In light of several interesting comments to my previous post on the Rochdale “grooming” case, I decided a follow-up piece was in order. Much of the furore surrounding the case has been with respect to race and its alleged role in the attack, specifically: does the “Asian” (Pakistani and thereby Muslim) origin of the attackers […]

In the last few years, the international emphasis on locating social rights within the Qur’an has primarily been driven by and for women. NGOs in Morocco, Malaysia, Jordan, Afghanistan, Tunisia, and countless other Muslim countries have rallied communities, encouraging them to look critically at the patriarchal structures that have dictated Qur’anic interpretation to date. Through […]

Na’ima B. Robert’s second book, “Boy vs. Girl” is set in a South Asian community in Britain. The two main characters, Farhana and Faraz, are sixteen-year-old twins trying to negotiate their identities as the children of Pakistani immigrants and as Muslims.  Robert attempts to tell the story of struggling with trying to find a sense […]

Lauren Booth, half sister of Tony Blair’s wife Cherie Booth, a human rights activist and a British journalist working for the Islamic Republic of Iran’s state channel PressTV, caused an gasping uproar when she converted to Islam a little less than a month ago, after having an alleged spiritual experience while at the tomb of Fatima Masuma in the Shi’ite holy city of Qom.

This week, Roshonara Choudhry was convicted of attempted murder for stabbing her local MP twice in the stomach during a constituency surgery. She has received a sentence of life imprisonment, to serve at least 15 years. The judge also informed her that, had her attack proved fatal, she would have received a Whole Life Tariff […]

I took the a brief moment from work to watch a 12-minute segment on BBC’s Newsnight about why British women choose to wear the niqab and why more women are wearing it in unprecedented numbers. Like any Muslim feminist, I hung onto every word and hoped nobody said something that has already been said before, […]

Faiza Hussain is a British Muslim super heroine of Pakistani descent, introduced in the 2008-2009 comic series, Captain Britain and MI:13. For people who are unfamiliar with the shared universe of Marvel Comics: in 2008, there was a large scale alien invasion in the Marvel universe, and in order to reflect the international nature of […]

British tabloids are often accused of offering hysterical coverage of major and inconsequential events alike.* The Daily Mail lives up to this unflattering generalization in its article regarding Essma Marjam, a single mother of six who is receiving housing benefits for a five bedroom house in the London Borough of Westminster. This is one in […]

Last week, I reviewed Emma Tarlo’s book Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith. This week, I got the chance to speak with her further about the book and her experiences writing it. Sara: Was there any inter-generational tension involving “newer” hijab fashions? Emma Tarlo: With most of the people I interviewed, their mothers did not wear […]

In her new book, entitled Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith, Emma Tarlo captures the diversity in the way that Islam is practiced against the backdrop of multi-cultural Britain. Refreshingly, the book did not aim to answer whether or not covering was a part of Islam, and neither did it represent the views of Muslim women […]