A community basketball team in Cedar-Riverside Minneapolis, consisting of young Somali girls, made the news recently. These players did not gain attention from media outlets for bashing stereotypes or fighting against the Islamic oppressive patriarchy. They were lauded and positively represented for creating a solution to challenges they faced with their basketball uniforms. Their long […]

On September 16, 2014, basketball’s international governing body, FIBA, announced it would be allowing headcoverings during competitive play for a trial period. It stopped short, however, of permanently lifting its ban on hijabs, turbans and yarmulkes worn by basketball players. Stories of players being rejected from tournaments and forced to forfeit because of their headcoverings […]

Almost a year ago, for my very first MMW post, I wrote about Sura al-Shawk, a professional Swiss basketball player from Luzern who was forced to choose between wearing her headscarf and playing professional basketball due to the supposed “uniform” regulations of the local and national basketball associations, both affiliated with FIBA, the International Basketball […]

One of the most common questions that the media, and maybe even non-Muslim in everyday life, have for women who wear hijab is “how do you do [insert whatever said activity here] in hijab?” It is probably also a question that Bilqis Abdul-Qaadir gets often, since she is a star high school basketball player in […]