This Blog is intended for use by students in the Islamic Middle East course at Northfield Mount Hermon School and guest students and teachers from other participating schools.
In June, a French court denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman on the grounds that the niqab (”veil”) she chose to wear (a full veil with a narrow slit for the eyes) was inconsistent with French values such as equality of the sexes. The ruling was supported by France’s Urban Affairs Minister, Fadela Amara, herself a [...]
Here is a link to a recent piece in the Turkish Daily News about how a women’s group has mobilized to protect women’s rights in Turkey.
Safak Timur, “Women Mobilize in a Men’s Country,” Turkish Daily News, June 21, 2008
A Paris doctor reports he performs two to four hymenoplasties per week (operations to repair women’s hymens). Muslim women living in the West are requesting the surgery in order to “restore” their virginity and thus avoid bringing dishonor on themselves or their families when they marry.
See: Elaine Sciolino and Souad Mekhennet, “Muslim Women and Virginity: [...]
A Northfield Mount Hermon colleague today called my attention to a recent case in Afghanistan where a student was sentenced to death for downloading a report on women’s rights.
Story from The Independent
Barry Gewen profiles Irshad Manji and Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the “Week in Review” section of today’s New York Times. Both women are feminists and strong critics of Islam. Ali, who was born in Somalia, rejected Islam and became an atheist. Manji, born in Uganda but raised in Canada, remains a Muslim, but, is advocating “an [...]
Muslim clerics in Algeria, a country where a civil war raged between the government and Islamists in the 1990s, are protesting a government ban on the wearing of veils and beards in passport pictures.
Story from BBC
In the New York Times Book Review for Sunday, April 6, Fareed Zakaria (who spoke at NMH a few years back) reviews a new book completed by Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto shortly before she was assassinated.
Go to review
Read the article.
Sharla Musabih, an American-born Emirati, is fighting a lonely battle to raise human rights of women in the United Arab Emirites. She takes care of women who are seeking refuges away from violent husbands and foreign prostitutes who are eager to go back to their home countries. Her radical approaches, such as interviews with foreign [...]
Once again (most recent large scale occurrence was in 1990), Saudi women are protesting the kingdom’s ban on women behind the wheel.
Story from the BBC.
A first in Egypt!
Story from the BBC
BBC Middle East