...from the "religious" Right. As you all must have heard by now, Michigan state representative Lisa Brown was censored and barred from speaking during a debate on an abortion bill because she had the audacity to utter the word “vagina”—at which point all the Republican men in the room gasped and clutched their pearls in …
Continue reading Protecting our RELIGIOUS RIGHT to an Abortion
A common practice before the introduction of Islam—and continuing afterward illegally despite severe restrictions by the Qur’an on the gratuities of men in pre-Islamic divorce—was for a man to perpetually divorce his wife, each time pretending to take her back and divorcing her again to coerce her either to surrender her dower for autonomy or …
Continue reading Quranic Verses and Misconceptions: Divorce and Male Privilege
Recently a friend of mine sent me a 25-minute video in the mail titled “We Will Not Be Hidden” about disabled Muslims and the (lack of) accessibility in mosques. Most of those who spoke in the video made points I had heard; then one woman mentioned that she would love to actively contribute to her …
When I was very little, I attended Quranic classes at the mosque with other small children. On one occasion, I stood lined up for prayer while the instructor lectured on prayer etiquette. It was midsummer in California. The heat was almost unbearable. My hair was uncovered, but I was wearing a sweater, and I felt …
Islam, like most religions at conception, was produced to liberate the oppressed before it was seized by oppressors and weaponized against those who had discovered a restoration of freedom and rights through it. The most striking, recurring incident of this confiscation of perspective and unashamed hypocrisy is the application of verse 2:282 (which calls for …
Religious leaders during sermons often advise their congregations not to love this world, explicably sensing that love of this world will replace the love of God. While this is a justifiable claim—people enraptured in the material often experience emptiness which they attempt to fill with more material, believing they are achieving what the material superficially …
Continue reading Loving this World, Work, and the Privilege of Contemplation
I was ten years old on 9/11. Counting up until last year it was the halfway point of my life. I remember that, being ten, and denying myself the luxury of tears. I didn’t have to try hard not to cry: I simply couldn’t. It would have been, I felt, ridiculous for me to cry. …
the fatal feminist 