Features
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Danila Jonnud, Hampshire If, like me, you’re ethnically non-white, chances are this is a familiar question. On hearing it in primary school, I’d respond defiantly “I’m from HERE”, which didn’t convince those asking as they’d repeat it emphasising the “really” part. That would confuse me; I’ve answered, what else do you want to know? Of
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When the word ‘the’ brought new meaning and a re-evaluation of my mother tongue, and myself Iffat Mirza Rashid, Bentley “I like the idea of knowing it, but I don’t think I want to sit in a class and learn it” is something I said to my Spanish teacher as a 16-year-old as he tried
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Danila Jonnud, Hampshire When I found out about World Hello Day, funnily enough, the first thing that came to mind was a scene from the CBBC show Horrible Histories which I loved watching as a child. The sketch I remembered featured a fictionalised re-enactment of the first telephone call, where the recipient was so surprised
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Ayesha Naseem Mirza, Walsall In school, we regularly learnt about the British values of respect, tolerance, democracy and freedom. Teachers drew constant attention to these values and how we should all try and emulate them in our daily life. It is only with more education, experience of the world and the way people and societies
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Maleeha Mansur, Hayes I remember as a child being curious about the concept of shyness and stage fright, a fascination rooted from alienation with the concept. Why were children and adults frightened of speaking in public? I failed to comprehend the challenge and what I certainly lacked was sympathy – until I was faced with
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Navida Sayed, London Every year, thousands of Ahmadi Muslim women and girls congregate at a national two-day gathering called Ijtema. The worldwide Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, His Holiness Mirza Masroor Ahmad(may Allah be his Helper) at an Ijtema address stated that the “Ijtema itself was a proof of the freedom and independence Islam
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Nabila Khalid, Bury Friday at school would be spent repeatedly checking the clock in anticipation for home time. As soon as it was 3pm we would rush home, change, grab our bags (which we had packed and repacked weeks in advance) and head to the mosque where women and girls from around the region would
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Yusra Dahri, Islamabad This year, we thought that the Jalsa would be defined by the pandemic. Turns out – in true British fashion – it ended up being defined by the weather. Masks were not the talk of the makeshift village, but the humble wellington boot. Social distance doesn’t seem that big of a deal
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Danila Jonnud, Hampshire For over a year now, everything has been “From Home”. Work from home, school from home, our community meetings from home, Ramadan, Eid Prayers, Friday Prayers all from home. Everything had to be done from home. This included our annual Jalsa Salana – a convention usually of over 30,000 people travelling from
Voice of British Muslim Women 