Featured Posts
Female Literary Heroines: Women’s History Month
Women have been fighting patriarchy using the power of the pen throughout history. Their novels, stories and poems are evidence of the suppression of women and blatant gender inequality. Unfortunately, patriarchal societies are still in existence. It is only in the past century that there has been progressive change for women, but the gender pay gap and the #metoo movement suggest there is still more to do.
The story of Lady Evelyn Cobbold: First British Woman to go to Hajj
The ‘Bird Summons’ by Leila Aboulela is about three Muslim women in Scotland who embark on a quest to visit the remote grave of a Scottish aristocrat, Lady Evelyn Cobbold, who converted to Islam in the nineteenth century. Lady Evelyn was born in 1867. She adopted the Muslim name ‘Zainab’ and is known as the first British woman to perform the hajj pilgrimage in 1933. She wrote a book about her experience, ‘Pilgrimage to Mecca’.
A female-led whirling dervish group based in Afghanistan, is reclaiming the country’s deep-rooted Sufi heritage.