Back in 2010, I was so excited for the chance to review G. Willow Wilson’s memoir The Butterfly Mosque, where she explored her move to Egypt, conversion to Islam, and relationship with her husband. Here’s what I had to say about The Butterfly Mosque in 2010: Muslim women are presented in an Islamic society not […]

So I never really envisioned this being a topic worth mentioning on MMW.  However, for reasons that will become clear in a minute (or already, for most of you, given the photo attached to this post), it has become unexpectedly relevant to tell you that my family has an impressively (or embarrassingly, depending on who […]

At the upcoming June 19 elections in Libya, Libyan women hope to secure a good amount of seats in the national assembly. The Saudi Gazette features a story about a Saudi woman, Alya Al-Ghamdi, whose ex-husband denies her the right to see her children, supposedly because he is afraid that her new British Muslim husband […]

During the past three decades, global perceptions of Somalia have for the most part been shaped by images of the country as a disaster area, ravaged by poverty and war. Somalia seems to appear in the news only in the context of humanitarian assistance appeals or of Al Qaeda-inspired militias carrying out their heinous acts […]

This post was written by guest contributor Arwa Aburawa. Back in December 2011, gender-based violence hit the headlines in the Arab world when soldiers brutally attacked a hijab-wearing Egyptian protester. Following the incident, there was widespread outrage that a woman would be treated in such a violent manner. And rightly so. However, it got me […]

I was rather excited about Francois Hollande winning the French elections this month.  I hoped that five years of hateful, fear mongering policy towards Muslims by Sarkozy and his minions would come to an end and that Hollande, for all his supposed blandness, would bring some low-key normalcy to the French presidency. There was one […]

If you ever wondered about “Islamization” and the so-called return to the Caliphate, recent debates arising from a number of Muslim countries regarding the “Islamization” and the status of Muslim women bring important questions to the table. First of all, it raises the question of what really is the “Islamic state” and what describes it. […]

Twenty years after the war in Bosnia, there are still refugees living in makeshift camps that lack basic necessities, such as running water. Many of the refugees are elderly women, who are often widowed because of the war, and have nowhere else to go. A Filipino newspaper published a picture last week of a woman […]

This piece was written by Sarah Farrukh, and originally posted at altmuslimah. Written by Tahmima Anam, The Good Muslim is the story of an educated, “modern” woman who loses her brother to Islamic fundamentalism. And perhaps this storyline is why the book has garnered so many rave reviews and literary awards—because Western critics and audiences […]

In a 2010 television interview, quoted in a more recent article (I was not able to find an original recording of the interview), Pakistan’s highest-ranking female squash player, Maria Toor Pakay, spoke on the rights of women in Pakistan: “Girls don’t get any rights. They cannot go out of the house. They cannot do whatever […]