January 31, 2014 Oppressive. Boorish. Misogynist: Those are the popular images of Muslim men and how they treat women. But there’s more to it than that, thought Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi, the editors of “Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women.” Many Muslims welcomed the two women’s 2012 collection of…
January 24, 2014 (RNS) Viewers watching the American Football Conference championship game between the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots earlier this month may have seen a Best Buy commercial for a Sharp 60-inch television that seemed ordinary, but in one way was extraordinary. The ad shows a young, clean-shaven salesman named Mustafa talking about…
October 17, 2013 The Council on American-Islamic Relations has hired a Jewish filmmaker and interfaith activist as executive director of the advocacy group’s Philadelphia office. Jacob Bender is the highest ranking non-Muslim in the Washington-based organization, and the first to lead one of its chapters. “Many Muslims face daily suspicion, not unlike other immigrant…
(RNS) Islamophobic or empowering? Those are among the reactions to a new Diesel jeans ad featuring a heavily tattooed, topless white woman wearing a redesigned, denim burqa. The slogan next to her: “I Am Not What I Appear To Be.” Racist and condescending are among the criticisms that have been leveled at the ad, created…
(RNS) A federal judge has struck down Oklahoma’s constitutional amendment that would have prohibited judges in the state from considering Shariah law. The amendment was approved by about 70 percent of Oklahoma voters on November 2, 2010, but the American Civil Liberties Union and the Council on American-Islamic Relations sued to block the amendment,…
