It's Not About the Burqa: Muslim Women on Faith, Feminism, Sexuality and Race

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Similarly, Saima Mir’s ‘ A Woman of Substance’ – if I can just stop with the starry-eyed dreaming and giggling (vom!) for a second – is one of the most romantic stories I have ever read. Divorce is sometimes and very much a dirty word in my culture, though I’m slowly noticing the tides shifting (more so for the generation before me), and Saima Mir’s journey in ‘ A Woman of Substance’ is one for the silver screen. Her essays showcases that love is possible even after divorce. Honestly, even the coldest of hearts will be melted by this. I even heard Kaz Brekker say, “ Awwwww!” Can you believe it? On the Representation of Muslims by Nafisa Bakkar

It’s Not About the Burqa review – courageous essays

If Theresa May is serious about “global Britain”, a post-Brexit political and social climate should moderate its obsession with how a minority of Muslim women dress and instead embrace the ethical and economic opportunities presented by the global sharia culture. Taking one of the most politicized and misused words associated with Muslim women and Islamophobia, It’s Not About the Burqa is poised to change all that. Here are voices you won’t see represented in the national news headlines: seventeen Muslim women speaking frankly about the hijab and wavering faith, about love and divorce, about feminism, queer identity, sex, and the twin threats of a disapproving community and a racist country. Funny, warm, sometimes sad, and often angry, each of these essays is a passionate declaration, and each essay is calling time on the oppression, the lazy stereotyping, the misogyny and the Islamophobia. I didn’t write or curate INATB to be liked. I wrote it because I wanted to have so many conversations with many different people and there was never a foundation to start from. This book is the book I wish my younger self had. Years later the state of the national discourse has deteriorated even further, and Muslim women’s voices are still pushed to the fringes – the figures leading the discussion are white and male.This is a vital book for non-Muslims and those seeking to understand Muslim feminism in the West. It will also add to an already rigorous body of writing about veiling. More insightful analysis can be found in Pious Fashion: How Muslim Women Dress by Elizabeth Bucar. Readers should also turn to Leila Ahmed’s bold Women and Gender in Islam, published in 1992.

It’s Not About the Burqa’ review: Politics around the veil ‘It’s Not About the Burqa’ review: Politics around the veil

Mariam felt that too often, only one narrative of Muslim women was portrayed within the national news headlines, and what’s more, this narrative and the conversation surrounding it are not only being lead by those who are white and male, but they exclude Muslim women themselves entirely. I loved this essay, and now, reviewing this, I’ve realised just how much Nafisa Bakkar’s essay continues to resonate with me and will continue to do so. The Clothes of My Faith by Afia Ahmed

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What does it mean, exactly, to be a Muslim woman in the West today? According to the media, it’s all about the burqa. Here’s what it’s really about.” It’s Not About the Burqa is a timely collection of essays by Muslim women in the U.K. — poets, writers, journalists, lawyers, engineers, researchers – on a panoply of subjects ranging from clothing and sex to marriage, divorce, discrimination, immigration, mental health and representation. But I remember the aunties. They liked to gather around and compare notes on minor ailments as a leisurely pastime; an opportunity to flaunt their martyrdom and indulge in a touch of the Bollywood melodrama they enjoyed so much. The sweet spot was having a condition that was in no way chronic or serious (that would be a mood killer) but still involved substantial effort to power through. And the more unnecessary that effort, the better.”

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Moving, witty, enlightening and empowering - this is an anthology that, regardless of what walk of life you come from, should be considered compulsory reading. As much as Islamophobia, another prominent theme that is interwoven throughout the collection is feminism. I have generally been avoiding white feminism because it doesn’t serve me, and the more I inhabit spaces outside of my community, the more I realise that my gender doesn’t seem to be much of the issue, but more so my faith and race. This meant that I wasn’t as passionate as I would have liked to be in the portions where feminism was explored in a Western context, however, Mariam Khan’s ‘ Feminism Needs to Die’ was an essay that I felt has echoed and given voice to my more recent concerns. And if they do not give us the mic to speak, we build our own stage – I was never a fan of their stage anyway; how correct it stood, how sturdy and mute, how cold it was.” – Raifa Rafiq It’s Not About the Burqa by Mariam Khan (Editor)

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