Haifaa Younis – YOK Coffee Talk with Sr. Sanjana

			Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah lair bear cat.
		

			I joined the year of knowledge. This past year, I joined the full time program. I am a wife, a
mother, I'm a practicing physician. And I think what I want to share anyone who's in doubt about
whether they can do it, you know, last year when I heard about this, and I wanted to do it, the
first doubts that came to me was, this is probably not the best time for me to do it. You know, I
was working full time.
		

			And between working, I was homeschooling my daughter, there was illness in my family. And you know,
I kept thinking, Maybe I should join not the first year, but after the program is settled next year,
and then this thought came to me, you know, I started medical school 20 years ago, around the same
time I wanted to get study Dean to at that time, the knowledge that opportunity wasn't there. And
Allah gave me this opportunity in 20 years, I didn't want to wait another 20 years, I've sacrificed
so much in my life for other things before knowledge, right? I sacrifice sleep time. I mean, I've
you know, a lot of us we work like 30 hour shifts, we do all these things for other things need
		

			prioritize. In this time, I realized I would prioritize my day and I would prioritize the connection
to Allah. If I wanted. If I wanted to be close to Allah, I have to work for it. I have to sacrifice
something. If I wanted this knowledge, I have to prioritize it. 11 hours compared to like, the 24
hours in a day, seven days a week is almost nothing, right? I wonder how much time I used to spend
on the phone. I wonder how much time I spent with leisure or entertainment, or just sometimes being
tired? Right? I think, you know, in the very beginning, a lot of the sister a lot of my fellow
sisters gave us a lot of tips about how to prioritize our time, how to be efficient, you know,
		

			how to, you know, outsource what, what didn't matter. And all of that helped. I went in wanting to
just wanting to learn for Dine, wanting to become more grounded in Islamic knowledge. That, you
know, I can teach my daughter I can be a good example to my family. And I can be grounded in
knowledge when I help patients. And you know, from day one, all that was kind of
		

			destroyed because I realized the real emergency was between me and Allah subhanaw taala and needing
to prepare myself for facing him. And then this year has made me realize how little I know and you
know how much Allah can bless us with knowledge. It's changed me and it's changed my life. It's
changed the life of my family. So it's, you know, it's taken me in a completely different
trajectory.