About 10 years ago Saudi women started returning home from abroad with fresh law degrees and were ready to take on the world. And they are still waiting. Last week, the Minister of Justice, Muhammad Al Eisa, announced that Saudi judicial system will "eventually" make way for female lawyers to...

Nearly a year after Saudi King Abdullah warned religious scholars that issuing careless fatwas gives extremists credibility as religious experts, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Call, Guidance and Endowment has finally said enough is enough.

Recently the Ministry issued a memo that fatwas were not to be issued to just...

Something got lost in all the outrage last week over the conviction and lashing sentence of the 22-year-old Saudi woman journalist who worked for the Lebanese Broadcasting Corp (LBC). What exactly is the LBC doing to support their journalist?

The answer is absolutely nothing.

According to a Reuters report this...

Perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of Saudi society in the non-Arab world is the myth that all Saudi women are banned from driving cars. Read any English-language news periodical and the message is absolute: It's illegal for Saudi women to drive.

Well, that's kinda-sorta-usually-but-not-always true.

For decades, Saudi...

It came as something of a shock when I learned the other day that the number of domestic violence cases in Saudi Arabia does not exceed 650.

What a relief to live in a country where violence against women and children is virtually non-existent. This good news comes from none...

A New Jersey mosque is planning a national day of prayer on Sept. 25 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., that expects to draw as many as 50,000 Muslims from across the United States. No signs, no politics. Just prayer.

This appears to be the first such event held...

In case anybody hasn't noticed, hooliganism is now part of the fabric of democracy.

An incident occurred last week in Birmingham, England, that gained little notice outside the UK but sent shockwaves through some British communities. Dozens of people were arrested last weekend following a protest by followers of the...

Last year a Saudi/French archeological team made a major discovery at Madain Saleh. Pottery and metal and wooden tools were unearthed at Al Diwan and at Ethlib mountain.

The discoveries at Madain Saleh pose something of a dilemma for Saudis. We Saudis are not particularly eager to look for pre-Islamic...

A battle is brewing among Saudi women over the touchy issue of male guardianship. Pressure from outside Saudi Arabia has been building to abolish guardianship laws, and a number of women who fashion themselves as activists have led the charge.

Perhaps the most visible is Wajeha Al-Huwaider, a Saudi who...

Last week I had the only nasty encounter with British teenagers in the two years I have been living in Newcastle.

My sister-in-law and I were standing on a train platform to catch a train to city center when some loud teens walked up and called us "little rats"...

Saudi businesswomen have found themselves in a position that may make a lot of people uncomfortable.

What's hardly news to Saudi women but may come as a surprise to the West is that Saudi businesswomen carry tremendous influence in the Kingdom despite the disadvantages they face. Equally important is that...

One of the puzzling aspects about being a Saudi woman is the pressure from family, peers and even society to be a good Muslim woman. Be modest in public. Show your charms to your husband at home. We have an obligation to look our best.

Equally puzzling are the obstacles...

Muslim women locked in a tyrannical chokehold by Muslim men can rest easy. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is ready to rescue us.

In a breathtaking moment of hubris, Sarkozy in a speech to France's Parliament said there is no place for the burqa in France.

"In our country, we...

I finally discovered the threat to my well-being as a Muslim living in the West. His name is Dick Cheney.

At first I thought the threat was the anti-hijabers who want to pass laws banning head scarves in public buildings because they seek to liberate the Muslimah from an oppressive...

With the Iranian election fiasco that saw President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win by an unlikely 63 percent, the U.S. government would do well to take a page from its own recent presidential election history.

Allegations still reverberate today that George Bush stole the 2000 election from Al Gore. And no matter...

If there ever was a speech by an American president that detailed the complexities of the Middle East with simple common sense it was President Barack Obama's historic foreign policy address Thursday in Cairo to the Muslim world.

Although the tangibles I had hoped for were missing, Obama's speech...

President Obama's trip to Saudi Arabia this week to meet with King Abdullah has raised the expectations of Arabs so high that Obama might set himself up for failure.

Obama's five-day swing through Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Germany and France promises to engage the worldwide Muslim community "based upon mutual interests...