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<< From the AltMuslimah Archives >> 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…

Once the fingers and toes have been counted, the initial medical evaluation completed, and the call to prayer recited in the newborn’s ear, every Muslim parent asks the question, “How do I teach this child all he needs to know? Muslim mothers and fathers across this planet have grappled with the question of how to educate their child in the matter of all things religious: How to teach them Arabic, how to teach them the proper way to perform the five daily prayers, and how to teach them the myriad of lessons and observances integral to the practice of Islam.

For six days, Muslims and non-Muslims alike were shocked by the seeming abduction of Aisha Khan. The Kansas student who was studying for her finals left a disturbing voicemail for her sister about a man who had been harassing her. When her family rushed to campus, they found her belongings, including her phone, in a neat pile on a picnic table with no trace of Aisha. This, coupled with the voicemail Aisha had left, was possibly the worst scenario any mother, father, sister, brother or husband could imagine.

<< This piece complements Natalie Abraham's piece, “My book and my friend.” >>
On a summer day two years ago, I sat in my office lost in thought. A half written legal brief sat on my desk while I focused on the river beneath my office window, my stress level high and my spirits low. Often as a college student I would turn to prayer to pull me out of a rut, and in law school I would open the Quran to get re-energized when overwhelmed by classes and work.

<< From the AltMuslimah Archives >>
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.