Freedom from the Forbidden

All things gender and Islam. No bigotry is allowed in this feminist territory. #DeathToPatriarchy

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New Episode on What the Patriarchy?! (Muslim) Women and the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) (Script)

The latest video on the vlog is up! Link: https://youtu.be/GxKZMLQlkns. Script below. Hello, and welcome to #WhatThePatriarchy, where we are working to uproot the patriarchy! Thank you for being here with me. This is Shehnaz. Today I want to talk about the Prophet Muhammad – the prophet of Islam, objectively one of the most important humans to have ever lived, certainly the most important man in Islam. I want to […]

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why male academics get emotional and defensive when called out on their patriarchy

In the last month, there have been several conversations on Facebook on the patriarchy (and racism too but just patriarchy for now) of male academics. Each time it happens, I want to blog about it, and then I’m too tired from the violence of the male academics who participate in those conversations defensively, arrogantly, and emotionally. So here goes it at last. In a recently conversation on my Facebook on […]

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What Everyone Needs to Know about the Hijab/Veil in Islam | What the Patriarchy?! (Script)

Next episode of What the Patriarchy?! is now published! In this video, we talk about all things hijab/veil (the head-covering). This include Muslim men and women’s and non-Muslims’ conversations about it; its origins; why some Muslim women wear it; the problem with the word “choice” in whether Muslims wear it by choice; the hijab/veil in the Qur’an and hadiths (and how the head-covering isn’t fardh in the Qur’an, actually); and […]

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New Episode on What the Patriarchy?!: Creating God in the Image of An Abusive Man (Script)

Alhamdulillah I had some energy and lots of inspiration to produce the next video for your favorite YouTube channel, What the Patriarchy?! You can view it here: https://youtu.be/-3fv2jAZtt8. It’s ~21 minutes long. I’m pasting here the script to the video. I don’t think I departed much from it, so! ❤ Hello and assalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuhu! Welcome to #WhatThePatriarchy, where we are working on destroying the patriarchy from […]

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A Discussion of Fatima Mernissi’s The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam

Salaam, all! I’ve just published my latest video on YouTube. In this episode, we discuss Fatima Mernissi’s book The Veil And The Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation Of Women’s Rights In Islam.I address some of her main points and then in detail discuss some of the specific topics she covers, such as female leadership (turns out, that hadith on nations not succeeding if they let a woman lead is false!), […]

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Video – Ramy, the Muslim Community, & Double Standards: rewarding men, punishing women | #WhatThePatriarchy?

As some of you know, I’ve started vlogging lately! It’s been a complete joy, and I’m thrilled about this new adventure of mine! Here’s my latest one. I’ll probably post a script of this in a couple days as well, but captions are available (they’re originally automatic and I’ve corrected them). If I still speak too fast for you to follow, I apologize! I was trying very hard to speak […]

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Book Review – Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in Muslim South Asia, by Shenila Khoja-Moolji

The following review is a (very) long and detailed version of a much shorter one that was just published in Reading Religion, a publication of the AAR. You can find the link to it below. (Short version: this is a fantastic book and would be of interest & relevance to everyone.) Forging the Ideal Educated Girl: The Production of Desirable Subjects in Muslim South Asia, University of California Press (2018), […]

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Interview with Juliane Hammer on “Peaceful Families: Muslim American Efforts Against Domestic Violence”

I’m now a host on the New Books in Islamic Studies podcast. My debut interview was with someone I greatly respect and whose scholarship has had a profound influence on me – Dr. Juliane Hammer. I read Hammer’s latest book Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts against Domestic Violence (University of Princeton, 2019) and then interviewed her for the podcast. Here’s a brief intro to the book and the interview followed […]

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Book Review – The Lover: A Sufi Mystery, by Laury Silvers

The Lover: A Sufi Mystery, by Laury Silvers Published with Kindle Direct Publishing, 2019 257 pages. I recently had the pleasure of reading the historical novel everyone’s talking about – The Lover: A Sufi Mystery by Laury Silvers. Being familiar with Silvers’ academic work, I trusted this book wouldn’t be a disappointment, and I wasn’t wrong. I read it immediately after getting it (in August!), although I had planned to read […]

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