By Mona Eltahawy Toronto Star December 18, 2010 NEW YORK CITY The young woman who identified herself as Salma, 17, got straight to the point. “I was walking in the street to get a bunch of friends of mine from a certain pet shop when a middle-aged man stopped with his car beside me and [...]

Journalist Claire Berlinski and I recorded a conversation on women and Islam for Bloggingheads TV. The New York Times website excerpted a part of our conversation in which we discuss feminist interpretations of Islam and in which I mention Musawah, the global movement for equality and justice in the Muslim family. The whole conversation is [...]

Every day during Ramadan, I shared a book from my shelves which has influences me and helped me on my journey towards a better understanding of Islam and faith. Here are the recommendations compiled into one list: Day 1 recommendation: “Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari’a” by Abdullahi An-Nai’m. The Quran [...]

By Mona Eltahawy Jerusalem Report, May 24, 2010 Oslo – Listening to men and women women testify at the Oslo Freedom Forum in April, I thought how apropos it was that the night before I flew to Oslo I had attended a performance in London of “Macbeth,” Shakespeare’s depiction of a “bloody-sceptered” tyrant, which could’ve [...]

In April, I spoke on a panel about social networking at the Skoll World Forum 2010, Oxford, along with Joi Ito and Liu Yan, moderated by Bruno Giussani. I focused on how women in the Arab world are using new media and social networking to challenge authority and connect.

In January, I gave a keynote lecture on how women in the Arab world use social media to express themselves. My talk opened the “Islam and the Media: Who Speaks for Islam?” conference at the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Center for Media, Religion and Culture.

By Mona Eltahawy The Jerusalem Report Jan. 4, 2010 It was the end of a three-hour class I’d given on women and Islamist movements. Why do women join such movements, which often bar them from positions of power? Why would a woman who belonged to one such movement tell a researcher “We don’t want equality. [...]

By Mona Eltahawy Jerusalem Report I was getting ready to head up to my room on the last night of a retreat for emerging Jewish and Muslim religious leaders when I stumbled upon an argument between two of my favorite people at the gathering – a Jewish woman and a Muslim man. It went something [...]

Stifling this conversation can have deadly consequences By Mona Eltahawy Toronto Globe and Mail Sex has ruffled many in the Arab world lately. About time. Just this past week, Saudi Arabia shut down all local operations of a Lebanese TV station that broadcast an interview with a Saudi man who spoke frankly about sex. When [...]

This is a lecture I gave at the University of Delaware Feb. 25 to launch their lecture series Global Agenda 2009. Headsup: I mistakenly called Ali the prophet’s nephew. Ali is Prophet Mohammed’s cousin. I know I know! Speaking for an hour without notes!

Below is a column I wrote for the latest edition of Bitter Lemons International, which this week is dedicated to the internet in the Middle East. Please take a moment to check out the three other essays featured this week. http://www.bitterlemons-international.org/index.php I touched on a similar topic when I spoke to the Malaysian internet TV [...]

The Question: The producers of the movie “The Kite Runner” had to evacuate three boy actors from Afghanistan because they were involved in a scene portraying homosexual rape. Who’s at fault here: the movie producers who exposed the boys to danger, or the Afghan culture that threatens them? It’s easy to say, “A plague on [...]