Fig & Olive

I have to say that for a while I was of the “you don’t have to change your name when you become Muslim” camp —which is technically true. You do not have to take on a “Muslim name” when you convert to Islam but my reasons expanded beyond this reality. My dad named his three eldest […]

The problem with forgoing rights is that you still know they belong to you, you may forgo them if everything is good but once there’s a crack in other areas that rocky foundation starts to fall apart. A friend may not ask you for the money they loaned you but if you go too long […]

Maria Belsky is the co-writer of ‘Handmaid’s Tale: The Musical’ but she is probably best known for her Twitter thread (and Twitter handle) on ‘Headless women’ in Hollywood. The thread lines up the worst examples of movie posters that use women’s bodies while ‘cutting off’ their heads. The images are perturbing but what does a […]

Women have a conflicting relationship with equality. On one end we want to be equal to men. We want the same opportunities, even splitting of household chores and equal share of childcare, or so we claim. Women have had, since the beginning of the ‘equality project’ one foot towards equality and one foot towards differential […]

I’ve been on the slow of path minimalism —a concept I believe to be similar to the Islamic concept of zuhud, for a few years now. Stories of Sufis like Rabia Al Adawi and her possession of a single bowl and comb, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and his straw mat for […]

We find ourselves in discussions about modernity and re-interpreting Islam for our times. Christianity has had no problem doing this over the years, of course, ‘re-interpret’ is a misnomer for ‘ignore the sacred text’ but nevertheless churches have successfully become modernized places turning a blind eye to or supporting Zina, immodesty, homosexuality and the like. […]

If you’ve found Facebook becoming an overwhelming part of your life you might want to take a step back and rework your relationship with the social media platform. I’ve taken a complete break from Facebook (my personal page) for the past few weeks but if you’re not ready to completely sign off, below are a […]

This is my final post on fasting. It’s been tough to write this series not only because of the nature of the topic, mainly the difficulty of honest self-reflection, but also because of the difficulty in writing in ‘real time’. Most of my posts are about subject matters that I’ve had a long time to […]

This week (6/9- 6/15) wasn’t my best, I fasted on average about 13 hours a day. I think I began to get tired of fasting, even though it’s relatively easy for me to skip an early meal, I have days where I just don’t want to. I see myself going through the motions of toasting […]

My week didn’t turn out precisely as planned. My daily average fasting hours over the past week was 15 —one hour short of my goal. The actual day to day numbers varied: Monday: 19 Hrs Tuesday: 14.5 Hrs Wednesday: 16 Hrs Thursday: 14.5 Hrs Friday: 13 Hrs Saturday: 7 Hrs Sunday: 21.5 Hrs The easiest […]