It’s a short and (mostly) visual roundup today.

Sometimes there are just no (written) words when (moving) pictures can say it all.

Enjoy Muslims just being real!

1) Maryam Ismail has an interesting take on a recent panel discussion held during the opening of Sadaf Sayed’s iCover exhibition at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization.

Responding with “the modern Muslim woman is who she chooses to be” Ismail asks:

Where did this image of the oppressed Muslim woman come from and when will this battle against it stop? … Today, it seems there is the idea that under one’s hijab lies some mystical inner working, one that needs to be covered up by another layer of normality…

Why should it be a special event if a woman who wears a hijab decides to be a fencer or a ballerina? Is it out of the realm of faith? Some may not think so and others may not care. Then, there may be another premise: that wearing the hijab will show the world that Muslim women have arrived. However, I think that if this is the case, they may end up being the oldest debutantes at the ball.

Match point.

I have to say that I LOVE seeing awesome, strong Muslimahs rocking out in their hijab. But do I love them because they mirror what I do on a Friday night, or because they apparently SMASH current stereotypes of the submissive veiled (groan) woman?

Muslimah’s shouldn’t need a surfboard or a boxing glove to augment their hijab just to be considered normal. Discuss.

2) What is this? –>>

I think it’s a lovely, albeit unfortunate piece of Islamic Calligraphy.

What do YOU think it is?

Find out how community members’ dirty minds won the right to deface their mosque, and read more hilarious awkwardness at Wajahat Ali and Aman Ali’s new project: Hair in New Places.

(seriously… WHAT were they THINKING?!)

3) Wondering what REAL Muslims looks like. Without the pressures of hijabs, beards, surfboards or boxing gloves?

Interested in seeing just plain, normal, fantastic, boring, amazing, neighbourly humans who happen to be Muslim?

Well now you can with Todd Drake’s “Muslim Self Portraits” project profiling (haha) Muslims in North Carolina and Manama, Bahrain “to create self-portraits that share real, rather than seeming, reflections of self to a wider audience.”

4) And unless you’ve taken a self-imposed holiday from any form of social or digital media, you just might have heard about the Sh*it People Say meme that’s sweeping teh internetz.

Naturally, Muslims had to get on board.

I give you:

And my personal favourite, Stuff Hijabis Say:

 

You can’t argue with “is my hair showing?” “what is up with the drama in the MSA?” gritting your teeth through auntie interrogation and getting your dance on to Nari Narien!

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