Palestinian woman and activist Yafa Jarrar as part of Israeli Apartheid Week at Carleton University. She spoke on a panel entitled “Indigenous and Palestinian women,” which addressed the struggles Aboriginal women in Canada and Palestinian women faced living under […]