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Religion

Alone and Pregnant at 15, I Had To Choose Between an Abortion and My Faith

A Struggle Over Faith and Abortion

The story of how I had a change of heart about abortion is a journey of a thousand miles, 2 million steps, and I am unable to trace from memory what each of those steps were. But now that I am “pro-choice,” I find myself feeling angry about the way liberals ridicule and caricature those living within the conservative paradigms.

Muslim Matchmaking Goes Online

A Match Made in Heaven

The rise of online dating across the world in the past two decades seems to have changed the way Muslims in the United States meet and get married. Frustrated with the arranged marriages their parents attempt to broker, and the restrictions their faith and tradition impose on them, as well as the pressure from their families to get married at an early age, hundreds of thousands of Muslims have embraced the new technology.

Why Scholars of Islam Disagree About the Age of the Prophet Muhammad’s Youngest Wife

Why Scholars of Islam Disagree About the Age of the Prophet Muhammad’s Youngest Wife

An informed and nuanced debate about the marriage of Aisha and Muhammad among Muslims would allow us to better reckon with the prophet’s legacy, and would better inform debates across the Muslim world, as governments consider the ways that their interpretations of religious laws impact the lives of women and children.

A New Saudi Show Challenges ‘Halal’ Sex Rings

A New Saudi Show Challenges ‘Halal’ Sex Rings

The provocative plot of the newly released show “Dahaya Halal” (Halal Victims) — an allusion to the operation’s apparent compliance with religious law, since none of the victims was committing adultery or fornication — has stirred drama, with people from across the Arab world going as far as calling for it to be pulled off the air. It was already taken off when it first began airing in 2020, but it returned this month.

The Muezzin and the Meowzin

The Muezzin and the Meowzin

As the proud owner of a 12-year-old white Havanese, Malik, I have experienced these conflicting views about dogs in the Middle East. I wondered, as the author of several books on contemporary Islam, what these views say about the religion today and Islam as a lived tradition.

Behind the Hamline University Incident — with Erika López Prater and Christiane Gruber

Behind the Hamline University Incident — with Erika López Prater and Christiane Gruber

Erika López Prater, a former adjunct professor at Hamline University, showed students medieval depictions of the Prophet Muhammad for an art history class. Her contract was not renewed and the incident became the center of a nationwide controversy. Alongside Islamic art historian Christiane Gruber, she joins New Lines magazine’s Rasha Elass to discuss the rich variety of artistic traditions within Islam and unpack the complicated web of factors behind the current controversy.

Islamic Art Is Pivotal for Understanding the Richness of the Muslim World

Islamic Art Is Pivotal for Understanding the Richness of the Muslim World

The Hamline furore underscores how critical it is to liberate historical Islamic art from today's polarized politics, in the interests of students and the overarching scholarly quest for knowledge.