Editor’Space March 2012

Bismillah

The challenges of change…

It is with a sense of awe and gratitude that I sit down to write this editorial. For this is no ordinary issue of SISTERS: this month, SISTERS Magazine will have been in existence for five years! Allahu akbar! When we started out with our crazy idea for a little online magazine for Muslim women, with zero funds, seven children, two countries of residence and not a lick of magazine experience between us, my good friend and beloved sister, Umm Zakariyyah and I really didn’t know what we getting ourselves into. But we soon realised that we had taken on an ambitious and demanding project, one that would require all the energy, focus and determination we had to give – and then some!

In the past five years, we have seen sisters who have always wanted to write join us as newbies and go on to write for a wide variety of other publications, Muslim and mainstream. We have seen our writers administer blogs, publish books, start businesses – and have several more kids! The members of the core team have celebrated no less than five births between us, masha Allah!
With the assistance of Allah SWT, we’ve enabled sisters to earn halal income from doing something they love and, in the process, we’ve made connections with wonderful sisters from around the world. We’ve learned, shared, laughed and cried together.

Over the five years that we have been publishing SISTERS, the magazine has seen many changes, as those who have been with us from the beginning will testify: design and designers; topics, writers and editors; websites and branding – not to mention moving from bimonthly online to quarterly in print, and monthly in print to our new, larger sized glossy monthly.
I don’t mind admitting that none of this was anticipated from the start: we didn’t have a five year plan that described these changes and their effects in detail. But we had hopes, we had ambitions and dreams – and Allah SWT was Merciful and gave us the strength, will and support to keep going, even when the going was tough and the changes threatened to overwhelm us.
Throughout it all, we kept the faith: if there is khair in this, Allah SWT will not let us fail.

Today, the magazine you hold before you is a product of the blood, sweat and tears of many Muslims around the world, brothers and sisters, over the last five years. And through it all, we have held on to the same dream: for SISTERS to be a magazine that empowers Muslim women everywhere to live lives of purpose and faith, to truly become the best Muslimahs we can be.
That has not and, bi’idhnillah, will not change.

However, as we strive to shape the magazine and respond to the challenges of a tough economic climate, we have indeed made some changes to the magazine, changes I would like to share with you as our beloved readers.
There are some changes will have been obvious to you, even before you opened this page: the monthly magazine has put on weight and is now the same size as the old quarterly issues. We have more articles, more writers and are tackling more topics in a greater variety of ways – we hope that you will be as excited about this as we are!
You may also notice that we’ve brought more advertisers on board, advertisers we hope you will benefit from and offers we sincerely hope you will take advantage of. By supporting our advertisers, you are helping the magazine to continue producing high quality content, looking after our wonderful writers, editors and designers, and, ultimately, building a brand that will last another five, ten, fifteen or twenty years, bi’idhnillah! The subscription price is now a true reflection of the cost of producing and shipping the magazine – we hope that the different payment plans we have devised will help make the transition easier – plus the goodies we plan to offer in the coming months!

I felt it necessary to be open with you, our loyal readers, in the hope that you will appreciate this honesty and understand why we are doing what we are doing, and that you will continue to support us, to remind us when we forget, to advise us when we err and to celebrate our successes with us.

I pray that this issue is one of reminder, benefit and joy for every one of you. For returning readers, I hope you enjoy this issue as much as you have enjoyed any other. For our new readers, we are delighted to welcome you as part of our SISTERS family – ahlan wa sahlan!

Wishing you love, forgiveness and salaam,

Na’ima B. Robert

PS. Please do not hesitate to write in to me in response to this editorial or any other article in the magazine – I would love to hear from you. Email me on [email protected]

Celebrating 5 years of SISTERS!