Salam alaikum, readers! We’d like to wish all of you a blessed and peaceful Ramadan! Image by El Agizy In Design, via SOME Contrast.

After watching Moolaadé, I recalled that I had come across a story several months ago of how FGM is combated in Senegal in Kristof and WuDunn’s Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, released in 2009. Kristof and WuDunn devote the thirteenth chapter of the book (chapter: “Grassroots vs. Treetops”) to looking […]

Moolaadé, directed by the Senegalese filmmaker Ousmane Sembene and released in 2004,tells the story of a group of young African Muslim girls who have refused to undergo a “purification” ceremony in an African village. The girls seek protection (“moolaadé”) from a woman, Colle (played by actress Fatoumata Coulibaly), who finds the practice abhorrent and is sympathetic […]

A South African rape survivor receives unspeakably offensive treatment while attempting to get justice. The President of Brazil has offered Sakineh Ashtiani amnesty.  Via Jezebel. On Miss California, a Muslim Bangladeshi-American, and her immigration platform. The New York Times reports on the conditions faced by migrant workers in Kuwait. Maybe someone will listen when a […]

Krista speaks with an AP reporters about Aisha’s Time magazine: Krista Riley, a sociology graduate student and contributor to a Muslim women’s website, Muslimah Media Watch, finds the photo “invasive and deeply troubling.” To Riley, the image plays into racial divides and cultural distances. Read more on the conversation here. Check it out!

Yesterday, we interviewed Shubnum Khan about her book, Onion Tears. Today, we have a preview of her book, which has been shortlisted for the Penguin Prize for African Writing. KHADEEJAH Khadeejah knew a great deal about husbands. In her many years of moving around the country she had come across a number of them. There […]

Shubnum Khan is a young Muslimah from Durban, South Africa. Her book Onion Tears has been shortlisted for the Penguin Prize for African Writing. Her novel explores the lives of South African Indian Muslim women. I interviewed Khan about her book and her writing. Safiyyah for MMW: Tell us a little about the book. Shubnum Khan: Onion […]

  Editor’s Note: This week’s Time magazine featured an 18-year-old Afghan girl named Aisha on the cover. Aisha’s face is framed with dark hair and a loose scarf; it looks like any other portrait Time might publish. Except there is something missing: Aisha’s nose. Her nose and ears were cut off as punishment for running […]

In Pakistan, a court has freed a mentally ill woman who has been held without trial for 14 years on allegations of desecrating the Qur’an. Muslim Voices reports that a Saudi sheikh has called for only Muslim women to work as maids in Saudi Arabia. More from the Los Angeles Times. Muslim women in the […]

Raaz for MMW: I found Nomad Diaries a wonderful introduction to the lives of Somali women living in the United States.  There were times where I was reminded of my own immigrant grandmother and mother as I read about Nadifo’s life. As I mentioned in my review of Nomad Diaries, I am not familiar with […]