Toronto Star "FIFA to vote on lifting hijab ban, Prince Ali says scarf poses no danger"

Sertac Sehlikoglu Karakas is a PhD candidate in social anthropology at the University of Cambridge. The Turkish-Canadian is owner of the blog muslimwomeninsports.

Sehlikoglu Karakas says “sports is an important tool to empower women” but it’s wrong to assume all Muslim women are carbon copies of each other. For instance, the Istanbul native notes FIFA’s current ban doesn’t exclude Muslims females who don’t wear head scarves.

“(The term) ‘Muslim women’ is not a single group looking, thinking and feeling similar,” Sehlikoglu Karakas writes in an email.

“So, such a (soccer) ban drives away one group of Muslim women who believe in modesty and prefer to observe Islam in terms of dress code. These women often face bans in international games and cannot participate. However, it is equally important to recognize that there are Muslim sportswomen who have been competing in international games for decades . . . who do not follow Islamic dress codes or simply do not believe that such a dress code (i.e. headscarf) is Islamic.”

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2012/03/03/fifa_to_vote_on_lifting_hijab_ban_prince_ali_says_scarf_poses_no_danger.html

Associated Press "New Sports Uniforms Level Playing Field for Muslim Girls”

2015. “New Sports Uniforms Level Playing Field for Muslim Girls” Interviewed by Jeff Baenen from Associated Press as an expert. Reprinted in, among others, Huffington Post, New York Times, and Daily Mail, July 1. https://apnews.com/3c170781841044779758f082cdd07742/new-sports-uniforms-level-playing-field-muslim-girls

Majalla Magazine: Celebrating Female Muslim Athletes: The Out of Towners

2012. “Celebrating Female Muslim Athletes: The Out of Towners” Quoted extensively as an expert in Arwa Aburawa’s article on the media’s unhealthy focus on hijab-wearing athletes at Majalla Magazine, August 16. http://eng.majalla.com/2012/08/article55233592/celebrating-female-muslim-athletes " However as Sertaç Sehlikoglu who explores Muslim women’s role in sports at the University of Cambridge explains, the recent focus on female Muslim athletes wearing the hijab means that the achievements of non-hijab wearing Muslim athletes are often neglected. And yet, it is with these non-hijab wearing Muslim athletes that the legacy of Muslim women at the Olympics begins. “Historically, Muslim women without the hijab have been involved in international games for much longer than those who do wear some form of the hijab,” explains Sertaç Sehlikoglu. “Suat Aşeni and Halet Çambel were the first Muslim women at the Olympics and they represented Turkey at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Huffington Post "London 2012: Jews, Sikhs, Hindus root for fellow believers in Olympics"

2012. “London 2012: Jews, Sikhs, Hindus root for fellow believers in Olympics” Interviewed in Omar Sacirbay’s news article at Huffington News’ Religion section at Huffington Post, January 8 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/jews-sikhs-hindus-olympics_n_1730991.html Sertac Sehlikoglu, who runs the Muslim Women In Sports blog, noted that Muslim women follow Muslim female athletes because sports can be a vehicle for female empowerment. “Muslim women — especially those living in non-Muslim contexts — are very much interested in female Olympians coming from their home countries as much as they are interested in those coming from other Muslim countries,” said Sehlikoglu.

Sehlikoglu's Media Appearances

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