Fig & Olive

A few years ago, the New York Times published an article on black fatherhood. It felt like an exercise in gaslighting and propaganda. While the article didn’t lie in any technical sense, it did pervert the truth for its own interests. According to data from the Center for Disease Control; black fathers who don’t live […]

حَدَّثَنَا دَاوُدُ بْنُ أُمَيَّةَ، حَدَّثَنَا سُفْيَانُ بْنُ عُيَيْنَةَ، عَنْ مُحَمَّدِ بْنِ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ، مَوْلَى أَبِي طَلْحَةَ عَنْ كُرَيْبٍ، عَنِ ابْنِ عَبَّاسٍ، قَالَ خَرَجَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم مِنْ عِنْدِ جُوَيْرِيَةَ – وَكَانَ اسْمُهَا بَرَّةَ فَحَوَّلَ اسْمَهَا – فَخَرَجَ وَهِيَ فِي مُصَلاَّهَا وَرَجَعَ وَهِيَ فِي مُصَلاَّهَا فَقَالَ ‏”‏ لَمْ تَزَالِي فِي مُصَلاَّكِ هَذَا ‏”‏ […]

Naively I thought the crisis of black marriage would be solved if only we could get people married. If we could convince black people of marriage’s benefits, we could solve our marriage crisis. It’s not that I thought such a cultural shift would be easy but at the very least it would give us a […]

If you’ve never read Animal Farm by George Orwell, you will likely have a hard time following this post. Here’s a quick summary of the book’s characters that you may want to read before reading the post.  It’s the final act of horror. Shear dread as one animal streaks at the site of it. It […]

As the story goes, a woman’s husband comes to her stating his desire to marry a widow —wanting her husband to herself and her family as is, she refuses and he does not go through with the marriage. Time passes, her husband dies, and she becomes a widow. A married man offers to marry her […]

For so long women have begged to be in men’s spaces —we demanded more women at work, more women CEOs, more women in college. Day after day we pounded on the “boys-only” clubs demanding they let us in. Screaming foul and hurling accusations of injustice when there was any space left with only men. By […]

I’ve noticed a growing sentiment among young women, that is, their unsurety (and sometimes outright rejection) around getting married. They often fall into two categories: fear of the rights men have over women in marriage (ex: Do I have to obey him?), while others are happy with their life as is and look forward to the many adventures […]

The community survived after the Sheikh’s death, who was already old upon its inception. The remaining members who had been bright-eyed young adults —hippies looking for meaning, were now elders, and somehow still bright-eyed. Years ago we’d spent one of the last days of Ramadan there; my mom, two of my sisters, and myself. In […]

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Sometimes I have to realize that being a black women privies me to different conversations and a different reality from fellow Muslim women (at least the dominant voices). While they find their footing in Feminism, question obeying their husbands, desire easier access to divorce, and assert their independence (But Khadijah Worked). In the black community, […]