When my husband finally makes his way down the stairs, my frustration abates and he and I sit across from each other and share our early morning meal. We speak intermittently and keep one eye trained on the clock to ensure we finish our food by the time dawn prayers begin. Despite the sparse conversation and the hurried meal, I enjoy the feeling that we are both beginning our obligatory fasts together, as a unit.
Read MoreThis week in the news, why pregnant women exempt from fasting still fast, Taliban responds to TIME’s cover story on Aisha, Satirist claims he is not joking about his plans to open an Islamic gay bar next to Cordoba Mosque, and a young American Muslim man abstains from alcohol and dating for the month of Ramadan.
Read MoreThe Dar ul-Ulum at Deoband, India’s largest and most influential madrasa, recently issued a fatwa declaring that appointing a woman as a judge was ‘near haram’, or, in other words, reprehensible.
Read MoreBrazil offers asylum to Iranian women sentenced to death by stoning, veiled women pass through Canadian airport checkpoint without being checked, Malaysian reality show crowns its champion imam, and a few British gay Muslims find support from their local imams.
Read MoreThis week, Saudi clerics seek more Muslim maids and say its okay for women to uncover their faces in the presence of burqa bans. Two French women in burqinis were refused entry into a pool, and two Muslim women in England are not allowed onto a public bus.
Read MoreSyria bans niqabs on university campuses, NPR interviews female imams in China, and Spain rejects burqa ban.
Read MoreEvery time news about another hijab/niqab/burqa ban hits the press, editors rejoice: this is their chance to coin THE ultimate veil pun. Problem is, there’s simply no such thing as a good veil pun.
Read MoreThis week, a British parliamentarian gets on the anti-burqa bandwagon, A French businessman seeks to pay all burqa fines imposed in France, building of a mosque in California is heavily opposed, and a woman judge is appointed to Malaysia’s Islamic Court.
Read MoreWhatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.- John Stuart Mill
Read MoreIn laying the groundwork for productive discussion on dating, it is essential to pay close attention to how we communicate with one another. Four panelists kick start a discussion on the communication divide between Muslim men and women, and how it must change on both the individual and communal level (Anas Coburn’s recent article also takes an in-depth look at this issue). This is the beginning of a complex and multi-faceted conversation that will expand throughout the Dialogues, and so we encourage readers to sustain it by sharing their own perspectives and questions.
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