Muslim men behaving un-dadly
In the UK there is a charity called “Men Behaving Dadly” which supports fathers and other male carers to improve their relationships with their children through play and other activities (the name is also...
Category: Women
On the Daniel Jou “virginity test” controversy
The other day I watched a YouTube video by a sister called Aisha Murray, who wears the niqaab, lives in Scotland and has made videos for BBC social media as well as her own...
It’s not just about cooking
I saw this post on Facebook this morning from someone who calls himself “Shaikh JJ”, a Canadian living in Istanbul. I should add at this point that although we know what he looks like,...
Muslims, parents and nursing homes
The last couple of days there has been a big row on “Muslim Twitter” about people putting their elderly parents in nursing homes and whether that makes them bad Muslims or ungrateful children or...
On obscene generalisations
Last week a video circulated of a Canadian-based Somali imam making some ugly generalisations about African-American people, claiming that most of them were products of one-night stands and did not know who their fathers...
Does polygamy cause violence?
A few months ago The Economist put out a video on its Facebook page which tried to make the case that polygamy made a society more violent and prone to civil war. I noticed...
Why is Quilliam pamphleteering about FGM?
Last week Quilliam, the self-styled counter-extremism think-tank set up by former member of Hizb-ut-Tahreer Maajid Nawaz, released a pamphlet on FGM written by one Muna Adil, complete with a foreword by Ayaan Hirsi Ali,...
Zac Goldsmith, an authority on FGM?
Earlier today, BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour featured a 6-minute segment on FGM, tomorrow apparently being “International Zero Tolerance on FGM Day” and who better to invite on than the co-chairs of the All-Party...
Hijab and primary school girls: not compulsory, but …
In the past week the ‘issue’ of primary school age Muslim girls wearing hijab to school has been on the front pages of some newspapers as the chief inspector of schools announced that her...
Hijabi versus liberal Muslima
The other day Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, a popular Muslimah poet and blogger, drew my attention to an advertisement she’d seen in a mosque in Birmingham. It was from a BBC radio producer looking for “an...
Honi soit qui mal y pense
Outcry over sexualised hijab schoolgirl (from The Australian) Honi soit qui mal y pense is a Norman French phrase, meaning “shame on he who thinks ill of it”. It appears on the British royal...
In defence of the friends of Nabra Hassanen
Early last Sunday morning in a northern Virginia town, a young lady was kidnapped off the street during or after the taraweeh prayer (the night-time prayers held during Ramadan) having gone to get food...
On hijab, ‘neutrality’ and threat
Last week I heard a conversation between Shelina Janmohammed, the author of Love in a Headscarf and Generation M and a columnist for The National, a Dubai-based newspaper, and the LBC presenter Sheila Fogerty,...
The United Airlines school of Sufism
Last week there was outrage after a man was manhandled off a United Airlines plane in Chicago, having boarded and taken the seat he had paid for, when the airline decided that their crew...
How prevalent is FGM in the UK really?
Last Monday was apparently FGM Awareness Day, and that means there were a lot of FGM stories in the media with vain attempts to interpret figures in a new way to make a story...
Listen to women — but which women?
Last Friday the highest court in France, the Council of State (Conseil d’État), struck down the ban on full-body swimsuits or so-called burkinis which had been imposed by some 30 municipalities in southern France...
Let’s be clear: the French swimsuit ban is about hate
In the past couple of weeks several coastal regions of France, including the districts that include Cannes, Nice and Menton, have banned women from wearing the full-body swimsuits known as ‘burkinis’ that are popular...
Anti-FGM crusade brings out the busybodies
The crusade against FGM is out of control - Spectator Blogs Brendan O’Neill wrote the above article on the incident reported recently in the British press, in which Baroness Jenny Tonge took a flight...
How France can really ‘protect all religions’
France ‘to protect all religions’ (BBC News) The French president, François Hollande, has announced that France “will protect all religions” and that Muslims are the “main victims of fanaticism” in a speech at the...
The dangers of racism in the anti-FGM crusade
The Thursday before last was apparently “Zero Tolerance of FGM day”, accompanied by widespread media coverage of various campaigns against it, a petition which apparently gained two signatures per second, interviews with anti-FGM campaigners...