The Islamic meaning of the word hijāb actually means “modesty.” Though only women wear the Hijabs, modesty is not a gendered concept. Both men and women have the responsibility to retain their modesty by preventing physical attraction from the opposite sex. Since men and women have different physical attributes that attract the opposite sex, there […]

Who is Lebanon? You might have heard about Lebanon from the Media but you really need to question your knowledge about him. Lebanon is a survivor; he is a strong, smart, educated, cultivated, talented, ambitious and optimistic person. He is very peaceful; he loves everyone, all his fellow humans regardless to their gender, race or […]

Almost 70% of Americans own a smartphone nowadays, with the numbers constantly going up due to their “necessity” and even their affordability. A lot of people might think that North America is one of the highest populations to use a smartphone. Nope, the Asia-Pacific region contains almost a billion people using smartphones, while just over 500 […]

Most people do not realize that Islam is a rather diverse religion. Like Christianity, there are different sects of Islam. The two largest sects and most cited by American media, are Sunni and Shia. Although the two sects share similarities, they also have profound differences. The one difference I want to focus on is the […]

As many college-aged Americans do, I spend a lot of my free time watching Netflix. I was never really a binge-watcher, though, until I stumbled upon a little well-known television series called Breaking Bad. For my foreign counterparts, in case you don’t have the slightest clue as to the glorious show I am referring to, […]

Have you ever gotten a henna tattoo while on vacation or at a festival? Or have you ever consider what henna signifies in other cultures? From an American standpoint, I have always viewed hennas as an opportunity to get a “temporary tattoo” that last a few weeks. However, in the Middle East, henna signifies so […]

Believe it or not, but the Middle East was once the leading supplier of a resource that helped fuel today’s modern world. These items led the trade market years ago and were guarded by only the wealthiest of suppliers. I’m not referring to silver or gold. If fact, these items were so treasured, that their […]

Who doesn’t love country music? Well there’s actually a good number of people that don’t but there are also a lot of people that do, and I’m one of them. Country music is definitely unique to the United States in that it doesn’t resemble any other form of music and its lyrics usually pertain to […]

As a result of last week’s blog post, I received a comment that only motivated me to continue my focus on Islam and some of the common generalizations made. When listening to people speak about Islam and Muslims, I have been able to pin-point many misconceptions and a lot of them have been directed to […]

Approximately 40 Ohio University students have been displaced after a multiple structure fire occurred early Sunday morning along Union Street in uptown Athens. The fire began around 4:10 a.m. on Sunday, November 16 and was not entirely extinguished until 3:00 p.m. During this time, the flames spread to a total of five businesses, three of […]

In light of the recent accomplishments by the European Space Agency to land a probe on a comet for the first time today, I thought it would be interesting to explore the activities of space programs in the Middle East. It turns out that the only country making any serious moves to join space expeditions […]

There’s been news about ISIS being crippled after a successful airstrike by the United States against a compound apparently containing one of it’s main leaders, but there are other ways now that the people in the Middle East are battling the terror. A show called Dawlat al-Khurafa is becoming a popular TV hit in Iraq, […]

There is a huge underground culture forming amongst gay men in Saudi Arabia even though by law the act of homosexuality can be punishable by death. The strict division between genders, which is enforced by the Mutawwa’in, defiantly provokes these acts of homosexuality amongst Saudi men. The Mutawwa’in is the religious authority that is active […]

The word “Nakba” translates in Arabic to disaster or catastrophe in the informal and in a formal political setting gives the name of the event of the 1948 diaspora of Palestinian people from their homeland. Israeli’s call this the War of Independence and Palestinians and most Arab countries deem it the “Nakba”.  Palestinian Authority defines […]