One Muslim women’s group in India has drafted a set recommendations to codify Muslim Personal Laws, calling for the abolishment of oral divorce and polygamy. In a Senegalese fishing town, mothers and wives of illegal migrants who died on their way to Europe have started an association, which creates financial opportunities for these “sea widows” […]

In her recent book, Sandcastles and Snowmen, Egyptian writer Sahar El-Nadidelivers what she calls “a personal search for spirituality.” By combining her personal stories and experience with the main pillars and teachings of Islam, El-Nadi tries to give her readers a glimpse of her perspective on what Islam is. Sahar El-Nadi is a writer and […]

While mommy blogging is rampant in the blogosphere, Muslim mommy bloggers are rare but on the rise. Being a new mother and a Muslim, I had unique queries about taking care of an infant, like when can I start praying on the floor after a C-section, or whether a baby’s poo or pee cancels out […]

This post was originally published at Aquila Style. Stories of gender-based violence, especially in times of conflict, is nothing new. But what pulled me towards this book was the geopolitical situation and demographic of conflict: the Khmer Rouge regime (also known as Democratic Kampuchea) of 1975-1979, and women of the targeted minority group of Cham […]

The plight of Nigerian girls recently caught the attention of the world after the kidnapping of several hundred schoolgirls in Chibok over a month ago. Another story did not garner as much attention from either local or international media: that of Wasila Umaru. Apparently forced to marry a man in his thirties, Umaru Sani, and […]

An ongoing summit on ending sexual violence in conflict has resulted in a spike of articles about the topic. The Guardian features an article on a project that addresses sexism and sexual violence in Kosovo among young men. One young Bosnian woman shares her life story as a child, that was conceived during the war through […]

On June 8th, the 2014 Headwrap Expowas held in Dearborn, Michigan, billed as an event on “the art of headwrapping and scarf styling,” bringing together fashion, culture and interfaith dialogue. The event was presented by Beautifully Wrapped, an organization celebrating the art of headwrapping. According to Zarinah El-Amin Naeem, founder of Beautifully Wrapped, The Headwrap […]

Content note: This post includes discussions of domestic violence and of scholarly attempts to justify it. For a number of Muslim women I know (myself included), one of the most complicated Qur’anic passages to contend with is verse 4:34, a verse that, at least in many of the most straightforward translations, appears to establish men […]

My dad has been an avid photographer since I can remember. As a kid I was constantly photographed with a traditional analog camera and black and white film. As a teenager, it was my dad’s passion that led me to learn professional photography through vocational education. Photographs, my dad used to tell me, are a […]

The sister of the pregnant Pakistani woman Farzana Parveen, who was beaten to death in broad daylight outside a court house last week, says that the husband of her sister is guilty of the murder. The initial story was that the father of the victim had killed her for not marrying a man of his […]