My Muslim feminist post republished again!
My CG News piece has been republished in Pakistan’s The Express Tribune!
My CG post really caught on… [Updated]
It was republished in Turkey’s Today’s Zaman and the Women News Network!
Thank you to everyone who’s Facebooked, Twittered, and republished the piece!
Update: The piece has also been published in Lebanon’s The Daily Star! And CG News has made the post available in Arabic, Urdu, Hebrew, French, and Indonesian!
Who’s afraid of a Muslim feminist?
I write about my Islam and my feminism for Common Ground News Service, and how they’re not so different:
People, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, often tell me that I can’t be both a Muslim and a feminist. At a recent book reading in Oregon, for example, a male audience member asked me, “How does that even work?” These questions demonstrate some of the rigid misconceptions individuals have about Islam and feminism; many people think that they’re mutually exclusive categories. In fact, as a Muslim feminist, I have found them to have more in common than people realize, especially when it comes to social justice.
Hooray!
The videos from our presentations for the Re:Scripting Islam Conference at Indiana University are up!
Check out the introduction and my presentation at the Muslim Voices blog here.
It’s The Huffy, but still!
I Speak for Myself was #2 on The Huffington Post’s list of “Best Religious Books of 2011.” That’s pretty rad.
Congratulations again to all my awe-inspiring co-contributors and our fantastic editors, Maria and Zahra!
Videos from the GFU panel
The George Fox University panel that I was on a few weeks ago is now available on video! The panel was divided into three separate themes: personal faith journeys, perceptions of people of faith in the media, and women in Islam. Each theme has its own video and you can check them all out here.
Good, old-fashioned Middle Eastern hospitality
Friends, I was in Sharjah, U.A.E. last week. And I enjoyed my time so much there that I barely missed my normal Thanksgiving servings of pumpkin pie.
I was in town for the Sharjah International Book Fair. It was a wonderful maze of book stalls in Arabic and English, with every type of book imaginable on display. Paradise, really. The book fair also boasted an excellent collection of authors that I was honored to meet, including Yahia Labibidi and Michael Rothenberg, the creator of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change movement.
Other fair goers and I were privileged to witness poetry nights at the Book Fair, hearing poems from Lababidi, Rothenberg, and local talent. Pictured right is a snapshot of the fair–I love the pop of that orange carpet!
The organizers of the fair were generous enough to set up a lecture for me at the American University of Sharjah. Yusra, a fellow I Speak for Myself contributor, flew in to help me represent the book and we met for the first time despite working together for years at Muslimah Media Watch. We discussed MMW, multi-culturalism, and the need for more women’s voices in mainstream media.
The crowd was a wonderful one, full of bright young Emirati minds who asked wonderful and intelligent questions–I definitely enjoyed my time at the university!
The American University of Sharjah's main building, where our lecture was located.
My time in Sharjah was blessed for a host of other reasons, as well. I was lucky to connect with several colleagues who are located in the area, and enjoyed some beautiful sunshine–a really wonderful change from rainy Oregon winter. And everyone–everyone–was incredibly kind and welcoming. Hospitality is a prominent facet of Middle Eastern cultures, and I definitely felt it!
Another reason I enjoyed myself so much is because, for the first time, I was in the religious majority. The Emirates is a predominantly Muslim country, even if the majority of its inhabitants are made up of expatriates and domestic workers from non-Muslim-majority countries. So I experienced new perks: I was awoken every morning by the beautiful call to prayer from the Al Noor mosque down the street from my hotel and enjoyed a (beef) pepperoni pizza at Pizza Hut! These things seem so little, but I enjoyed them immensely.
I can’t express all the gratitude I feel toward everyone I met in Sharjah. A “thank you” doesn’t seem enough–I enjoyed my time so much there, and hope I feel the Gulf’s sun on my face again soon.
George Fox Seminary rocked last Friday!
I participated in a panel at George Fox Seminary in Portland last Friday. The panel was titled, “Who Am I? Who are you? A Muslim perspective on the role of faith in identity formation,” and consisted of Andy Campbell as the facilitator, Maria Ebrahimji, Muna Idow, Manar Alattar, and myself. We discussed our personal faith journeys, media issues, and women’s issues for an Evangelical Christian audience.
I always love to hear how many similarities there are between faiths. I spoke with Loren Kerns, the Director for the Ministry Doctorate Program at George Fox, and we discussed all kinds of similarities between the American Muslim and Christian communities.
On the panel, from left: Andy Campbell, Maria Ebrahimji, Muna Idow, myself, and Manar Alattar. Photo credit: Loren Kerns.
Talking with Evangelical feminists was especially rewarding! I spoke with a few women my age after the panel who shared similar concerns and struggles with faith, feminism, and our place in all of these. It always feels nice to find the people who understand my issues because they have the same ones!
I really enjoyed my time at George Fox Seminary and look forward to doing more interfaith work in the future. Thank you to everyone at the seminary who opened their space and their hearts to us!
I’ll be in the Emirates soon!
I’m excited to announce that fellow contributor Yusra Tekbali and I will be promoting I Speak for Myself at the Sharjah International Book Fair!
This event has been around almost as long as I’ve been alive, starting in 1982 in Sharjah, U.A.E. The website says:
This 10-day annual event now draws a total of over 800 publishers showcasing books from nearly 42 nations, and attracts over 400,000 visitors.The primary aim is to promote reading, mainly to the younger generation by making quality books available to them at affordable prices.
I reviewed Craig Thompson’s Habibi
I’d been hearing quite a lot about Craig Thompson’s graphic novel, Habibi. I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy, which was beautiful. But gnawed at me.
So I wrote a review! It’s the first thing I’ve written in awhile, and it’s up at Racialicious:
Themes of longing and survival permeate Habibi. The protagonists, Zam and Dodola, long for each other, likening this to a yearning for the Divine – Middle Eastern poets have done this for centuries. Zam and Dodola endure horrible events in the name of survival, perhaps tying in with Thompson’s conservationist theme by implying that our disregard for the earth is tantamount to rape and castration of the planet. These themes, however, are often drowned out—no matter how much Thompson underlines them—by the towering gaffes of his misrepresentation. The country of Wanatolia may be fiction, but the cultures it mimics and clumsily muddles together are real.
A lot of my colleagues have reviewed it, as well, and I include their reviews in my piece. So check it out!
