Assalam-alaikam to all of my lovely readers and the wayfarer who happen to come across this blog and stop a while. Peace and blessings insh’Allah. I haven’t written in a little while for various reasons – my laptop giving me problems, taking ages to re-install software, or just the general business of life. But I […]

My mum is one of those cooks whose technique has been hones through forty years of cooking and complaints from a fussy husband and picky kids. All of us siblings and out spouses savour her cooking, and especially on Eid when we all gather to have lunch together and she makes her lamb pilau. This […]

A strange thing happened to me yesterday (I love it when I get to start a post that way). I was just finishing up my chores and getting the kids to bed when the doorbell rang. It was an elderly lady I see sometimes going past my house or shopping nearby with her husband.  She […]

Mohammed M. Mahdi, Mohammed A. Mahdi, and Anthony Duncan are the Soapy Soap Guys, the entrepreneurs behind the artisanal soap business: the Soapy Soap Company. Their brand came about through a desire to create a more natural, functional bar of soap.  They have recently launched their new website: DesignMySoap.com, the world’s first online soap-making studio […]

We have such a set pattern for our Eids: I cook in the morning, we get ready, we go to my mums for lunch, the whole family gather. We eat mum’s beautiful food, we joke and laugh, we exchange gifts and spent the afternoon taking photos, mostly of the gaggle of cheeky little girls we […]

I hosted Eid the first day and decided to invite as many close and extended family as I could muster and get everyone fed in one go.  I am a big believer that where two eat, three can share and where 20 can eat, another 10 can squeeze in insh’Allah. I planned the food a […]

I regularly come across things that make me sit up, take notice or feel moved. The Love, Learn Inspire List collates all of the fabulous stuff I come across in real life, online and across social media. This is a place for me to be completely frivolous or self-indulgent if I want to, my only […]

I’ve started writing half a dozen posts today and not gotten very far, starting, stopping, starting and then deleting most of it. I can’t seem to hold a sensible thought and then follow it to its conclusion.  I think the pace of modern life and scrolling through scraps on the internet have broken my brain […]

Last week was out staff Eid party.  Part of my job is to encourage staff to understand and celebrate the diversity of our communities and also our staff.  One way of doing this is through staff events.  Last year we held an event telling people about Ramadan and a staff Eid lunch.  For our first […]

For my cousin’s wedding, my aunt invited us to a party for dua (supplication) and naseehah (advice) for the bride. This was something we had not heard of before. In our family, the minute a wedding is announced, we just want to party like a bunch of heathens. I wore one of my favourite outfits […]

When I think of the abayh, the long, loose dress that many Muslim women wear, I think of how elegant it looks: image source or how chic: image source or how smart and conservative: When I see sisters wearing it, I usually think the same, especially some of the younger sisters who really know how […]

We have been home for about four weeks now and fallen into an easy going school routine. Right in the beginning my youngest two and I sat down together and agreed what a school day should look like. I let them take the lead and they ended up with the following simple routine: Sports/PE English […]

What sights are you thankful for? Alhamdulillah so many, I am a very visual person and enjoy beauty, coupled with the fact I have very poor eyesight since childhood, I am thankful for so many of the sights I have been blessed with, the ones that stick out are: My children’s beautiful faces Pretty clothes […]

My husband is away for dawah work again this month. For those who are regular readers of the blog, you will know that my husband goes out to preach through his masjid every year for forty days (through a group called Tablighi Jamaat).  It is something we believe in and value and has been a part […]