Muslim - The African Mirror

May

2023

Abdellah Taïa is Morocco’s first openly gay writer – his work reimagines being Muslim, queer and African

ABDELLAH Taïa was born in 1973 in Rabat, Morocco. He currently lives in Paris. He is the first writer from North Africa – and in fact the Arab world – to openly declare that he is gay. In 2006, he came out in a highly publicised article in the Moroccan magazine Tel Quel. This was considered scandalous by conservative Muslims. Authors GIBSON NCUBE, Lecturer, Stellenbosch University ADRIAAN VAN KLINKEN, Professor of Religion and African Studies, University of Leeds Being queer is often seen as conflicting with being religious. Yet, in African contexts – as in other parts of the world…

Apr

2022

By The African Mirror

Rising food costs hamper Senegal Ramadan traditions

NEWS

NGOUDA DIONE THERE was no meat in the large silver bowl around which Astou Mandiang and her family gathered after breaking fast at nightfall in Senegal's capital Dakar, where Muslims celebrating the holy month of Ramadan are feeling the pinch of inflation. Food prices in West Africa have shot up by between 20% and 30% over the past five years, with drought and conflict pushing millions off farmland and stalling food production, aid agencies say. At the same time, border closures during the pandemic have disrupted supply chains. The war in Ukraine is likely to add even more pressure on…

Jul

2021

By The African Mirror

Dalit and Muslim Indian women leading change in South Sudan

WORLD

MARIYA SALIM TWO Indian women, one Muslim and the other Dalit (former untouchables), separated by culture and geography, have found common ground in leading change in conflict-torn South Sudan. Rama Hansraj, a Dalit, grew up in a humble railway colony in Secunderabad. Huma Khan, a Muslim, born and raised in the controversial north Indian city of Faizabad, now Ayodhya, home to the demolished Babri Masjid. Both agree their personal experiences of experiencing and seeing discrimination in India and the world led to their decisions to work in the international humanitarian field in conflict zones. The women are activists and feminists who, through…

May

2021

By The African Mirror

Football versus faith – the Ramadan conundrum

RELIGION

MAHER MEZAHI WHEN Senegalese striker Demba Ba got off to a slow start with Newcastle United after joining them in July 2011, his coach, Alan Pardew, blamed it on his decision to fast during the holy month of Ramadan. “It’s difficult for strikers. Fasting takes their sharpness away,” Pardew said in a post-match interview. A devout Muslim, Ba partakes in the annual custom of abstaining from food and drink from sunrise to sunset throughout the ninth month in the Muslim calendar. Fasting during Ramadan is obligatory for all able-bodied Muslims. Special exemptions are made for children, the elderly, those who…

Nov

2020

By The African Mirror

In wake of attacks, one French Muslim asks: does my country love me?

WORLD

ELIZABETH PINEAU NAOUELLE Garnoussi is a devout Muslim who was brought up in France, prays five times a day, enjoys her job working with local communities and covets her designer handbag. Raised by her grandparents - one Muslim, the other Catholic - the 36-year-old identifies as French, and defends France's secular values that separate religion from the state in public life. Yet in the aftermath of a spate of Islamist attacks she has begun to feel increasingly alienated in her own country. Compatriots tend to see her as a Muslim first, she said, and the government's response to the violence…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

France warns citizens to be cautious as anger seethes in Muslim world over cartoons

WORLD

CHRISTIAN LOWE and ANDREW OSBORN FRANCE warned its citizens in several Muslim-majority countries to take extra security precautions on Tuesday as anger surged over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, and the head of Russia's Chechnya region said Paris was pushing people towards terrorism. In Bangladesh, thousands of protesters marched through the capital, with some stamping on a poster of French President Emmanuel Macron, and Iran summoned the French charge d'affaires to register a protest over the cartoons. But in a sign that some countries want to limit the fallout, Saudi Arabia - while condemning the cartoons - held back from…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

Morocco condemns publication of Prophet Mohammad cartoons

RELIGION

MOROCCO’S foreign ministry says the continuing publication of "offensive" cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad is an act of provocation. French media published the caricatures of the Prophet, which were also projected on some buildings, after the beheading of a French professor by an Islamist radical earlier this month. While condemning savage acts perpetrated in the name of Islam, "Morocco denounces these provocations offending the sacredness of the Islamic religion," the foreign ministry said in a statement. France has faced a backlash from a number of Muslim countries over the cartoons, including boycotts of French products. - Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

South African high court prohibits Muslim call to prayer. Why it got it wrong

RELIGION

HELENA VAN COLLER, Associate Professor in Public Law, Rhodes University THE High Court in Durban, the port city in KwaZulu-Natal on the east coast of South Africa, has granted an interdict against a mosque, stopping its call to prayer (the athaan or adhan) because it can be heard from a neighbour’s house across the street. The neighbour had complained that the noise deprived him of the enjoyment of his property and interrupted his peace and quiet. The court found that the constitutional right to freedom of religion did not guarantee the practice of the religion in the form of the…