For me, religious festivals and celebrations have become an important way to teach my children about how we can transform living with diversity from the superficial 'I eat ethnic food', to something dignified, mutually respectful and worthwhile.

Most Muslim women know it is fear and curiosity that cause people to stare. They know it is ignorance and stereotypes that cause people to suppose that a piece of material covering the hair strips a woman of the ability to speak English, pursue a career, work a remote control.

In a multicultural, diverse society there are countless ways in which people negotiate the everyday lived experience and reality of diversity.

I couldn't stop bawling, watching the towers come down. it was a terrible thing to happen. And a terrible thing to realize that I don't sit though the nigh crying when such horrors happen all the time.

I do most of my reading on the train ride to and from work. But I always have a book in my handbag so that I can read at any time, anywhere.

It's like one of those scenes from a feel-good Hollywood movie. Where everybody is happy and nobody's hair fizzes in the wind. Where it doesn't rain, your shoes stay comfortable all day, and everybody's jokes are funny.

there is more to this hijab than the whole modesty thing. These girls are strangers to me but I know that we all felt an amazing connection, a sense that this cloth binds us in some kind of universal sisterhood.