Zainab was the seventh child of Kassamali Jaffer Alloo (Bapa Pemba) and Kulsum Hirji Gowhar (Bibi Chachi). She was born in Sokomohogo locality in Stone Town Zanzibar in July 1926. Like most of the Khoja Ithna-asheri girls of that period in Zanzibar, she studied only up to Grade 4. The family elders in that era believed that, unlike their male siblings, daughters belonged within the confines of a family home to be trained in the finer art of looking after their family when they are married. The elders believed exposure to western style education risked corrupting their young minds. They expected them to be mentally prepared to the drudgery reserved for a woman in a traditional Kutchi home. As a result, Zainab could only read and write rudimentary Gujerati. 

She grew up in the extended Alloo household with her 10 siblings and numerous cousins. Like her sisters and nieces, she spent her childhood looking after her younger siblings, helping out in the kitchen or learning how to sew clothes. When she was 22 years old, the family received a marriage proposal of Akber Gulamhusein Moloo Sachoo, a 23 years old young man who worked with his father in the family grocery shop located in the N’gambo area of Zanzibar. Zainab recalled later that she and her husband had not met each other even once before their marriage; she only caught fleeting glimpses of him from the latticed balcony of the Jaffer Alloo house in Sokomohogo. The couple married in January 1949 in a ceremony witnessed by the community at the Nai Masjid in Zanzibar. 

Zainab lived within the extended family of her husband which included Akber’s father, mother, brothers and sisters. She found herself suddenly having to adjust to the whims of a new family. Within a year, she delivered a son, Shaukat. Later, she became a mother to five other children – Bashir, Nizar, Riyaz, Hassan and the only daughter Sabira. The family lived an austere life with considerable financial hardship. The family witnessed the violent revolution of 1964 when the Arab dominated government was overthrown and replaced by an African regime. They were rounded up by the revolutionary armed guards in N’gambo area, which was in proximity of the African sub-division, and taken overnight to a camp at Raha Leo, a few miles outside Stone Town. 

Zainab often recalled the experience as nerve wrecking. She feared for the family safety. When they were released and went back to their home, they found it had been ransacked and the hidden family jewellery had disappeared. But Zainab valued the safety of her family more than the lost family heirloom. Four years later, in 1968, as a result of harassment of the new revolutionary government, the family decided to abandon Zanzibar that had been home to Akber’s family for almost 100 years. They sailed to Dar-es-Salaam and decided to settle in Morogoro, a picturesque town in the shadows of Uluguru Mountains about 120 miles west of Dar-es-Salaam. Here Zainab and Akber started a small shop selling fancy clothes and household goods. Zainab’s childhood training in sewing helped the couple to supplement their income while raising their children Nizar, Riyaz, Hassan and Sabira. By then Shaukat and Bashir were working in Dar-es-Salaam. 

After initial years of struggle, life in peaceful Morogoro brought pleasure and joy to the couple. They became prosperous and enjoyed frequent visits by several extended family members from the Alloo clan. Many still fondly remember Zainab and Akber’s hospitality in their simple home. The couple travelled to Mecca for the Hajj and later visited various shrines in Iraq, Syria and Iran. They also travelled to various parts of India. Zainab, whom the family lovingly called Zena, passed away of heart failure in Morogoro in August 1991 at the age of 65 and was buried in Dar-es-Salaam. Eighteen months later, Akber abandoned Morogoro for Dar-es-Salaam to live with his children. Akber passed away at the age of 86 in August 2012. He shares a grave with Zainab, his wife of 42 years, at the Ithna-asheri Kabrastan in Kisutu.