Culture

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Sitting with a mug in her hands, the aroma of ginger tea formed the backdrop against which she told me that she was HIV Positive. *Maryam, my long time friend and colleague, had contracted the disease while working as a medical intern. It was a consequence of being punctured with a needle that had the blood of an HIV positive patient on it—an occupational injury with life-altering consequences. She now takes antiretrovirals daily: drugs, which do not cure the illness, but halt the replication of the virus—thereby improving her quality of life.

Though it has just begun, the London Olympics already holds a series of historic firsts, especially for Muslims and women around the world. To begin with, the organizers aim to make the London Olympics the first “green games,” developed with the goal of environmentally friendly and sustainable construction. Muslim women have held pivotal roles in bringing this goal to fruition. Of note are Zaha Hadid and Saphina Sharif.

This year is my thirteenth Ramadan, and I have spent ten of them working full time. While my husband was always able to organize his annual leave to be off for two weeks in Ramadan, a collection of luck and circumstances meant that I usually had to work – a board meeting, a month-end close, a big court case…the list goes on. So I have gotten very good at organizing my life during Ramadan to make sure that I can still work and perform at reasonable levels and at the same time live my faith the way I want to.

It was a random morning, on a random day when I found my mother in the kitchen, distraught and trying to conceal her tear stained face. She was, and still is, the strongest woman I know. She fixed a brave smile on her face and shielded her two girls from much of the pain and anxiety she was going through due to my father’s illness. My father suffered from melanoma, the most dangerous type of skin cancer, and over time this cancer metamorphasized into a tumor in his brain. He began to lose his short and long-term memory, could not comprehend basic things, and at times wasn’t aware of his surroundings.

(A satire) Indians around the country are up in arms after a new study revealed that one in three Indian women in South Africa would marry a black man by the year 2018. The study, funded by the Race Still Matters Institute, found that a resounding 42 percent of the women interviewed said they’d prefer a black man to their current Indian husband. Crucially, nearly two-thirds of those interviewed conceded that they no longer found Indian men appealing as life partners.

As a native of Southern California, I fulfilled my stereotype and learned to surf at a young age. What I didn’t expect to find after converting to Islam in 2001 were many other Muslim girls who shared my hobby. Yes, I may have had an open mind about the religion, but I guess, admittedly, I subconsciously adopted some of the stereotypes about Muslim women that have now been obliterated after I have had the privilege of getting to know so many incredible Muslim women.

As tens of thousands of anxious Egyptians jam Cairo’s Tahrir Square today awaiting with bated breath the results of the country’s first presidential election since the ousting of Hosni Mubarak, New York film critics will sit down to a screening of Words of Witness. Directed by Mai Iskander, Words of Witness is not a documentary about the revolution in Egypt.