Colonialism, culture and courtesans by Rafia Zakaria

Rafia Zakaria

FOILED rebellions, soiled as they are with loss, are often forgotten rebellions. So it has been, in large part, for the War of Independence of 1857-1858, when the Muslims of India, along with others, made their stand against the colonising British. Where the men who led that doomed effort to fend off colonialism are largely forgotten, it is no surprise that women have been shoved to even deeper depths of historical memory.

Lessons from US elections-by Rafia Zakaria

Rafia Zakaria

THE day before elections in the United States, Khizr Khan, the now famous Pakistani-American father, campaigned for Hillary Clinton in the state of New Hampshire. “Will Trump’s America have room for someone like my son?” he asked the crowd. In the months before the US election, American Muslims, likely galvanised by the fear-mongering rhetoric of Donald Trump, registered in record numbers.

Hijab and fashion written by Rafia Zakaria

Rafia Zakaria

A LITTLE over a month ago, history was made at the New York Fashion Week. An Indonesian fashion designer named Anniesa Hasibuan became the first Indonesian designer invited to participate in the event. Hasibuan also made history of a different sort: her designs were the first in the history of the New York Fashion Week to feature the hijab. Hasibuan’s models, attired in flowing gowns and pants of silk and lace, all

Art and tolerance written Rafia Zakaria

Rafia Zakaria

SOMEWHERE late in the 1500s, after he had been king for many years, Emperor Akbar asked one of the Jesuit priests then in the Mughal Empire for a copy of the Holy Bible. It was this act that led to the commissioning of a manuscript known as the Mirat-ul-Quds, or the ‘mirror of holiness’, that tells of the life of Jesus.

After Survival written by Rafia Zakaria

Rafia Zakaria   The writer is an attorney  teaching constitutional law  and political philosophy

After Survival 

LAST week, a young Yazidi woman named Nadia Murad was awarded the Vaclav Havel Human Rights Award. Her story is a truly harrowing one. In July 2014, Nadia was just an ordinary girl living in the village of Kocho in northern Iraq. In her own words, she lived a simple life, with little idea of just how harrowing life could become.

Yazidis, members of an ancient religious sect, have