altM’s Asma Uddin and Mariam Ahmed reflect in the Washington Post: “Where was I before God made me?” asks 4-year-old Eesa. Zaynab, 8, thinks Heaven will probably look like her Candyland game board: “The bushes will grow candy!” Eight-year-old Hamza wonders if God knows when he tells Mommy he’s too…
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<< From the AltMuslimah Archives >>I have no issue with Christmas. It’s a wonderful and festive time of year, but my husband and I just don’t consider it to be a part of our household’s celebrations.
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“Who are YOU?” asked the Caterpillar of Alice. It is a question that creeps into the minds of married women and mothers everywhere. “Who am I?” Like Alice, we struggle to find an answer. We swell and contract into so many sizes—both literally and figuratively—to meet the needs of our…
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You don’t celebrate Halloween? That’s okay. I know people who go all out with the decorations and costumes, I know people who won’t participate by dressing up but enjoy passing out candy and seeing all the children and I know people who turn off the lights and go to the…
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Mariam: Being pregnant and holding down a demanding job can be incredibly stressful, but the difficulties in balancing career and motherhood begin even before pregnancy. I think the issues crop up as soon as Muslim women get married and start getting pressurized to have kids. Sumeera, do you agree? Sumeera:…
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These days I’m unsettled. I feel like we are on the cusp of a major change. By ‘we’ I mean The World, The United States, Society as a Whole, Islam, My Family, Me. My wise friend, Heather, tells us to breathe through the change but I’m scared of change. I…
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My five-year-old daughter started school this week and she said, or rather did not say, something which left me amazed. I asked Sammy who she played with on her first day of school and she happily replied, “Jordan!” When I asked her to tell me all about her new friend,…
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“He is such a little Casanova.” I had to look up from my sandwich the third time a doting friend said this about the dashing three-year-old who had enamoured us — and the waitress — with his antics, dimples and a clear gift to hold an audience at a young…
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As a true 80s/90s child I grew up on admittedly inappropriate music. As a five-year-old, I sang along to Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” (thank you MTV) and both my mother and I listened to ABBA, Donna Summer and Boney M. Those were my Western musical influences, but worse still were…
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There’s a popular narrative that, as the centuries roll on, many ancient human evils, if not wholly eradicated, are at least in decline. Human sacrifice, slavery, ritual and genital mutilation, witchcraft accusations, torture — these things, the story goes, have become so stigmatized that they may never resurge once more….
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