By Salma ElkhaoudiIf you had your doubts about this being the year of the Muslim Girl, listen to this: Rashida Tlaib is about to become the first Muslim woman ever (ever) elected to Congress. Let that sink in. A brown, Palestinian, Muslim daughter-of-immigrants is going to fill up a seat in one of the whitest, malest, most…
By Salma ElkhaoudiMohammad JD, a native Chicagoan and current graduate student in San Francisco, is on a mission to call the world’s attention to the Syrian refugee crisis. “No Place Like Hope,” is the title of this mini-documentary, a product of Mohammad’s time spent teaching and helping with medical attention in Northern Greece’s refugee camps. It was written and…
By Salma ElkhaoudiDr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born exactly 87 years ago, in 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. Twenty-six years later, he would lead the 385-day Montgomery Bus Boycott alongside Rosa Parks. Eight years after that, he would help lead 200,000 people to the Lincoln Memorial where he made his infamous “I Have a Dream” speech. Two…
By Salma ElkhaoudiAhmed Mohamed’s rise to internet fame has been skyrocketing. People across the world have been posting their support on social media — from President Barack Obama to Mark Zuckerberg to Sophia Bush — united by a single hashtag: #IStandWithAhmed. This entire movement can be drawn back to one 23-year-old MuslimGirl from Arlington, TX: Amneh Jafari….
By Salma ElkhaoudiAhmed Mohamed’s face has been the highlight of social media over the last couple of days. This 14-year-old boy went from being racially profiled and falsely arrested, to being invited to the White House by the President himself. And aside from the fact that Ahmed has set an example for a country that’s become riddled…
By Salma ElkhaoudiResidents of New York have three core nicknames with which to identify New York’s most vicious gang, the NYPD: “Pigs,” “The Boys,” and “Officer, what are you talking about I’m not resisting.” While to anyone else these may seem rude and anti-police, the names make sense when you look at the statistics and videos confirming…
By Salma ElkhaoudiMy social media feed erupted last night with news of the anti-Islam Phoenix mosque rally. Pictures of gun-toting white men, angry supremacists, and hate-filled bloggers encouraging them behind the scenes combined in a depressing cacophony of pointed fingers and misplaced rage. And what’s worse is the frightening media coverage that always seems to have the…
By Salma ElkhaoudiThe Girls’ Room is a MuslimGirl.net online monthly series of Google Hangouts in which we discuss the topics that we all actually want to talk about with prominent guests from the Muslim community and beyond. Last Thursday, for our February episode of The Girl’s Room, we had an amazing discussion on the State of the Muslim Union…
By Salma ElkhaoudiHere’s a video about Iran that doesn’t involve oppression, terrorism or propaganda. This super cute 3 minute episode by Cut Video highlights the evolution of beauty and make-up in Iran over the last 100 years. The historic integration of religion and beauty is breathtaking and eye-opening: Middle Eastern women’s lives don’t stop when you’re not…
By Salma ElkhaoudiOn Friday, Jan. 30, Muslim women in Los Angeles gathered at the Women’s Mosque of America for Friday prayer. The event itself isn’t abnormal. Thousands of Muslim women across the country flock to their nearest mosques for Friday service. What’s different about this gathering in particular is that it’s the first of its kind, set in…
By Salma ElkhaoudiThis is something you definitely didn’t hear first. MuslimGirl hosted an all-star lineup last week of civil rights organizers from the Muslim and Black communities in the January episode of The Girls’ Room. We’re talking history-making badasses. To get a full list of their names and bios, click here. We were joined by activists both from…
By Salma ElkhaoudiThis video beautifully pulled at all my heart strings, and brain strings, in captivating the reality of our post-9/11, post-Charlie Hebdo, post-ISIS world. The collective blame has gone too far, and this video is here to prove it from a different perspective: children. In under 2 minutes, filmmaker Abdelkarim El-Fassi videotapes the conviction of 5…
By Salma ElkhaoudiDuke University announced earlier this week that it would allow the adhan, the Muslim call to prayer, to sound from their chapel’s famous bell tower. And then, just as quickly as the announcement had been made, it was revoked. Nothing short of expected — SADLY. It wasn’t technically a big deal at first: just an announcement…
By Salma ElkhaoudiThe night of Darren Wilson’s non-indictment, amidst all the circulation about white privilege and injustice in the land of red, white and blue, one particular statement stood out. I was scrolling through Tumblr, my frustration with the American justice system beyond the usual, when I saw a post by @mercedesbenzodiazepine: “Just wondering…. Who’s still proud…
