This post was written by Guest Contributor Saira Mahmood. Follow Saira at @sairamhmd and through her personal blog. Pakistan has problems when it comes to safe, reliable and affordable transportation. In 1947, the country gained independence from British imperial rule and inherited a sprawling network of tram and railway lines that allowed reasonable public mobility for […]

*Trigger Warning* for description of sexual violence. Mukhtaran Mai, Pakistani women’s rights activist, recently walked a fashion runway in Karachi, Pakistan.  The goal, as explained, was to model courage and hope for other Pakistani women. Mukhtaran Mai came into the spotlight 14 years ago when she was gang raped and paraded naked by men of […]

As many of you know by now, tragically, Pakistani social media star Qandeel Baloch was recently murdered by her brother. Inna lillahi wa inna illaihi rajaioon (to God we belong and to God we return). I hadn’t followed her but I had known of her. Even without following her I knew she was a big […]

Saudi Arabia announced it will be sending four female athletes to Rio Olympics. It follows separate release about male squad amid ongoing sensitivity about the issue in the Gulf kingdom. Indian Muslim women defy tradition and men to be judges. The year-long program aims to produce a steady stream of female “Qadis” across India. She […]

In February, The Daily Beast published this story on Nadia Ali, a Pakistani-American porn star who is, as the article describes, “a 24-year-old…. first-generation American from Pakistan. She’s been in the adult industry for just a year, but doesn’t mind pushing religious boundaries in the name of XXX entertainment. Oh, and she’s also a practicing […]

The issue of violence against women in Pakistan has received some international press in the last week or so. First, with Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, a Pakistani-Canadian filmmaker, winning an Oscar for A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, her documentary about Saba Qaiser, a survivor of an attempted “honour killing”. This was followed by […]

In a recent VICE News short documentary, The Kohistan Story: Killing for Honor, producers Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Saad Zuberi, along with host Hani Taha, tell the story of five young women and three young men who were killed in Kohistan, KPK, Pakistan in an apparent “honour killing.” As VICE explains: “In May 2012, a grainy […]

I am not going to lie, I started reading Without Shame with some skepticism – and I have to confess that skepticism stemmed at least in part from the author’s background and previous writing. Katherine Russell is a non-Muslim, white Western writer with a background in poetry and love stories. In 2006 she published a […]

Brick Walls by  Saadia Faruqi is a collection of seven short stories set in Pakistan, featuring a diverse cast of characters, from Asma, a widow struggling to feed her child, to the priveleged Rabia, who finds that wealth does not always protect women, to the precocious ten year old Nida, an aspiring cricketer who is […]

British Pakistani Azi Ahmed has written a book called ‘World’s Apart’, about her experience as a Muslim training to join the SAS (Special Air Service). Julia Hartley Brewer investigates the motivations of British Muslim women who are joining Isis, arguing that they are seeking “freedom” from family members who control their lives, expecting them to “live in […]