Maryam Amir – My Quran Story+Women and Quran
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From a family who many Masha Allah are converts and are very
intentional about the way that they wanted to raise their
children with the love for the Quran and the love for Islam. But
being born and raised in California, I was
very excited about so many different aspects of exploring my
identity and I couldn't find Islam to be something that I was excited
about. I wasn't sure if I wanted to identify as a Muslim. I was
questioning different religions, and sometimes I remember having
conversations with my friends about other faiths and just
thinking, what if Islam isn't the right one? And when my parents
said to myself and my brother that we were going to go for Amra, I
was in high school, and I was terrified that if we went to
Mecca, we would come back and I would somehow be spiritually
pious. I had seen people go to Mecca and come back and have this
like newfound zeal for Islam, and I didn't want that to be me,
because I thought that it wasn't who I wanted to be. So when we
went for Amra, the very first time that we saw the Kaaba, my dad
said, you know, before you walk in through the masjid of the Haram,
to look down and to allow yourself to feel the glory of the Kaaba in
the moment that you first look up. And so we started walking, and I
remember my parents were crying as they're walking through the Haram,
and I didn't feel anything. I literally remember hearing my
parents weeping and just feeling like I could be at the mall and
feel more spiritually alive and subbah and Allah. As soon as we
get to the steps that led to the Kaaba, and we looked up,
it was like something suddenly grabbed my heart and just hit it.
And I remember in that moment just thinking, Allah, Allah, you are
true and, and just begging him to forgive me and guide me and and
that feeling that I experienced in that moment, I have never
experienced something like that before. It was, it was literally
like. It was exactly like the ayah that Allah SWT says, talking about
the people who are, who are, whose hearts are dead and they become
alive, like Subhanallah, this, this, this, this, this feeling of
your heart becoming alive. I didn't even know, I didn't even
know what it felt like for your heart to be alive before that
moment. And when I experienced that after that, that that that
connection with Allah, I thought, Pan Allah, I don't want to let
this go. I don't want to ever go back to not knowing who he is. And
so when we came back, and I was back to, you know, public high
school, and back to everything that nothing changed. I changed
internally, but nothing else changed. I thought, How am I going
to continue to make that connection with him? And so I
thought, well, you know, the book of God, the Quran. This is his
words. And maybe if I try to read the Quran, I'll be able to have a
connection with him. I won't lose that connection. I used to spend
hours watching TV, and I thought, why can I spend so many hours
doing other things, and I don't spend any time with the Quran? So
I started trying to read. I intended to read five pages of the
Quran a day. I'm not Arab. I don't. I didn't. At that point, I
could barely read Arabic, so I started taking Quran classes. I
was 17 when I took my first real to read class, intentionally
wanting to start and hamdullah from that process, it took me
seven years to complete the memorization. It took me so long
in the way that I heard it, everyone I heard finished the
Quran was like, it took me a year. It took me a year and a half, and
I just thought, Oh, what is wrong with me alone? Musta an like, all
I'm doing is memorizing. But I was working and going to school full
time through my entire process of memorization, and it was so hard
for me to find a Quran teacher, and this is so critical on the
journey of memorizing the Quran. Because, yes, you could, you know,
you could read on your own, and you could memorize portions on
your own. But having a teacher is so critical to make sure you're
reciting correctly, to make sure the rules are, you know, correct,
the times you stop and start are correct. And so every single time,
you know, I would go months, months and months. I mean, I'm six
to eight months without a teacher, a year without a teacher, and that
whole time, I'm trying on on my own with a friend of mine,
constantly listening, listening everywhere. It wasn't until I
moved to Cairo so that I could study where I actually had a
teacher full time. Alhamdulillah, bless her, I was able to study
with her full time, and that's really where.
Sure. Well, I wasn't studying Quran full time at the time. I was
studying, you know, Islamic sciences, Arabic and Islamic
sciences, and so Quran was still on the side. But when I came back
to the United States and moved to California again, I moved to Los
Angeles and Subhanallah, I looked everywhere for a Quran teacher who
was a woman. I couldn't find anyone. I was willing to drive an
hour, two hours away, and I couldn't find a single teacher,
except for one, may Allah, bless her, whose schedule was so packed
because she had so many people from all over the region going to
study with her. And then Alhamdulillah, Allah directed me
to my Quran Sheik. His name is Sheik mohid Ahmed Fula. He is from
Egypt, but lives in LA May Allah bless him and raise his ranks and
his family. He is a master of Quranic recitation. He has ijazah
in every he never touches the must have to read it for his own heft,
because his his heft. Masha Allah is so strong I've never ever seen
him look at the must have. And what he says is that it confuses
him. But that is how strong his his his connection with the Quran
is. Whenever he talked about the Quran, it wasn't just, of course,
the Quran we love. The Quran is the book of Allah. The way he
taught me to love the Quran was to love the Quran as a woman that the
Quran was for revealed to me as it was revealed, to the companion to
a woman, rodilo Quran. And so for me, my love for the Quran and
social justice with the Quran, how all of us have to, you know, work
to better ourselves, better our society,
connect our action, because Quran is about action. Is it going to
improve our character? Is it going to improve our relationship with
our loved ones. Is it going to improve our commitment to helping
vulnerable communities like Quran is about action and for for me,
subhanAllah, to hear the level of love that he taught for the Quran.
The Quran is for you as a woman, especially as a woman who's not
Arab, as a woman who's from California, that message to me
really shifted the way that I looked at myself with the Quran.
And I'm so grateful and so blessed. Alhamdulillah, I've been
able to continue my review with him since I finished my
memorization so many years ago, and I'm so blessed that,
Alhamdulillah, you know, being able to share that it took me
seven years is something that I've heard from so many other women
since, that I'm so grateful that it took you so long, because now
sisters have told me that it's taken them eight years, that it's
taken them 10 years, but, but they know that's okay, because they're
still going for it. And the point is, no matter how long it takes,
imagine if it took you 15 years. Imagine if it took you 30 years.
But after 30 years, you said, I've been working for 30 years to
memorize the Book of God. I've been working for 30 years on my
connection with the words of Allah subhanahu wa, imagine what a
lifetime of that process looks like, SubhanAllah. I mean,
subhanAllah, Sister, I'm just like, overwhelmed with the heart
rendering story that you began with, because Subhanallah, so many
of us have that moment, right? I mean, there's nothing on earth
that can describe that feeling when the heart comes alive, is
that you've never experienced that, that moment anywhere outside
of it. There's nothing on earth any pleasure in this dunya, any
achievement in the world that can ever match that. So that when you
were Subhanallah describing that moment when you looked at the
Kaaba, I felt like, literally, I was there, and
just as you I was getting emotional, you know, just just I
loved how much Subhanallah, how it began, just from looking at the
Kaaba and and I love how you describe that, how you came and
you instantly connected your faith and your heart coming alive to the
words of ALLAH SubhanA wa taala. Because a lot of people, you know,
we can have that, you know, alive. And sometimes we don't end up
correlating it, that it's ultimately, that's the source of
it, you know, the source that we have. You know, for that life is
the Quran, and I love the house of hanla that you go through this
journey, how difficult it starts off. I mean, I didn't know this. I
mean, I follow you on and on social media. I've read your post,
but I didn't know that it began with such a humble beginning where
you weren't able to even read the Quran, and you you stuck with it.
That's that determination, the dedication and Subhanallah that
is, you know, may Allah bless it. You know and and call and make it
the inspiration for so many other sisters who are listening into it
that you know our brothers, you know anybody who's struggling to
just stick with it. I
mean, you covered so many parts Mashallah. I want to dissect it
all. There's so much to take lesson from. Okay, sister, so you
mentioned that you
that your parents and you come from a family of converts. So do
you have an Arabic speaking background, or do you speak Arabic
yourself?
I I'm not Arab. So we didn't I didn't start speaking Arabic. I
learned Arabic Alhamdulillah. But the way that really, I started my
Arabic journey was in the process of reading the translation and the
the.
The Quran itself in Arabic. I would sit and read every single
day for hours. So I was reading the English, I was listening to
the Arabic, and then I was always listening to the Quran in Arabic
and the translation. So I would listen to it in Arabic and then
listen to the translation. So my ears got accustomed to hearing the
words consistently. And then I started reading the words that
came. You know, there are many, many resources, especially now
online, that have words that appear often in the Quran. So, you
know, like Jannah, Jahannam, these are words that, even if you don't
speak Arabic, you can understand those basic, you know, gentle
words that appear often. So I would, I would spend a lot of time
just reading and reading the translation, memorizing the
translation. When I the first Surah I intentionally memorized
was Suratul moenon, and it was, it was because I had such an
emotional experience sitting in the car on her way to tarawia, and
I remember listening to Chef namidi in the car, and I didn't
understand anything. I had just, you know, the past year, than
really listening to the Quran and trying to connect with it. And he
started to cry as he was reciting swords on what we knew. And I
asked my dad, like, what? What is he crying about? And my dad could
generally get the, you know, the the references to jahannam and to
Jannah, and, you know, to these concepts. So you're telling me,
you know, this is about the Hereafter. And I went to Te rewiha
That night, and I remember, for the first time ever, feeling a
sweetness of Ramadan. And then I went back and I said, I need to
memorize this chapter. And so, of course, I didn't, barely could
read Arabic, so I'm reading the transliteration. That's why I
memorized me noon with the English writing. And I was memorizing the
English translation of the transliteration so that I would
understand the verses that I was reciting, because the Quran was
set for us to connect in a language we it was set in Arabic
to Arabs. It wasn't set in Persian to Arabs and Japanese Arabs and
Latin to Arabs. It was set in a language that they had mastery
over, and yet the Quran was the master of the language. And so
when we read it and language, we understand and are able to connect
with it the way that it impacts our hearts, the way that it
changes who we are, our connection to Allah, recognizing our own
situations and how our Lord is with us. And so when I was going
through that process, you know, it was kind of a reading that
translation constantly. It allowed me to start understanding the
general messages of the Quran, and I was doing this for six years
before I moved to Egypt to learn Arabic. So when I went to Egypt to
start my Arabic program, subhanAllah, first of all, I
didn't know I mean, Alhamdulillah, my parents, I'd been trying for
years to be able to go study overseas, and they were so
supportive, but no doors would open. And so the day after I
graduated from my undergrad studies, I flew the day after, I
was like, That's it. I'm done. I'm leaving. My dad flew me over to
Egypt, helped me find an apartment with other sisters who were there,
and so Hamdi that not everyone can just go study Arabic, yeah, but of
course, it's a gift to be able to study and understand Arabic and
read the Quran in that way. But if that's not your reality, just
start now, like I did and inshallah in six, 710, years,
subhanAllah, the way that you will understand the Quran, even if it's
every day you're just practicing for, you know, 15 minutes, 15
minutes a day, it will change your life. Inshallah, subhanAllah, as
you said, it actually brings the Quran alive. You know, I have the
similar journey, Alhamdulillah, I'm still on my journey to learn
Arabic, but in terms of how I understand Quran now is much more
than I did when I was younger. And it's completely different
experience. You cannot compare the experience that when you were
standing in taraweeh. You can actually understand what you know
Quran is saying, what Allah subhanahu wa saying is a
completely different khushu. It's a completely different connection
with Allah, subhana, Allah, and again, I mean, subhanAllah, I'm
impressed that you, again, start with absolutely nothing in that
department, and mashallah, continue in your determination and
not give up and not get discouraged that. Okay, look, you
know, I can't do this and can't do this, it's just so inspiring. And
may Allah again, bless it and make this an inspiration for all of us
to carry on our journeys.
I wanted to also find out, I mean, you spoke a little bit about your
education in Islamic studies
in Egypt, so I want to understand this a little bit more, because we
still have this. We don't connotate. I mean, we don't
connect
Islamic educational or the authority to Muslim women. Do
people call you a sheik? Is this something that you you know? Is
that what that qualification is? How do we navigate this? What does
your study entail?
So it's interesting, because the conversation on what to address
scholars by is something that scholars themselves shy away from.
So we see, you know scholars, that we say Sheik, or, you know, Alem,
and they say, No, no, I'm not sure. I'm not a sheik. I'm not a
scholar and Subhanallah here in the United States, it's a
conversation we've been having.
Think specifically about women and the importance of using titles for
women. And it's not because women, you know, feel like women deserve
to be called a she or a stava or, you know, hafila. Anyone who is on
the path to knowledge knows that. You know we know nothing,
literally nothing. You know the Hamdulillah. I've been studying
Islam actively and seriously for 17 years, I know a drop, a drop of
a lake, not even an ocean, like I'm not even, I haven't even
reached the ocean level. But Subhanallah, when we when we look
at the way that our community takes sources of knowledge, how we
address individuals involved in spheres of knowledge, impacts the
way that other individuals take the weight of of their words. So
I'll give you a personal example, when I first started getting into,
you know, the Quran, and wanting to study. And now I'm like, Okay,
this isn't enough. I don't I want to know the Quran, all the Quran,
but I also want to know scholarship. I also want to know
everything about Islam. I want to share with with with everyone, how
incredible Islam is, how empowering Islam is for a woman.
And the more that I, you know, studied with individuals who may
Allah bless them, they hadn't actually studied themselves. They
were just reading books. And, you know, they didn't have teachers,
they didn't have formal qualifications. They came from
particular, you know, Muslim majority countries, and so they
have the Muslim culture, along with the, you know, many
misunderstandings of what it means to be a Muslim woman. And then on
top of that, reading books in translation that are not
necessarily nuanced when it comes to issues relating to Muslim
women. And so I went from someone who was so passionate and so
excited, and I love Allah. I want to share the love of Allah with
everyone, and then I went from that to just being terrified of
myself. I went from that to being so terrified that Allah created me
with my personality of enthusiasm for him as a test for myself,
because I'm a woman, because the messages that I received from
these may Allah bless and these women who, you know, mixed a lot
of culture and sometimes taught one understanding of Islam. You
know, Islam is Mashallah. We have a rich history of scholarship, of,
you know, of deep classical knowledge, and unfortunately, a
lot of times we haven't talked about, you know, the depths of our
is, of our Islamic tradition. We teach one opinion as if it is the
only opinion that exists in Islam, many times in communities, yeah.
And sometimes that understanding becomes the architecture and the
infrastructure and the policies that we make in a masjid. And so
for me, growing up in my masjid, only seeing one one practice, I
thought that was all of Islam. And so when I was being told, you
know, I was going to college at the time that I shouldn't leave
the house at all unless it was absolute necessity. The amount of
guilt I felt for going to school, the amount of guilt I felt for if
a non Muslim security guard at the library said hello to me, and I
responded by saying hello, the amount of Toba, the hours of
repentance I would make asking God to forgive me for responding to a
man who's not Muslim, who doesn't know anything about Muslim
culture, who's just saying hello to the polite the amount of
repentance I would beg of God for so like you know when I would hear
from a Muslim woman, I remember one time there was one Muslim
woman who I knew about, who was a woman of knowledge, and she came
and visited our community and gave talks just for women, and I
remember her sharing something that was different from what I was
hearing. And I thought, well, you know, she is, she's a woman, and
so she doesn't know as much as men do. And the fact that I would even
have that thought, that it has nothing to do with her
qualifications, it has everything to do with the fact that she's a
woman and Subhanallah that internalized inferiority, the fact
that I felt like as as many years as a woman can study she will
never know as Much as a man, I think, is something expressed in
simply the way that we introduce women of knowledge to our
communities, a woman who has known Quran, who has a PhD in Islamic
Studies, who has published books in Islamic fiqh, is called a
sister, and yet we have a brother who graduated from a 10 month
Arabic program as a sheik, when we consistently have those messages
on the way that we talk about women in our communities on a very
simple, just the simplest concept of the title, it impacts the way
other girls see women, and that's really one of the reasons I'm so
passionate about talking about women's issues, talking about
Quran with women, it's not because I think that we need to, you know,
radically change our community. No, no, our men and women are
allies. The Quran talks about us as, oh, the ya, the Prophet
sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam, the companions. They were brothers and
sisters in the way that they saw.
Supported one another for the message of ALLAH SubhanA wa taala.
But when we have little girls who are growing up and they don't see
themselves in the woman who are scholars, they don't see
themselves as the potential that they can to memorize the Quran.
They can, too, become a scholar. They can take the weight of a
woman's word, who has studied the Quran and Islamic sciences for so
many years. And maybe she was nakab, maybe she was hijab. They
don't see her connecting to that. And that has, they don't, yes,
sorry, yeah, no, I'm saying that that exactly it that has such a
long you know, that's where we get upset with the woman, when they
feel that they don't have a place in in the spiritual world, then
how? Then they end up connecting with the place that they can have.
And then we're also, you know, we're also, you know, for example,
blacklisting them for okay, you know, you're going on social
media, you're taking off your hijab. What's wrong with you?
You're being a feminist. And a lot the implication of when you don't
see anybody as a Muslim woman who is respected in the religious
beer, and you only associate that with the men. I think a term that
I came across with was gendered humiliation. I don't know if you
agree with that one, where you feel like as a gender, you feel
somehow that it's a negative thing. Even Allah has created us
as women. We feel some sort of humiliation attached to it, a
shame attached to it. We have a total the lahonha, who was, of
course, a scholar, but many times her the emphasis is on how she was
in her modesty, which is so important, of course, of course,
it's so important. And then we have faulty model, the law anha
and Masha Allah, her example, as you know, this incredible daughter
to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, her defense of Islam as
a young child, but the focus we have is for her role as a mother
and only to Hasan and Hurley Allahu Akbar. But the Prophet
sallallahu sallam was a grandfather of granddaughters as
well. And so when, when our focus is really only on the men
companions, and the only time we mentioned women companions is in
modesty, marriage and motherhood, which are so important. Hamdu di,
it's such an honor to have, you know, this connection with
modesty. It's such an honor and a blessing to be in the space of
wife put in motherhood. Unfortunately, many times, it's
also a place of extreme pain for many women. But it's also, you
know, in our in our religion, it's an honored space for so many
reasons. But when that's the only thing that's we're focusing on in
our community, we don't even know about the other companions. We
don't know who am I, Tia Israel. We don't know about Asmaa radila
anha, the many Asmaa Han when these are not part of our active
conversations, you have someone like me going into a college
course, never knowing about all of these Hadith and all of these Aqua
of the of the Alameda and I, I as much as I'm sharing my passion of
the Quran. For you, I was terrified I was going to lose my
faith. I was terrified I was going to lose my faith because the way
that women's issues were presented were so damaging, and then it's
not like I could go to the masjid and find an answer, because my
Masjid space was set up in the same way. And so since that time
when I started going to study in Egypt, I just couldn't even
consider looking at women's issues. I was so afraid that
something would happen to my Iman that I immersed myself in the
passion for the Quran, and I completely left even thinking
about women's issues on the side. And it wasn't until I completed my
master's at UCLA that I had been studying Islam seriously. By that
point, for many years, I had been working with scholars at that
point who had studied overseas, come back to the United States,
built institutes that were open for women to study in. Because
before that, we didn't really have much here. But Pamela, now,
Alhamdulillah, these scholars have gone. They've come back. They
started to build and then I was able to start looking at women's
issues. And now I can say that the very same topics that the very
same Ahadith, the very same, you know, wordings of the scholars
that were presented in that way that caused me to be terrified for
my own faith. Alhamdulillah. Now I find healing in them, empowerment
in them. I These statements are the ones that I share with other
women. As you know, sometimes these statements might be used.
They might be weaponized against Muslims. Non Muslims might say,
What about the Prophet? Peace be upon and he said this. And and
Muslim women sometimes don't know how to respond, because in our own
community, we don't see a response. Yeah, but these
statements and these these Hadith, these ayat, they are there to give
women honor and status, and now even the ones that are so
misunderstood, that's how I see them. I see them as giving us the
power of agency and the power of voice. But it's a long process for
me to get there. And when we don't address the cumulative believer
that a woman is, when we're not focusing on her, her as a as a
whole, worshiper on all the aspects of what that means, then
how can we expect that a woman who seeks a spiritual connection and
comes to the masjid and is told there's no woman section?
In or is told you shouldn't be here. This is for men. Or you're
told it's better for you to pray in your home. You shouldn't even
be at the masjid. And she's just been, you know, yelled at someone
has spit on her. There's been a hate crime towards other Muslim
women who wear hijab, and she's afraid she can't even feel that
connection with Allah in the house of Allah. Then how do we expect
women to continue to carry, you know, this, all of Islam on her
shoulders. We have mothers who, you know, we expect to raise their
children of this nurturing love for Islam. If these mothers don't
even feel like they can connect to their religion, what are we
expecting them to pass on? And God forbid, Allah knows. I pray, Ya
Allah for the future generations. Because, you know, span Allah, if
in three generations the mothers of those children, the
grandmothers of those children, the great grandmothers of those
children, didn't know that the Quran is for them, that the Islam
is for them, that the masjid is for them, then what do we expect
to happen in a few generations. Who is to blame at that point if
we know that this is happening and yet, we're not willing to change
the architecture, the infrastructure and the policies
that we have in many Muslim communities to address the fact
that women are losing their Imaan, and it's not because they're not
good enough believers, it's because they don't have access to
spaces with ease where they feel like they can explore their
religion, SubhanAllah. I mean, it's so much Subhanallah, how you
put it together. It just, I can even relate to the journey that
you're talking about, where you go from loving Allah. Subhanahu. Wa
always had the love of Allah no matter what happened. But you know
that sense where you feel like you don't matter? Are you less than a
person? You know? I mean, there was a time where I actually would
ask, I actually remember asking a scholar or somebody of knowledge
that our woman something in between a man and an animal. You
know, I couldn't, because I couldn't understand SubhanAllah.
Where do I belong? You know, I didn't understand that Allah
created me as this gender, but yet, I was not worthy enough to be
loved by Allah because of how I was, and if I was loved, it was
only in service to men. I'd understand that. And I said, Why
Allah? You know these things, and I've heard it so many times in me,
subhanAllah, we see sisters, you know, leading leaving Islam or
turning away from the practice of Islam in loads. And nobody's
willing to address that. They're saying, Well, you know what, the
women are not that's a problem because that that's happening
because they are women, you know, not because how we make them feel
in relation to either? I mean, women are getting, you know, hit
on both sides. We go out as Muslim women. We are actually the face of
Islamophobic attacks. You know, we face so much Islamophobic attacks,
and yet, as you said, subhanAllah, how you put it together, how you
said it, that we can even flee to Allah's home for protection, you
know, and and how is that fan? I mean, we are in Allah. We don't
see this in the Quran. When you read the Quran, subhanAllah, we
don't see that Allah, subhanaw taala has preferred men over the
woman. You know. Allah has revealed those verses for a man
just as much as for a woman, you know, and that is where we find
our empowerment to know that we matter to Allah. Subhana wa taala,
I mean, another thing I wanted to see, I mean, you were talking
about how one way that we can become visible in in the religious
sphere is through recitation of the Quran. And now that's a big
issue among among many people in the Muslim community. And I know
you're tackling it, I mean,
but I like to to know a little bit more about the daily living. You
know, I know what we've generally been taught, that Muslim women
should not recite Quran in the presence of non mehram men, and
that's been given that that is like an edge map over it is
something that you do not come near. You know. Is that the case?
Is it as clear cut, or is has through your, you know,
understanding and knowledge and research of Islamic Studies? And
is that? Is that the case?
When I first heard a woman reciting the Quran in my masjid,
it was at a Dawa event, and it was geared to tell non Muslims about
Islam. There was a high school girl who was asked to recite the
Quran, and I was sitting in the audience, and I when I realized
that it was a girl going up to, you know, a young woman going up
to the stage to recite the Quran. I was appalled. I could not
believe that the masjid had allowed in the masjid for a woman
to come up and recite the Quran, even though she was in high
school, she was younger. And I spoke to the director of the
masjid for outreach, and I sent her an email and said, you know,
you know, very politely, you know, this is actually not Islamically
permissible. You know, in the future, we shouldn't have women
reciting the Quran. And she responded, may Allah, bless her.
She's from Indonesia. And she said, You know, I had mentioned a
specific opinion from a scholar when I sent that email. She said,
Perhaps that is one a.
Opinion on this issue, because I'm from Indonesia, and in Indonesia,
women recite the Quran all the time. We have Quran competitions
for women's recitation. Women recite the Quran on television,
and it's part of our Islamic culture. And I sat with that, and
I thought, Pamela, I've never heard anything like this before,
and that's interesting. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna believe
everything here. I'm just gonna accept that. Okay, perhaps there's
something to think about. Then I went to Egypt, and when I went to
mashal Azhar, I had entered with a friend of mine. We had just gone
there. We had been there for just a couple of months, and we barely
spoke Arabic. We walk into mashal Azar and PAL, there's a famous
audit, and he was sitting, men were on one side, women were on
the other side, and he was reciting an ayah, and then the men
and women would recite after him. Then he recite another Aya, and
the men and women would recite after him. And you can actually
see this video on my Instagram page. It's AT T H, E, M, A R, Y, a
m, a m, I R. I uploaded it because that moment for me was so powerful
to witness that men and women are reciting the Quran in Masjid Al
Azhar. A Masjid full of Islamic, you know, rich Islamic legacy and
scholarship for centuries by not a random person, not a quote,
unquote, Western liberal, liberal feminist, by a scholar of the
Quran And subhanAllah. I just sat with that, and I thought maybe,
maybe I just maybe there's more to this than I've ever heard, but I
didn't research it anymore, because, again, I was terrified of
women's issues, so I did not touch anything related to women's
issues. At that time, when I moved back and started looking for a
Quran teacher and couldn't find anyone, until Sheik Mohib, I just
truly believe that Allah, like placed me in LA to be able to
study with Shaykh Muhammad SubhanAllah. Oh, my God. Ya Allah.
Thank you. Thank you, Allah. Panel, I
can
never thank Allah for this gift from him. Um, I was worried about
studying with a man because I never studied with a man before. I
didn't even know if it was permissible to study with a man at
that time, but the way I looked at it was, I can't find a single
woman, and so because it's a state of necessity, and I can't just
stop my Quranic studies because I can't find a teacher, and I've
already been without a teacher for years and years now, I had gone to
Egypt. I had a consistent teacher. I knew the difference. I was like,
I was like, I have to finish my memorization. I've been working on
it for so long. So alhamdulillah, that's why I started because the
teacher, I couldn't find a woman and analyst, Sheik Moheb, was the
master of Quranic recitation, sabbatical law. And by the way,
when I say Master, I want to clarify what that term means. It
simply means someone who has mastery of recitation that they
deeply know. They have Senate, they have ijazette. They are, they
are
legislated. I guess that's the wrong word, but credible they
have, they have credibility to teach the Quran with, with
strength authority. And so when I, when I was studying with him, I
thought, okay, but he's the exception. He's a teacher. He's
also a grandfather. And so, you know, he's older. He's a teacher.
This is a different situation. And then when we were having the end
of the year banquet for the Quran, for all the half to be
to receive the certificate, he told me, Mariam, you have to
recite at the at the end of the year banquet. And I said, Sheik,
Chef, I'm a I'm a woman.
I'm a woman. Like, I can't recite the Quran in front of men, he got
angry. He got angry. He got he was like, and
he said, Don't you know that Islamic history is filled with
woman reciters? Don't you know how many men were taught by a woman?
Don't you know that the teacher of Abdul basil, the Great, the Great
Quran reciter, was a woman Allah. He was, he was just so angry that
that I could assume that, because I'm a woman, that I shouldn't
recite in front of men. And he said, these people who say that
men shouldn't recite in front of that woman should recite in front
of men. If they have a problem with it. They can walk out of the
room. We need other women. We need other women to be able to see that
they can memorize the Quran. They don't have to be Arab they can be
born and raised in the United States, and they can memorize the
Quran too. And so from that moment, that's when I really
started looking into what it means to recite the Quran in front of
men, and it really falls on three things. Firstly, there is an ayah
in the Quran that states, Alda be the human initiative,
Don Abu Cole, the lady fearful behind the colon. This is
addressed to the Mothers of the Believers with the law on him.
This translation of the verse is often translated. It's translated
many different ways, but it's a generally translated as, Do not
be, you know, soft. Do not be flirtatious. Do not be seductive.
Do not lower your voice in a way that when you were to if you were
to speak, it could impact the heart of a man who.
A disease in his heart. I give you a summarized translation in that
universe and speak Holden marufa, speak good words, speak good clear
words. Now that translation is,
unfortunately something that we often use as textual evidence, but
when we look at the interpretation from Quranic commentators
throughout the century as su UTIs interpretation. He has a very
similar interpretation to what the translation could be that we often
use to say, you know, a woman should lower her voice. A woman
shouldn't, you know, speak in a louder voice. We could use his
interpretation to support that concept. But But Tada al Baga, we
a group to be so many scholars throughout centuries, classical
Islamic scholars throughout Quranic commentator throughout our
centuries, have trans, or trans, interpreted that ayah in a very
different way. And so when we say, Okay, why don't women recite the
Quran in public, and we say it's based on this verse, the reality
is it's based on one interpretation of that verse. And
the fuqaha who have taken that interpretation, not just asyuti's
interpretation, others who have a similar interpretation, may Allah
be pleased with all of them, and they've created rulings based on
that understanding of that ayah, but others who have a different
understanding of that ayah that it doesn't mean that in any way, it
means something completely different, then that's not their
interpretation. So okay, so now we see, all right, there's a
difference of interpretation on this first so there's not a
unanimous agreement. It's not ijmera, that a woman shouldn't
recite the Quran in front of men based on this ayah. There's a
difference of opinion. So what else could we use as evidence to
see that it's impermissible we look at the Ahadith. Would the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam have made a statement
saying that women should not recite the Quran in public? We
don't see the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam having any sort of
statement. In fact, we have an authentic narration that can be
found in Muslim Imam Ahmed that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam was walking in Medina, and he heard in the home of a woman,
her recite Hal attack, a hadith, lashia Smith, the Prophet
sallallahu, someone street of Medina. She's in her home now. In
Medina, they don't have brick walls, they don't have sound
barriers. Their homes are small, and voices carry out. We know this
from the famous incident of Amar Oliva Anhu and hearing the
daughter plead with her mother about how to be just in their
dealings, in their business. We know from other narrations of a
hadith that women's voices could be heard in the streets. So if the
Prophet sallallahu, sallam, as a legislator of law. He His Word
becomes the law. It becomes the policy. If he heard a woman
reciting the Quran and it spilled out into the street and he was
able to hear her, so Allah a seven, which means other men were
able to hear her, he would have to it is a necessity as a legislator.
So Allah to explain, to prohibit, to say, to make an announcement,
to go to her, to be clear that it is impermissible for a woman to
recite so loudly, or not even so loudly, but in her home where men
could her voice could carry out, because her home isn't strong
enough to keep the sound in, that she should lower her voice so that
a man doesn't hear her. And yet, the reaction of the Prophet
sallallahu Salam instead was to be emotionally impacted by this ayah
and to say that it's come to him, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, this
ayah is very strong. It's talking about, you know, the day
Subhanallah, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam,
knowing,
attack cat, attack salah, alaihi wasallam SubhanAllah. So he he's
emotionally impacted by this ayah, and it was not associated with no
she shouldn't recite the Quran in public. So we don't have a hadith
that prohibits woman's recitation. So where does it fall to, it goes
to a different aspect of Usul, which is the concept of, said of
the Royal which is blocking the means to evil, preventing the
means to evil. So if there is something that could lead to
something that could be evil, we block the means before it even
happens. And this is where scholars, when they spoke about
the concern that if a man heard a woman reciting the Quran and it
mentions Talad. So I'm going to just make a statement here,
because we're on air and I want to be cognizant. I'm not going to
translate what the scholars actually said. But this is the
concept of not a man enjoying recitation because the Quran is so
beautiful, and mashallah, she has a beautiful recitation. It's to a
different degree. It's to an attraction that's beyond just
general attraction. And we're talking about the Quran. So if a
man were to hear the words of ALLAH and think undivided thoughts
about the words of ALLAH, so much so.
That he is, you know, beyond, beyond, attracted to that in this
way, then that should be stopped before it could even happen. But
other scholars don't place the burden of responsibility of a
woman
of a man potentially being,
feeling this way about the recitation of the Quran on woman
by closing that door for women to recite. Imam albujrini, he's a
great shaifi, a scholar from centuries ago, he addressed this
saying that if a man hears a woman reciting, it is haram for him to
feel to be turned on by listening to the what to the recitation of a
woman, and if, and it's haram for him to cure her voice, if it, if
it does this to him, including with the recitation of the Quran.
But if it doesn't do this to him, then it's not haram. Ibn mufrah,
see a great Hambali scholar from centuries ago. His commentary was
about men, that if a man hears this, he should turn away. And
current current day Donald, if that in Jordan and in Egypt, they
address the same concept that if a man is the one who finds himself
feeling turned on by the Quran alduilla, then he should turn
away. Not all women shouldn't recite in case there could be a
man who feels this way with the Quran And subhanAllah. I I've been
so honored to interview women from around the world who are Quran
scholars, who have MERIS the Quran, who have, you know, studied
with scholars who have established instances of Quran, who won in
Quran recitations all over the world, SubhanAllah. And it's so
interesting to see the difference of this culture in so many
different countries, but Sheikha Hager haniti, she's a scholar who
it's in Spain. She went from Spain to Morocco so that she could learn
faz and the Quran and Islamic sciences. She came back, she
established an institute that's of Quran in Spanish. So she's
teaching, of course, the Arabic itself, Quran in Arabic, of
course. But in being able to teach it in, you know, in Spanish, just
native Spanish speakers, because before her, there's no institute
that addresses Muslims in Spain. In Spanish, it's in Arabic. And
not everyone speaks Arabic. And she's established this institute,
and sometimes she has men that come to her and say that would be
better for her not to do these things, because women shouldn't be
in these spaces. And Allah, AJ, all right, that's fine. That's
totally fine. It's a difference of opinion. That's okay. You can take
the other opinion. You can take the opinion that says it's better
for women not to recite where men can hear her. The problem with
that is that there's there's no other institute. It's not like
there's an alternative, and that's one of the problems that we have
in our many of our communities. I went to Birmingham. I have the
honor of traveling throughout the UK. I went with El buruj Press.
May Allah, bless El buruj Press. They brought me and said a Jinan
Yousef, who has authored reflecting on the names of Allah.
It's a book that that really focus on how you can build your
connection with the names of Allah. And we went through
mashallah, so many different cities throughout the UK, speaking
to all women
groups. And mashallah, there were so many women who attended these
events. There were, like three to 400 women. In Birmingham. There
was a woman who had driven from four hours away to attend the
event. And subhanAllah, I was reciting the Quran and these all
women's events. I was reading leading Salah in these women's
events for all women. And I cannot even count. I told you the amount
of women who attended the events to tell you the amount of women
who came to me tears, crying, bawling, in their 40s, 50s, in
their 60s, in their teens, in the college, saying that it was the
very first time in their lives they had ever heard a woman reside
in the Quran. And if they had known that the Quran was for them
too, they would have started memorizing the Quran. Girl also
told me that when they started memorizing the Quran as a child,
they were so excited. They actually enjoyed it this. I mean,
some children, Allah has just blessed children. Some children
love the Quran, and she's memorizing with her brothers going
to the Imam. And around 1112, years old, the Imam tells her her
parents that he can no longer teach her because she's slowly
becoming into the age of puberty, and now that door of memorization
is closed for her, because in her city, the Imam is the only person
who is qualified to teach the Quran. No other woman had
memorized the Quran in her city, the Imam is the only source of
knowledge, and so she stopped memorizing the Quran. Her brothers
became her fell other women who told me that they were on the path
of memorization, and then we're told it's better for you not to
memorize, because one day you're going to become a mother and you
won't have time to do your review. You're never going to leave. Tada,
so it's better for you not to memorize. These are the messages
that women received a lot alone. Stephan, I mean really, it just so
angers me, because we expect women to raise our next generation of
Muslims with love for Islam, but we're not willing to inculcate the
love of Islam and the knowledge of Islam in our own sisters. So So
these sisters now Subhanallah, they're telling me that after
hearing through the four mothers campaign online that about four.
Others, following the footsteps of our of the companions, subhanAllah
um Ayman, radila Abu Bakr. Radila Huan Huma came to visit her after
the Prophet sallallahu, seven passed away, and she began to
weep. And they said, Don't you know that what is with Allah is
better for the Prophet sallallahu? And she said, I'm not crying
because I don't know what is with Allah is better for the Prophet
sallallahu. Alayhi wa sallam. I'm crying because the Revel the
revelation has been cut off from the heavens. And so they all
started crying together that love for the revelation. Khadija,
radila anha, the very first woman who accepted Islam, hearing the
Quran from the lips of the Prophet, saw it was a woman.
Hafsah. Radila anha, the very first non Khalif to hold the must
have in her possession, the written must have in her
possession was a woman. This is our legacy. And yet I'm going
through these cities and hearing from women that now, after years
of memorizing 100 different songs, I'm going to start memorizing the
Quran too, because for the first time ever I've seen a woman, and I
know that it's for me as well. And that's the power of Sheikha
hanith, Sheikha hagers Institute, when she said about men, she said,
Allah says, for the people who have a disease in their heart, and
so we pray for she fat, for the people who have a disease in their
heart. Why is the responsibility solely on women not to recite,
instead of on men to work on that part of themselves and again,
again. It's a difference of opinion that is absolutely
acceptable, may Allah, except from all our scholars who major these
made, made these ijti had that we have to recognize that our
scholarship, you know, so much of our scholarship, was intended to
protect women in the time of colonialism, that's what your
foremother initiative is about. I have been following that this is
an initiative that you've done on social media. Could you give us a
bit more on what that initiative is about and what the objective
is? Yes, thank you for asking about it. So foremothers is the
concept of our forefathers. Who are our forefathers? This is a
word we never use with the companion. Companions, or the
Aloha, but the concept that the companions were are, you know, the
people who we are taking our Islam from that they they sacrifice so
much so that we can, we can feel the sizes that with Islam. So they
are our forefathers, our foremothers. So the four mothers
campaign is not for mothers. It's m, O, R, E, mothers, that we are
following in the footsteps of the woman who witnessed the
revelation, who were passionate about the revelation, rodi la
Juan, Juan, and it's a campaign for women, with women by woman,
for the sake of Allah, because it's on social media. I knew that
I needed to address the of women's recitation, but the intention was
never so that men can hear women recite. I don't care if men have
plenty of men to hear women, men have plenty of other men to hear
men reciting. I actually this panel. I never, I never, as you
heard in my story Hamid, I was so blessed with feeling passionate
about the Quran on my
you know, it came from, from from a different experience, and I had
a lot of privilege in the access that I had to scholars to teach me
the ability to go study. Not everyone has that many, many women
when I am the one reciting told me I'm the very first person they've
ever heard, and that's what caused them to want to think about
memorizing. That wasn't part of my story. I didn't. I didn't need to
hear a woman reciting to say I wanted to, but forgive me, I
shouldn't have said didn't need to. It just wasn't part of part of
me, and that's not for many women, and that's fine, but what about
all the other women who need to hear that? And so the fact that we
give little girls examples of who they can be like, I can't tell you
the number of women who have reached out to me and said in the
past year, since we started the campaign, how many of their
children have started saying, I want to memorize the Quran on
their own, on their own, by watching interviews from women
around the world, from Morocco to Sudan, from Indonesia to
Australia, from Nigeria to Malaysia, just all over the world,
subhanAllah, every part of the world, we've been so blessed. And
Inshallah, continuing with even more Bosnia, to hear women who
have memorized the Quran, who talk about their journey. And these
these mothers are having their children watch these interviews
and on their own, these little girls are saying, I want to
memorize the Quran too. I want to be like that too. No, they said
they've never made these statements before. So this is
like, literally generational impact to be able to see women and
to have little girl say, that's who I want to be like, and to be
able to hear women's recitation and say, I have this problem.
Actually, personally, my problem with recitation from not hearing
women is that I sound very deep. I'm always trying to imitate a
man's recitation because there are no you know, Maria offa from, I
believe, Indonesia or Singapore. Mila, forgive me, I'm not sure
exactly where she's from, but she has, she has a whole recitation
out from the whole Quran, but she's the only woman that I know
of. And so I've never heard actively being able to memorize
with a woman's voice who has my tone. My tone is so your tone is
so important, SubhanAllah. And so anyway, hamdullah, it's been such
a gift to be able to start this campaign.
And have so many women hear other women, and that's the point. If we
don't have women reciting in mainstream spaces, it's not about,
oh, we need women to recite because men are reciting.
Personally, exactly. That's not what I care about. It's if that's
other people's goals, that's totally fine. Not mine. My goal is
simply, if we're at a conference and no woman is allowed to
participate in the Quran competition, and no woman can be a
judge of the Quran competition, and no woman sees other women
recite in Quran. Where does a woman know that it's for her too?
So the point is simply so a woman can see other women and model
themselves other after other women, and know that, Inshallah,
the Quran is accessible for them as well. So panel, let you say
that because, like, I had the same sort of journey until I came
across your foremother.
Sorry, the form of the initiative, I also had started to feel distant
in the beginning. When I first started practicing Islam, it was
sometime in high school, and one of the first thing is, you know,
saw the Landia would listen to him, and just it had developed
this relationship with the Quran. And then as I got married as I had
kids, and as you tend to think, okay, it's no longer part of my
life. It was weird, like it was something I didn't know how I
could incorporate the Quran in my life. And again, as you said, same
thing, where you start to feel distant, that you don't have
anyone, you don't see any woman you know, reciting Quran, or
having this deep love for the Quran, and maybe they're having it
in their house, but you don't but you don't get to see it. You
don't, you don't think this is something that we should be
broadcasting, right? So you end up not, you end up disconnecting from
it. And subhanAllah, it was when I came across your foremother
initiative, is that when really gave me, you know, what, I
actually, you know, you know, rekindled my love for the Quran,
and I contacted somebody to start teaching me Quran properly again,
the Tajweed. And I have now a sister, subhanAllah from Egypt,
and so, I mean, may Allah reward you for it, because Subhanallah,
you may not know how far you know your initiative go, but it's
subhank Started my love for the Quran again, and it's something
now I'm starting to build where SubhanAllah. I didn't know that I
needed that
SubhanAllah. Thank you. No, thank you for sharing that that's so
helpful for for everyone to hear and think that you know that
concept of shame, like sometimes you feel ashamed because you don't
have that connection. But think about it structurally. Is it
really your fault, I mean, or is it the fact that you've you've
never been encouraged, you've never seen it in the structure.
You've never seen other women like you don't even know where to find
a Quran teacher who's a woman. I mean, Alhamdulillah. Now online,
there's so many institutes, there's Rubble talk, there's
Jannah Institute. There are so many institutes that teach women.
But when I was growing up, we didn't have that. I'm assuming you
didn't have that. No, of course not. That impacts the way that you
know that makes you deep. You feel deep shame, because you don't feel
this supposed connection to, I mean, this connection to what's
supposed to be, you know, the book of God. But Where's that coming
from? It's also coming from the fact that, structurally, you don't
have access, so it's not your fault. I mean, sometimes it's our
fault because we have access and we just don't care. But why don't
we care? Again, it goes back to the messages that we're receiving
as women many times. Of course, personal responsibility is
absolutely so important. But also, if you were in Mecca and had
access to constant Islamic Studies, and all you did was, you
know, surround, you know, be at the Kaaba, your Islamic Studies is
going to be very different from someone who is struggling and
trying to figure out on their own in the United States, it's a very
different situation. So I mean, Alhamdulillah, I love that there
are deep conversation about the Quran and how we women can embrace
this journey with the Quran. May Allah reward you for taking the
time out and for spending Masha Allah quite a long time in
discussing this and Inshallah, and during the month of Ramadan, while
we're fasting. Jazek al khairan again, for taking the time out to
discuss this with me.
JazakAllah khairan, to you so much for putting a focus on the
conversation on how women can access Allah and feel like they
can connect with Islam and the Quran. May Allah reward you so
much for being intentional about about bringing this topic around
for other women to know that it's for us. May Allah. Bless you so
much. Thank.