women’s issues

Community

Why They Stay: Battered and Immigrant

“And of His signs is that He created for you from yourselves mates that you may find tranquility in them; and He placed between you affection and mercy. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought” – Quran 30:21.

The video of Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice punching Janay Palmer, his then girlfriend and now wife, has practically been on loop for the past few days. It is a horrifying clip, one that I accidentally saw on some sports network my husband was watching.

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Community

The Shaykh and the F Word

What Bakwaas is this? Muslim [American] Twitter is currently ablaze with condemnations, support and whatever else in between over sexist comments made by UK-based Shaykh Abu Eesa Niamatullah, affiliated with the Al Maghrib Institute. On his public “personal” page, Niamatullah decided to commemorate International Women’s Day (March 8th) by denigrating it as a “bakwaas day” (bakwaas means ‘bullshit’ more or less in Urdu).

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altMommy, Community

Muslim Mom Network: A Virtual Village

I’ve been asked numerous times where the idea of the Muslim Mom Network (MMN) came from. I’d love to say it was a grand, noble vision of serving my community, but truthfully my reasons for launching this Google group were purely selfish. I was a new, struggling mother – often times lonely, tired, and insecure. Friends, family, the media and even our faith tend to focus on the joys of motherhood—and there are many; however, its darker side is often swept under the rug.

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Family

An American Muslim man’s case for VAWA (Violence Against Women Act)

In a meeting last week with a few Washington, D.C. leaders, I was asked what one issue I was most passionate about right now. Without hesitation I said, to the surprise of many, the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). I knew why people in the room were surprised by my answer; in meetings with American Muslim leaders the answer they would have received would generally be civil rights, Islamophobia, national security or foreign policy.

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