It’s high time I started a solidarity blog. I have been saying that for quite a while.

Since October 7, 2023, I have spent a great deal of my time creating products through my Etsy shop, Mama Habiba, particularly designs connected with Palestine and solidarity. Shirts, hats, bags, mugs and other things began appearing one after another, each of them coming from the same feeling: I wanted to do something.

Somewhere along the way, I also started building MamaHabiba.com.

The website was supposed to become a proper home for everything I was doing. The products, the ideas behind them, the causes that mattered to me, and perhaps a place to write about some of the things that cannot really be expressed on a T-shirt.

But the website never quite got finished.

Life kept moving. There were products to make, orders to deal with, designs to improve, new ideas arriving faster than I could complete the old ones, and eventually other projects as well.

Most recently, I became an author. That deserves a whole section of its own, which is why this website will have two blogs moving forward.

The Book Blog is about my books, writing, Islamic history, publishing, and some of what happens behind the scenes as a book makes its way from an idea into the hands of readers.

And this blog, the Solidarity Blog, will be a place for the other side of Mama Habiba.

A place to talk about Palestine, solidarity, the meaning behind some of the products I have created, and the things that have been on my mind while making them.

There is no real way to begin at the beginning. Since October 7, 2023, far too much has happened, and this work has already taken many forms.

So rather than trying to go back and tell the whole story from the start, I am beginning here, with what comes next.

The website is still a work in progress. So am I, for that matter.

But after nearly three years of creating, thinking, watching, learning and wanting to say more than could fit onto a product page, it seems like a good time to finally open the door.

Welcome to the Mama Habiba Solidarity Blog.