In primary school art class, she drew a picture of Allah, which is considered forbidden by most Muslims, and her teacher punished her for it.

Mahmoud was disgruntled by the fact that she did not enjoy the same rights as boys and men, that she could not draw or sculpt what she wanted or keep a dog as a pet, that she was not allowed to ask critical questions and that she could not learn about evolution.

In this capacity she appeared in a short (1 minute, 39 seconds)[10] television interview on Channel 4's 4thought.tv in January 2013[11] to give her perspective on "What does Sharia law have to offer Britain?".

[12]: 5:47  She recounted how she grew up living under Sharia in Sudan, where she was ‘always dealt with as a second-class citizen, always brought up to believe that I am an incomplete human being [who] needed a man as a guard.

Mahmoud found it astonishing that Britain, the country she had fled to escape Islamic rule, maintained a similar system of sharia courts, arguing that ‘Everyone should have equal rights and live under one secular law.’[10] This interview led her to be targeted by an Islamist hate campaign,[13] led by Salah Al Bander, director of the Sudan Civic Foundation[14] and a former LibDem councilor in Cambridge City Council, who called Mahmoud a ‘Kafira’ (unbeliever) on a Sudanese Arabic website.