When my mom told me that we were going out, I was thrilled, which was unlike me, given that I was a shy six-year-old who dreaded meeting new people. My mother, grandmother, aunt, cousin, Sahar, and I piled in the car and drove to the village clinic where my father would meet us. When we arrived at the brightly lit, cold “operation room” with its two hospital beds that sat only four feet apart, our parents ordered my cousin and I to lie down and remain still.
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The overwhelming success of the dystopian young adult novel, The Hunger Games, and its film adaptation calls into question the amount of violence we expose Muslim adolescents to without a second thought. If we exercise such careful discretion over sexually explicit material, why not at least show a fraction of concern about violence in a film like this one?
Read MoreA little over a month ago, on April 17, a ten-year-old Muslim boy named Abdifatah Mohamud, was brutally murdered in Buffalo, NY by his stepfather—beaten to death more than 70 times with a rolling pin. The stepfather admitted to “…binding the boy’s hands, stuffing a sock into his mouth, duct taping the boy’s mouth and beating him to death.” Abidifatah himself had made two frantic calls to 911 the year before he died, pleading for help, but no one arrived at his home to investigate or intervene.The day of his death, he ran to a neighbor’s home asking for refuge, but she urged him to return home.
Read MoreAs a student in Karachi, I met a 10-year-old boy who I’ll call Ali. Ali was a disruptive student; generally what we’d call a problem child or a nuisance. I believe that he came from an abusive home. Though we never talked about the physical abuse, he would occasionally come to school with fresh bruises on his arms and legs, and once even a black eye. The school administration was aware of the alleged abuse and they never took any action to address it; they did, however, hesitate to call Ali’s parents regarding disciplinary issues.
Read MoreTo 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.
Read MoreWhile Muslims in the West are slowly coming to realize that honor killings are not just a geographical issue for our brothers and sisters in South Asia and the Middle East, anti-Islam pundits, bloggers and intellectuals are using this recent rash of honor killings to link the religion of Islam to the murders.
Read MoreThe problem of human trafficking – including sex trafficking – is unfortunately persistent and growing in the Muslim world and elsewhere. Simply put, human trafficking is modern day slavery, driven underground because of the legal barriers and social stigma involved in slavery itself.
Read MoreThe spirit and the letter of Islamic law prohibit acts of relationship violence. Are we willing to hold our brothers, fathers, and sons accountable for domestic violence at work, at home, and at the mosque?
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Following the brutal murder of Aasiya Zubair, renewed attention has been paid to the position of Islam on domestic violence. In response, here is a sermon by Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, recorded on February 20, 2009 in San Jose, California.
Read MoreAasiya was killed in the very space where she tried to promote a broader understanding of Islam. Like many other domestic violence victims who endure years of abuse before deciding to leave their partner, she may have been held back by her abusers’ threats, isolation, and fear of stigma
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