Let’s play a game, shall we? It will be like a drinking game, but without drinking. Okay, here are the rules: every time you read a columnist use the follow words in an article that talks about Muslim women, give five dollars to charity: • “pushing boundaries” • “East and West” • “tradition” • a […]

It’s a common assumption that Muslim women don’t—or can’t—speak for themselves. Fawzia Afzal-Khan aims to break that idea into tiny pieces with a book: Shattering the Stereotypes: Muslim Women Speak Out (2005). The book is a compilation of works written by different Muslim women, with a forward written by Nawal El Saadawi. In the introduction, […]

MMW thanks bint battuta for the tip! Why do articles mention women’s clothing when it’s not relevant? Exhibit A: an article on the status of prostitution in Afghanistan (you might recognize it from Friday links). Exhibit B: the story of an attempted kidnapping, from the arms of the child’s grandmother, in Iraq. “A” was written […]

In 2007, hairdresser Deborah Rodriguez published a memoir of her experience in Afghanistan. Despite the cringe-inducing subtitle — An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil — the book itself, Kabul Beauty School, isn’t bad. (Interestingly, the book goes by a different subtitle in the U.K., The Art of Friendship and Freedom.) Rodriguez is moved to […]

The BBC has a slide show that examines the Western Saharah independence on its 35th anniversary. The slide show is an interesting one, but troublesomely without context: we have no idea when these pictures are taken or by whom. Anyway, the real point of this post. The picture below (like all the others) appeared with […]

A few days ago, I caught an Intelligence Squared U.S. debate on the radio. The series evaluates a claim through Oxford-style debate. The resolution was “Islam is dominated by radicals.” The wording of the issue is flawed, as participant Reza Aslan (against) pointed out in his opening speech, and the supporting team’s attempts to clarify […]

A few weeks ago, Slate highlighted Iran as a topic for cartoonists. I didn’t look at all 290 cartoons (I got to 203, though!), which lampooned several years of Iran’s place in the headlines. The general consensus among cartoonists is that there are four topics which make up Iran: Ahmedinejad, nuclear issues, angry-looking mullahs, and […]

Hip hop was created in the ’70s as a means for disillusioned Black and Latino youth to express their grievances and anger at the racism and neglect of the system. Today, although not always used for those political purposes, there does remain a strong segment of the hip hop population which uses this form of […]

Yesterday’s issue of the New York Times featured a look at romance among the youth of Saudi Arabia. It’s not the first time the Times has addressed this topic. The Western media has an intense fascination when it comes to Saudi Arabia and romance, if Valentine’s Day coverage is any clue. Yesterday’s coverage includes separate […]

Muslimah Media Watch thanks Safiya for the tip. Asia Alfasi is a talented manga artist in the U.K. The BBC covered a talent competition she’d won (barikallah!), but managed to irritate me through mislabeling Ms. Alfasi’s drawings and misuse of the word “Arabian.” Ms. Alfasi won a competition given by the International Manga and Anime […]