One of the biggest problems that Muslim women face today is the need to deconstruct and reconstruct narratives of ourselves in the media. (That’s why Muslimah Media Watch exists, amirite?) A recent interview of  Professor Jackie Ying, a Chinese Muslim scientist in Singapore, by a Singaporean Malay language news channel shows that this need can […]

For the longest time I have been pondering what, if anything, makes me Muslim. Is it the shahadah? Is it pure belief in the divine? Is it community acknowledgement? Is it the fasting and tarawih prayers during Ramadan? Or is it the fact that I have somehow forced myself in other Muslims’ lives by writing […]

    A few months ago I was applying for a job when I was suddenly required to attend an in-person interview with a member of the intelligence services. I was interviewed by a white male, who very politely went on to ask me questions for the next two hours. The most puzzling part of […]

This is not the first time I have discussed media coverage of ‘Latin’ Converts to Islam. In fact, I have written about how they are depicted in terms of their relationships, the ways in which Indigenous converts from Latin America puzzle the media, and how ‘Latina’ women are said to be the new face of Islam. […]

There is a lot of talk recently about “Latin” and Spanish-speaking converts to Islam, particularly women, which I have discussed in previous posts (here and here). Female converts to Islam, in general, give us a lot to talk about; thus, my question in a previous post on “Are converts news?” Some converts are treated as “cool” […]

Growing up in Mexico, I had a very rudimentary understanding of religion and religious diversity. While the national census showed that about 80% of Mexicans practiced Catholicism, I was raised an atheist. My parents, born Catholics, had left religion during their teenage years for various reasons. My paternal grandfather (who was never really religious either) […]

There seems to be nothing more exciting for tabloids than publishing pictures of white women in hijab. Well, unless it’s publishing pictures of white women converts in their racy, hedonistic, pre-Islamic days. Last month Amy Sall and Heather Matthews told their conversion stories to the tabloid press. And instead of using the stories to dispel […]

As a convert to Islam, I have had other Muslims ask me, particularly in settings where I have discussed Islamic feminism and LGBTQ2/S rights, whether or not I converted to be one of the “cool” Muslims that are often times presented in the media. By “cool,” people often mean not-orthodox.  (I started preparing this post […]

Look at pictures of real live white women wearing hijab! All the exclamation marks in existence could not hide that these are the usual soundbites in a story that gets repeated more often then Home Alone at Christmastime. The problem with these statements being that not only do they erase the experiences of convert from […]

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.