Secrets & Sisterhood: The Sozahdahs on Disney+ is something, at first glance, you would tune in to watch if you had a Kardashian-shaped void to fill.
The bouncy blowdries, outfit choices to die for, careers to aspire to and social lives to make us want to hit the town pronto, all set among the glitzy backdrop of Los Angeles, with ten (yes ten!) uber-glamorous sisters living their best lives while partaking in a few squabbles along the way — it’s most definitely the definition of reality television success.
But the journeys of the siblings, Shaista, Halimah, Khadija, Rabya, Shakur, Muzlefa, Jamila, Siddiqa, Nooreya and Hamida Sozahdah, who all identify as American-Muslim, don’t just make for a seamless watching experience, but it inevitably goes on to redefine what it means to be a Muslim woman living in the west.
Dubbed as “raw, real and rife with shocking revelations” by Disney+, which bagged the streaming rights to the series in the UK, while Hulu airs the show in the US, the ten-parter follows the sisters as their “faith and bonds are put to the ultimate test while trying to navigate cultural expectations, their careers, and love in Los Angeles”.
One thing that has been echoed throughout the series is that it has undoubtedly been a long journey for the Sozahdahs to get to where they are today, as their story has been one of perseverance, strength and overcoming unimaginable tragedy from the beginning.
Along with their firstborns Shaista, Khaija, Halimah, and Rabya, the Sozahdah’s parents fled from Afghanistan during the Russian invasion to the United States in the eighties, where the rest of the sisters were born and raised with strict conservative values. Unfortunately, in 1999, their father was tragically murdered, leaving their mother to raise ten daughters alone.