Maryam Amir – Quran and Power for Women Haute Hijab interview
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AI: Transcript ©
Assalamu, Alaikum, everyone. I kind of lost my voice. So bear
with me.
But I'm so excited for today. Don't I say that every time, but I
am very excited.
Let me make sure I got that right. Okay,
okay, everyone, Salamu, alaykum. Oh, I like those horse those goat
emojis. That's funny.
Okay, so today is the second hh, halaka, Ramadan. I'm really,
really, really excited about today. I'm excited about the
topic. I'm excited about the speaker.
I can't believe Ramadan is flying by. It is crazy.
So today we're gonna be talking about your relationship with the
Quran. Inshallah, so let me see if Mariam is on and then we can get
started.
Like I said, I kind of lost my voice,
and I'm really tired today,
so you'll have to bear with me. Bismillah. Mela,
how are you guys doing? How's your Ramadan? Oh my god. And also, you
guys, please. I'm not paying attention to the comments. So if
you see, um, there's Mariam, if you see, like, the comments have
been crazy lately. I don't know how these weird. I'm not even
going to judge, but I don't know where these men find the live and
what their deal is. So please report any comments that are
inappropriate, because I'm going to really try and focus on Mariam
and not
the comments we can get started.
Have all of my questions.
How are you? I'm good and Angela, how are you? Alhamdulillah.
Alhamdulillah, I love your voice. It's like,
it's terrible. I'm so sorry. No, I keep losing my voice. That's my
have a mic. I keep losing it. It's right, you handle it so hard. I
know I this is, like, the past week I've been talking like this.
It's terrible, but, yeah,
it's a great sound on you.
That's funny. It's so good to see her face,
doing great. Alhamdulillah. How are you? Alhamdulillah, well, this
Ramadan has just flown by. I can't even believe we're like, a third
of the way done. It's nuts. Yes, everyone will learn after it's
been like, nine days. I'm like, it's done, right? I swear I'm on
Zika week too. So I'm like, number one hand, last 10 days. Inshallah,
I'll be praying. Number two, it's like, when you take that break
from fasting, it's like, you know, you know the feels. Your post on
that whole topic was so phenomenal and well, you know what's upon a
lot all your Instagram posts, I can't even tell you, it hits me in
the moment. I need to see it. It's at the top of my feet. I don't
scroll my my Instagram, by the way, your posts are always at the
top. Literally, the day I got my period that you posted that, and I
was reading it like,
I don't know. I don't know if it's like I just know, or if I just
have cameras in your house.
Oh, my God, no. I'm so grateful to hear that. I'm very humbled to
hear that. I think it's just that all of us go through the same
things, literally. So you you drop such jewels of wisdom, and I feel
like they're the things that nobody, everyone is thinking, but
nobody's saying it out loud, you know. And I'm so I'm so grateful
that you are just saying these things out loud for everyone who's
who's thinking it, but no one's addressing it in the way that you
are so thoughtfully and in such a way that makes every single person
feel worthy. Really, I'm very humble to hear that. I think there
are so many women who are doing this work, masha Allah, and maybe
we just don't know of their voices as much, unfortunately, and it's
just our responsibility to amplify the voices of women and men who
are investing in women's lives. But I think the fact is that the
more that we don't talk about these issues and the more silent
we are, the more we perpetuate the shame, and that's not part of our
religion, and that's so internalized. And then we cast on
to Allah. We feel shampoo. And then we cast it onto who Allah is.
And that's not who Allah is, not at all. Oh, that's so deep, right
there. Well, let's get let's get right into it. I want to soak up
as much time with you as possible. Today we're talking about our
relationship with the Quran, which I'm really excited about me too.
This is the month of Quran. And so we, you know, we kind of give you
an outline beforehand, but I guess I'll just start at the top and
just, you know, why is it important? Why is the Quran
important? Why should it be an important part of our lives? Okay,
don't even know. What I can see was a lot. Waslam Allah. A lot of
times when we talk about why the Quran is important, we might hear
things like because it helps us in a relationship with Allah, or
because it helps us get good deeds, or helps you go to Jannah,
or it helps you to feel like you understand your religion more. And
all of those are true Absolutely. But one thing specific.
Specifically as women that we often don't address is that the
Quran gives us power for women when we face the realities of
very toxic practices in many Muslim community spaces, many
Muslim cultures, the way that many Muslims look at many Muslim spaces
have specific infrastructure, architecture and policies that
make a woman feel like we don't have not. It's not that we don't
have the space. It's just that we're not welcome to our space, or
beyond being welcome, we're not critical for the community. It'd
be better if we weren't there. And sometimes when we hear that type
of messaging, then we start internalizing that we we are not
as important as men are in our religion. And we hear that all the
time. You know, I'm sure you get messages like this from sisters
like I'm struggling with my faith, and sometimes I struggle is, is,
is a very self blamed one. It's like assist. I get messages all
the time from sisters who and trigger warning for the types of
conversations we're going to be having in this discussion. I know
it's about Quran, but it's also about how to find healing with the
Quran. So I've had so many messages from women who are going
through very difficult issues and divorce, who've been victims and
survivors of domestic violence, victims and survivors of child
sexual assault, just so much very real, real pain, and then they go
into the masjid looking for help, and the answer of the Iman is,
well, you shouldn't have been dressed that way to a child to
their uncle. You shouldn't have been dressed wearing leggings in
front of your uncle, like these types of messages. Who who was
blamed for that? It is the victim and the survivor going to an Imam
and asking for support when someone is going through extreme
pain in a marriage, and being told you should just make you should
just be patient. You should try to seduce him. That is disgusting
when we're talking about domestic violence. So when we have that
type of, you know, rhetoric surrounding woman's pain, and on
top of the fact that, if we have any rhetoric at all, sometimes
it's simply silence, then women start to internalize that. When
I'm struggling with my faith, when I come across a hadith that seems
to be
seems to be putting woman down, and I don't know how to process
that. What if I come across a verse, and that verse seems to be
not uplifting for me as a woman. How do I process that? And so then
what women say is, my faith is not strong enough. I don't know how to
process this, because my faith is not strong enough, because that's
what we're told. But why don't you look at your cumulative self.
You're coming to the Quran, trying to read it, after all this trauma,
you're trying to go to the Quran after going into a Muslim space
and maybe not feeling like you're welcome. Why aren't we looking at
all of those factors when we're approaching the Quran, when, in
reality, the Quran, when it comes to woman, is power. It is healing.
The Quran was revealed to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam. Do we think it's by accident that the very first
person who the Prophet salallahu, alayhi wa salam recited the Quran
to was Khadijah. We focus on the comfort Khadijah gave her husband.
Of course, we focus on Khadijah as the businesswoman who we also then
say to women who go into business, well, that's not really your
place. But hanijah was a business one, but that's hanijah. So we
have these like caricatures of who women should be based on who we
see of the companions who are women or leela, Juan, Juan. But
when our woman today try to emulate that, then we say that's
not really part of part of Islam. But we don't talk about very
often, excuse me, very often.
Have being the first believer to accept Islam. She's the first
convert of Islam. A woman was the first person to accept the words
of God from the Prophet. Peace be upon him, sallAllahu, alayhi wa
sallam. And the first Mushaf that was bound the actual written must
have the first person to keep it, who was not a Khalifa, who was not
a Khalif, who is not one of the Muslim rulers, was Hafsa radila, a
woman when we look after the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam passed away. Abu Bakr Alma radila, two great companions of
the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam went to go visit um Ayman,
and when she saw him, she started to cry. And they said to her, why
are you crying? Don't you know that with what is with Allah is
better for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam, than what is
here. And she said, I'm not crying because I don't know that what is
with Allah is better for the Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wa
salam, I'm crying because the revelation has been cut off from
the heavens. She started her weeping caused Abu Bakr namah to
start weeping too. And the reality of seeing women in these spaces
over and over, taking the Quran as a form of upliftment and all.
So the way that they understood who they were. Because when we
look at the revelation, it was brought to a society which were
burying baby girls alive, women were inherited like property.
Women's Voices did not have the weight that men's voices did. Of
course, you're gonna we're gonna have exceptions to those rules,
but that was the situation of their society as a whole. What do
you think that that would How do you think that would impact the
way that a woman felt about herself, her self worth in a
society like this? How do you think that would impact the way
that men saw a woman? Alma Ali lahawan, who said that we didn't
used to think of women as anything. We didn't think of them
as anything until, until what Allah sent and what he divided for
women. So when we're looking at women in the society of the
Prophet sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam, we're talking about within
less than within a generation, like a little more than 20 years,
men went from varying baby girls alive to seeing women as partners
and as as women who had political roles. That's who that we see the
political rebellion of women in the time of the Prophet
sallallahu. So Asmaa bin Abu Bakr radiAllahu anha, excuse me, we
taught we know Asmaa radila as the one who helped the Prophet saw
them and Abu Bakr Al Iran, who flee, you know, and like, and go
in the Hijra. But she was in her third month of pregnancy, third
trimester of pregnancy, she was really pregnant, and she's helping
two people who are trying to flee. I mean, this is like a political
an act of political rebellion from community, like when we look at
the types of interactions women had, who they became with, the
revelation is so different from the way that they started. The
revelation brought women into spaces that women were not. And,
for example, the Ayane, when we talk about witnessing, we say, you
know, there's a verse in the Quran that talks about two men
witnessing, and if there's two men not present, then having one man
and two women. And women approach this verse, And we approach this
verse and say,
Why would Allah say that one of our testimony is not enough? Why
would we need to have two of us testify? This is a really long
discussion. I actually covered this issue and a bunch of other
ones. And of course, I teach on women's issues, conversations on
women in religious texts, on suhaibweb.com, but I'm not going
to go into a whole lecture on it, but I want to mention one thing,
and that is in this society, while Khadijah and a few other women
were part of like business, that wasn't the norm. It wasn't the
norm for women to actively be involved in business transactions.
This verse is talking about business transactions in which
women were not actively a part of. So what does Allah do? Abu
mentions that Allah elevated bringing in woman into a space
they were not in. He actively subpoena wa Taala brought women
into the space of having discussions on this issue, so that
women would be a part of these societal issues. So this verse,
Even though, for us, we say, well, why does there need to be, you
know, two women to one man, initially, the intention? Well, of
course, only Allah SWT knows his intentions. I'll only be left,
forgive me, I don't I should have used a different word. Abu Shukla
is mentioning that it's to bring women into the space. And Ibn
Taymiyyah mentions in a society in which women are actively involved
in transactions and know the lingo, then we only need one
woman. We don't need two women. One woman is enough for testimony
is enough. But when I'm reading this verse and I'm bringing in all
of the experiences I've had from the Muslim community that have
caused me to feel marginalized. All I'm reading is a
marginalization. I'm not reading how Allah is bringing women into a
space they were not in before. So when I'm approaching the Quran,
why is it important for me as a woman? Because for me as a woman,
when I'm facing some of the misogynistic practices in our
community, I can look at that and say, I know the Quran. When
someone comes to me and says, sister, It's haram to do that, the
Quran says It's haram for a woman to give a lecture. It's so it's so
wonderful for me, Alhamdulillah, to just be able to say, You know
what is actually mentioned in the Quran as something that is haram
is to make up something being haram. Oh, Mic drop. Now that is
actually mentioned in the Quran, but when we're talking about
something like the Quran says women shouldn't give lectures, I
know that that comes from a difference of interpretation on an
ayah, so why aren't you presenting it in that way? What is the
interpret whose interpretation is that? What is that based in what
is the other Usul related to that? I can say that because I know the
Quran. When we don't know the book of Allah, we also then don't know
that, we can come back and say, No, I actually do belong here, and
this is my space, because that's my right from.
Los Panama, tada, and it's okay that there's differences of
opinion. That's fine. We accept that. And not all of our spaces
are like this. Many uplift women and are so supportive of women and
are actively making sure that women are included. But until it's
our norm for every Masjid to create a specific position for a
scholar who's a resident, who is an is a she of that message, just
like we have an Imam, so that, Inshallah, all the women also have
easy access to knowledge. Until that is our norm, until our
policies reflect that norm, we are going to continue to have women
who question whether or not they have the same worth as men. And
the fact that we even have that question, do I even matter as much
as men do to God, shows us that we as a as an ummah, are so far from
the teachings of Allah, and the only way that we can prepare
ourselves to strengthen our faith and to pass on a faith that we
want our future generations to hold on to is by going back to the
Quran, because if we look three generations from now, let's say in
three generations, the the mothers of the children of that
generation, what if they don't have a connection to God? And it's
not because they're not good enough. It's because they keep
being told they don't belong here. And then we look at their
grandmothers. Okay, so the grandmothers of that generation,
in three generations,
did they feel like they could actively access the Quran? Maybe
some of them did. Maybe a lot of them were told that it's better if
you don't memorize the Quran, because you're never going to read
taraweya, because you might be a mom one day, and then you're never
going to have the chance to review it. We hear that all the time
today. I hear that from women saying this today, and so if that
is going to be the grandmothers of that generation,
and then we look at what happened to the mothers of those
grandmothers, we come back to right now. How do we feel when it
comes to our religion? Some of us feel empowered. Some of us feel
like some of us feel like Melanie on a beautiful day with that
smile, tabatical love. But a lot of us don't. And even though
Melanie is working to create that in spaces, and even though women
are working to create that in spaces, and many men and many mass
are working to create that in spaces, until that is reflected in
our the change of our policy. We need to ask ourselves, in a few
generations, if those children don't feel like they can identify
with Islam because their mothers, their grandmothers and their great
grandmothers didn't feel like they identified in the way that we
should be able to with the Quran that we really need to ask, whose
fault was it I love, protect us. So going back to the Quran
individually is the first step to finding personal healing and
communal healing. And Inshallah, got upliftment with the Quran.
Inshallah, I want to touch on something you said, because I
think again, kind of going back to the things that a lot of people
don't really talk about, perhaps because they just don't have
requisite understanding or knowledge. But the the point about
this ayah na Quran about testimony we often hear, Oh, it's because
women have half the intelligence of men, or, let's say, the Hadith
about how more women inherit the hellfire and that's because they
gossip and backbite like It's like we hear, we hear these, these
false reasonings, and they start to become truth because they've
been circulated so heavily. Number one, where does that come from?
And number two, how do we break that cycle? Some of that is based
in authentic narrations that are misused, mistranslated, and abused
in our time. So the one you're referencing, for example, is one
long narration, longer narration,
looking at the this narration. This narration is an authentic
hadith, and it was given in the time of vayd, in a time of joy, in
a time of of happiness, the Prophet sallallahu sallam, went
out of his way to go to the woman in the masjid after the Salah
avaid, the Salah in which he ordered for women, even in their
menses, to attend and um atya radila huanha om Atia is Muslim,
the one who would be standing in Ohad protecting the Prophet. So
Allahu alaihi wasallam everywhere he looked, she was there
protecting him. No say about a sometimes also mentioned as no
Seba Abu Han ha. She participated in seven battles. She lost her arm
in one of the battles, and so she became a campaign of the Prophet.
Saw someone with a disability. We have Muslims companions with
disabilities as part of the society of Medina who are so
critical for Medina, and yet we don't see that reflected in many
of our Masjid policies or just discussions. But no see about all
the one huh? She had a narration talking about how they used to
hold back.
Back there, the younger girls from going out and being a part of the
prayer space, part of their celebrations. The Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa send them. He ordered that they come and witness
the good and be a part of the good. And so when we're looking at
this narration, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa Salam is
going to the woman to talk to them on this blessed day, because he
was, he was giving a lecture in the front of the masjid, and
perhaps the woman couldn't hear it. So now he goes to them, or the
specifically, sallAllahu, Ali wasallam, and these are the women,
very much, the woman of Medina were known to have a very
aggressive temperament. They were described by amaro de la Juan,
who's saying that the the woman of Medina would overcome their men.
And yet, when the woman of metcal went to Medina, they started to be
influenced by the the personalities. And so the woman of
Medina started to take on the personalities of the woman of
excuse me, the woman of Mecca started to take on the
personalities of the woman of Medina. And so what happened is
you have these women who changed in the personality and started
becoming more intense towards their husbands. And the husbands
were not having it. They were not excited about this change. And so
when you're talking about these women who the Prophet sallallahu
Islam is addressing he's addressing women who don't simply
listen and say yes. They ask questions. They say, Is this from
you as a man, or is this from you as a prophet? SallAllahu, alayhi
wa sallam. They are constantly asking. They're seeking, they're
intense, they're assertive. So do we think
if we were to say that this narration was intended to harm
women. What does that say about how we think the Prophet
sallallahu
on night, on an occasion he ordered women to be a part of to
witness the good? Are we saying the Prophet Salla Salam would go
out to say something that was harmful to women? Are we saying he
went out there to make fun of women? So do that, and are we on
the flip side? Then saying that the woman who were listening to
this would simply listen and say, You're right, we're the worst
creatures on earth. No, that's inconceivable. The narrow this
particular narration is so healing in its in it's a statement made in
joy, and it's talking about the reduction of responsibilities upon
women, not the reduction of intelligence on women. However,
the explanation for this could legitimately take over an hour or
so. I'm not going to go into every single part of the Hadith I'm
having it is on the course, if anyone wants to take it, Shala,
but what I do want to focus on is because of our lack of
understanding of who the Prophet, sallAllahu, alayhi wa salam, is
our complete lack of even talking about who the woman companions
were, except if we talk about Khadijah as a wife, Aisha, radila
anha and her modesty and salty metal dillahu, Hana and her mother
had, may Allah bless all of them and allow us to follow their
footsteps in those ways and also in the ways which they were more
And when we only talk about women in those ways, and then we bring
in the Hadith, and we say it's because you have less intelligence
than men. It's because you have your your testimony is is half of
that. It's because women are in the majority of the Hellfire that
is so terrifying, because you're taking a hadith that is intended
to to to encourage women, to uplift women to be a moment of joy
between the woman of the of the Ansar and the Prophet sallallahu
send them, and we're using it to abuse women. We're using as a
justification for why women shouldn't be a part of our spaces.
And then at the same time, we say a woman's primary responsibility
is to raise her children. So what are you saying? You're saying our
primary responsibility is to raise the future generation, but we
don't have the intellectual capacity to raise the future
generation that you are saying is our number one role. Wow. So then
what are you really saying? Because that's not the
understanding of this hadith. And while there might be
interpretations like that throughout our history, and may
Allah have mercy on all of our scholars and except from them,
it's important to realize that interpretations also come out of a
context. Many times, interpretations that we hear came
from someone who, you know, masha Allah, maybe, was a scholar of
certain things. Like, for example, there's a scholar of our pastor's
name, I won't mention here, but he was, you know, a great scholar of
Quranic words. Like, he had a book talking about the like,
specifically, Quranic words, like the root words. What does it mean?
Like a lexicon of Quranic words. But he wasn't a scholar on women's
issues, and he used a lot of the Hadith that were fabricated or
weak, and wrote a book about women and how it would be better not to,
you know it, it would be best for for them, basically, to be born
and to not leave her home until she gets married, and to never
leave her marital home until she goes to the grave.
Like those types of messages are not from the Sunnah, and if it's
coming from a scholar who says something like that, then you
think, Okay, well, a scholar said that. But was he a scholar in
women's issues, or was he a scholar in something else? Was he
a scholar of Hadith, or was he a scholar in a different area? So a
lot of times, because, especially as women, we don't even know
sometimes who the Imam of our Masjid is. We don't even know.
Like, how many times have many of us not known if we're done with
our period, we're not sure, am I praying in three hours for salt of
Fajr, or am I not? And we don't even know who to ask. And if we
even know, if we go to the masjid to try to ask the Imam, we somehow
have to go into the men's section, find the Imam, and then in front
of the other men, explain our period to him who's never had a
period before. Like that is ridiculous, and yet that is the
way that we have set up our our massage. It as if, as if more than
half the population who's raising the other half of the population
doesn't something as critical as whether or not she's praying isn't
of utmost importance, like if we created our spaces differently, if
we had different policies in our spaces, if women were if women's
needs were reflected in the leadership of our spaces, we would
see different conversations in the way we address women's issues.
Unfortunately, we have allowed ourselves to set up our
discussions to misuse and abuse the Hadith, when, in reality, the
Prophet sallallahu, sallam was a Rahma for all of the worlds, and
that includes women.
So
there's so much I could talk to you for five hours. I just want to
I want so I think so far, really, the moral here is we have to take
personal responsibility of educating ourselves on the Quran
so that we have the requisite knowledge and also support those
and pray, Inshallah, that we have systems set in place whereby women
have more of a seat at the table, so that we can all benefit from
women's scholarship in our institutions. Now, what about
people who you know, the Quran is very difficult for them. It's
daunting. Arabi is not their first language. You know, they just feel
so disconnected from it because it's it's something almost foreign
to them. How can they start to develop a relationship with them?
Where should they even start so for me, because I'm not a native
Arabic speaker, I'm not out of it was really hard for me when I
first decided that I wanted to start reading the Quran, I started
reading it in Arabic. I hadn't read the Quran in like, years
before that time, and I started trying to read it in the Arabic.
It was super slow. I didn't understand what I was saying. And
then my mom was like, why don't you read it in English so that you
can understand? And that moment changed my whole life. Reading it
in English was like being able to understand that Allah swt is
actually talking to me personally, and as I develop my relationship
with the Quran, that's when I realized that we look at the Quran
as a book that we need to read. What we need to do is look at it
like a relationship we need to cultivate. So if I know someone
who is really cool and I think I want to get to know them, but they
speak a different language. When I try to get together with them and
I don't understand what they're saying, maybe we'd use hand hand
gestures. Maybe we have common words that like, Okay, once in a
while you can say a word. You're like, Oh, I get that. I know
they're talking about ice cream, but that's the only thing I got.
And like, you can start to kind of get that idea, but when you have
no clue what someone is saying and you don't know their background
and you know nothing about them, it's very hard to open your soul
up to that person, and it's hard to understand the messages that
they're giving you back. So instead of looking at like looking
at it like a book that I need to read, how would you approach a
relationship with someone who you really want to get to know, but
you feel uncomfortable around, sometimes you're feel awkward,
sometimes you feel shy. You just don't know how to start. How would
you start that process? Maybe you'd get a dictionary, or, like,
a trance, not dictionary. You get a translator. Maybe you get like,
Google Translate to be able to ask them to like, type in your word
here, let me translate it and let me type back something back,
right? Like you'd find a medium of connection. So the first step is,
what is your medium of connection? Right now language simply read the
Quran in a translation that you feel comfortable with. I recommend
the clear Quran by Mustafa of I think that his translation is
really beautiful, but there are so many translations you can read on
quran.com, just Q, u, r, a, n.com, they have so many different
translations. You can pick all of them and read through them and
decide which one works best for you, and then purchase that
particular translation and be able to focus on it. But starting with
just reading the translation is a beautiful step to feel connected.
What's another thing you would do with a relationship? You're not
going to meet them? Maybe you would. Oh, my God, Allah. Allah,
this is Ramadan Allahumma. Answer, this moment. Allah, answer. This
moment. Allah.
Me and Melanie was going to Mishra also together. Allah blesses was
going to Medina together. Allah blesses was going to Mecca
together, us and everyone we love. You. Mean, okay, if we went to
Mishra also together, Melanie and we had this amazing, incredible
experience, we're on a spiritual high. We're just like, Allah, I
never want to leave here and then we lose touch for 10 years, yeah,
but we meet each other in Medina 10 years later. Oh, do you think
that our connection would have changed in that time? No, no,
because we have that moment. We have that like we have history.
How do you create history with the Quran? How do you create that type
of connection so that you feel like wherever you stop, you can go
back and start right where you left off. That is a relationship.
You build that with experiences. So take the Quran, take your must
have. It's not just it's not just a book. It's your friend that you
hug. You go out on walks. You take the Quran with you. You go to the
beach and you open it and you recite it on the beach. What would
you do with a friend? Do that with the Quran outside of Ramadan and
outside of a pandemic, go to a cafe, open up the Quran, drink
some coffee, and just read what messages it has for you. It's a
relationship, and sometimes we don't feel connected to it. One of
the things that's really important to mention is that, yes, personal
responsibility for our education is important, but a lot of times
it's hard to know where else you get educated, because the more
classes you take, the more confused you become, and depends
on what type of classes you take. When I first started, first
started taking Islamic classes, all I was told was that you
shouldn't talk as a woman. You shouldn't go to school as a woman
like these were the messages I was receiving, and that's what I
started doing. I completely I thought it was head on for me to
be, you know, to give lectures. I thought it was head on for me to
say hello to the non Muslim librarian who would say hello to
me, I would ask for forgiveness for hours from Allah for
responding to the Hello. That's what I in my beginning, my
beginning Islamic, you know, education. So for a woman, it's
really important for us to recognize that when we come to the
Quran, sometimes it we come with trauma. We come with feeling like
we're not good enough. And it's not because we're not good enough
believers. It's because we're a woman. So like realizing that a
you might need therapy, and that's important, go to therapy. Khalil
Center is a great place for therapy. Roberta, R, A B, A T, A,
A R, A B, A T, a.org, has really Dr Tamara Gray has founded this
important Institute for women to find healing and power, with
knowledge, with with Islam. So a recognize I might have something I
need to work through, and that's fine. I can work through it with a
with a professional. And number two, how do we build new
relationships? We build them with new experiences. So if the only
way I've ever known the Quran was in Sunday school where I was
yelled at and I was told that, you know I wasn't good enough, and I'm
not doing good enough, and I'm not like that other kid who does
everything right. That's not where I need to be. I'm not there
anymore. My mind might still be there, but I need to tell my mind
I'm not there now. I'm safe. I'm going to create a safe way to know
the Quran. What is safe to me look like? Maybe it looks like having a
special corner in my home where I've just dedicated that to my
Quran space, because I feel safe in that room. It's what you feel
safe with, and you create those new experiences. And when you're
looking at the Quran as a relationship, then you're seeing
that it's lifelong. It's not I need to do the Quran right now,
and if I don't do it, then that means Allah doesn't love me? Would
you? Would you say your mom doesn't love you or your friend
doesn't love you because you forgot to call them back one time?
I mean, unless you have, like, a very difficult relationship with
someone, which is also possible, absolutely, maybe some people are
emotionally manipulating you. That's completely that happens.
But like, the Quran is not that. The Quran is Allah. He's not out
to get you. He's out to be he's out to help you find Allah's book.
Is out to help you find the best of your life in the hereafter. So
how do you approach it? And you left it for a bit, and you feel
terrible about that, you go back to it. You just call again and be
like, I'm really sorry. I totally I dropped the ball on our
relationship, but I want to pick it up again, and then you do and
you do it regularly. So every day, have an amount two verses, but
that's going to take you a minute. But if you do it every day, a
minute, every single day, after 365
days, where are you going to be? You're going to be so much further
than you were if you had zero minutes a day. So take it slowly.
Take it in the month that you can and also
think about it, Ibn Rahim Allah. He talks about how, how do you
expect your heart to really absorb the Quran if your only goal is to
read as much of it as you can? Read a verse, and think about it,
Asmaa anha, she used to recite over and over again, Abu, Asmaa
prahi.
She would say and
then she would say it again.
And
then she would say it again,
the Allah had this bounty on us, and He saved us from punishment.
These are people in the Hereafter, just so grateful. And when you
read that verse the first time, you read in a certain way, then
you read it a second time, you read it another way, and then you
read it a third time. Then you think like, what if that was me?
You just think about what that means to you. Every single iron
you recite, you read it over and over again. How do I make the
Quran my safe space? I look at these verses and I think about
them the way that they matter to my life. This is the practice of
the Prophet sallallahu, some and the companions and the ones after
them radiant that they would take an ayah and they would recite that
ayah over and over and over again, and they would think about it, and
Subhanallah, every time you say it, it means something different
for you. So how do you do that? You just take your time to focus
on one verse, and you ask yourself, What does this mean in
my life? And finally, let the Quran talk to you. You talk to
Allah, you make salah, and you make dua. You hear Allah talking
back to you. You open the Quran. And I've shared the stories pan
Allah before so many times, because to me, this moment, to me,
was so
just incredible. I was in high school, I was still trying to
understand who God is, and I was reading the Quran and and I
started making dua. I was reading it in English, and I would make
dua. And I was like,
I actually, I remember saying, oh, Allah, are you even listening to
me? Are you even listening to me make his prayer? And how many
people have asked that question, like, is he even listening to our
dua? Does he answer our dua? Like, I've been making dua for 20 years.
It's not being answered and and when I open the Quran, I close my
eyes, I put it in a diverse and the verse that came up was, well,
either
when my slave asked me, When? When my servant asks of me. I am close.
I answer the call of the one who is calling when they call. I read
that verse, and I just, Allahu, AK, you were talking to me.
Allah was talking to me. And that's the experience people have
all the time. I'm sure you have had that experience before that
you just opened the must have, and you're like, This verse is about
me, about my situation. That's not because I'm special, that's
because it's the Quran. It was revealed for you. So when you go
to the Quran and you ask Allah, Oh, Allah, answer me, and you open
it, sometimes the message is going to be like, I'm not sure how that
has to do with my situation. And that's okay, because maybe that's
not the answer for your situation, and that's okay. We shouldn't
always expect we're going to open up Quran as well. Tell us saying,
oh, that's the answer, but sometimes it is. And in those
moments, subhanAllah Inshallah, that for later, when we talk about
stories of the Quran. But the more you experience a relationship with
the Quran, the more and more you know you're never alone. It
doesn't mean your hardships go away. It means you're not alone as
you go through them.
Sorry, I got really emotional on that one, but here's my here.
Here's where I think a lot of people have difficulty with what
you just described. I think a lot of people have, have have
a block when it comes to them feeling even worthy to receive
what you just described
and and
I don't know where that comes from, but how can we start to
break that down so that we can believe this was for me, this was
meant for me in this time. And Allah is meeting me where I am
right now, not where I think I should be, or where I know I
should have been, but here now, with all of my you know issues and
where I am in my life, he's meeting me here. I'm
going to answer that with a story. Maliki bindina, Rahima hula. He
was a great scholar of our own.
Up, and he is someone who we quote in our books, and he's a great
classical scholar, mashallah, and he started out as a as an
alcoholic. He was an alcoholic, and he would he was also a police
officer who was involved in police brutality, and he was someone who
had a daughter, and this daughter changed his life. And because he
had a daughter, he stopped drinking, and he started becoming
a different person, and he just was obsessed with his little girl,
and his little girl died when she was only around three years old.
Now, if you lose a child, that is one of the worst types of possible
tests. May Allah, plus everyone, and make this easy for everyone,
it I can't even imagine that type of pain you you would you would
hope that your first reaction would be to make
Quran the kid, something to help you come closer to Allah. But the
loss of a of a child is also extremely painful for your faith.
You question, Why did this have to happen to a child? To my child,
God forbid everyone all about protect everyone you up, and his
first reaction was to start drinking. And he just drank and
drank and drank until he knocked out unconscious.
So he drank himself into unconsciousness, and then he had a
dream. And in this dream, he is on the day of judgment, and he is
running from a huge snake. This huge snake is chasing him, and
it's trying to eat him, and as it's about to eat him, he gets to
this old man, and this old man is sitting and he's like, Help me.
Help me. Don't you see, there's a snake. It's trying to eat me. And
the old man says, can't you see, I'm weak. I can't help you. Go the
other direction. So he starts running in the other direction,
and the snake is still chasing him. And as he gets to the other
direction, he gets to a cliff, and when he gets to that cliff,
he stops, and a voice calls out, and it says, You are not amongst
the people of hellfire. Go back. So he runs back. The snake is
still chasing him. He again, goes to that old man, and the old man
says, I can't help look at me. I'm so weak. Go the other direction.
So he runs the other direction. And who do you think he suddenly
sees he's his daughter, and he sees his daughter, and he holds
her, and he puts her on his lap, and he asks her, Tell me about
that snake. And she says, Don't you know that your bad deeds come
in this form that want to take like, take you take take you up on
the day of judgment. And the old man that was your good deeds. You
had weakened your good deeds with so much of your bad deeds that it
didn't have the strength to help you. And if it had not been for
the loss of me, your child, then you would have already been past
that cliff. And yet that that loss was so tremendous, and yet it was
also a means of protection. And may Allah protect everyone, let
the May Allah protect everyone and protect them from their children,
ever, being lost, ever. This was his dream. We don't take rulings
from it. It's just a dream. But then she said this to her father.
She said, Oh, my dear father, I will be then.
Oh,
is it not time for the believers, for their hearts to be impacted by
the words of Allah? She said that to him. He woke up screaming,
saying, it's time. It's time he got ready for Salah. It was Fajr
time. He ran to the masjid. They're already started the salah.
They've already finished social satiha. He walks in the minute he
walks in, the verse that the Imam is reciting is
only
that very same verse that his daughter had just told him, and
that was how he started his path to scholarship. And yet, even as a
scholar of our Ummah and a dairy, he would call people to Allah
because he's been through it. He knows so he would call people back
to Allah with his experiences. He would say, in the middle of the
night, oh, Allah, I don't know if I am of the people of paradise or
the people of *, so make me of the people of Paradise, and don't
make me of the people of *. That even someone who's dedicated
their whole lives now to Toba, to repentance, going back to Allah,
he was just, oh, I don't know where I am, so it's normal for
you, especially if anyone has history with anything, to not know
where we are, and that's okay, but realize that there's a difference
between humility and self sabotage. A lot of times when we
do something wrong, the first thought we.
Have is it's because you suck. It's because you're not good
enough. You don't deserve to be alive. You don't deserve to live
like those thoughts. Where do those come from? My mother in law,
she's a therapist, Michelle lights, it just been such a
blessing to learn from her. I was having this discussion, discussion
with her, and she was like, listen, it's a state, not a trait.
You are going through something. It's a state. You are going
through a lot, it's difficult. That's your state. It's not your
trait, that this is who you are. The problem is we take our
mistakes, or we take our trauma, or we take our pain, and we make
it our trait. We identify in that way. We make that who we are, when
really it's a state that, again, we need to look at all of the
realities. Where did it come from? Is it because I'm just not going
to not gonna it? Was it because I'm a woman who's obsessed with
the glitter of the dunya? Is it because I'm obsessed with my
beauty? Oh my god, I can't get over these conversations and just
legitimately eye roll, like, is that all we care about? Literally,
let you Lola, so is it because of that? And if we do, that's fine.
So use it in the best way. Start a company where you help women feel
empowered through that, but to say that the reason women don't feel
like we can connect to a lot is because we're obsessed with
fashion like that's so belittling when we look at, you know, a
comprehensive woman, she can be this, and that she can be that and
this, she can be all of these things and still be grounded in
her faith. And the problem is that's not the message that we
hear. I've actually, literally never heard that message before.
So when we don't hear that message, and even if we don't have
trauma, and we don't have particular pains specific to
things that are related to religious abuse, and we don't
have, you know, like we don't have something that's caused us to feel
in some way, and it's just me, I just You just need to realize,
when it comes to women, again, as wonderful as many of our spaces
are, that is not the culture we have created for women. When we
look at Morocco, for example, I've been so grateful and honored to be
doing interviews with women around the world, Quran reciters. You can
check them out on Instagram, TV from around the world, from
Morocco and Nigeria, Malaysia and Sudan, Singapore and Australia,
Spain, all over the world, so many other countries, Mashallah. These
are women who have memorized the Quran many of them are
professional Quran reciters, and they recite in competitions with
men and women. They recite on TV. And when I asked them about their
cultures, they're like, Yeah, we we learn Muk on that, like, all
these different ways of narration, of recitation from the time we're
three years old. Like, girls do it with boys. It's a sport we learn
in school. Like, that's a culture. It's that's a culture, until we
create a culture where women know that we belong here, you need to
also recognize a part of your disconnect just comes from that,
from that lack of culture. And that's not necessarily you as a
problem. It's just you don't. You don't many of us, not all of us.
Some of our spaces are amazing and inclusive, and we feel like we
belong, but if you don't come from a space like that, then it's not
your culture, and you don't know you belong. So recognize that the
way that you feel about yourself is not the way Allah sees you who
you are, and the way that you feel about you is different from who he
is, and the way he sees you, and he says, I am as my servant thinks
I am. So if you have high thoughts and hopes who Allah is, then know
that he will be that for you. So have high hopes, don't cast
yourself blame and self loathing and everything else you have onto
God and say, That's how Allah sees me. No, that's how you see you.
Mm, but Allah, tell that. That's is it? Allah? Tell this Rahim, he
is a Latif. He is the one who is with you. Well, who am?
He's with you wherever you are, in his knowledge and his sight and
his hearing, and he knows what you're going through. So look at
him like that, in his greatness, and he is kidding. He is kidding.
He is the generous, whether or not you are generous, He is the Most
Merciful, whether or not you are merciful with yourself, because
that's who he is. So look at him as who he is. Don't look at him in
the way that you see yourself.
We have, we have so much to work through. We have so much to work
through.
But, Alhamdulillah, you know that time really is turning, and what
you described in other places of the world, and what we're starting
to finally see, I mean, you know, we're in our infancy in the West
when it comes to the Muslim community, and really seeing, you
know, you mentioned rabata and the the emphasis solely on female
scholarship, and just, you know, subhanAllah, when Allah, subhanaw
taala, when he puts his blessing into something, and you can see
how much it is become.
A beacon of light, right? You just know that that's what's meant and
where we're meant to go. And when I look back at just, you know,
like 5678, years ago, where we were and where we are now.
Alhamdulillah, we've made so much progress. Yeah, absolutely. And
these conversations are so important.
So do you have
do you, I know you said you were saving this for later, but do you
have any sweet stories of your own personal experience with the Quran
that you can share with us? So one of the things I like, you know
really want to take away with the concept of the Quran being a
relationship is that the more you build your relationship with it,
the more you see the Quran talking to you in different ways. So, you
know, I've been actively worked, actively working on my
relationship with the Quran for this panel, 20 years come to that.
So in 20 years, what do you think it's going to be like? Actually,
it's been like 19 Okay, what do you think it's going to be like?
If you know someone for 19 years, you're going to have stories,
right? You'd be like, oh, yeah, back at that one time, remember
that one time when we did that? Or, like, when you're walking
somewhere and someone did something, and you're like, Oh,
it's a paddle on that. And things mean things to you. So, like,
something means something to you when it happens. And, you know, a
lot of times people have a favorite song, like they listen to
a song and they're like, oh, that takes me back to middle school.
Like, Oh, that takes me back to this, you know, like you have that
reminiscing when you when you work through the Quran with time, you
have moments that mean something to you, because you were
memorizing a surah In this time of your life, you were trying to
understand the Surah At this other time of your life. So then when
you hear that Surah at a different time, it means something different
to you. And I have so many so so grateful to have so many of these
stories, but I'll share with you, like
the most more recently, I actually posted, shared this on Instagram.
But I had a I had a really, really, like, difficult time. I
was very, I'm just going through something very strong emotionally.
And the night before, I was thinking about Surat to zumor, and
I was thinking about how I really want to, like, spend time with it,
and, like, just get to know it. And like, the last part of it,
these verses and the last part, and the next day, I just was a
mess. I was just like, so, like, some days, you know, you just
have, like, a breakdown. And Claudia semiah Mubarak, she's, she
has, I think her account name is Quranic underscore ocean. She has
so many gems about Quran her recitation is so incredibly
beautiful, inshallah. And out of the blue, she sent me a recording
of her recitation. And this recitation, subhanAllah, was
exactly where I was thinking about Surat zumwar the night before. And
I thought like, Allah,
maybe this is like, you know, a gift from Allah to Allah that, you
know, this verse is talking about
going in groups to paradise. And I was like, maybe this is like, like
comfort, you know. And I was just felt so, so humbled and grateful
for that moment. Because Why did she think of sending me this verse
that was so amazing, subhanAllah, may Allah, bless her and her
family. And then I was like, you know, I just really need Quran
right now, like, that's what I need to, like, help me process
this. And so I went on to an online space, and we were all
meant to recite one page, and I got a page, and there are some
parts of the Quran that I'm like, for me when I'm in this emotion,
that's what the verse I need when I'm in this emotion, that's a
verse I need. And that particular page, I knew I didn't have any of
those verses, and I was like, Huh, okay, like, maybe it's a new
opportunity for me to, like, build this, you know, relationship and
this experience. And then I suddenly got called away, and I
had to go, and by the time I came back, they were done with the
entire portion that we were supposed to recite. And so they
were like, Oh, you just got back. We'll add this next page for you.
And that next page, subhanAllah, on that next page was the verse
that I needed to read for my situation. And I remember I was
about to recite it, and I just started bawling because I was
like, This is how Allah is so merciful with the Quran, you just
feel like he knows what you're going through, and he brings
messages to you to answer you, and the Quran follows you around. It's
so special. So like when I first moved to Egypt to start studying,
there I was I had finished from Al Baqarah to and Nisa here, and then
I went to Egypt to study. And so I was starting Suratul Naida. So
Suratul Naida was the first Surah I memorized in Egypt. And it was
the surah that was everywhere I went my entire stay. It was like I
would sit in the taxi. They'd be playing Suratul Naida. I would
walk into the mall. It was Suratul Naida. I went to Luxor, which is
like a different area, and on that microphone system they were
playing so.
Social media. And I remember I was telling my roommate. I was like,
social night is everywhere. It's just everywhere. And then she's
like, come on. And then we went to this cafe, and we sat down, and I
was like,
and she's like,
okay, fine, fine.
SubhanAllah. Just those experiences that it's so fun, it's
so special and fun to be able to be memorizing, and you walk into a
masjid and that's the verse that the Imam is reciting, or you
suddenly listen to like a tafsir online, and you don't expect that
they're going to be doing the tafsir of the verse that you were
just thinking about. But most especially, I want to share with
you that
when you're going through loss,
this is really when the Quran is so critical for your healing.
And
I actually don't think that I'm going to share this publicly, but
I want to say that when I have lost people that I love so deeply,
and may Allah have mercy on them so much, yorub and everyone that
we love, Aloha, Ma, I mean everyone who's passed away that we
love, have mercy on them. Europe, that when you bring the Quran into
a space like that, and you feel like you have nowhere to go,
suddenly, Allah SWT will bring a verse that comforts you, and it's
a specific verse, and he knows what that verse is, and nobody
else knows the meaning of that verse except for you.
And when you have those experiences, you know you're not
alone. And that's why, like when we look at the Quran Surah Yusuf,
was revealed at a time of pain for the Prophet and the companions. It
will be low on him. It was meant to comfort the prophets, holy
Salam and to panel, what's so powerful is that in it, it's the
story of loss and betrayal over and over. But
Prophet Jacob, peace be upon him. He lost his son, Yusuf, alaihi
salam, and he was not rejoined with him, some of the scholars
say, for 40 years. And in that time period, he didn't stop
crying. He didn't he didn't cry one time, and then he was like, I
have Rila with the choice of Allah. Of course, he had real law,
because this is the reality of his situation. He's a prophet. But he
still cried. And he kept crying until he was physically impacted
by his emotions, and he lost his eyesight. His eyesight was
weakened like the physical loss, the physical pain that comes from
emotions, is something recognized in the Quran. And when we look at
that reality of okay, if someone's going through chronic migraines or
chronic pain or some sort of constant pain, look at what our
emotions say, what this study my dad. I always talk about my dad,
but he went through this for so long. He had, like, debilitating
back pain, and it was emotionally based. And Alhamdulillah, he wrote
a book on it that has come to that I'm so grateful that's helped so
many people through. But that's Canada, Quran, that you have your
your pain is recognized in the Quran. It's validated in the
Quran, and it's mirrored in the lives of the Prophet. Sorry. So
when we see that,
and we go through what we're going through, then we know that the
Quran is a relationship that will always be there for us. And
there's no there's no way you can lose. There's literally no way you
can lose so, so just start it and make the plan that, okay, I'm
going to work on this relationship for the next, Inshallah, the rest
of my life and and sometimes for me, I know we're not talking about
memorizing the Quran, but it took me seven years to memorize the
Quran, and it was because I was always in school and working and
had so much going on. It took me a long time, and I remember when I
first started saying that people would be like seven years, but now
people are telling me that because I said that all those years ago.
They almost completed their memorization, and it's taken them
even longer, and they knew it was okay. So imagine if in 20 years,
you're done memorizing the Quran, and it took you 20 years, and
you're able to say, I spent the last 20 years in the Quran, and
how powerful is that to have that relationship for so long as Paul,
I just saw the time. I'm so sorry. No, no, no, no, this is great. Um,
gosh, this is so great. You know, I feel like SubhanAllah.
I feel like in the past year, like last year, I feel like we had it
was like shell shock with everything that was going on,
right? And we were all just kind of trying to figure things out and
understand just get, like, peace and security and comfort in this
crazy time of uncertainty. That was kind of the vibe right, right
now, what I feel is this intense time of healing, like we're all
now as a race, as humankind, as an ummah, what we're meant to do now
is to heal all of the past traumas and things that have much like
what you've we've talked about, things that we've built and
carried around this baggage and has come.
Founded in our understanding of who we are, our relationship with
Allah, with the Quran, with our deen, with the Rasulullah, and we
have to clear ourselves of all those things in order to build a
new and in all these conversation, you know, even last week, talking
about Fatima, just about mercy, the conversation just naturally
went into like healing. And I've been, I mean, I've gone through my
own spiritual journey, and it's been a lot of healing and and
again, I feel like it's because there's this turning tide where
Inshallah, Inshallah, I can feel it. We are going to rise up from
the ashes of what this past year has been in a much healthier
state, having a much better understanding and comprehension of
who we are, who we're meant to be, what we're capable of, who Allah
is for us, what the Quran could do for us, all of these things. And I
just like, you know, I come into these conversations having no no
expectation and no clue where it's gonna go. And that's, you know,
just everything that I heard from you. And,
you know, we we focus. I focus for so long when it comes to the Quran
on, like, recitation. So the Ramadan, for me was about, like,
finishing the Quran, you know, like getting my AJ, that in. It's
okay, if you're not reading the translation right now, just recite
it. There's barakah in every single hareke, right? And that's
great, and that's great, but in this season right now, it's
different, and that's okay too, because I'm not going to hold
myself to some
you know, version of me that felt like I have to do this in Ramadan,
and I have to finish the whole Quran in Ramadan. It's okay if I
don't do that this year, because I have shifted my goal and my focus,
and so it kind of again goes to that whole tide or wave of like us
understanding the deen from, I don't want to say superficial, but
maybe more transactional
versus now our Dean being much more comprehensive from the inside
out, and it being so personal to each one of us individually,
so that it is really a healing for us where we are, in order to build
our understanding and give light to everybody around us. Inshallah,
I think that's, you know, so beautifully addressed. And I think
something that you're, that you you were alluding to, especially
at the end of giving that light to other people, is that the Quran
calls us to action. And I know that you are. You know, we want to
actively be anti racist, and when we talk about like, collective
healing, you know, we can't. We can't talk about collective
healing without acknowledging the extreme brutality towards the
black community and the fact that the black community in the Muslim
community, experiences severe racism and systemic oppression
within many, many immigrant Muslim spaces. So when we're looking at
the Quran as a form of healing, especially from the past year, and
yet we're we're seeing so many black men and women and children
being murdered, it's so important for us to realize that if I find
the Quran healing for me, then it also needs to spur me to work. I
need to work. I need to do the action that the Quran calls to
because while I need to take some time to just process my own
emotion, I say this because, as Ramadan was starting, I was just,
you know, trying to prepare for Ramadan, and I was completely not
listening to the news or anything else. And Doctor ware
pan a lot, he posted something that just shocked me, and I
thought, Where have I been the past few days? I haven't been I
haven't been focusing on the murder of Dante Wright. I haven't
been focusing on the murder of people who who should be a father,
who should still be alive. And I had the privilege of being able to
step away and just focus on the Quran. That was a privilege, and
Dr ware said that he wants to be able to do that too, but it's not
a privilege everyone is given. So as I recognize that, you know that
the Quran is a time of healing for me, I also need to recognize it's
also a call to action for me. And how am I going to actively fight
against oppression, because that's where the Quran calls me to do,
and I'm not going to find that healing until everyone in my
community finds that healing. And as someone with privilege, I need
to work to create that. And that is also something that I'm going
to find in the Quran
that's so beautifully said.
Do you have any last words? Anything you'd like to say about
the Quran before we close out, or about you, and anything that you
might be doing or working on that we can support you in? Thank you.
The only thing I would like to share is for sisters who are
looking for a revolution with their experiences with the Quran.
There's the four mothers campaign that.
I run on my page. It's four mothers, like our the forefathers,
the Companions who are men, radilo on home, and the four mothers who
are, are, you know the woman who are great grandmothers, radila Han
um.
It's living learning to recite and love the Quran as the woman who
witnessed the revelation did. So if you'd like it to participate.
Everyone is welcome. There's details on my page, but it's just
talking about how to it's just finding how to love the recitation
of the Quran and feel that connection and that honor and that
glory through it. You can find it on the hashtag, F, O, R, E,
mothers, and there's also on Instagram TV that we have
interviews about this and we do joint recitations. So any of you
who'd like can come up and we recite together. So Inshallah,
please join us and be so special to have you. Inshallah, you are
such a you're such a light. And when all of us hear you reciting
Quran, all it does is inspire all of us to want to be better
ourselves and to really strive toward that beauty that you exude
when you recite Quran, it's so so so beautiful. Increase you and
preserve you and give you more and more and more. So you can continue
to spread that beauty. Wallahi. It is so, so powerful. As you said in
the beginning, women are so powerful. So I believe that with
every inch of my that's why we say the world's best hijabs for the
world's most powerful women. And I'm not talking about my
customers, I'm talking about Muslim women. They are the world's
most powerful women. I believe that with all of my heart. Thank
you so much, Mariam, I love you. So much. Such a blessing to see
you. I love you. May Allah love you. Thank you for shedding light
on this topic, and may Allah bless you always.
Can you do
mind closing us out with a small dog? Oh sure,
Allah. Can have him watching Allah have even in Muhammad. Oh Allah,
Subhanahu, wahi, mean, in this month of mercy, shower us with
Your Mercy, Oh Allah, any person who is here right now and every
single person that we love and who everyone loves, Oh Allah, do not
let us exit from this life except we've been forgiven for all of our
sins. Every single one of our dua has been answered. Every single
one of us is written of a he said, What a Sabi pada. And every single
person that we love is answered of every need of their heart. Oh
Allah answer the needs of our hearts. Allahuma, if you turn us
away, who will answer us? If you turn us away, who will answer us,
do not turn us away. Answer us, answer us, answer us. Oh Allah,
answer the needs of our hearts and give us even more than we can even
ask for your
Abu Asmaa yo, sweet phone. I mean,
thank you so much for having us
this conversation.
Thank you. Alika.