Hyphen • 16th May 2024

‘This is just the beginning, revolutions take time’: the artists capturing women’s resistance

“If you want to change the world then it has to come from the ones who are most oppressed,” says visual artist Poulomi Basu.

This tension lies at the heart of the South London Gallery’s current exhibition, Acts of Resistance: Photography, Feminisms and the Art of Protest. The exhibition showcases the work of 16 international artists who focus on women’s rights struggles over the past decade, from the

Hyphen • 28th March 2024

Areeb Siddiqui: ‘Do Muslims actually care about banking without compromise? Absolutely they do’

From finding an interest-free savings account to looking for Sharia-compliant products such as mortgages, CEO Areeb Siddiqui’s halal money app, Kestrl, hopes to solve Muslims’ personal finance dilemmas.

Before launching the start-up in 2019, Siddiqui — who grew up in London — worked in the financial services sector, for firms such as Deloitte and PwC, and studied for an MBA at Cambridge University’s Judge Business School.

The 32-year-old’s app has 25,000 users in the UK, and 300,000 in Malaysi

Hyphen • 1st February 2024

The journey to my hijab-iversary has been liberating and enriching

More than just a piece of fabric that I wear on my head, I have found a whole new outlook on life

As the annual 1 February celebration of World Hijab Day has drawn closer, I have found myself reflecting upon my own experiences. It has been a full year since I decided to wear the hijab and my journey has been a powerful and liberating one. It all started at the end of 2022, when I was going through a rough patch in my personal l

Hyphen • 25th January 2024

Dina Aziz: ‘The aim of this planner is to help Muslims in their journey with Islam’

The social media influencer on her forthcoming book, which helps Muslims plan and reflect on their fasts during Ramadan

When 25-year-old British-Bangladeshi influencer Dina Aziz first posted a guide to Ramadan, she had no idea how successful it would be. But within 24 hours of tweeting about her planner, her PDF was downloaded more than one million times.

Aziz, a modest fashion and lifestyle influencer from London with more than 67,000 followers, first began sharing her thoughts about Ramadan

Hyphen • 7th December 2023

Khalid Ashraf: ‘Some people in mosques say it’s not allowed to use sign language’

The co-founder of Deaf Muslim UK on making Islam more accessible to people who are hard of hearing, and why we should all learn to sign

Khalid Ashraf, from Leeds, was born hearing but suddenly lost his ability as a young child. Now 56, he is the co-founder of Deaf Muslim UK, the country’s first organisation dedicated to assisting and advocating for Muslims who are hard of hearing in the UK and around the world.

Ashraf was one of the first ever deaf Muslims to complete an MA in Islamic Studies

Hyphen • 26th October 2023

Faduma Farah: ‘Let disabled people enjoy shopping and buy clothes off the rack’

The fashion brand founder on her mission to bring a pop of colour to adaptive clothing

In 2011, Faduma Farah contracted meningitis. The disease left her temporarily paralysed from the neck down and she has been a wheelchair user ever since. When Farah found that she couldn’t get hold of stylish clothes that met her needs, she decided to create her own fashion line, tailored to people with disabilities.

Now 46, London-based Farah is the founder of Faduma’s Fellowship, an adaptive fashion initia

Hyphen • 12th October 2023

Yazz Ahmed: ‘I was told I play instruments like a man’

The Bahraini-British jazz trumpeter on the power of fusing musical genres

Yazz Ahmed is a composer and trumpeter, who describes herself on Twitter as the “high priestess of psychedelic Arabic jazz”. Her signature sound fuses the rhythms and melodic structures of Arab and modern classical music with syncopated improvisation.

Born in the Persian Gulf to a Bahraini father and an English mother, Ahmed struggled to find her own identity after moving to London as a child. She began to take an intere

Hyphen • 20th July 2023

Saima Duhare: ‘I want to conquer every Muslim kitchen in the UK’

The halal recipe box entrepreneur talks about her mission to change the way we eat

Remember when going to the supermarket to pick up piles of groceries was a highly anticipated weekly ritual? Now, as our working lives get busier, many people are turning to recipe boxes in an effort to eat fresh, healthy food.

Founded by Saima Duhare from Willesden Green, north-west London, the subscription-based It’s Halal launched online in April 2019 to provide tasty, easy-to-prepare meals for Muslims across

Hyphen • 12th July 2023

Kew gardens: The spiritual life of plants

A new book and exhibition at Kew Gardens explore the role played in the Qur’an by trees, fruits, flowers and herbs

Kew Gardens is renowned as the largest and most diverse botanical collection in the world. Founded in 1840, the south-west London site has thousands of living species in glasshouses and outdoor plots across its 330-acre setting.

Now, visitors to the Unesco World Heritage site can view date palms, pomegranate buds and toothbrush trees intricately detailed in a series of watercolour

Hyphen • 6th July 2023

Lucy Bushill-Matthews: ‘Nearly 4,000 Muslims applied for financial aid in a month’

The National Zakat Foundation’s chief operating officer talks about the challenges faced by charities during the cost of living crisis and the generosity of donors

Lucy Bushill-Matthews, 51, is the chief operating officer at the National Zakat Foundation. She is also the author of the book Welcome to Islam: A Convert’s Tale. At 19-years-old, while at Cambridge University, Bushill-Matthews embraced Islam, married and wore the hijab for the first time.

Working in the third sector for the past 15

Hyphen • 8th June 2023

Ismael Lea South Q&A: ‘Hip-hop started my journey to Islam’

The director of the Salam Project talks about old-school rap, youth work and the power of positivity

Ismael Lea South is a rapper from Willesden, north-west London, and director of the Salam Project, a youth outreach enterprise that aims to challenge Islamophobia. Born into a Jamaican Christian family, he has loved hip-hop culture since he was a teenager. Now 50 years old, he converted to Islam aged 20, inspired to explore the faith by references to figures such as Malcolm X and Arabic words in

Hyphen • 30th May 2023

‘There are many hidden Muslim gems in London’s history’

AbdulMaalik Tailor, the founder of Muslim History Tours, is on a mission to show everyone an often-ignored side of the UK capital

On a warm, sunny Wednesday morning, AbdulMaalik Tailor stood by the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, sporting a bright red fez. He was waiting for a group of year 5 children from Loughborough Primary School in Brixton to begin a tour of London as they had never seen it before.

The children arrived with their

Hyphen • 25th May 2023

Shabna Begum: ‘Solidarity across different communities makes a difference’

The author of a new history of the Bangladeshi squatters’ movement on the inextricable links between poor housing and racism

Shabna Begum is the director of research at the Runnymede Trust, a leading independent race equality thinktank in the UK. She is also the author of From Sylhet to Spitalfields, a recently published exploration of the hidden history of the Bangladeshi squatters’ movement in 1970s east London.

The movement began when the growing Bangladeshi communities of Spitalfields and

Hyphen • 21st April 2023

‘The war against drugs needs to be reimagined in a new way’

Inside the organisations helping Muslims with substance abuse issues during Ramadan

“I would score an hour before iftar, but it would be too early and I couldn’t control myself so I’d just end up using,” says Raf, who started using cannabis at the age of 14 and by 20 was taking cocaine regularly. “My thinking around it was, ‘As long as I fast during the day it’s OK.’ It was crazy.”

For the past four years, Raf, 35, has worked as a su

Hyphen • 22nd March 2023

Ramadan lights up London’s West End

As 1.3 million UK Muslims prepare for a month of fasting, over 30,000 lights were switched on by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London

The first ever Ramadan light display in Europe has illuminated Piccadilly Circus, London, to celebrate the start of the holy month.

The lights, which were revealed to the public on 11 March and curated by Ramadan Lights UK, show the different phases of the moon throughout Ramadan.

Joined by community, business leaders and influencers, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan swit

Hyphen • 9th February 2023

Shabaz Ali Q&A: “I have 1.4 million followers – but I'm not given the same opportunities as my white counterparts”

The TikTok star on going viral and why he’s not giving up his day job


Like countless others, you may have seen Shabaz Ali’s popular social media posts or caught him on the Channel 4 reality TV show The Circle.

The 30-year-old from Blackburn, who is a secondary school teacher by day and a well-known TikTokker by night, has gained millions of followers by producing and starring in hundreds of reaction videos and skits.

Ali’s comedy takes on topical and often controversial themes of race and c

Hyphen • 12th January 2023

Haroon Rashid Q&A: ‘Radio makes people feel part of a bigger family’

The star host at the BBC Asian Network talks about his new show, and his favourite Bollywood stars

For many British Asians, BBC Asian Network has become a go-to station for both music and cultural conversation. The channel recently celebrated its 20 year anniversary with a night of live music performances hosted in Birmingham. We spoke to Haroon Rashid, one of the channel’s star hosts. The 31 year-old from Hounslow, West London, began his journey as an entertainment reporter in 2014 at the BBC

Hyphen • 14th December 2022

Understanding the menopause: why it’s good to talk

Female health issues are often a stigma in minority communities. The solution is better education and more awareness

Shahnaz Latif experienced menopause for a decade before the national average age of 50. I asked her if she had ever had any conversations with her mother about the immediate and long-term effects of the menopause.

“Absolutely not. I still don’t speak about it with the immediate family, apart from jokingly,” said Latif, now 50,

Hyphen • 24th November 2022

Stories of movement and beauty at the London Migration Film Festival

In venues across the capital, the seventh edition of this annual event features cinema from Mexico, Argentina, Lebanon and more

The typical depiction of migrants is either as “villain or victorious”, according to Saliha Majeed-Hajaj, a co-founder of London-based advocacy group the Migration Collective. “We want to challenge the negative, narrow rhetoric and give a platform to illustrate movement and mobility,” she said.

That

Hyphen • 23rd November 2022

Behind the scenes of Europe’s biggest Asian wedding show

Exhibitors from around the UK gathered to flaunt their latest creations, from expensive jewellery to the latest bridal designs. Photography by Saima Khalid

Budding brides and grooms came in large numbers to visit the National Asian Wedding Show, Europe’s largest Asian wedding exhibition, on November 20 in London.

Hundreds of exhibitors gathered inside the Novotel West in Hammersmith, showcasing the latest in jewellery and clothing desig

Hyphen • 26th October 2022

London's rooftop beekeeper

Bushwood Bees has more than 60 hives across the capital. We met its founder Salma Attan, collecting honey on top of East London Mosque. Photographed for Hyphen by Hanna-Katrina Jedrosz

Overlooking the busy streets of Whitechapel and the UK capital’s financial district, the rooftop of East London Mosque might seem like an incongruous place to find thousands of bees, but the site has been home to a collection of hives for more than a decade.

The colony was brought to the mosque by Salma Attan, f

Hyphen • 8th September 2022

How is the UK’s cost of living crisis affecting British Muslims?

Three finance and debt specialists talk about rising costs and how to budget in the months ahead

Families and individuals across the UK are feeling the effect of the worst cost of living crisis in decades. Energy and food prices have soared, and inflation has risen to 10%, leaving millions struggling to make ends meet. According to a Muslim Council of Britain analysis of government data from 2016, around 50% of Muslims in the UK

Hyphen • 26th August 2022

Quick Style Q&A: ‘We didn't know who BTS were when they contacted us’

Norwegian dance group Quick Style talk about their collaboration with the K-pop kings and their viral wedding video

Founded by Norwegian-Pakistani twin brothers Suleman and Bilal Malik and their friend Nasir Sirikhan, the dance group Quick Style recently notched up over 58 million views on YouTube after posting a joyful 12-minute wedding dance routine.

Since their formation in 2006, Quick Style have received a number of accolades, including winning Norske Talenter — the Norwegian version of Br

Hyphen • 25th July 2022

Imran Ahmed Q&A: 'Tech companies are creating a toxic environment for Muslims'

The proliferation of online hate on social media platforms has become a daily challenge for everyone, including governments, technology activists and members of marginalised communities. Global events such as Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing refugee crisis have led to soaring levels of internet-based abuse.

Anti-Muslim posts and campaigns are particularly prevalent on social media. A recent report from the London and Washington DC-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) rev