Politics

Hebah Ahmed, an American Muslim who heads a Muslim girls youth group, was recently featured in a New York Times article about the challenges that American Muslim women can face. While she does not claim to speak for every Muslim, man or woman, Hebah does insist upon all Muslims’ voices being heard in the fray on the veil and niqab legislation currently taking place all over Europe and advocates a new discourse that is neither gender or religiously exclusive.

Whatcha gonna… whatcha gonna do… whatcha gonna do when the Virtue Cops come for you? Run? Hide? Feel guilt running down your face and drop to the ground asking for forgiveness in front of everyone? Or would you transform into a drop-kicking-iron-fisted UFC fighter and beat that officer to the ground? That’s what one Saudi woman elected to do when an officer from the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (known on the streets of Saudi as haia (pronounced haiy-ya)), stopped her at an amusement park in Al-Mubarraz to investigate her male companion.

Connie Duckworth has created a compelling model of social business for others to emulate. She is the founder and CEO of ARZU STUDIO HOPE, a textile enterprise operating in Afghanistan and selling to markets worldwide. To date, the organization employs over 600 weavers and provides services to several thousand people in Afghanistan. I sat down with her recently during the 2010 Skoll World Forum at the University of Oxford.

I woke up this morning to the news that a Lebanese-American woman, Rima Fakih, had become the first Arab Muslim woman to be crowned Miss USA in yesterday’s beauty pageant. Because I do not keep up with every news piece about Muslims in Vegas, I only found out about it through good old Facebook. One FB status by a very good friend of mine, an Arab Muslim woman and self-declared feminist, read; “(Views about beauty pageants aside) I’m double excited that Ms. USA 2010 is a Lebanese American from right around the corner.”

In recent weeks, a potential ban on polygamy to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS has raised the ire and concern of many Malawians. While the law will not affect those already in polygamous marriages, it carries a five-year jail sentence for those who attempt to take multiple wives after its passing. Malawi is a country stricken with a 12% prevalence rate of HIV, with almost 1 million people living with HIV/AIDS. A recent BBC article reports that the Minister of Gender and Development, Patricia Kaliati, said the proposed ban is also intended to protect women from abuse in polygamous marriages, in which wives inevitably contend for attention and resources from their joint husband.

Accompanied by her father, Hassna’a Mokhtar went to the Saudi Arabian interior ministry in Jeddah to sign papers for a marriage licence. She was hoping to get a sense of how long it would take to get permission, so that she could plan her wedding. But that was not the case. A Saudi woman falling in love with a non-Saudi Muslim leads to more obstacles than a Capulet falling in love with a Montague. In most parts of society, a father can decline a suitor simply because he is not a Saudi.