I don’t know how you spend your Thursday nights, but mine are usually spent in front of the television for NBC’s Thursday night comedy line up. And usually, Community is one of my favorite shows. It’s a comedy about a misfit group of community college students. This weekend, I saw the “Basic Geneaology” episode while […]

I am so, so sick of talking about the niqab.  So I’m not really going to, despite the fact that the Canadian province of Quebec recently introduced a bill that, if made law, would force everyone to show their face when dealing with provincial government bodies.  If anyone else has intelligent insight on recent Quebec-related […]

Based on his über-liberal political views, I assume Bill Maher has an open mind, and therefore understands that fashion transcends cultures. But for the sake of being a douche, he pretends like he doesn’t in his parody of niqabi women in a skit called “Muslim Dior,” part of his But I’m not Wrong comedy show. […]

The proposed French ban on facial coverings* worn by some Muslim women seems like it hasn’t left the news for weeks, with new developments popping up regularly and prompting, again, a wave of articles and editorials on the topic. One theme that I’ve noticed lately is the tendency for people opposed to the ban to […]

The new CBC weeknight show Connect with Mark Kelley recently aired a segment on niqab as part of its “Ask Me Anything” series, in which members of the public are given the chance to ask questions about the experiences and perspectives of a designated person.  Previous “Ask Me Anything” conversations have included a nurse who […]

Not to be outdone by Egypt’s Shaykh Tantawi, the Muslim Canadian Congress (MCC) released a statement two weeks ago that calls for the Canadian government “to introduce legislation to ban the wearing of masks, niqabs and the burka in public.”  Their rationale for this statement seems twofold: one one hand, the MCC is concerned that […]

As Muslims, we are asked about the details of our personal lives, and our relationship to what happens on the global stage. Because Islam does not have an official spokesperson, there is a relentless curiosity about our voices. Almost like a horrible reality show, many scramble for the role of spokesperson. Therefore, when a prominent […]

This was originally published at my personal site. Phyllis Chesler and Naomi Wolf have gotten themselves into a battle royale over…the veil. And everyone seems to be concerned what two privileged non-Muslim white ladies think about this subject. Funny, considering Chesler picks fights all the time, and no one seemed to be interested in an […]

Originally posted at Muslim Lookout The Canadian government has (finally) decided to lay to rest its plans to introduce legislation that would force women who wear niqab (fabric that covers their faces) to show their faces when voting. This comes as a relief, not so much because of the actual legislation, but because of the […]

I wrote a little while ago about the media coverage of the Toronto sexual assault case in which the female complainant was ordered by the presiding judge, Justice Norris Weisman, to remove her niqab while testifying. At the time that I posted my earlier article, hearings were underway in Ontario’s Superior Court to appeal the […]