sister-hood is an award-winning digital magazine spotlighting the diverse voices of women of Muslim heritage.

Author

Maz Halima

A freelance writer, media researcher and general mad woman. Catch me running around in London City. Read more at mazhalima.com.
Experiences

Take care of yourself this Ramadan

Ramadan always brings a mix of emotions for me – relief, excitement, reflection and anxiety that I won’t be good enough to fulfil the requirements that come with the Muslim holy month. Ramadan is predominantly known as a time for…

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Experiences

Changing the script on romance

Before Lockdown 2.0, my boyfriend and I went to a comedy show in our local manor in South London. The need to socially distance meant the crowd was intimate – 16 of us squished onto little tables in a cafe,…

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Reviews

Legacies

Riz Ahmed’s latest offering feels very apt for 2020, since its central theme dances around the fear intrinsic to the reality of our lives. Riz plays Zed, a British Pakistani rapper in New York. On the cusp of ‘making it’,…

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Reviews

“Honour” and anger

Banaz Mahmod was born in Iraq in 1985. When she was just ten years old, her father fled Iraq, and sought asylum with his wife and five daughters in Mitcham, South London. Banaz was just four years older than me:…

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Poetry

Not your spice girl

I am more than spices, mango in the summer, cinnamon in the winter, cardamom to feel good, cloves for a cold There is so much more to my heritage than magic ingredients More than the saffron, the cumin, turmeric that…

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Experiences

Is God a feminist?

Pa·tri·arch·y A system of society or government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family Nothing should deter me from my deen. Yet, for my whole life, I have tried to shut out the opinions of…

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Experiences

My alcoholic mother

I was fortunate enough to grow up with my mother around, and I know I should be grateful for that. But the reality is that she was never mentally there. I never got to know who she really is –…

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Experiences

The boy in my room

As a Pakistani woman, I have only ever brought one man to my house to meet my father. It was because I thought he might be the one I would marry. It turned out he was a jerk, so we…

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Experiences

I didn’t realise it was abuse

My counsellor let her glasses fall slightly down her nose so I could see directly into her eyes. ‘Do you think this is emotional abuse?’ she asked softly, curiously. I’d told her about my latest row with Dave*. I chuckled…

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Experiences

What Ancestry tests really tell us

I am a British Pakistani, born in London. Both my mother and father were born in Lahore, Pakistan. I can’t speak my mother tongue and I know little to nothing about my ethnic culture. What can I say? They didn’t…

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Experiences

Hair-raising

‘Ooh, you do have thick hair don’t you?’ the hairdresser said, as she ran a roller brush through a large lock of strands, twisting it outwards with a force that made my head jerk violently with it. ‘Yes it is…

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