A beauty pageant in Nigeria was the flashpoint for a cultural, political, and religious war in this impoverished country with its crumbling infrastructure. Set against the conflict between the Muslim north and the Christian south, the Miss World contest came to an ironic and devastating end as beautiful young ladies from many nations around the world, scantily clad by Muslim standards, were to compete during the holy month of Ramadan. The charming young women were bewildered by the calamitous effect their appearance was to cause in this Islamic state.

A 21-year-old Nigerian woman journalist, Isioma Daniel, was covering the event for a local paper. She had studied abroad but had returned, believing she could make a contribution to her country. In her news article, "The World at Their Feet" she casually wrote "What would Mohammed think? He would probably have chosen a wife from the contestants."

Those words inflamed the mullahs and incited riots that turned Muslims against Christians in bloody rampages. Hundreds of people were killed and dozens of villages destroyed. The office of her paper in northern Nigeria was burned to the ground. Before the dust settled, the pageant had been cancelled, the beauty queens had fled, and Isioma escaped into exile with a "fatwa" issued against her life.

Salman Rushdie, Ken Wiwa (son of the martyred activist Ken Saro-Wiwa) and Judy Bachrach of Vanity Fair offer their perspective on the human rights issues.

Middle East Studies Association, 2007
National Women's Studies Association, 2008