Salam waleykum, everybody! Just a quick update: Emil was nice enough to email me and let me know that some of our blog links were missing: all of the “Q – R” blogs weren’t in the “Voices of Muslim Women” blog directory! I’m happy to say that it’s fixed now! So you can now browse […]

What’s the first image that comes to your mind when you think of a Muslim woman? Is she Arab or South Asian? White or maybe Afghan or Indonesian? Notice that I haven’t mentioned African American (and also Latina). The media depiction of Muslim women usually does not include African American women. Often, Muslim women are […]

This was written by Muse and originally appeared at her blog Between Hope & Fear. It’s joyful to be a Muslim woman. So says Mohja Kahf. I agree with the sentiment and the substance of pretty much everything she wrote here, but her style bothers me. This is nothing new – I wrote about her […]

The Washington Post ran an op-ed on Sunday by Mohja Kahf, author of The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf. Entitled “Spare Me the Sermon on Muslim Women” Kahf responds to those who insist that the Muslim woman is oppressed, repressed, monolithic, brainwashed, and worthy of pity. Using brilliant language, which creates colourful pictures in the […]

The Jewel of Medina goes on sale in the United States today. *queue scary music.* Two weeks ago, I got a copy of the novel from Beaufort Books, the U.S. publisher, to review for the magazine I work at. I read the book, interviewed Denise Spellberg—the associate professor of history and Middle Eastern studies at […]

I referred to this article in the comments section of my piece on the coverage around Samira Laouni’s candidate for NDP MP of Montréal-Bourassa, but I thought it deserved its own post as well. I debated whether it was really worth talking about it, because I don’t think that the author is really worth our […]

Salam waleykum, dear readers! It’s that time of year again! The 2008 Brass Crescent Awards are holding nominations for the “the best writers and thinkers of the emerging Muslim blogosphere “! Last year, we were awarded an honorable mention for Best Female Blog, which was pretty exciting. If you love us, let us know! Nominate […]

Children at an Ohio mosque were sprayed with chemical irritant by unknown assailants. More at Daily Kos. Thea Lim writes about the lack of outrage in mainstream media, and the local police say there “isn’t evidence that this is a hate crime.” WHAT?! Karen Estes writes a thought-provoking post about what “hijab” has become. Afghanistan’s […]

This was written by Sakina and originally published at Ruined by Reading. I recently finished Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni, which is a memoir of an Iranian girl who grew up in California and has moved to Tehran as a BBC correspondent in an effort to find a place where she belongs. She spent her […]

Normally, whenever I see anything with the phrase “Behind the veil” I automatically cringe and get myself ready for Orientalist stereotypes and generalizations about Muslim women. Na’ima B. Robert’s “Behind the veil: the online diary of a British Muslim woman” isn’t quite so bad. Although at first glance it does seem that way, especially considering […]