Saudi women win victory in lingerie shops

Saudi Arabia: A new law which bans men from working in lingerie shops in Saudi Arabia is being hailed as a significant victory in the campaign for equal rights.

The law will give women in the closed desert kingdom an opportunity to work in shopping malls for the first time.

Ibrahim Al Mugaiteeb from Saudi Arabia's Human Rights First Society says men selling women underwear is un-Islamic, but that did not stop religious clerics fighting against the change.

"This is the hypocrisy of some religious people who interpret the rulings of Islam, otherwise you would think they would be fighting for that," he said.

"No man should deal with a woman about her underwear.

"The march has started - realising full rights for women in Saudi Arabia. I don't think anything can stop it now."

Since King Abdullah took over in 2005, Saudi Arabia has seen progress in women's rights.

Women will vote in the 2014 municipal elections and are now allowed to attend university, but there is a long way to go.

Women still cannot drive and are governed by guardianship laws.

Eman Al Nafjan, 33, is living in Riyadh with her husband and three children. She teaches English, is writing her PhD and blogs about women's rights.

She, like many of her friends, buys her lingerie overseas.
 

"I have several friends who only buy their lingerie when they leave the country. I have had friends who've had the guy behind the counter make inappropriate comments about their bra size, about things like that.

The changes to the law mean some of the 28 per cent of unemployed Saudi women will now have jobs and be able to support themselves.

Ms Al Nafjan says there is still a great deal of opposition. The Saudi Arabian Grand Mufti railed against it at last Friday's prayers.

"Last Saturday we had a member of the highest Islamic council, he gave a Friday sermon about how this is very dangerous and we shouldn't go through with it," she said.

"It's very significant. It's going to cause social change to have women working in the malls. It might seem like nothing to people in the West, but it's still a responsibility and it's still an opportunity to show society that women are just as responsible and capable as men."

Ms Al Nafjan says she is enjoying buying her underwear from women.

"The other day I was in the mall and I didn't need any lingerie or anything, but I just stood at the door and I was so happy to see them. It's a fantastic change," she said.

Source: ABC News

Muslim Women For Jon Stewart 2012

US: Buried in the "controversy" over Bradley Cooper's selection as People magazine's most recent Sexiest Man Alive is a little known fact:

If you had polled American Muslim women the winner would have been -- wait for it -- Jon Stewart.

Every Monday through Thursday, thousands of Muslim women across the country eagerly tune in to Comedy Central to watch The Daily Show -- ok, let's be real -- we're really tuning in to check out Jon.

With his great hair, fine Armani suits, intelligence, and deadpan delivery, what's not to love? Plus, he speaks truth to power, often on social justice issues and current events that impact minorities, including the American Muslim community.

He gets it.
 

Look, sometimes it's tiring being a Muslim in America. Like all other Americans, we're suffering through the recession, worried about job security, our mortgages and whether we'll be able to afford health insurance. But, unlike other Americans, we can't escape the bad news by turning on the TV because whenever we do that there's YET ANOTHER opportunist saying something crazy about us!
 

So it's a relief to know that, regardless of how the day's events are spun on cable news and by politicos, we can come home after a long day at work, take off our heels, slip into something more comfortable and -- spend the night with Jon.
 

He's been on the right side of every faux controversy involving Muslims, from Park51 to calling out politicians and pundits who use Islam or Muslims as a wedge issue or to score cheap election year political points. He did it again most recently in a segment discussing Lowe's decision to pull its ads from the TLC show All-American Muslim after the show became the target of a boycott campaign by the fringe group, Florida Family Association. Their problem? The show features "ordinary folk while excluding many Islamic believers whose agenda poses a clear and present danger to the liberties and traditional values that the majority of Americans cherish."
 

With a baffled look on his handsome face, Jon asked, "Why would you be upset to learn that there are non-Jihadi Muslims?"

Exactly.

While the cable news brings fringe groups into every American's living room, thereby inflating their sense of self-importance and expanding their impact, Jon Stewart exposes their prejudices and shrinks them down to their real -- itsy bitsy -- size.
 

Within minutes of the segment airing, half of our Muslim girlfriends on Facebook posted the link with comments such as, "<3 Jon!!!," "Stewart 2012," "looooove," and "I <3 Jon Stewart... and my husband is ok with that!"
 

But can Muslim women really love Jon Stewart, who is -- gasp! -- Jewish? Honestly, that makes it even better.

The Daily Show's Senior Muslim Correspondent Aasif Mandvi may be a suitable boy to bring home to our parents, but the element of forbidden fruit makes Jon all the sexier. (And, we suspect our moms might have a thing for Jon too.)
 

As we ring in 2012, we're putting it out there now: To avoid a Ryan Gosling type "he was robbed!" scenario for this year's People magazine's selection, skip the controversy and embrace what Muslim women already know -- Jon Stewart is America's Sexiest Man Alive!
 

Ayesha Mattu & Nura Maznavi are the co-editors of the upcoming anthology, "Love, InshAllah: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women" (Soft Skull Press).
 

Source: The Huffington Post

The World's Youngest Microsoft Certified Professional Is In Critical Condition 

PAKISTAN: Arfa Karim Randhawa, the Pakistani girl who stunned the world by becoming the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional and was received and awarded by Microsoft owner Bill Gates in 2005, is fighting for life at Combined Medical Hospital (Lahore) for the last seven days. She is in a state of comma and is on ventilator.

The 16-year-old Arfa, also recipient of many other awards, is a student of Lahore Grammar School's Paragon Campus in her second year of A Levels. On December 22, she suffered fits and was admitted to the hospital. She is unconscious since Dec 28. Arfa Karim was born in 1995 at Faisalabad.

At the age of 9 years, she became the youngest MCP in the world — MCP involves building programs into broader systems for business. Arfa was invited by Bill Gates to visit the Microsoft Headquarters in the USA when she was only 10 years old. In August 2005, Arfa Karim also awarded the Fatimah Jinnah Gold Medal in the field of Science and Technology by then Prime Minister. She also received the Salaam Pakistan Youth Award, again in 2005 by then President of Pakistan.

Arfa Karim is also the recipient of the Presidential Award for Pride of Performance. It is to be mentioned here that Arfa is still the youngest recipient of that award. She also represented Pakistan on various international forums. She was invited by the IT Professionals of Dubai for a stay of two weeks in Dubai. A dinner reception was hosted for her there, which was attended by the diagnostics of Dubai including the Ambassador of Pakistan.

During that trip, Arfa was presented with various medals and awards. She also flew a plane in a flying club in Dubai at the age of 10, and received the first flight certificate. In November 2006, Arfa was invited by Microsoft to be a part of the keynote session in the Tech-Ed Developers conference held in Barcelona. The theme of the conference was "Get ahead of the game" and Arfa was presented as a true specimen of being ahead of the game. She was the only Pakistani among over 5,000 developers in that conference. Arfa's father Col (R) Amjad Karim Randhawa has appealed to the public to pray for her swift recovery.

More Moroccan women propose to men
 

MOROCCO: Analysts in Morocco attribute the rise in the number of women proposing to men to a campaign that wants to promote principles of gender equality. In conservative societies, it is always expected of men to take the initiative as far as marriage proposals are concerned and girls who decide to reverse the situation are likely to be criticized for breaking a long-standing tradition. The remarkable rise in the number of women proposing to men in Morocco has shed more light on the phenomenon and drove many to analyze the reasons for its prevalence.

“I proposed to my husband,” Naeema al-Mansouri told Al Arabiya.

Mansouri recounted the time she met the woman that later became her mother-in-law and offered to marry her son.

“We were in a wedding and I met her there. Another woman asked her how her son was and she said he found a job and was looking for a wife. I told her that I can make a good wife for her son and that I am good at cooking and household chores.”

The woman, Mansouri added, told her that she likes her and that she has no problem with her marrying her son, but said he has to decide when he gets to see her.

“I met him and he liked me. He said he would marry me provided that we live with his mother who would feel lonely if we lived away from her. I agreed and now she is like a mother to me.”

Hend, a woman in her thirties, first proposed to her future husband jokingly. “I told him I am willing to bring a bunch of flowers and ask him to marry me,” she told Al Arabiya.

Hend added that he asked her whether she was serious and she told him that “the man who refuses to divorce his wife when she asks for it is not a man and so is the man who refuses to marry a woman when she asks for it.”

“Of course I am a man,” he replied then went to visit her parents with their family.

Hassan al-Haithami, editor-in-chief of the Justice and Development Party’s website, does not mind marrying a woman who proposes to him as long as she has all the traits he needs in a wife.
 

“There is nothing wrong with a woman asking a man to marry her. These are feelings and you cannot control them and decide who says what. There is nothing insulting for a woman to do that. In fact, I find it very brave,” he told Al Arabiya.

Rukaia Zayed, a housewife and a mother of four, disagreed to this breach of traditions.

“If a woman proposes to my (son) and he agreed, I will disown him forever,” she told Al Arabiya.

Zayed explained that in this case she will discover what a weak personality her son has and how indifferent he is to the social and family norms in which he was brought up.

For sociologist and university professor Abdul Samad al-Dialmi, the rise in the number of women proposing to men is part of a female campaign to promote the principles of gender equality.

“Moroccan women are proving that they will not surrender to spinsterhood and that she has the right to tell a man if she likes him and wants to marry him because they are equal,” he told Al Arabiya.

Dialmi objected to regarding this action on the part of women as too daring and argued that society has to admit that this is one of women’s rights.
 

Abdul Razek al-Jay, professor of Sunna at Rabat University and member of the Scientific Circle for Islamic Studies, said that men are usually the ones who propose to women because this is what tradition has always dictated, yet there is nothing wrong with it from the religious point of view.

“Prophet Mohamed’s first wife Khadija was the one who proposed to him, yet this has not been part of the Sunnah because it is not socially common,” he told Al Arabiya.

Jay explained that Islam is the religion of equality and that is why it is the woman’s right to propose to a man if she finds in him the traits she seeks.
 

“The only problem would be if the woman proposes to the man because of how rich or handsome he is and without paying attention to his morals. She will in this case have fallen into the trap of imitating Mexican and Turkish soap operas that have lately invaded the Arab world,” he concluded.

Source: altmuslimah

Q: Dear Kareema, I’ve been seeing my physiotherapist regularly for treatment over the past
6-8 weeks to ease my sore back. He’s given me the all clear for exercises which involves no
rotation through the torso. Which are some safe one’s I can do while I’m at the gym?

A: Start nice and easy and build up strength as you go. Don’t do any of the fitness classes as yet.
I’d start with mini-circuits using the rower, bicycle, treadmill, etc. These are great for cardio fitness and core strength with no rotation involved. Be sure that you have great posture throughout, and be mindful of your back at all times. Keep your physio updated with each visit and keep challenging yourself as you get stronger.
 

Q: Dear Flightstar Fozi, when we travel overseas we are always concerned about taking lots of money over, what do you suggest is the best way to take money overseas? 

A: There are a number of options in taking money overseas. Firstly you can take cash, remembering that there is a $AUD10 000 limit in taking money outside the country. Cash is obviously easiest to handle, but it also has the highest risk in case it is stolen or lost in luggage. You purchase local currency, which you can buy at the airport, or just take over a major currency that is easy to change ie. Australian Dollar, US Dollar or UK Pound or Euro.

Another option is the old favourite travellers cheques. You can buy these from many different currency exchange places or banks. It is similar to a normal cheque, except they are your money. You can cash them at hotels, money exchange, or banks, and sometimes shops take them also. They are quite safe, as you have to usually present your passport when you cash a travellers cheque. Always keep a record of your cheque numbers in a different place in case they get lost.

 
You also can take a cash passport, which you can buy at places like Travelex or even Australia Post. This is like a debit card, you put an amount into your cash passport and then you can use the card like a normal visa card, you can withdraw local currency at ATMs, but you can only use the amount of money you have put into the account.

Finally, you can take over your own credit card and use it overseas. To be safest, it is best to take a combination of those options, as you don't want to be stranded overseas if you lose all your money. Don't forget though that when you use any cards overseas you will be charged fees so take that into account also.