Suicide Bomb
“America, they don’t even let aid workers help. Many charities, they want to help, but America limit them. America restricts how much help they can do for Iraqis.” Ali notices my confused look. “Like I told you, America needs to keep the chaos in Iraq.”

KADDISH FOR SADDAM HUSSEIN
Fat Habibi was a thorn in my side. He was an oversized bully who thought I was weak and would bow down to his imperialistic fatness spread out all over his now gone thighs resembling an egg. He tried to trip me once, by putting out his leg, and I regained myself and shoved him until he lost his balance. Very lucky for him that our shift manager was in the vicinity and I did not continue. That was some very good luck for him, let me tell you, for I would have defeated him like Iraq did America in the war for the Gulf.

Tell It Like Mama James
string of shots broke through the silence. I heard metal ricochet off of metal: not a careless accident between cars and nothing romantic like knight-swords clashing in a fight to win over some lady. But I saw Dante's car, stalled at the intersection, engine humming and two of his friends hauling around the corner so they could make it out before the sirens came looking for them, guilt left behind in the skid marks of his tires.

Excerpt from Mohja Kahf's New Novel, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf
ISBN-13: 978-0-7867-1519-0 $15.95 (Canada Yes) Trade Paper 448pp, 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 Fiction/Literature FICTION / Literary FIC019000 Spring 2006 Rights: W Carroll & Graf release date Aug. 23 2006. There had always been the telephone, providing its staticky...

Don’t Let Your Kaffiyeh Show!
By Fawzy Zablah She was a fat, white, woman with a double chin. Her hair was short, curly, brown with silver streaks. And her huge arms, well, they reminded Nabil of sea cows beached in the sand. She called to...

Stapleton Hall
By Pamela Taylor The campus was beautiful, just what one would expect from a seminary. White stucco buildings, pristine against the grey-green foothills of the Diablo Mountains of Northern California and a flawless sky of cobalt, circled a broad expanse...

Introducing MWUzine: Call for Submissions
To submit your story, email: mwuzine@muslimwakeup.com We are pleased to announce the upcoming launch of a new literary magazine from the publishers of muslimwakeup.com: MWUzine. The editors of MWUzine (as in "muse-zine") are looking for quality fiction with interesting...

The Ending to a Failed Novel
It’s not easy to look at a big slab of white paper, a hundred thousand words and ten months or whatever and realize that you’re not doing anything with it, that it was meant for your shelf and your shelf alone, but maybe some of Ben Majnun could be salvaged.

Exiled by Large, Luminous Eyes
Max is the son of a village imam. He feels bad about selling liquor. Whenever he has time, Max tells Zee how he would like to pull out of this business and open a grocery store. “Next year, God willing. Next year,” he says as Zee nods his head in affirmation.

Meet the New Jack Novelists: Review of Madras on Rainy Days
She is the first novelist to write about Indian Muslims who really gets it.

Jum'a with the Punks: An Excerpt from The Taqwacores
"...back then she didn’t have patches on it or anything. Back then we prayed together, and we did it right. Right times, right ways. That was before Rabeya started demanding to lead salat, and before all these haram influences came in--khamr, zina, before all these parties.” More or less, Umar was saying before Jehangir Tabari. “Even me,” he said to my surprise. “Even me, brother.”

A Tale of One Vicious Man and How He Didn't Listen to His People
By Um AyaImages by Jahanshah Javid, Iranian.com Once upon a time there lived a man whose soul was dark and ugly, whose vicious eyes sought everything that didn’t belong to him, and whose corrupted mind worked out schemes to...