Fig & Olive

Once I heard that horses keep going until they cannot, i.e. they work until they collapse and die. If you’ve read Animal Farm you may remember Boxer, he was the horse who adopted the motto “I will work harder”. There are so many lessons in that book and so many warnings. But despite his hard […]

Let what go? All of it. All of the dreams you thought you’d accomplish by now. All of the hope you put in this or that thing, let it go. Sometimes we reach a point in our adult life, look around and ask: What in God’s name happened? And often we don’t have answers for […]

My parents never told me I had to “work twice as hard as white people to be half as successful” and I’m glad they didn’t. We grew up in a black working-class neighborhood yet my siblings and I have gone all around the world and back not because we had a ton of money rather […]

One thing I’ve never done quite well is sleep. Not that I don’t sleep, I probably sleep too much, but not well. I’ve been told that the best sleep is sleep before 11 pm. So it doesn’t exactly surprise me that my habit to sleep around 1 am doesn’t exactly work. I wake up late […]

There’s no denying that in Islam meat-eating is permissible there are in fact occasions when eating meat is highly encouraged and others where killing animals is a necessity. In short, we have the undeniable right to kill some animals and eat them. This does not mean that the purpose of animals is to be slaughtered […]

This coat is 56% cotton, 44% virgin wool and made in the USA. Classic, chic and timeless and presumably long-lasting, it’s the kind of coat I’d buy, it costs $3,950. The sticker shock took me back for a moment, $3,950… so if I had a full-time job -which I don’t, paying $12 an hour (though I […]

In our times joining a spiritual path, following a leader and relocating ones whole life to do so is meet with strange confusion and possible weariness. Rabia Al Adawi once famously pointed us to “The Neighbor”, her choice of abode (Paradise for those God grants His mercy) was not drawn by a deep interest in […]

In order to be more purposeful in my spending on worthy causes specifically and on anyone but myself in general I’ve decided to donate 10% of the money I have each month. I’m the queen of forgetful but I hope to keep this up every month and writing this little post will help me do […]

I’m not sure if it’s just common knowledge of the saints, hadith, or in the Quran but the idea that the sinner forgets and therefore those who want to strengthen their memory should leave off sin came to my mind on my cab ride home. I’m about to take on a heavy load of studying, […]

The process of weight loss primarily through calorie counting has really helped me begin to understand the body. For instance I could never understand how morbidly obese people could lose weight in astonishing amounts over short periods of time while most of us find it difficult to lose weight the less overweight we are. For […]