Friday Magazine

Reclaim your Sunday evenings, Monday can wait a little longer.

*Team Friday do not take responsibility for the chaos that may ensue tomorrow. 🫠

“Too often, we are taught that being a good Muslim woman, a good daughter, a good mother, means smoothing ourselves out, quietening our edges, and meeting everyone else’s expectations.

But I am here to say: you weren’t meant to lose yourself in your roles. You were meant to bring yourself fully into them.

The world doesn’t need another quiet, apologetic version of you. It needs your boldness, your intellect, your laughter, your critique, and yes, even your frustration. All of it.

It’s time to show up, fully, unapologetically, as you.”

Maryam Javaid’s Maryam | TEDx Speaker | Parenting & Intergenerational Healing Closing Words were the perfect sign off for our Identity edition but they were also words that deserve to be read over and over again.

The conversations, stories and essays throughout this particular edition were meant to open an awareness in Muslim women, that Identity work is something that needs our attention, effort, and constant renewal.

Whether Maryam’s words or any others you read in this edition, we know you’ll be walking a little taller once you strengthen your identity too.

“I came here for you,” my dad would say to us kids. “Why else would I spend six months of the year in the freezing cold when I don’t even speak French?”

The foundations of our Maslowian pyramid have been secured. We are educated. We are housed. We are employed. We have provided for ourselves and our families successfully.

And yet, rather than moving beyond the self, many of us remain fixated on preservation, of comfort, of status, of ease, leaving little room for much else.

Like the grown elephant who does not realize it is no longer bound by the small peg in the ground, we too have failed to recognize that we are safe to progress beyond survival mode. That we can detach from the status quo and walk an alternate path.

For the Identity edition, badil.alt reflected on something many children of immigrants are experiencing as a result of searching for purpose, also fueled by host societies that demand gratitude while simultaneously reminding them of their ‘otherness’.

Read the full piece by Badil in Identity, available to subscribe or order at the link in the bio.

✨ Photographers, artists, illustrators, muas, fashion creators, designers, image makers of all kinds… we need YOU 🫵🏼

FRIDAY has always been written by Muslim women, for Muslim women – and now we want to give creatives the same opportunities.

For edition #04 we are opening submissions for images of all kinds (stills only) to print alongside our curated stories and essays.

If you create imagery for professional or passion, submit your entries by Friday 18th September for a chance to be featured.

All successful entries will be credited in print and on our website and socials, and receive physical copies of the magazine for their portfolio 📷

Know someone else who’d be great at this too? Tag them and share the khayr 🫶🏼

Comment “I’M IN” and we’ll DM you the info 🫱🏼‍🫲🏽

“You can’t have it all.”
“You’re doing too much.”
“Jack-of-all-trades.”
“Pick one. Build a career or raise a family.”

As women, we’re often encouraged to conform to a single role or identity. As Muslim women, especially, we face so many societal and cultural pressures to follow a specific path, limiting our options in both personal and professional life. Yet, as cliché as it sounds, the sky’s the limit and Muslim women continue to embrace their multifaceted identities, making waves across their respective fields.

For the Identity edition, Muminah Koleoso 🇳🇬🇬🇧Muminah K | Award-Winning Writer, Poet & Content Creator interviewed Sahra-Isha Muhammad Jones Sahra-Isha Jennifer
Ogunyemi Jennifer Ogunyemi - Business coach | Speaker and Dr Muti’ah Badru Muti'ah Badruddeen on how their multihyphenate journeys really look, how they came to be so, and what advice they’d give to embrace yours fully.

Read the full lowdown in Embracing Multiplicity in the Identity edition, available to subscribe and order at the link in the bio.