Things to Know About! Barbie’s latest doll is modeled after Olympic fencer Ibtihaj Muhammad. The doll was revealed at the Glamour Women of the Year awards in New York. Muhammad expressed that having a doll modeled on a strong Muslim woman is “revolutionary.” Yoga has become an “approved” sports activity in Saudi Arabia. Nouf Marwaai, […]

Coming Out Muslim: Radical Acts of Love is a storytelling performance that highlights the experiences of LGBT Muslims. While I was aware of Coming Out Muslim, I did not realise that one of the people behind the project is a West African Muslimah. I was connected with Terna Tilley-Gyado through a mutual friend Mikael Owunna […]

Queer Muslim. These two words appear to be incongruent terms in many contexts; however, there has been a real commitment recently to creating a discourse that allows for queer Muslim voices to be respected and validated. It is tiring to be caught in conversations when the various parties cannot accept each other simply for their […]

Braids on a Bald Head is a short movie, released in 2010, by Nigerian director Ishaya Bako.  The film shows the day in the life of a poor, married hairdresser, Hauwa Bello, “who through a brief homosexual encounter is able to muster up courage and stand up to her inattentive husband and ask for better.” […]

Intersections International, a New York-based nonprofit that “works at the intersection of communities in conflict” to “promote peace through dialogue using direct service programs, advocacy, educational and informational outreach,” recently published a report called the “Muslim LGBT Inclusion Project.” The report is a narrative summary of the research done by the project, which started in […]

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 […]

Rabble.ca, an alternative news source in Canada, recently posted a podcast that was originally broadcast on Co-Op Radio in Vancouver, on their show “The F Word,” which looks at feminist issues.  Entitled “Islam, women and feminisms,” this segment features interviews with two Canadian Muslim women, Itrath Syed and Farzana Doctor. The host of the show […]