Assalamualikum jazakallahu

Assalamualikum jazakallahu khairan ...my name is sohail make dua for me that I reach to the level of suhayl ibn amr

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Shahira Yusuf: 'I have always felt beautiful'

Signed by the model agency that discovered Kate Moss, Londoner Shahira Yusuf is the outspoken and politically engaged muslim model who is fast becoming the new face of ‘modest fashion’

When Shahira Yusuf signed with Storm Models, the first thing she did was sit down with her agent and write a list. These were her “boundaries”, the rules that stylists and photographers should be made aware of before a shoot. She must have her arms covered, she must have her chest covered, and her hair. She must not be expected to wear clothes that are very tight, nor anything that makes her feel uncomfortable. “I’m fully prepared for some people not to like me, but it’s just as possible that would be because I’m a woman as because I wear the hijab,” she says. “But I’m firm, and headstrong, and I’m not going to succumb to negative voices.”

The office of an international model agency is an interesting place in which to consider beauty. In reception a middle-aged man makes notes on the products he needs to buy to perfect his teenage daughter’s hair – she wobbles down the corridor in heels re-learning how to walk. The walls are covered with head shots: these are the faces that sell things, and these are the faces that define, for a season anyway, what beauty is. When only white girls, when only white girls with blonde hair and flat chests and shiny skin lead fashion campaigns and appear on the covers of magazines, then the implication is that other types of women are not beautiful. The impact of that ripples through women’s lives, influencing their self-worth, their identities, the limits of what is possible. Which is why this stuff matters. It matters that 21-year-old Yusuf, the youngest of eight siblings brought up in Stratford, east London, was signed by the agency that discovered Kate Moss. It matters that she is being promoted as the new face of “modest fashion”. Although, she says, matter-of-factly, “I have always felt beautiful.”

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from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2C4FXgd

The far-right activist and the editor: how paper ‘sows division’ where an MP died

Danny Lockwood’s outspoken editorials and his meeting with Tommy Robinson have split opinion in Batley, home town of murdered MP Jo Cox

In the centre of Batley stands Jo Cox House, named after the MP murdered by a rightwing extremist during the EU referendum campaign. For many in the West Yorkshire town it stands as a reminder of the perils of extremism and the need for unity. Close by stand the offices of the town’s weekly newspaper, whose editor and proprietor is accused of aggravating community tensions through a series of anti-Muslim opinion pieces.

In January, Danny Lockwood, owner of The Press, met Tommy Robinson, former English Defence League leader and notorious Islamo-phobe, near Jo Cox House to discuss how the town’s Muslim and “established” white community were “completely at odds with each other”.

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from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2wBh9GK

The dark secret of Thailand’s child brides

Underage Muslim girls are regularly forced into marriage with Malaysian men, and the government turns a blind eye

One day this summer, 11-year-old Ayu married 41-year-old Che Abdul Karim Che Hamid at a small pink mosque on the banks of the Golok river in the far south of Thailand. Earlier that morning, Che Abdul Karim and his soon-to-be child bride had travelled over the border from Malaysia into the Thai province of Narathiwat for the wedding. After a short ceremony at 11am and a trip to the Islamic Council offices to get their marriage certificate stamped, the couple crossed back over the border. Ayu, was now Che Abdul Karim’s third wife.

In Malaysia, where men can legally marry girls under 18 if they get Islamic sharia court approval, Ayu’s case caused a national outcry in parliament and protests on the streets. But over the border in Thailand, where the controversial union took place, the response by the government and religious authorities has been notably muted.

A girl raped in her village was taken to a shelter, but the Islamic Council visited to try to make her marry her rapist

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from Islam | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Pr42Q1