I’m following the growing animosity towards conservative Muslim female attire with interest and trepidation. Burqas and Niqabs are far from en vogue with the authorities in many European countries, including France, Belgium and Turkey.

Another story of Burqa-based friction hit the news in December last year in Belgium as a Muslim woman was fined for wearing the full-body covering in public in Brussels.

Uncovering the Debate

The Belgian Muslim woman in question was stopped while taking her kids toa n Islamic school in the Etterbeek municipality of Brussels. She was spot fined 35 Euros for violating a local ban that prohibits covering the face in public places.

When she was detained for wearing her burqa a second time, the woman was fined 200 Euros. She refused to pay up and the issue went to court.

“The rule is the rule, and we must obey it,” local mayor Vincent De Wolf said, in an statement to Belgium’s La Capital Newspaper, recounted in RIA Novosti.

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Dating, in any obvious or open way, is illegal in Jeddah, and all over Saudi Arabia, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible, or so I learned reading an article in Arab News. The article reveals a DVD with young Saudi men airing their views on women and dating.

The DVD, entitled “Gurlz Vs Guyz” was released by a girls social club in Jeddah called Izzaty Islamy (“Islam is my Dignity”), was filmed in Jeddah and sold during Eid 2007 in malls citywide.

Izzaty Islamy was set up in 2005 and organizes discussions and debates at the Dar Al-Hekma College (for women) and the International Medical Center, both in Jeddah.

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Ladies: Getting married in Dubai? Got a wedding to go to and need some inspiration for your outfit, or just like getting into the wedding spirit? For all those in the mood for love, the Dubai Bride Show 2010 kicks off next month at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre, from April 4^th-10^th.

In the Business of Marriage

The Dubai Bride Show is the largest wedding and fashion event held anywhere in the Middle East, and this year’s event expects to entice some 50,000 visitors and over 300 exhibitors from every layer of the wedding industry. The Dubai show is the big sister of the Abu Dhabi Bride Show, which took place in February and showed record attendance.

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I know what you’re thinking, and trust me: the exact same thing flashed through my mind when I read about the Russian baby boy whose skin reportedly reveals verses from the Koran. “That’s gotta be a hoax right?”

Half an hour of Google-mining later and it seems various news sources covered the story at the end of October ’09. The boy, who hails from the Yakubov family, members of Dagestan’s Muslim community, has sparked controversy and intrigue across Russia.

Sayings from the Qur’an apparently appear on 9 month old Ali Yakubov’s back, arms, legs and stomach, fade and are replaced with new ones.

While some hail the inscriptions “miraculous” other Russians (like me) are downright confused. According to the Daily Mail, Russian doctors have been ruminating without conclusion over the cause of the marks on Ali’s skin. Apparently, it all started when Ali was a few weeks old and the word Allah appeared on his chin.

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Arab-American women have a reputation for being extraordinary cooks (easy… before you call me a male chauvinist pig, remember I’m a girl and I’m paying a compliment to my fellow female gourmands and gastronomic creators.)

Middle Eastern recipes are often passed down through families, although in my house, I claim my baba ganoush isn’t a patch on my mother’s who claims hers is not as good as my grandmothers… which means, historically, armies must have faltered and monarchs swooned as the eggplants got mashed in the kitchens of my matriarchal ancestors.

Cooking Up a Storm

Arab American women have not only proved consistent culinary prowess but are also taking it to new heights and wavelengths and permeating kitchens across the USA thanks to the Internet.

There’s a great article in the Saudi Gazette about two such fabulous tech-savvy female Arab-American chefs: Denise Hazime, Lebanese co-founder of DedeMed.com, and Alia Al-Kasimi, masterchef of Cooking with Alia: a menagerie of mouthwatering cuisine know-how and recipes from her native Morocco.

Both these incredible women promote the delicious alchemy of Middle Eastern food over the net, having earned glory among family and friends for their sorcery in the kitchen.

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I’ve been following the success of French fast-food chain “Quick” as eight of its 362 restaurants in France have stopped serving pork and started offering Halal burgers instead.

You won’t get bacon on your burger at any of these 8 outlets, each of which are located in Muslim neighbourhoods. Whilst French Muslims didn’t make the choice, sales indicate that the Muslim community appreciates the gesture, which has been in place since last November.

The pork-less Quick isn’t the first fast-food chain in France or indeed anywhere else to offer concessions to religious dietary concessions: Kosher McDonalds and Burger Kings have been around in Israel and the US for some time.

For Muslims, the move to purge pork from the menu means families can take their kids to fast food restaurants without having their choices limited to fish or vegetarian options.

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The Amman Comedy Festival is the only stand-up comedy festival in the Middle East and December 2009 marked the second edition of this weeklong rib-tickling extravaganza. The first, held in 2008, attracted an audience of over 3000 Jordanians and Arabs, and was such a resounding success, organizers the Greater Amman Municipality decided to do it all over again. The event is held in collaboration with the New York Arab American Comedy Festival and invites comedians from Jordan and other parts of the world to come and raise laughs.

I think the festival’s a great idea, and represents a wonderful, good-spirited way to dispel some of the stereotypes and misrepresentations of Arabs in the mainstream press.

Experts at Making Fun of Ourselves

Audience members laughed deep from their bellies, as comedians stood up and revealed some of the anecdotes of Arab life, from the inside. Two of the festival’s seven nights were dedicated to stand-up material in Arabic.

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I just watched an interesting MSNBC programme entitled More Couples Saying I do in Baghdad about how marriages are booming in Iraq and sure enough, the video features a very lively wedding taking place between a gorgeous young couple in their early 20s.

The young couple getting married swirl around, surrounded by champagne and cute taffeta-clad bridesmaids, before due to jet off to a honeymoon in Syria. You can see them cutting their wedding cake with a ceremonial sword while around 350 proud and relaxed-looking relatives smile warmly and boogie on down while the DJ cranks it up. The mother of the bride beams with pride as the happy couple chat to guests and float around the dance floor.

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The Iranian population has soared since the 1979 revolution and in 2005, over 70% of Iranians were under 30 years old. Like counterparts in other countries, this generation of young Iranian adults has been exposed to the Internet, satellite TV and all the gadgets and know-how that make the world a smaller place in the 21st Century.

I found a great PBS article, featuring a journal written by an Iranian woman in 2005 when internet dating surged in Iran. She was  surprised by the amount of potential dates that flood in to her computer via her IM service. The author first assumed the chats are coming in from Iranians in LA, but was intrigued to learn her would-be cyberdates are actually based in Tehran: She decided to investigate further.

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As you’ve probably gathered from the spectrum of different topics we cover at Love Habibi, we’re a site dedicated to all Muslims and Arabs trying to find their way in the world, a world that, at times has some very fixed ideas about our faith.

We consider ourselves proud Muslims who enjoy participating in any debate, and looking at our faith from inside and out. There are some topics, that repeatedly come up, and which we aim to present subjectively, but most of all objectively. One of these for me, as a Muslim woman is the burqa/niqab/hijab debate. These are actually three very different debates. Today I’m going to concentrate on a story about a Muslim woman in the Netherlands from Gulf News that spoke to me on a very deep level.

A Woman From the Netherlands who Chose Islam

The Netherlands has a population of around 1 million Muslims, who constitute around 5.5% of the population. It is home to the second largest European Muslim population after France.

The article, which is based on another from Reuters, focuses on Rabia Frank, a Dutch woman in her thirties, who converted to Islam in 1994. Rabia has a Moroccan husband and the couple have 3 sons.

In 2005 Rabia chose to join a total of just  50  women in the Netherlands and wear the niqab veil. I was intrigued by this woman’s decision. As the article unfolded it became apparent that this was her personal choice, just as so many women like myself choose not to wear a veil.

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