I had placed my husband too dangerously close to Almighty Allah, and I had all these high hopes and expectations of him that I had forgotten that he was human, too, and that he could be influenced, selfish, and prone to mistakes, misdeeds, and forgetfulness.
Çambel’s intellectual capacity had always been running in front of her academic identity as an archaeologist. She may have written fewer publications than many, but has left behind monumental institutions, trajectories in managing, and, more significantly, a generation inspired by her vision.
We are tired and angry that men use our labour to prop themselves up in positions of influence and leadership. We are angry that our voices keep getting silenced. We are angry that our feedback and calls for accountability are continually ignored.
Women need not be held to the unrealistic standards of the Ideal Muslimah, who by the way, is a fictional character with roots not unrelated to passive misogyny. The Ideal Islamic culture is not one of cancel culture, but one of constant repentance and improvement.
Obviously a child with pink glittery heels is not going to want to go outdoors and jump in puddles and catch ladybirds in the garden, be it a boy or a girl. Put boys in those shoes and see how many are suddenly not running around anymore. Put girls in good shoes and see how many are no longer playing with Barbies and cooking with a toy kitchen set.
It is at socials like these, where exclusion towards Muslims is often heightened, with drinking culture being mostly to blame. In the corporate field, it is no surprise that drinking is the primary way teams socialise. It boosts staff morale, strengthens personal relationships and in some cases, even gives employees a deeper insight into the business and clientele itself. But for non-drinkers like myself, these occasions are approached with dread. I sometimes feel my seniors are closer to the other juniors in our team as they regularly join them for after-work drinks, whereas I do not. Consequently, causing me to worry that my career progression will be negatively impacted.
What stands out to me about ‘Lady Parts’ as a show is that it exemplifies Muslims as not being a monolith. Instead of being reduced to one stereotype, they’re allowed to exist freely as who they are, accurately reflecting the melting pot of different individuals that form the religion. This subsequently allows Muslim women to reclaim their power — they’re allowed to just be, beyond their religious identity.
I hope the day will come when you will be free to hold your head up and claim what you believe or support without fear of being “dragged”. I pray for the day when being a Muslim woman – especially being visibly so – is not seen as an open invitation for others to have an opinion on how we choose to live our lives. Until that time, and unless you choose other
Islamophobia exists in Canada and it has existed for a long time, to the point that it has become normalised, whether people realise it or not. This is why we need to have laws protecting people from acts of hatred. Because children are not responsible for having to recognise acts of hatred and speak out against it.
Her marriage to the Prophet (PBUH) took place in Sha’aban on the third year of the Hijra (and not after Uhud as commonly thought) at the age of 21 or 22 till his death when she was 27. She loved the Prophet (PBUH) dearly. After her marriage to the Prophet (PBUH), she had an inquisitive nature, often immersed herself in studying the deen, and would engage him and ask him questions about the deen. On one such incident, during Hajj, she asked the Prophet (PBUH) why he was still in Ihram, while he had instructed the sahabah to take off their Ihram. Then the Prophet (PBUH) replied that he couldn’t remove his Ihram until his sacrificial animals were slaughtered. And from this incident the fatwa was obtained, about a type of Hajj (Qiran) where the one doing Hajj couldn’t remove the Ihram, until the animals were sacrificed, as opposed to another type of Hajj called Tamattu’.
