Family

Lean on Us: The First Umrah for Families with Special Needs Members

altMuslimah’s Zehra Rizavi recently interviewed Joohi Tahir, the Executive Director of the non-profit MUHSEN, an organization founded by Shaykh Omar Suleiman that advocates for families and individuals in Muslim American communities with special needs members. A few weeks ago, MUHSEN launched an endeavor never before undertaken by any other Muslim…

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Raising Black boys and Muslim kids in America

As a mother to three sons, I know how rambunctious boys can be. I know the games they play often involve battles, forts, and play fighting with sticks, straws, spoons and yes, even toy guns. To see boys whooping and tearing through backyards while re-enacting fight scenes from the latest…

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On Orphans, Adoption, and Islam

This article responds to Yusra Gomaa’s piece on altM, Placing Muslim orphans into real homes. In 1961, Frantz Fanon wrote his seminal work The Wretched of the Earth. In the section of the book entitled “On National Culture”, he indicts the colonial system of both his native Martinique as well…

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American Muslim Children Struggle in School: Impact of the 2016 Election

This election cycle has been difficult to experience, even for adults.  Civil conversations and respect for diversity have been sidelined, and the loudest voices in politics and on television now are frighteningly extreme. Unsurprisingly the hateful rhetoric has filtered into American schools.  The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has just…

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Living with a Bipolar spouse

Mental illness is a dirty secret in the Muslim community. It’s seen as a curse, as an embarrassment, as something to be kept hidden. In many countries it’s not spoken about, and certainly not medically treated. It’s something you get over, because you really don’t have any choice. It goes…

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Single Childless Muslim Women

I am thirty-seven, single and childless. The latter two of these three descriptives are taboo within the Muslim community. Whether you live in America, Pakistan or Egypt, if you are not attached to a husband and with a brood of children in tow, you are an outsider. Extended family and…

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We need more Muslim doulas!

Giving birth is, in so many ways, an act of faith. It involves a kind of radical trust in our bodies that I equate with tawakkul, trust in Allah, the One who made our bodies. For me, being a doula is also an act of faith. A doula is someone who supports and comforts a mother in childbirth, building a relationship with her over the weeks leading up to the delivery and sometimes continuing to support a new mother in the weeks that follow.

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