Many Muslim women – particularly Muslim tribal women – face daunting problems in numerous countries today as a result of the “war on terror” era conflicts that have taken men away from homes and threaten the often-fragile security of the families left behind. Traditionally independently minded and distinct Muslim tribal societies who live by a code of honor and are governed by councils of elders, from West Africa to South Asia, have been locked in brutal conflicts with central governments that, for decades, have sought to control them and subsume them into a centralized system.