To the victor go the spoils is the concept that has been used over history to legitimize wartime rape. This tradition of objectifying women during conflicts has not ceased during modern times. Despite the introduction of modern laws of warfare, armies exploit sexual violence systematically as in the cases of the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and the current situation in Darfur. (0 comments)

The HEART Women and Girls Project, in conjunction with Altmuslimah, is committed to empowering women and girls from faith-based communities by teaching them to connect a healthy mind, body, and soul to achieve an overall sense of well-being. In the first installment of a new monthly column, HEART Director Ayesha Akhtar explores the issue of Vitamin D deficiency in Muslim women. (11 comments)

Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, have recently published an extraordinary book entitled "Half The Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide." The book is a call to action, primarily to Westerners, to become, at the very least, armchair philanthropists aware of the global plight of women. With a blend of research, personal relationships, and relevant narratives, the couple proves they have a deep understanding of the injustices occurring around the world, and an even deeper desire to educate others on the issues they are so passionate about. (1 comment)

Liaison Dangereuse, a German online lingerie store, recently released a new video advertisement. With Arabic-sounding music in the background, a woman is shown getting out of the shower (we can see, from the back, that she has no clothes on), putting on her make-up, then walking (wearing nothing but high heels – to each her own, I suppose) to her dresser, where she puts on her underwear, bra and socks, all the while looking at herself in the mirror. Last (anyone see where this is going yet?), she puts on a burqa. The final scene is of her face at a window, with this phrase showing up: “Sexiness for everyone. Everywhere.” (12 comments)

One of the travesties of living in a colonized environment is that the inferior, or oppressed, aspire to win admittance to the Western world. There seems to be an emerging trend of this type of appeasement, where submission has replaced the revolution. The introduction to spectacles, like the breaking of a Guinness record for the largest plate of kanafeh and the search for a national beauty queen, are just two examples of how absurd practices are coming to be seen as normal in Palestinian cities. (13 comments)

Like most ideas, this one did not have a single genesis. I’ve been thinking, and to some extent writing, about feminism for many years and in many guises. The word itself is controversial, with some damning it as the force that destroyed the family and others defending it as the movement that freed a gender. It is one of those terms that starts simply and rapidly gets tangled: if you look around the world and think there are inequalities between the genders, and that those inequalities are not biological and are unfair, you are probably a feminist. And that’s where the arguments begin. (0 comments)

Prophet Muhammad (saw) said, in the hadith narrated by Abu Sa’eed al-Khudri (ra): “You will certainly follow the ways of those who came before you, span by span, cubit by cubit, until even if they were to enter a lizard’s hole, you would follow them.” We said, “O Messenger of Allah, (do you mean) the Jews and Christians?” He said, “Who else?!” (0 comments)

Rare is the day that my Facebook homepage doesn’t tell me about a link uploaded by another single Muslim to a story that details the newest facts and figures of sex. On the days when the links do show up, I have to fight the urge to respond to these posts, in all caps, that YOU SINGLE FOLKS SHOULD REALLY START DOING IT AND ENJOYING IT SO THAT YOU CAN STOP INTELLECTUALIZING IT. With all the talk of sex that single twenty and thirty-something Muslims engage in, I wonder why they aren’t doing more of it. (11 comments)

How important is a Muslim American cultural imperative? Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah says, “identities that are rooted in deep cultural contradiction are easily thrown into states of confusion and doubt.” He suggests a “sound cultural nexus” is needed to remedy this identity crisis. The media (and sometimes even us consumers of the message) like to focus on the fringe as the only ones confronting singular expressions of faith. While the former expressions are one patch in the quilt that makes up the dynamic nature of the Muslim American community, they shouldn’t receive a disproportionate amount of attention. (2 comments)

Something decidedly medieval is in the air in Saudi Arabia. Fears of black magic and curses cast by Indonesian domestic helpers have spread across the country, and Saudi employers increasingly feel the need to hire private investigators to check their domestic workers for suspicious behavior and evidence for witchcraft. Investigators, mostly foreign women from neighboring countries, are paid to search for photographs, hair, or clothes belonging to the employers before the domestic helpers are repatriated, reports Arab News. The employers do not do this themselves because they feel it is immoral and something Islam prevents them from doing. (0 comments)

Muslim women have often used literary works, paintings, or other forms of artistic expression to paint a deeply sensitive and intimate portrayal of how Islam, culture, and society impact their realities. “Breaking the Veils: Women Artists from the Islamic World” is an art exhibition organized by the Royal Society of Fine Arts in Jordan and the Pan-Mediterranean Women Artists Network of Greece, to dispel the negative stereotypes surrounding women throughout the Islamic world, including Indonesia, Yemen, and Morocco. The showcase consists of 72 art pieces by 51 women representing a spectrum of religious beliefs in over 20 Islamic countries. (0 comments)

Muslim American communities have undertaken many efforts to add nuance to the public’s impression of Muslims. The Brooklyn Arts Museum held their Muslim Voices series last summer, and Boston recently held a Muslim Film Festival, and Altmuslimah itself has established a regular photographic campaign. For good reason, much of the energy in these projects is used to show the beauty and diversity of Muslims; however, there is definitely room to show the messiness within the Muslim community, and Michael Muhammad Knight is one writer filling this gap. (22 comments)

Women in American mosques are loud and messy. They allow their children to run free. They socialize and chatter during khutbas. They rush out after the prayers and don’t participate in cleaning or re-organizing the space. They wear inappropriate clothes, allowing their scarves to slip off their heads, and dousing themselves with strong perfumes. They insist on coming to the mosque while menstruating, and pollute the consecrated space with their unclean presence. These stereotypes about women in mosques are commonplace and especially prevalent in American mosques. (52 comments)

A quiet Muslim community known as the Hui that has long been buried among China's Buddhist majority has recently been receiving attention for its nu ahong - female spiritual leaders. While the spotlight is new, the concept is not. As early as the late Ming dynasty (around the 17th century), the faithful set up Muslim schools catering exclusively to young females and by the arrival of the late Qing dynasty in the 19th century, these schools had transformed into mosques operated by and serving women. In the coming decades, the practice of female Imams, if you will, permeated all Chinese Muslim societies. (6 comments)

At a time of fear and hostility toward Muslims, ID documents offer bigots a simple way to wreck the socio-economic mobility of religious minorities (that Sikhs, Jews, and others might be impacted is usually an afterthought). The act of redefining photo ID standards by law to slam religious minorities has an economic dimension, but it also constitutes a form of dehumanization. For the faithful, religious headcoverings are not merely articles of faith but also integral and inseparable components of their identities as human beings. They are a source of self-definition and strength. (0 comments)

The Muslim Public Affairs Council said I misrepresented their argument in my critique of their article on child brides featured on Altmuslimah. I noticed that their rationale for demanding an Islamic prohibition on child marriages is the exact same rationale used by Muslim scholars who advocate for child marriages: that a young girl does not have the mental maturity to make such an important decision. Muslim scholars who advocate for child marriages would then assert that since the young girl lacks mental maturity, the decision for her marriage is given to her father. (3 comments)