Transform Your Ramadan – Discover The Gift of Gratitude with Naima B. Robert
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Channel: Haleh Banani
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speaker discusses their journey to Islam and their desire to find the power to be considered a woman through storytelling and reading. They emphasize the importance of mindfulness and rethinking one's life to see oneself as an author, finding happiness and embracing happiness to help others. The speaker emphasizes the need to focus on one's personality and experiences to see oneself as an author and finding happiness through small small steps. They also discuss the importance of rethinking one's life and finding the way back to Islam through tests and gratitude.AI Generated Transcript ©
Assalam Alaikum, brother Wadud.
Assalam.
How are you Sister Hale? Alhamdulillah,
Alhamdulillah. I'm really excited
about this interview. It's a dear friend of
mine, sister
Naima B Roberts.
And,
she's written 30 books. She's just incredible.
Yeah.
And I can't wait to hear about her
transformation.
And shout out to excited to meet her
for the first time. I've heard so much
about her, and we have mutual
that worked with me that talked about her,
Her journey to Islam and her story of
transformation, how she healed through experiences in her
life that now she's a source of healing
for so many other people around us.
Beautiful.
It is amazing. I knew her from Egypt,
and our kids went to school together. So
I knew her on a personal level, but
she also had a profound impact on me
that we're gonna, Insha'Allah, discuss in this interview
and how she went from atheism
Yeah.
How
do
we
find those transformation? How do we find
Yeah. How do we find those transformation? How
do we find those lights? And sometimes reflecting
on these stories to guide us
Yes. Self as we approach this Ramadan and
this work that we're trying to do about
how to become more mindful, how to find
our purpose,
finder calling like she has.
Yes. Yes. She's very purpose driven and
with getting people to write their stories, and
I'm really excited about it. So I think
everyone's gonna benefit from this interview tremendously on
a personal level,
on a spiritual level. So I can't wait.
Let's do this. Let's do it. Alright.
And welcome to a mindful Ramadan
Transformed by the Light,
Inspiring Stories of Converts.
Welcome everyone. Assalamu alaikum,
Sister Naima, such a pleasure to have you.
It's wonderful to be back, Alhamdulillah,
for another conversation with you for Ramadan.
Alhamdulillah. We're happy to have you. You always
bring so much insight
and, and inspiration. And
we are very fortunate to have brother Wadud
with us this year. Alhamdulillah.
It's an honor to be here,
Learning from these beautiful stories.
Well, sister Naima, we go way back.
Maybe, what, 12 years ago,
I met you in Egypt. We were doing
some kind of I don't know. Some work
for the orphanage, and you came to our
home. And then our kids went to the
same school, Haya International Academy. And just remember
that time with fondness, spending
spending hours waiting for our kids and chatting,
and, masha'Allah,
beautiful to have you with us.
What do you recall from those days?
I do remember that day that you're referring
to where we were, wrapping up presents in
your basement.
Those were, you know, really beautiful days in
Egypt. It's a reminder to me really of,
you know, this life really is a journey,
and our lives are are really told in
chapters.
Because, you know, once you've turned the page
on that chapter, it's you don't ever go
back. You know? You're always gonna be going
into the next chapter and the next chapter.
But we're fortunate. Sometimes Allah blesses us to
be able to carry certain characters
with us through those chapters. So maybe I
love it. I love your analogy you since
you're an author and I wanna share. Right?
So all that is coming true.
Masha'Allah.
Masha'Allah.
Our guest today, sister Naima B Roberts, is
a trailblazing
speaker,
coach, and best selling author
from My Sister's Lips, as well as 30
other books,
Tabarak, and
they have been translated into 14 different languages.
And, masha'Allah, you've gotten so many literary
awards, and you are
really passionate
about helping other
sisters in learning about
how to write their book and how to
share their stories. SubhanAllah, what really resonates with
what you 2 is that your father was
an atheist, your mother was Christian, and you
grew up as an atheist. And,
your journey from atheism to Islam is such
a profound
transformation
that many find deeply inspiring. Could you share
what initially
sparked your curiosity about spirituality and religion?
And what pivotal
experience or realization led you to such a
significant
shift in your beliefs?
No. Definitely. Bismillah.
I would say growing up in Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe
was a very Christian country, and my dad
was a rebel. Okay? Just put it just
to say it plainly. He was a rebel.
So in a in a country where people
were conservative,
were Christian,
he was a Marxist atheist.
You know? He he even though he was
white, he didn't really mix with, you know,
other white people in quite the racialized society
that we lived in. So he he, like,
left that behind. He married a black woman.
So he was a
rebel. And
in our household,
more than anything, Christianity was something that was
just ridiculed.
You know? It's like this is fairy tales.
And if you're familiar with Marxism,
then you know the ideas and the beliefs
that Marxists hold about religion as a whole.
Right?
The opiate of the people, opiate of the
masses, etcetera.
So I I actually felt quite smug, to
be honest, that I had a an elevated
understanding
of the world, you know, while all these
Christian kids were reading the bible and going
to bible study and being brainwashed.
I didn't have to do that. You know?
Like, I was a free thinker.
So primary school was very much about that.
And then high school, you know, nobody was
very practicing at all, really. So, you know,
you didn't you didn't really come up until
my later years of high school
where I started to have struggles of my
own that
I was struggling to find an answer to.
You know? And the whole idea of a
higher power,
of a maker, of a creator,
started sort of dawn in my mind. And
I did flirt with the evangelical Christian church.
I went to, a service.
If anyone knows anything about evangelical churches, you
know that they love to sing,
they love to cry,
they love to get you emotionally
invested
and really get you worked up, and I
did. I I had that whole experience. Mhmm.
And,
you know, when when the pastor said, you
know, who would like to come down and
be saved? I was like, yes. Me. Me.
Yes. That's what I'm saying.
So I went down to the front, and
then the pastor's, like, spoke over us. He
prayed over us, And I was like, this
is it. This is the answer. You know?
It's this feeling
of of belonging and and and love and
togetherness and safety. This is what it is.
So I'm on this high, and then they
tell you to go to the back to
speak to some of the members of the
church to see sort of what your next
step should be.
And by the time I got to the
back room, the high had come down a
little bit. So now my logical mind is
coming back and kicking me and saying, hold
on a minute.
What what what's all this about faith? You
know? What's the proof? You know? How do
you know what these people are saying is
true? So I asked the lady who spoke
to me. She said, like, how do you
know that God exists? How do you know
that, you know, Christianity is true? And she
said to me, you just have to believe.
And I was like, alright. I'm out. Oh,
wow. That same day.
No. No. That that was unfortunate.
Well, unfortunately,
But
her inability
to speak
to the the the, really, the proof that
I needed, the logical, the rational
ideas that, you know, obviously, I had grown
up with meant that I realized that this
was not for me. So fast forward now,
I go to Egypt
for a music festival. I'm representing my country,
and I notice
all these hijabis around.
By this time, I was already at university,
so I was in East London. And if
anyone knows East London, they know that there's
lots of Muslims in that area. So it
was something that I had been noticing
around more and more.
And so when we went to Egypt,
of course, I saw, you know, the women
wearing their hijabs,
and,
well, I was mad. I was mad. Why?
What were you thinking?
I was like, what is this?
This is oppression.
Who forced them to dress like this? Why
do they allow their men to do this?
Because I subscribe to the cosmopolitan
brand of feminism. Right? Cosmo Magazine?
That brand of feminism,
and that was the lens that I used
to see Muslim women through. Right? So I
ranted and I raved for a couple of
days until we went to one of our
performances,
and the the host's wife was there, and
she wore a hijab.
And I just I just looked at her,
and she was,
beautiful face, lots of, you know, light in
her face, one of those wool filled faces.
And I said to her,
you are so beautiful.
Why do you cover yourself?
And she just smiled.
And she said, because I want to be
judged for what I say and what I
do, not what I look like. But, Halley,
for some reason,
that's what did it. That's what it did
for you. Thinking. That's what got me thinking
critically
about
the society I had grown up in, about
the standards that I had been holding myself
to, you know, about you know, I thought
that I was a very confident woman. But
when I met her, I thought, no. No.
No. No. No. There's something different about this
woman. Because how is she so confident, so
brave? She doesn't need what the rest of
us are craving,
male validation,
attention. You know? Right. And and and from
that, I was like, no. No. No. No.
I need to find out
what gives this woman this power. And so
that is actually when I started to to
look. Now, of course, I start to notice
Islam all around me. I start to notice
the adhan. I start to notice the people
saying, assalamu alaikum.
And little by little, I'm like, okay. I
need to find out what this religion is
all about. So as soon as I got
back to the UK, I got a Quran,
and I started reading it. And I started
implementing
Islamic sort of practices even before I became
Muslim, but I would say sort of that
was the starting point for me. SubhanAllah.
Short. No. That that's an amazing, amazing story
where you go you know, you're atheist. You
go to a music festival in Egypt. You
are looking down on the woman thinking they're
they're so oppressed. What's wrong with you? And
the words that that sister said, the fact
that I wanna be judged for who I
am
and what I do, not on how I
look. And it just changed everything because a
lot of times we think of freedom as
to bear yourself. Right? The the western mentality
is the more you bear, the the more
freedom you have. And and it's actually the
shackles of society.
And you saw that this woman had been
able to free herself from the shackles
free and being a feminist in a sense.
Right? But contradicted the way you were taught.
So that was very profound,
Amazing. Yeah. That's that's that's what it was.
And, you know, subhanallah, I've I've never
seen nor spoken to that sister again. And
I don't even know whether she would even
remember our encounter.
But I told this story in my book
from my sister's books, and I've told it
many, many times since, probably 1,000, if not
millions of people have heard it on YouTube.
But
I pray that Allah
gives her the reward for everything and anything
that I
do because she that those that little sentence
that she said was literally the catalyst for
me changing my entire life. So
blessings.
Wow. Amazing. Brother Waddud, what would you like
to reflect that?
Beautiful. You know? And I was talking about
we were doing this thurbia session with educators
from around the country, and we're talking about
this one principle of transformation.
And Allah says in the Quran,
be mindful of God and
and speak the plain, clean, you know, straightforward
truth from your heart. Right? And you're not,
like, deflecting. You're not, like, making things up.
You're not trying to show up how people
want you to show up. You're not shifting
the blame. You're really clearly just saying
from your heart because you're mindful of God,
and it's just clean and plain and and
simple. It just remind me of that,
perhaps, that heart
from where that statement came out from
and that sincerity that was that was potent
to be able to transform another person. That
our scholars say, why did Allah not directly
go to and say to speak the truth?
Why did he say why did he stop
and say?
Because they said that unless you're really conscious
and aware,
if you're not aware, you're gonna be on
autopilot. And that's what this mind madam is,
that how do we not live our life
on autopilot and we move from autopilot to
where. And that awareness and consciousness from the
spiritual sense of god,
it fuels the way that we speak and
what we speak when it's god centered has
that potency and that.
Beautiful.
We are on that autopilot, and I think
that that is the missing link. The mindfulness
is the missing link that we are not
taking the worship, the knowledge,
everything that we do, and it's not transforming
our character.
And so that's why the focus this Ramadan,
Insha'Allah,
is to be more mindful
and transforming through the light, the light of
Islam. And,
you have such a passion for women sharing
their stories. It's just so inspiring. What
fuels this burning desire within you to empower
and uplift others, especially women,
and for them to share their voices?
Is there, like, a particular verse in the
Quran or Hadith
that resonates with you and gives you this
level of motivation
to pursue this mashaAllah noble endeavor?
Twana, I love this question because we all
have different motivations, you know, things that kind
of, you know, light us up, etcetera.
And for me,
I I this is not a hadith, but
it's something that was mentioned in a talk
many, many years ago. We're talking like 25
years ago. Brother Abdirahim Green was doing a
das, and he was he was talking I
don't even know what the das was about,
to be honest. But he mentioned,
establish something great for Islam.
Establish something great for Islam
and for the sake of Allah. And at
that time, I think I was expecting my
first child, and I was a housewife, masha'Allah,
and loving it. You know? I was I
was living that life.
And I never thought that I would surpass
that, if that makes sense. And I don't
wanna say that in the sense that, you
know, being a mother and a wife is
not al Din because it is. Mhmm. But
I I didn't expect me to have an
impact,
right, on on more than my immediate family
and my community.
And the fact that Allah chose
me
to deliver this message.
I don't feel worthy.
I didn't deserve this. It's not something that
I earned. It's not something that I paid
for. It's not even something I asked for.
Mhmm. Allah just chose and said, this is
for you. You're going to tell your story
of coming to Islam, and you're going to
be the one who pulls these stories of
other women coming to Islam. And your book
is going to be a book that transforms
lives, whether it's 100, 1,000, tens, 1,000. I
don't know how many it is now. I'm
talking about from my sister's lips. Mhmm. And
the
barakah
of having
literally just shared your story
and that story being the catalyst for somebody
else's growth, for somebody else's evolution, for somebody
else's transformation
in the path of Allah,
you can't quantify that. You know? Right. I
always say this to my clients. I said,
inshallah, if Allah puts barakah in your words,
you are going to impact the lives of
people you will never see. Yes. People you
will never meet in places you will never
go. Right?
And
if you're sincere, that transformation
is going to weigh in the scale of
your good deeds. It's a.
Yeah. And it is one of
the cleanest forms of sadaqa jariyah
in terms of I have a story or
I have a message or I have something
to share with the world,
putting it down in your words and making
it available to people is the clearest way
to put your message across, the clearest way
to chain you know, to share your story.
Nowadays, people wanna create posts on Instagram and
create reels and do YouTube videos.
I say, that's great, but that is not
the purest, clearest form of your dua. What
is your message? What is your dower? What
is it you actually want to put out
into the world?
You owe it to yourself to put it
together,
clean it up, and make it something that
can transform the lives of others, Insha'Allah.
And who knows
how those deeds will multiply?
We will only know.
May Allah accept it from us.
I have I have a follow-up question. I'm
I'm really kind of intrigued. One thing that
you mentioned about you felt like you're not
worthy.
Mhmm.
Not worthy.
And,
you know, we were just talking about this
concept earlier. Like, I think yesterday, Mike Lebo
is about going from scarcity to abundance.
All this finding that sense of, like, that
scarcity that I'm not enough. What am I?
I don't have the knowledge. I don't have
the ability. I don't have the skills. I,
you know, I don't have what what I
need to have. I don't have the resources.
Who am I to do anything? You know?
And a lot of times, that scarcity focused
thinking makes us not show up for our
best self or not show up for that
purpose and that meaning and that stretch beyond
your our comfort zone. Right? And I'm sure
that a lot of people, when we ask
them, who do you wanna become this Ramadan?
Not just what do you wanna do.
Out becoming more versus doing more. Who are
you gonna become this Ramadan? Who are you
gonna evolve into beyond this Ramadan? Then a
lot of times, like, yeah, I do want
to. If I have no other ops if
I have no obstacles, no blockers,
all my goals are accepted. This is who
I wanna become, but then, you know, this
is gonna happen. You know, that then we
come back to our scarcity, and we don't
believe that in the abundance of Allah, in
the barakah and the tawfiq of Allah, all
of that is possible and even more.
So how do you move forward beyond that
doubt?
I love that question. And it's funny, actually,
if my clients heard me saying what I
just said, they'd be like, sister Naima, you
always tell us we're not allowed to entertain
those thoughts.
But it's you know, look. The point it's
again,
we don't deserve anything per se. It's all
Allah's favor. It's Allah's barakah. Right? It's Allah's
mercy, his grace. So if Allah
chooses you,
then know that you are capable. Right? If
he shows you that door of opportunity because
let's face it. Not everybody wants to tell
their story. Not everybody wants to put a
message out there. Not everybody is called to
write a book or do any of the
things that we're talking about. But
if Allah
puts it in you,
he puts that dream in you, that vision
in you, then I always say there's something
there, sis. There's something there. There's a reason.
And if Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala opens that
door of opportunity and, you know, shows you
that and you say, right. Are you gonna
go through this door or not? Then it
really is about just free falling with tawakul
to say, pray my istikhara
and then, bismillah, I'm gonna give it the
very best that I can with full Ihsan,
and the outcome is with Allah.
And I'm grateful for whatever that outcome is.
So it's about
not focusing on what you're bringing to the
table,
not focusing on whether it's your personality or
your experiences or your knowledge,
but having that tawakul in Allah that Allah
will provide
and and relying on him. And I I
love what you said about, you know, the
multiplication
of good deeds because that that's how I
look at it. And that's what really drives
me the way, let's say, businessmen will look
at whatever it is that they have invested
in increasing.
And when I think about the potential of
affecting other people and changing their life. In
the mentorship program on Mindful Hearts Academy is
about stopping the generational
trauma and recognizing that if you make a
change and today,
I talk to all of you who are
viewing.
If you make a change within your self,
this Ramadan, whether you become a less angry
person, you become more ambitious like sister Naima
is talking about and brother would, dude, you're
talking about not being on autopilot and you're
really present. And if we do that,
imagine the impact it will have for generations
to come. So that is just it's so
powerful.
I just wanted to add here as you
said, and just to highlight, because this I
think this is really key
because
so much of the world is out of
our control.
Right? And we see it all the time.
We can see things happening that we would
not like to happen, and we feel powerless
to do anything about. We make dua, but,
yeah, essentially, it is not in our control.
But
at the same time,
we have so much power when we transform
ourselves
because
Allah gives that us that ability. He's given
us as human beings the ability to choose,
the ability to change, the ability to evolve.
And
as you mentioned,
if I change,
I have the capacity to impact my family.
And every member of my family has the
capacity to influence
their friends or their family as they go
along. And as you said,
you can be a generational
change maker.
And that
change making could have been simply,
by Allah's permission,
a decision that you took.
I'm not going to do this.
From now on, I will be this person.
From now on, I will apologize. I will
say I love you. I will get enough
sleep. Whatever the case may be,
you
your own decision making about yourself and your
changes that you want to make have the
capacity to transform the lives of others, and
this is not just talk. This is real.
Yes. You know? This is real. I'm sure
you can see that from your clients. Yes.
Yes. And that is the thing. You know,
I the clients I work with, they come
in and they might be very broken, very
overwhelmed,
whether it's through their childhood that was filled
with trauma and abuse or their relationships that
they feel very stuck in and they come
in and they feel very powerless.
I like to empower them and say, yes,
like you're saying,
make that change within yourself because when you
do,
you cause a ripple effect and people respond
to you
differently.
Brother, what dude?
Yeah. You know, this beautiful thing about
that intention,
that then it starts with intention. One of
the things about when people that pray at
night in Ramadan, imanan wahethissavan,
with that sense of god centered faith, and
then eftesav, which is I'm seeking from god,
seeking the return.
If you have this sense of intentionality in
the way you show up, in the way
you approach this from Adani, the way that
you make intentions about the changes that he
will make,
Allah's help comes according
to your intentions.
You know, like, big, hide him my intentions
because you know that here are the steps
I'm gonna take to get there, but if
I make that big intention, I make dua,
and I start making the effort that I
can,
Allah will slowly increase that and Allah can
give barakah to that and and it'll come.
It'll come. And if I believe it, if
I make dua for it, if I work
for it, it'll come. You You know? And
that's how we wanna approach this Ramadan. Meet
the those big intentions, inshallah.
And believing in it. It's so critical to
to believe, to see yourself, right? I'm sure
before you do anything, Sister Naima, you focus
and you get your clients to see themselves
as an author. Right? And we need to
yes. And like brother, I did what you
were saying as far as who do we
wanna become this Ramadan. We have to visualize
it because the power of visualization
is just
unbelievable
what it can do. What I am fascinated
with, sister Naima, is that you were, masha'Allah,
married for 17 years, a Lovely husband
that my husband knew,
and he passed away.
And remind me, is it five children,
that you have?
Five children.
How were you able to balance that? What
was your role? And you wrote a beautiful
book that just had me in tears
after your husband passed
away. It was all like reflection poetry.
Remind me. Months 10 days. 4 months 10
days. 4 months 10 days. Anyone going through
any form of grief, you have got to
read this book. It's so beautiful. If you
could reflect a little bit on sometimes people
are just very career oriented,
and they overlook what you said is such
a amazing role to be a wife and
a mother. Could you reflect on the importance
of that?
Well, I think as I have mentioned before,
losing my husband of 17 years, Alayd Hamel,
was probably the big lesson in gratitude that
I've ever ever had, and I still feel
that to this day. I I believe 100%
that he took him at the best time,
and that if he left me here, there
was still work for me to do. There
was still more for me to do on
the left. In gratitude, you said, losing your
husband.
Absolutely. Because I had a husband for 17
years.
We had a great marriage. We had love.
We had children. We had a family. We
we shared so many memories. And how can
I
put all of that to the side,
forget about all of the barakah that came
with him, and sink myself into the mourning
of him or the loss of him? Rather,
I I chose to celebrate the fact that
I had him in the first place. Masha'allah.
The fact that I had him in the
first place. You know? Got show up there.
Not everybody gets that, you know, and that's
the truth. I think, you know, one of
the things that was wonderful about being married
to him was that I was
really able to focus on my children and
the house. And I had my own things.
I was writing. I had Sisters Magazine, but
it was to the side, and it wasn't
something that really kind of weighed on me.
Mhmm. After he passed away, I stepped into
his shoes as c CEO of his company.
Mhmm.
That was a wild ride because
I didn't really know anything about the company.
There were 300 employees.
It was a call center in Egypt. Ah,
okay.
Yeah. So about 300 employees.
I did not know the first thing about
this business, about what they did, how they
did it. I'd like to earn your husband's
business.
This is a good good idea.
At least you know what you're getting yourself
into. To be honest, honey, I look back
on those years, sort of the 2, 3
years after he passed. For my children, they
were pretty much lost years,
because I was in the business and I
was working. I was there almost every day,
and I was homeschooling a couple of the
kids. My And I just became a different
person. I wasn't
the kept woman. I wasn't the kind of
you know, because I could relax into my
feminine and just enjoy doing the wonderful things
we used to do, travel, have friends over,
Quran, Arabic classes, all of that. I couldn't
do that anymore
because now I had his legacy,
all the expectations
of his directors and managers and all of
the employees who were relying on us to
keep this dream alive
so that they could continue, you know, their
journey with with what he had really kind
of planted in them.
So
by Allah's grace, we got through those years.
You know, we were able to carry the
company on for a certain number of years,
and then we we closed it gracefully.
And everything is a lesson, isn't it? Every
every chapter. Again, it's those chapters Yeah. I
was thinking about what you said. That was
a chapter in your life and what a
what a challenging
transition to go from being mother and wife
to CEO of a company you didn't know
anything about,
and that must have really transformed you. Brother
Wudud, I'm sure you have some, deep reflections.
So, you know, this beautiful thing that sister
Naina is mentioning about the lesson in gratitude,
I'm still stuck on that, and I just
see these wow. My mom cares she's caregiving
for my dad. He's lost his kidney functions,
lost his vision,
period in the last few years.
And here, I was struggling a lot because
I was trying to get my organization and
my brand and my business up and running,
and dad was just going through this downhill
thing.
And I was just struggling because we have
to take him to this doctor and that
doctor. They're like 5, 6, or 7 different
doctors. I'm like, oh my god. Like, how
am I gonna get through this?
I just thought about, like, let's focus on
this just one word this year. If I
can just focus on one word, what would
that word be for this year? And I
said, let's just focus on gratitude.
Mhmm. I'm traveling. If I'm going with them
to the doctor, let me just be grateful
that I'm with them. And when I'm sitting
in that doctor's office and waiting for that
to be seen, just be grateful.
Right.
And, Kadi, if I'm able to take my
laptop and work from wherever I am, let's
be grateful for that moment to be able
to work. So just let's focus on this
year is my year of gratitude.
Just that focus
really helped me come back up, you know,
because I was kinda losing myself, that stress
and that transition. And I'm just so appreciative
of what you're sharing, sister Naima, about a
lesson in gratitude. What a beautiful way to
look at me.
As you say this story, brother Wadhud, and
how amazing it was that by you focusing
on gratitude, you were actually able to be
present for your father.
It brings back memories since we're talking about
loss. My mother, who was my, my best
friend and she was Masha'Allah, she was called
like lioness in Persian, and she just had
so much energy and the most optimistic woman
I've ever met,
having her own business, being very dynamic.
And,
she got ALS,
and she started losing all her functions. She
became bedridden.
She had a feeding tube
and she even lost her ability to speak
the last year
of her life. And what really
got me through that
was
accepting the Qadr of Allah. And I said,
I love my mother, but Allah loves her
more. And so if he is putting her
through this, he is raising her status. And
I believe that to my core
and just being appreciative of having her that
was
got me through it.
And I feel that, you know, what was
the lesson in this and Allah,
He provides us therapy in His own beautiful
way.
Yeah. After I lost my mother, what lesson
do you think
I had to teach
for the next 8 weeks in my mentorship
program?
What lesson? Like, what do you think was
the theme, the topic that I had to
teach
my students
after the death of my mother?
It was hap
happiness. It was happiness.
Wow.
The timing of it. And I was like,
I don't want to talk about happiness.
I don't wanna talk about it. I wanna
I wanna dwell a little bit. I want
and I remember once I was in my
bed and I was rolled up and I
just, you know, I was in tears and
my husband came
and
was so so supportive and always a rock.
And he said, come. Let's do let's do
an exercise together. I I I don't feel
like exercising. I am I'm dwelling right now.
I wanna he's like, just just 2 minutes.
You don't have to change. You don't have
to do anything.
Just move.
And we did that and SubhanAllah,
it, it changed the way that I felt.
And I was so grateful of Allah's mercy
of putting me through that, where I was
focused. Because you can't teach something if you
don't understand it. If you don't embody
if you don't embody happiness,
you can't teach it. And so that was,
like, one of the biggest gift and therapy
for me in teaching and learning about happiness
to help others upon.
Absolutely.
With the highest ranks in.
I mean I mean know what you were
saying about, you know, happiness? I I remember
that my mother passed away
Mhmm. Like, a week before Eid. And we
went to bury her, then I came back.
And on a day, it came, and I
did not want to go to the e
prayer. I didn't wanna see anyone. You know?
You can imagine. Sure. But
the amazing thing is
we get to find
these things.
We get to find happiness.
We get to find
gratitude, find forgiveness.
We don't just have it, but we can
find it. Right? And all it is is
a focus. It's a decision to find it.
Yes. And then it's a focus. Right? Yes.
What are you going to choose to focus
on? What are you going to fill your
mind with? Where is your head going to
go? Because this is another thing that Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has given us that is
so powerful, which is the link between our
thoughts and our emotions.
Mhmm. What we think about impacts how we
feel. A lot of the time, we think
our feelings come up naturally all by themselves,
and that once the feelings come up, there's
nothing we can do about them. But you
know, and I know that
what you think about is what impacts your
emotions. And so if you change the thoughts,
you change the feeling. Yes. And so that's
how you find
gratitude,
you know, forgiveness,
happiness,
whatever, repentance
by choosing it and then focusing on that.
And then, subhanAllah,
the feelings come by Allah's grace.
Masha'Allah.
Masha'Allah. It all starts with our thoughts, and
that is transformative
when you recognize
that you have the power to control your
thoughts. And that's what I work with the
clients is just, you know, change your thoughts
and you change your world. It is very,
very powerful.
Absolutely. Yeah. I just wanted to share that,
you know, I saw that you have roots
in South Africa, sister Nava, and, you know,
I just came back from a South Africa
tour. We just did a prophetic mindfulness and
emotional intelligence tour. And
Beautiful people there that took me for a
tour of the first masjid in Cape Town.
Yes. The story of this Indonesian prince that
was captured, who was a scholar's lineage going
back to the Prophetess of Islam. He was
captured by the by the colonizers, and they're
basically banished, exiled in Robben Island in the
same place where Mandela was imprisoned as well.
And this is about 350
years ago, and this person in that prison,
he wrote the entire Quran from memory.
Oh, And
when the British came, and they sided with
the Muslims because it was to their advantage
to get the other force out, and then
he was able to get out. He established
his first community, and we think about
all these scholars they captured because they wanted
to stop resistance from different parts of the
world. They brought them here.
They opened up this entire place for Muslims
to thrive. Like, Muslims are in in Cape
Town. Right? You see the tradition that still
lived there, and the and the teaching still
lives. And he went to visit his grave
and was like, literally, you go up the
mountain. You're looking at the mountain. You're looking
at the ocean, and they're resting there. And
this breeze is hitting your face, and you're
realizing
these people are such a class act in
terms of showing up with that gratitude, showing
up with the presence of alliance.
Not asking why me, but asking what does
Allah want from me now?
I love that.
Very powerful.
And it is incredible. We went to South
Africa several times from a marriage conference
and seeing the how united the Muslims are
there. And they are such a small percentage
if
I'm not mistaken, what is the percentage of
Muslims?
Is it like it's Put me on the
spot, please. It's like 4% or something. Small
percentage,
but they provide halal food. They have so
many things accommodating them because they actually became
so united
as Muslims because they were forced
to live together. And and that has a
lot to do with the reframing
that even if you're in a bad situation,
brother, I did like what you're saying about
they were in
prison and they reframe their situation
and they made the best out of it.
And how many of us
are feeling
imprisoned,
whether within your marriage or within your circumstances
and trying to reframe that and seeing how
can we maybe rely on Allah more, and
how can I change this situation for the
better?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah. And in terms of that purpose, maybe
a question I might ask is, Naima, about
how do you then all those transition, the
different chapters of the book that you're talking
about, eventually turning all that lessons into this
purpose that you are not just as your
source of healing for yourself, but for so
many other women. How do you find that
purpose? How do you find that meaning? A
lot of time coming to us, I I'm
sure, all of us, and they're kind of
lost. They're confused. And Ramadan is such a
beautiful time to focus. Right? So how do
we use this time of Ramadan to re
or refocus on our purpose, find that purpose
and meaning?
SubhanAllah. I think Ramadan we always talk about
Ramadan being this great reset, right, for us
and giving us a chance to go back
to what really matters and what's really important.
Sister Halle, you know that I wrote a
book called Show Up. And that book, it
is all about
showing up and being mindful and present in
your life as it is now.
The, you know, the, the good, the bad
and the ugly of it. Right? What is
it that you've been called to do? What
is the role that you've been called to
perform
And embodying that, right, with the fullness of
yourself,
bringing your full self to the game. Because
look, at the end of the day, none
of us gets to choose our fitna. None
of us gets to choose our trial or
our challenges. Right? We don't get, like, a
multiple choice machine.
I'll choose this one. Yeah. You know, it's
a more cute. Right. More like, you know,
you're not being able to find a husband,
illness. You know? What will you choose? You
take your pick. It doesn't work like Allah
chooses the trials that every single human being
will go through.
There is not a single human being that
does not face trials. And when we are
in that mindset of sort of the victim
mentality Mhmm. We can tend to see ourselves
as the most hard done by, as the
most victimized, the one who has the least
favor, the one who never wins, you know,
who always fails, who always gets it wrong.
And I would like to invite anybody, if
that resonates with you, I'd like to really
invite you to reframe
because
the sunnah of this life is that we
will be tested. We've either been tested or
we're being tested or we're going to be
tested. This is this is the nature of
this dunya.
And when it comes to the specific tests,
the lord of all the worlds, your creator
and mine, is the one who chooses them
for us. Mhmm. And he chooses them
in light of his promise that he will
not burden a soul more than it can
bear.
That is a very powerful frame.
Because if you know
that your test has been chosen specifically for
you based on Allah's intimate knowledge of who
you are and who you can be,
and also that he has this cast iron
promise where he said, oh, it's okay.
I'm burdening you, but it's not gonna be
more than you compare. Meanies,
you can handle this. You can get through
this. And what does it mean to get
through it? It means to find
the barakah. Perfect. To find the purpose, to
find the gratitude, to find the way back
to Allah through that test, to find the
patience,
to find the resilience, to find the strength.
That's our opportunity,
and we're always going to be getting those
opportunities. And the sooner you come to terms
with that, that this life is going to
be a constant you know, it's like we're
leveling up all the time. Right? You're just
leveling up throughout your hero's journey. Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala is not going to leave you
how you were when you started middle school.
He is going to give and take. He
is going to allow you to succeed and
force you to fail so that you try
again, and you are going to become a
better version of yourself, inshallah,
every time if you take the challenge, which
is to show up. It's to show up
the life that you have right now. Y'all,
everybody needs to get that book, show up
because you that was so inspiring.
I'm sure that by reading that book is
going to help people find that sense of
purpose. I like to use this analogy for
what you were talking about, the problems. We
don't get to choose it. I call it
couture
problems. My mom was a fashion designer.
So I have to say couture problems and
he designs it
in knowing our strengths and our weaknesses.
So when we know that Allah in his
infinite
wisdom
chose this for you,
there's a purpose behind it, and then we
can surrender. Because many times people get stuck
in the state of why me.
Right? And just thinking
they and they get stuck because they're just
worrying about why this is happening.
And I challenge people to just not look
at it as a test, although, you know,
we have the verses that, you know, Allah
test you and we are tested. We definitely
know that it's a test, but I also
would like to shift and start looking at
it as a gift.
Right? Like you said, losing your husband was
a gift of gratitude.
Yeah. And I know that sometimes
even if you're, let's say, you're being attacked
or talked about, that can be a gift
because it gives you that insight.
And as we look at these
difficulties
as gifts and what Allah is giving to
us
a way of
evolving,
then that changes the way that we approach
it. It changes the way we perceive it.
Have you heard that expression, a gift wrapped
in sandpaper?
No. That's what it I have. Think of.
That's what it makes me think of. Because
it's an opportunity, isn't it? It's an opportunity
for you, and you get to choose. You
get to choose whether this thing thing makes
you or breaks you, whether it brings you
down to the depths, or whether you're allowed
to ascend from this. It's it's Masha'Allah something
that we have the ability to choose by
Allah's grace. So And you know, Masha'Allah,
the way you handled
the loss of your husband
was such an example
for me, and it actually
lit the
path for myself. And I want you to
know that because I don't know if I
ever got to express that because there is
grieving with Ihsan
and many people may not be aware of
it, that we are able to shed tears.
The
prophet shed tears,
and he had a year of sadness,
but it's a matter of having that acceptance,
the rida,
the
I
accept it fully.
And so you really helped me in that.
So just like Allah Khayran.
Again, it's the gift.
The gift that keeps on giving and you
don't even know. Yeah. Sometimes
who is going to take that gift or
how they receive that gift, Subhanahu wa Ta'ala
is amazing.
And, you know, it starts with building our
muscle
of our gratitude muscle with small things every
day.
And when we practice and we flex the
muscle every day with small things,
then Allah gives us tawfiq to expand
and show up for bigger things. You know?
And in Ramadan, it might be you miss
your suhoor, and how are you grateful for
that gift? You know? For you were served
the efthoral you hate.
And Yes. How do you show up with
gratitude in that moment? And in Ramadan, every
day is a is a master class, learning
to show up for our our
our at night, getting off the
patient in in or
that sense of like, our scholar, the teacher,
that patience is actually the ability to be
grateful
in the moment of difficulty. Mhmm. So patience,
gratitude, and gratitude is patience, and
we are learning that in Ramadan.
How can you Allah give you this fasting
so you turn, you come out becoming more
grateful of Allah and his blessings because when
you are mindful, you're present, you're aware of
who Allah is and what he has given
you,
then you have nothing but sugar that'll flow.
And
when you sit and say, I didn't eat
suhoor, but what resources Allah has given in
my body and myself and what do I
do? And you think about human beings that
how long they went without food or water
or what abilities Allah has given in your
body, what blessings you've got. And
that do you not see what Allah has
given you, the signs and the majesty in
your own body, and you start thinking about
the blessings.
When you're mindful and aware, you come back
to Allah, automatically, your sugar flows.
Oh, yes. Oh, it's such a beautiful thing
that the prophet used to say this dua
after every
that becomes first and then the sugar. Because
if you're in a state of dhikr, then
shukr
will flow. And then if shukr and shukr
becomes who you are, then
the will unlock.
Then then
the excellence and the beauty of your faith
will unlock. And we can we can practice
that every day with small things in Ramadan
to slowly increase that capacity.
I love how you describe it as a
muscle.
And some of us may have flabby gratitude
muscles, but we can strengthen it. But you
can strengthen it by looking for those little
moments.
And something that I did, if I ever
miss Suhur, and I put my hand and
I, like, I I just make the, I
say, you know, that throughout the day, you
know, I talk for sometimes 8, 10 hours,
and I always have a drink next to
me, hot drinks to just soothe my throat.
And I say, you Allah,
nourish me. I didn't make it for the
suhoor. Nourish me. And it's amazing how I
will not have any dryness.
And Allah will provide in miraculous
way when you ask him.
Now I'm gonna shift gears a bit because
amid
the profound
challenges and tragedies faced by the Palestinian people,
they've really shown
remarkable resilience, perseverance,
and unwavering faith.
So what I wanna know, sister Naima, how
do you perceive
the Palestinian
people as a source of light and guidance
for all of us,
especially
with the steadfastness
and
resilience
on Allah amid all of this adversity.
SubhanAllah. We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala to
bring ease to the people and establish the
justice. I mean, I would say very briefly
an understanding of the value of this life.
Bottom line,
so many of us are caught up in
the dunya. It
completely overtakes us when we are consumed by
it and consumed with it. And I think
when you see how the Palestinians
deal with the loss of aspects of this
dunya,
you realize that
their goal is akhirah. You know? Their goal
is akhirah.
Their ultimate destination is akhirah, and they understand
that everything that we have is merely a
manna.
Everything that we have is on loan. Everything
that we have belongs to Allah. We belong
to Allah, and we're going back to him.
So that
we all say that, don't we? Always there
are a lot of things that we just
say. Like
is
another one. We say things like this.
But I think the Palestinians,
Allah has put them in a situation where
they have to live that. Mhmm. They have
to live.
They live.
And that for me is one of the
most profound
lessons really from
the trial that they're going through and seeing
how they deal with it is a reminder
that
Allah has chosen this for them. It's not
to say it couldn't be me or you
or somebody else next month, next year.
And maybe and this is maybe a bit
controversial.
Nobody wants to be tested. We said this
before. Nobody likes to lose. Nobody nobody wants
to be in that situation.
But don't you think
that when you see how the people who
are suffering
rely on Allah with a pure reliance,
how they love Allah with this the strength
and purity of love and their clarity about
the the this dunya,
how clear it is for them.
Don't you think that sometimes we are the
losers?
That we are the ones, the ones who
are so blinded, the ones who are so
comfortable, the ones who are so sort of
just enjoying our lives and, you know, not
really aware of the reality of this life,
that we are actually the ones who are
at loss and that they are the ones
who are being favored. And I know that
that sounds maybe that maybe that's, like, not
right to say,
but I have to look at and we
have to look at the example of the
prophet alayhi wasalam. Alayhi wasalam.
Yes. How many of them lived lives of
of hashtag couple goals, you know, and and
Instagram worthy houses and, like, the lifestyle that
everybody wants. Right. None of them, except a
few. Yeah. Most of them were tested severely,
and yet they are the most favored, the
most favored of the whole of mankind.
So I have to say, sometimes I look
at the Palestinians and I say, you know
what?
My naf says, I don't wanna be in
your position. But my iman says,
to have even a taste of what you
know in your heart,
what would that be worth? That is so
profound.
That is very profound to just reflect on
the fact that they have an AHRA driven
purpose,
and they are letting go
in full understanding
of
and and really embodying it. I I really
feel
I I feel humbled by their experience
and how they are handling their difficulty. I
feel that they have shattered the ceiling
of what it means
to have tawakkul, what it means to have
riddha and what it means
to put tawakkulalala.
I it really has it has transformed the
way I view things. And I feel like
there's so much work that I need to
do on myself
to even
come close to having that level of
understanding.
And I feel if we look at it
in that way
and because we are talking about being transformed
by the light
and the light enters through the wound. Right?
We have said that that is a home
of Rumi.
It is a wound in our oma, but
light is emanating from it, and we've all
been touched. And if you haven't been touched
by it, I think we really need to
do some soul searching and seeing
how can we use
this as a way to truly be transformed
by that light.
Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. And, you know, I was
thinking about, like, this TEFLA, the promises, and,
you know, pointed to his heart and said
TEFLA have it's here. It's here. Right? And
and they really have it here. Like, when
you listen to the stories, we feel like,
who are we on this, you know, like,
hot hot gets this interview.
Who who are we? We should just all
just sit back and just keep listening to
the story. It's just
because we're talking about it and they're experiencing
it. And we're talking
about and they really
know. Is the masterclass in letting go. Right?
That you spoke all your distraction and and
your soul focus and your experience and your
being and your state of being, everything is,
like, in the essence of Allah, and they
have that like, they've completely
have let go, and
no other nobody else but
and that's when, you know, like,
what that unlocks for them in their heart,
what that unlocked
for Ibrahim alayhis salaam, you know, when he
let go of everything else and he was
thrown into that fire, and he even let
go of the.
And he only said Allah. Right?
At home and how that fire turned into
the garden for him, That may all make
this, source of garden and
I mean, that's a beautiful
reflection. Beautiful.
Sister Naima, would you like to maybe make
some dua for us and for the people
who are watching for in this Ramadan
as far as what we need to do
to actually be transformed. Because as brother Wadhud
said so eloquently
earlier that it is not about doing more
because many people get caught up with the
list and they're checking off how many times
did they finish the Quran and how many
times they're doing things. And that's excellent. We
should aspire to do more, but in the
process we have to become more.
And so what are maybe some duas that
you can make
for our viewers to Insha Allah achieve that?
I pray that Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala first
and foremost allows us to see Ramadan.
Amen.
Allows us to show up fully
for Ramadan to honor this special, sacred,
blessed time that we've been blessed with and
allows us
to evolve through Ramadan.
And whatever we gain this Ramadan, may Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to hold onto
it. And may it become a part of
us as we move beyond Ramadan so that
we are constantly
Insha'Allah
level by level, leveling up to become the
best version of ourselves
and draw nearer and nearer to him as
we end our journey.
That's beautiful.
I loved having you on. Thank you so
much.
You're very dear to me and
may Allah light your path and give you
barakat in everything that you do.
soon.
soon.