Maryam Amir – Should women be Quran reciters

Maryam Amir
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss their experiences with parents' cultural views and the importance of finding women to excel in religion. They share their struggles with the transmission of the Quran and the " Four Moth tariff" campaign, as well as the success of the " Clarinetists" clarinet competition. The speakers also discuss the impact of the pandemic on women, the importance of finding women to listen to the message, and the importance of digital expression in society. They mention upcoming online clarinet competition for clarinetists from the United States and how women are expected to participate.
AI: Transcript ©
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Girl Island and friend and you're listening to the digital

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sisterhood podcast.

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So I met Ustad and Mariam on social media, which I feel like

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most of us have. She was this really outspoken woman who had so

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much knowledge, and you could tell by just listening to one short

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clip reel, and she spent a lot of time educating women about women's

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scholarship and recitation. And naturally, I was very, very

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inquisitive about her. So I followed her, and I always kept

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like I always kept along about what she was doing. And when I

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thought about interviewing for season two, I thought, oh, you

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know, I would love to get us down the money to come and talk about

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my story. And I know she has done it before, but I was even more

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affirmed to do it when I found out about her Claudia app that was

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coming out. I was like, Oh, I have to, I have to figure out the story

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behind all of this and who she is, and really how Allah swatta led

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her to creating this, what sounds like a groundbreaking app when we

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interviewed Ustad muddy and we weren't able to fully get our

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story because we had a really short time in the studio, but

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consider this a part one of her story, and in the future,

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Inshallah, we plan to bring her back, and we can talk more details

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about all the things that we missed. But what I do know is is

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this, Ustad money was born and raised in California. She grew up

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with parents that rediscovered Islam in their college years and

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were very intentional about raising kids that were aware of

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Islam

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when I really first heard her story sounded kind of like a

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romantic film. Let me tell you, this is how it went. My My dad

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really found Islam and, you know, chose to embrace his Muslim

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identity. In college in California, my mom did the same in

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college in Iowa. They both were really introduced to Islam through

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Christian roommates that they had. Wow, they would go to church with

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and go to Bible study with. And then that kind of opened their

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path to learning about different religions, until they both

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separately in two different two different states, in two different

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times, in two different years, read the Quran. Were so

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overwhelmed by the beauty of the Quran and really chose that they

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wanted to live this life. And so by the time I was born, I was born

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into this family. It was very intentionally raising. You know me

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as someone who knows a lot in a loving way, hamdullah, almost all

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my other relatives really found and embraced Islam with that same

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time period, with my parents. So we're very diverse. We have a lot

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of different ethnic and racial backgrounds in my family. I'm

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very, very fortunate, very grateful, and being able to have

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all of that growing up and yet feeling so supported and so loved,

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it helped me kind of explore different aspects of my own

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identity as a young person, when I was trying to figure out what my

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own path is, many of his parents were super excited about teaching

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their daughter Islam, as you can imagine. You know, when you learn

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Islam and you find the truth, you're excited to live in it. More

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importantly, you're even more excited to grow children who are

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going to continue this, this legacy and this belief in this

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system.

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But as you know, Allah is the one that guides although we can set up

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all of the blocks so our kids can succeed. It's really up to them to

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find Allah, subhana wa taala. And for Maryam, it didn't come as

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quickly or as easily. She did have a hard time finding that same

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connection her parents felt to Islam. So I wasn't really into

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religion at all, even though my parents were very intentional

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about trying to help us learn the love of who Allah's Panama Taala

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is, and going to the masjid and just being surrounded by this,

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like, you know, this, like, love for God. I personally didn't

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really know if I wanted to be Muslim, and I didn't. I had a lot

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of questions. And I thought, you know, I did generally believe that

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God exists, but I didn't know if Islam was the truth or the one

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that I wanted to follow. From early on, Mariam felt hindered by

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Muslim society's view of how a Muslim is supposed to be. Mariam

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was an extrovert. She was always very energetic, outspoken, loved

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sports, loved to perform and even do martial arts, which didn't

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match the typical expectations some Muslims placed on women.

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Unfortunately, a lot of times that aspect of a woman's personality

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within our community is not nurtured. And so I've been very

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I've been very intentional about what I do share when I'm public.

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Because of that misunderstanding, a lot of times people look at

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Muslim woman with a very cultural lens, that it's not based in

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religion, it is based in their own culture. And when all of that

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comes together and says a certain version of piety is what this

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looks like, and that's not someone who's extroverted now going and

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who loves to skateboard and who has a black one Taekwondo, nope.

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That's really not what you.

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That's not what a Muslim woman should look like. And

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unfortunately, that's so cultural, but it was something that impacted

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me as well. And so for me, like, yes, all of these aspects are

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still a huge part of my personality. I just choose where I

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share those parts of my personality. You know, it's so

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funny. In our earlier podcast, we talked about that, how, like, you

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know, if you wanted to be a pie, you wanted to be a religious or if

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you wanted to, like, be practicing, you had to have

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personality. And I remember he lost, said, with no salt and no

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pepper, you gotta you had to seem like you had no personality, that

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you didn't have other interests outside of studying the Quran. And

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they you were like, you know, boring or and if not, that

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judgmental you were. It affected us even, even our ability to want

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to practice, it's like I had to abandon parts of myself.

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Subhanallah, yes, yes, absolutely. I completely understand that, and

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I still it's something I still pray about. But you know, it's so

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far removed from the example of the Prophet Muhammad. Peace be

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upon him. And the Companions, the woman companions, oh, they're

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examples. I mean, they were so, so assertive, so So such like such

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warriors and and and fun And subhanAllah, that aspect of who

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they were. Unfortunately, it's not, it's not emphasized as much

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as it needs to be. And I absolutely blame colonialism for a

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part of it, because colonialism heavily impacted the way that that

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Muslim women were seen within certain cultures, like if you look

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at the texts that we have pre colonization, the way that women

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are and the roles that they played in society based in Islamic

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knowledge were drastically shifted once colonization hit, and the

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puritanical ideas that were outside of our religion, that did

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not come from our religion, but those pure, puritanical ideas of

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women that were that were heavily influenced the culture that they,

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they colonized. I mean, we're, we are. We are only a few generations

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away from that, and so, so we're still reeling from it. But

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Alhamdulillah, I feel like more and more the way that our

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tradition, the traditions, the scholarship, is going back to our

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roots, and I think that is really where we're going to be able to

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find women finding healing in our religion as well, absolutely. And

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I think that's, that's exactly how I came into it. I started to learn

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about side to a book, and then I started to realize that I never

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had to abandon parts of who I was in order to excel in this, you

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know, yeah, because they always there was, we even talked about

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this element of, like, memorization, that if you were a

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serious Quran student, you didn't talk, you didn't speak, you were

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strict, you weren't funny, you couldn't make jokes. Like, you

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know, that somehow you had to be this, like, this, this rigid

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person, robot, yeah, robot that had, like, you know, one focus and

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one focus only. But then you started to see people Masha Allah,

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like ustadel, who had personality and then became a Hafid, you know,

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like, and those, and those parts of who she was inspired other

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people like, oh, maybe I there is room for me here, you know, yeah,

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it isn't a girls club that had, like, you know, kind of similar to

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a boys club, but you had to, you know, be a certain way, but you

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could actually be however way and use those parts of you to excel.

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Well, money was in high school. Her father decides a gifter with

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the best gift anyone could gift someone a trip to go to Umrah. You

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know, people spend their whole lives saving to go to Umrah, and

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here marim was, oh, thinking, Okay, we're going on a trip that's

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fantastic, not understanding what exactly was about to come her way.

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My first reaction, you know, when you hear that someone is going to

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go to Mecca, when you're told you get a you got to go to Mecca, It's

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a trip of a lifetime. But my first reaction was, I don't want to

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change like I had known people who had gone to Mecca and come back,

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very, very spiritual. And I was like, I don't want to change. I'm

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not looking for that. I don't want that. And subhanAllah, when we

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went into the Haram, like, you know, the Kaaba is in the middle,

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and then there's like this haram, like the masjid that surrounds it,

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the the masjid is surrounding it. And then there's like the Haram

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outside. I mean, the whole area is the haram. But anyway, we're

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walking in through the masjid, and I remember that my dad had told us

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to look down so that, like the very first, you know, glimpse that

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we get to see is the Kaaba. And I was looking down, and I remember

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my parents were crying, and I just thought, I don't feel anything

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like I literally was like, I feel nothing. I could be at the mall

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and feel something more, and I didn't. I didn't feel connected in

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any way to what was happening to my parents. And then we kept

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walking up to the steps where

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it's the opening to the Kaaba, and

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when my dad

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told us to look up

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the first time I saw the Kaaba, it felt like

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it felt like my heart came to life. I had no idea you could feel

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your heart. I had no idea.

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Da that you could actually feel your heart inside your body. It

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felt like Allah had raised my dead heart to life. And in that moment,

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I was so struck with the awe of loving Allah, Subhanahu wa, with

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just wanting to know who he is, with wanting to turn back to him,

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and wanting to live my life for him and and in that, that that

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moment, I just asked for his forgiveness, I asked for his

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guidance, I asked for him to help me, know him. And then I came

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back, back to California, back to, you know, my high school I was

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going to, I went to public school. I wasn't surrounded by like, oh,

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like Islam all the time. I wasn't surrounded by any of that. And

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honestly, some people who are surrounded by that also have

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really difficult experiences, like not Islam, but like an Islamic

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school or an Islamic environment, because, again, there's so much

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culture at play that's not necessarily Islam itself, but

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SubhanAllah. I came back, and I'm like, How do I maintain this

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connection? And I decided I'm gonna start reading the Quran, and

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I am not Arab. I didn't know. I barely knew how to read the

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letters, and I tried to read five pages a day at that time, I was

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like, I could watch friends for like, hours, but I don't know how

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to, like, read the Quran. And so I sat with that, and I have a lot of

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commentary on friends, by the way, that's not a that's not a common

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who I am now. But just like reading. Reading those five pages

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took hours. And I remember one time my mom was like, why don't

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you read it in English, so that you understand what you're

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reading? And I started to read the translation, and it was

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transformational. I would I would go to school, something would

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happen. I would come back, like, bawling my eyes out, open the

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Quran to a random page, point at a verse, and the verse was exactly

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what happened to me. Wow. It was like, I would be praying and like,

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Oh Allah, can you even hear what I'm saying? Do you even not? Can

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you even hear? I know he can hear. But are you listening to me? Like,

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like, literally, I just, I remember sitting on my floor with

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my hands up, talking to Allah and saying, oh, Allah, like, there's

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like, billions of people on the earth. Like, are you actually

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listening to me specifically? And then I open the Quran with my eyes

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closed, pointed at a random verse. What was the ayah when My servants

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call me? What either said any when My servants ask of me, I am near.

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I answer the one who calls when they call. And Subhan Allah, it

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was just one experience after another that, you know, I was

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going through something. I'd open the Quran, and it was like Allah

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was was with me in his knowledge. And the more that I read it, the

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more I wanted to memorize it. And so that began my journey of

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starting to memorize the Quran, starting to learn Arabic and and

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then as I went through that journey, I started hearing all

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these things related to women, and that was, that's a that's another

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fight. That was another fight. Yeah, before we get there, I have

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a question to ask you, yeah, what was your relationship with the

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Quran like before that experience? Before experience, before Umrah?

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Oh, there is zero that had no relationship at all. I remember

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that my parents had me going to the last time before Umrah, I had

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opened up Quran, the verses and transliteration, like, write out

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B, I, S, M, I, L, L, A, H, on a sticky note. I'd put it on my

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hand, and then when the teacher would ask me, because the teacher

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was looking at her, must have so she couldn't she wasn't looking at

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me, I would read it off the sticky note to pretend I had memorized,

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wow. So I hadn't opened the Quran at all since that class. It had

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been years since I had touched the Quran.

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With every friend that I have that's ever memorized the Quran,

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cover to cover always explains to me that you'll never really fully

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understand what it is Allah is trying to say to you, until you

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learn Arabic, until you remove the third party, which is, you know,

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needing assistance in English, you always feel like there's a barrier

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between you and Allah.

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And so when Mariam opened the Kitab that day, and she pointed

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out a random verse, and it was a verse where Allah saying, I

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respond to the supplicant. I respond as if Allah was talking to

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her,

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she was beyond curious to understand Allah in ways that was

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beyond just English written words on a page, but she really wanted

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to understand what exactly Allah intends, or what He means to say

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when he says those verses. And so this, this desire to know, the

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desire to remove the third party and learn Arabic, really began. So

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I started taking Quran and Arabic classes. When I was in high

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school, I started taking classes and just trying to, like, learn as

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much as I could. And after high school, I really wanted to go

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study like overseas or study somewhere, but especially at that

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time, like there was no, you know, online courses. There was nothing.

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Thing, like, you know, no social social media didn't exist at that

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time. There was no way to even know people, like, of like, who's

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studying, where get connected with someone. And so my parents were

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like, We don't know anyone in the Middle East. How are you gonna go

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study in the Middle East? You don't speak the you don't know any

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you're 17. They're like, go to college. And then after you go to

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college, you can go. And so I was like, no, like, every year of

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college, I tried to find a way, and they were very supportive.

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They were like, you know, open to helping me find, you know,

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potential, like someone who knows, someone who lives somewhere, who

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could help me, like, access this path. But it wasn't until after

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college, the day after I graduated from college, that I flew to

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Cairo, and that's when I started my, I guess, my more foremost,

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full time studies. So who told you about Cairo? How did you know

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about Cairo going there? How did you know that women could go there

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and learn? Yeah, Imam sohib Webb, may Allah, bless him and increase

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his ranks and bless his family. He was the Imam of my Masjid at the

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time, and he was studying in Azhar. And so, because he was in

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Azhar in Egypt, my parents were like, Okay, we know im Suhaib, and

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we know his family. And I had a few friends who actually moved to

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study in Al Zahara as well by that time. So they were like, Okay,

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there's, like, a small community of people we know we trust and

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like, you know we we we can connect with if, like, there's a

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reason that you know we're concerned that we know that you're

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taken care of. So yeah, Alhamdulillah, my dad actually

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flew over with me. He helped me make sure to I found an apartment

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like I had wonderful roommates, masha Allah, and then he flew

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back. And so hamdullah, I was very blessed to have that kind of like

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supportive space once I was there. What was the first day in Egypt?

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Like the very first day I was with my dad, and it was so fun. We,

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host Subhanallah Cairo. So we were staying in this in this hotel, it

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was called the Boy Scouts hotel, and there were, like, literally,

00:16:48 --> 00:16:51

there were boy scouts that came to the hotel. So it's just like this

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hotel filled with Boy Scouts. I don't know why it was so random,

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but like, there was a mission nearby that we walked to, and

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like, we'd walk the streets, and my dad was having a blast crossing

00:17:03 --> 00:17:07

like seven lane roads that have no crosswalks. And he's like, this is

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life, and you're just so excited about it. It was amazing to hear

00:17:12 --> 00:17:15

the event everywhere. Oh, the first time in my life living

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somewhere where you can hear the event. It just, oh, the event just

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touches your soul and and just being surrounded by so many

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people. Cairo, at that time, had 30 million people in the city. It

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was packed everywhere, like people were in microbuses. People were on

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top of microbuses. People were hanging on the sides of

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microbuses. It was incredible for me to just observe a totally

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different area, and I loved every minute of it. May Allah bless the

00:17:42 --> 00:17:45

people of Egypt and bless, bless people everywhere. But it was a

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very it was, it was a blessing. I obviously had moments where I

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bawled my eyes out, and I would stare at the moon and just like,

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like, just miss my family and miss being home. There were the second

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day I was in Egypt, I threw up because I was crying so hard. I

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was like, I miss my parents so much. But alhamdulillah, by the

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first week, I was just so grateful hamdullah, so so, so grateful to

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be there.

00:18:13 --> 00:18:16

Mariam was in the land of her dreams. She began to learn Arabic

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for one year, but just because she had made it there, did it mean the

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hard part had passed no child. It had just begun for her. What does

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that say? That people say anything worth having is worth struggling

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for? Yeah, something like that. You know, for Arabic, when you

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start learning, you think you're gonna start learning tafsir Quran,

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and you're so excited to learn about Islam. And you're learning.

00:18:39 --> 00:18:44

Yousef walked to the bank, Yousef went to the grocery store. Yusuf

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met his friend at the hotel. And it's so incredibly hard to

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understand why I need to study this to get to that. But

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obviously, for any person who actually studies a language, it

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makes sense why you need to start there to get here and in the in

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the process. Though, in the beginning, it's just very hard to

00:19:03 --> 00:19:06

to be patient, you know, you come all the way so you could study the

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language, and you're learning about different names for fruit.

00:19:09 --> 00:19:13

But all those names of fruit, they're in the Quran. You know,

00:19:13 --> 00:19:17

Yusuf going home. That's, those are words in the Quran. I mean,

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these are words that we, that that we, that we, that we, you know, we

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this panel will have in our revelation. And so it's, it's a

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very long and, you know, I remember when I was still here,

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and a friend of mine had just moved to Cairo, and she was

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messaging with me, and she was like, I just feel so like, down,

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like I came to study and I'm not studying what I really wanted to

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study. And I was like, girl, do you know how much I dream of being

00:19:44 --> 00:19:47

in Egypt, and at that time, I had no idea that I would be blessed

00:19:47 --> 00:19:50

with going. I was like, That's my dream. And and you're there. And

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she's like, thanks. I just needed that reminder, because sometimes

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you just get it's not that you get bored, although it is a little bit

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boring, and in a sense, because the material isn't like me.

00:20:00 --> 00:20:06

Mentally invigorating, but, but you get, you get like, restless

00:20:06 --> 00:20:09

because you want to study more, but you're, you're barely learning

00:20:09 --> 00:20:12

how to walk. You can't sprint a marathon. Like you can't even

00:20:12 --> 00:20:14

sprint a marathon. You know you shouldn't sprint a marathon, but

00:20:14 --> 00:20:17

you're not ready for the like. Long for the like? Well, I guess

00:20:17 --> 00:20:19

you can. It depends on how you know the amount of running.

00:20:19 --> 00:20:22

Anyway, what am I saying? The point is that it's a process. It's

00:20:22 --> 00:20:25

a process, and in the beginning it can be really hard to be patient.

00:20:25 --> 00:20:29

It reminds me of the film The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi, and the

00:20:29 --> 00:20:33

Karate Kid wanted to do all these incredible moves that he knew, but

00:20:33 --> 00:20:36

he's like, you're a grasshopper. You have to start with the basics.

00:20:36 --> 00:20:40

He's like, in his head, all he saw was soap, child labor. What he

00:20:40 --> 00:20:43

thought with child labor, he's like, he would clean his car.

00:20:44 --> 00:20:48

You thought he probably think I'm being exploited here, like I came

00:20:48 --> 00:20:51

here for one thing, and I don't see me doing that. But then, and

00:20:51 --> 00:20:53

as we, as we watch the film, we realized that those movement he

00:20:53 --> 00:20:56

was learning over and over again would be the most power dynamic

00:20:56 --> 00:20:59

movie he needed to know. But like, at time, we didn't know. And it's

00:20:59 --> 00:21:04

like, I think a lot of us like learning Arabic. I don't know. I

00:21:04 --> 00:21:07

mean, I can imagine, is kind of like, you know, the Karate Kid.

00:21:07 --> 00:21:10

You think you you have all these expectations. You already see

00:21:10 --> 00:21:13

yourself at the final destination, but you don't quite know what it

00:21:13 --> 00:21:16

looks like to get there. And so when you figure out how simple

00:21:16 --> 00:21:19

downed it is, you're like, what is it really what I was supposed to

00:21:19 --> 00:21:25

be doing? Yeah, this and like, I'm sure anybody that mastered

00:21:25 --> 00:21:28

anything will tell you, bro, you it gets restless doing the thing

00:21:28 --> 00:21:32

over and over again, but it's necessary. You have to do that

00:21:32 --> 00:21:35

work in order to get to where you need to. And it's very humbling.

00:21:35 --> 00:21:38

I'm assuming, I would assume, it's a very humbling experience. Yes,

00:21:38 --> 00:21:44

upon Allah, absolutely. Sometimes you're studying Islam or you're

00:21:44 --> 00:21:45

beginning to practice

00:21:46 --> 00:21:49

there's a lot of misinformation. I remember one of the one

00:21:50 --> 00:21:54

misinformation I had learned was that women's voices were out of

00:21:55 --> 00:21:57

and what that means is that essentially,

00:21:58 --> 00:22:00

a woman couldn't speak

00:22:01 --> 00:22:07

because it was something I needed to be kind of hidden. And I at

00:22:07 --> 00:22:09

first, I was confused about what that meant. Does that mean that

00:22:09 --> 00:22:13

women should never speak like I didn't understand how that that

00:22:13 --> 00:22:16

would make sense to anything. But it was something that was very

00:22:16 --> 00:22:19

popularly known, and it was something that was often

00:22:19 --> 00:22:23

reinforced, reinforced even by women, older, older, traditional

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cultural like, you know, I learned then quickly that it was more

00:22:27 --> 00:22:30

culturally than it was religious. But that was, that was this, that

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was a sense of it I heard for a very long time. And obviously it

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was only when I studied the fiqh of Salah that I learned that was

00:22:41 --> 00:22:45

incorrect, because women's voices are out in Salah. And

00:22:46 --> 00:22:49

then somebody had asked the class, does that mean women's voices are

00:22:49 --> 00:22:53

out of outside salah? And the shield said no. And that blew my

00:22:53 --> 00:22:56

mind, like, when I told you, like, it blew my mind. I was so shocked.

00:22:56 --> 00:23:00

And I was like, the why are people saying that? Like they said I

00:23:00 --> 00:23:04

didn't ask you this because I was kind of embarrassed to even even

00:23:04 --> 00:23:08

allow to, you know, to think that was true or even challenge it. But

00:23:08 --> 00:23:11

alhamdulillah, you know, when you seek knowledge, you start to

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realize the difference between culture and actual religious you

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know, sentiments you do, you start to separate them, and you

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recognize that people are pushing their own agenda, and that's why,

00:23:22 --> 00:23:25

also, it's really important to seek knowledge. You know, it's

00:23:25 --> 00:23:27

really important for me to acknowledge and for Mariam back

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home in the US, Mariam heard similar sentiments, and it wasn't

00:23:32 --> 00:23:36

until she went to Egypt that she started to see something

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different. For the first time in her life, Mariam witnessed Muslim

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women reciting Quran out loud in public.

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So being in Egypt, one of the things that I was exposed to,

00:23:49 --> 00:23:52

which was we're actively teaching Islam, and that's not something

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that I had seen in my locale. And of course, women scholars are

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literally in the 1000s. They're all over the world, if not the 10s

00:24:01 --> 00:24:06

of 1000s, but I didn't have that same experience growing up, and so

00:24:06 --> 00:24:10

I didn't know that when you don't see something, you don't know that

00:24:10 --> 00:24:15

that's necessarily part of the existence and at least for me. I

00:24:15 --> 00:24:19

mean, I mean perhaps if I had, at that time, had access to social

00:24:19 --> 00:24:22

media, and like all these online opportunities, I would have just

00:24:22 --> 00:24:27

known about more, but that didn't exist. It was just my locale, and

00:24:27 --> 00:24:30

I didn't see that example in Egypt. I started seeing that

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example everywhere. Women were everywhere. Women were teaching

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everywhere, women were lecturing, and women were part of these

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Islamic spaces of knowledge that in my own masjid, typically, was,

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you know, very, very closed off. And when I had Panola one time, a

00:24:47 --> 00:24:50

friend of mine and I went to Masjid Al Azhar, and it was the

00:24:50 --> 00:24:54

first time we had gone there full vast Aryan. And elzhar is like a

00:24:54 --> 00:24:59

very historic Masjid. So we walk in, and as we walk in, I'm hearing

00:24:59 --> 00:24:59

Quran.

00:25:00 --> 00:25:02

And then I see that there's a major Quran reciter. There's,

00:25:02 --> 00:25:05

like, news cameras. And not news cameras, actually, they were like,

00:25:05 --> 00:25:10

just like, like a camera for TV that that while we were there, the

00:25:10 --> 00:25:13

reciter was like, Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't expect that

00:25:13 --> 00:25:16

somebody would come because they heard that this major reciter was

00:25:16 --> 00:25:19

in this masjid. And so they, like, rushed over to record him. He was

00:25:19 --> 00:25:23

just so chill and so so like accessible to people. And in this

00:25:23 --> 00:25:27

class, I'm seeing that as he's reciting Quran, he's reciting

00:25:27 --> 00:25:30

Quran, and all the students are repeating after him. And there

00:25:30 --> 00:25:33

were probably, like 200 people at this class, and half of the

00:25:33 --> 00:25:36

students were men and half of the students were women. And that was

00:25:36 --> 00:25:40

the very first time I had seen a class where men and women are

00:25:40 --> 00:25:44

studying the Quran and reciting the Quran together publicly in

00:25:44 --> 00:25:48

Masjid Al Azhar itself. It just blew me away. Subhan Allah, I had

00:25:48 --> 00:25:51

come from a background of, you know, getting excited about Islam,

00:25:51 --> 00:25:53

and when I got really excited about it, I learned all of these

00:25:53 --> 00:25:56

things that women should not do, women should not do, women should

00:25:56 --> 00:26:00

not do, women should not do. And it got me into this place where I

00:26:00 --> 00:26:03

was very scared of my own personality, and I was very scared

00:26:03 --> 00:26:07

of myself, and I was very doubtful of my role as a Muslim woman.

00:26:07 --> 00:26:12

Seeing this by a scholar in a masjid of scholarship, it really

00:26:12 --> 00:26:17

started opening my mind to the idea that maybe the quote,

00:26:17 --> 00:26:21

unquote, only authentic truth, the only way to understand the Quran

00:26:21 --> 00:26:26

and the Sunnah, the only Haqq is perhaps not necessarily the only

00:26:26 --> 00:26:30

one. Maybe there are differences of opinion on issues that I was

00:26:30 --> 00:26:36

taught or only one way. And maybe what I was taught, and this is not

00:26:36 --> 00:26:40

from my own parents, but from some of the experiences I had in Muslim

00:26:40 --> 00:26:43

circles. Maybe that's not even based in Islamic knowledge. Maybe

00:26:43 --> 00:26:48

what they said is the way women should be was actually an based in

00:26:48 --> 00:26:51

a cultural understanding of women. So for me, that was really the

00:26:51 --> 00:26:55

first time where I started experiencing that difference for

00:26:55 --> 00:26:58

what women's roles could actually be. And that experience really

00:26:58 --> 00:27:03

opened my eyes to, you know, subhanAllah, how women see

00:27:03 --> 00:27:07

ourselves in our religion, and why? Sometimes many women struggle

00:27:07 --> 00:27:10

with the way that they see themselves. So how did that? How

00:27:10 --> 00:27:13

did that drive you? So now you see this, this moment where your eyes

00:27:13 --> 00:27:17

would peel back and you're like, oh, maybe I need to know more.

00:27:19 --> 00:27:23

At that time, I was really scared of learning about women in Islam

00:27:23 --> 00:27:26

because I had heard, I had taken this class in college. It was

00:27:26 --> 00:27:31

called Women Islam and sexuality. And the professor, I had taken the

00:27:31 --> 00:27:33

class so that I could, like, defend Islam from anything I

00:27:33 --> 00:27:37

heard. But the professor brought up so many things that I had no

00:27:37 --> 00:27:40

idea how to reply. And anyone I asked, you know, they didn't have

00:27:40 --> 00:27:44

the answer either. And so what ended up happening is that,

00:27:44 --> 00:27:47

course, in addition to all the messages I was hearing from women

00:27:47 --> 00:27:50

who were very righteous but who had not actually studied Islam

00:27:50 --> 00:27:55

formally at all, those two things combined made me terrified of

00:27:55 --> 00:28:00

studying women's issues, because I didn't know how I would feel about

00:28:00 --> 00:28:04

myself and about Islam if I continue to hear messages like

00:28:04 --> 00:28:08

this. So I was passionate about the Quran. I was obsessed with the

00:28:08 --> 00:28:11

Quran. I am obsessed with the Quran. Alhamdulillah, it's it is

00:28:11 --> 00:28:15

the greatest joy of my life. The Quran is just such a gift from God

00:28:16 --> 00:28:20

and and I knew I wanted to pursue that. So I I was amazed by this

00:28:20 --> 00:28:23

program, but I also couldn't continue learning more about it,

00:28:23 --> 00:28:27

because I wasn't at a place emotionally where I was ready to

00:28:27 --> 00:28:31

hear really anything. I was very young. I had just started learning

00:28:31 --> 00:28:34

Arabic, and I told myself, focus on Quran. Focus on Arabic and

00:28:34 --> 00:28:38

Inshallah, at one point you might be ready to start really focusing

00:28:38 --> 00:28:41

on what it means to be specifically what it means to be a

00:28:41 --> 00:28:45

woman, as a as a lecturer, as a Quran reciter, what does that role

00:28:45 --> 00:28:49

look like? And subhanAllah, it really, for me, didn't start

00:28:51 --> 00:28:56

shifting completely just by seeing that one example. That example

00:28:56 --> 00:29:00

opened my eyes. It didn't shift the way I thought fully that

00:29:00 --> 00:29:04

happened when I hamdullah memorized the Quran in California,

00:29:04 --> 00:29:09

when I came back from Egypt with Sheik Mohib, fool, who is a senior

00:29:09 --> 00:29:14

Quran scholar, who has an ijazah, multiple ijazahs in every Akira

00:29:14 --> 00:29:18

ATS of Quran, who never needs to look at the must have, because he

00:29:18 --> 00:29:21

knows the Quran so well that he will open it just because he loves

00:29:21 --> 00:29:24

The Quran, and he will open it because it's worship, just to gaze

00:29:24 --> 00:29:28

at it. But he'll be opening to Suratul Naida, and he'll be

00:29:28 --> 00:29:32

reciting Suratul Baqarah. And his recitation, his connection, is

00:29:32 --> 00:29:36

just so strong, subhanAllah and being in connection with him,

00:29:36 --> 00:29:39

Alhamdulillah, finishing my memorization with him. It wasn't

00:29:39 --> 00:29:42

just that I had this experience of, I love the Quran, and I just

00:29:42 --> 00:29:46

want to know it. And yes, absolutely. But also, he taught me

00:29:46 --> 00:29:50

how to live the Quran as a woman, and how to use my voice for the

00:29:50 --> 00:29:55

Quran as a woman. And no one had ever had that particular focus

00:29:55 --> 00:29:59

before. No one had ever had had ever emphasized the importance of.

00:30:00 --> 00:30:03

Women being Quran reciters. Before that had never even entered my

00:30:03 --> 00:30:07

mind before him, and it wasn't until he I mean, yes, of course,

00:30:07 --> 00:30:09

these women were at a class, those women were at a class. And I

00:30:09 --> 00:30:12

messaged it. And never seen a mixed class like that before. But

00:30:12 --> 00:30:15

Sheik Mohib, when I was studying the Quran with him, he was like,

00:30:16 --> 00:30:20

Miriam, you need to recite at the at the graduation banquet for all

00:30:20 --> 00:30:23

the people who have memorized the Quran this year. And I was like,

00:30:23 --> 00:30:27

Sheik, like, and Sheik Mohib is a grandfather. He is, he is

00:30:27 --> 00:30:30

mashallah, like, an amazing, amazing, you know, scholar who is

00:30:30 --> 00:30:34

elder. He's older than me, right? And so, like, I'm like, Sheik,

00:30:34 --> 00:30:38

like, I'm, I'm a I'm a woman. Like, you're, you're, you're,

00:30:38 --> 00:30:41

you're, like, a grandfather, you're, you're shirk like, of

00:30:41 --> 00:30:46

course, I can recite to you, but, but on, you know, in front of, in

00:30:46 --> 00:30:50

front of a bunch of men, like share, you're a share. We're

00:30:51 --> 00:30:56

gonna continue story after a message. This Ramadan, the digital

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steward, is partnering up with helping hand for relief and

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We're gonna continue story after a message. This Ramadan, the digital

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steward, is partnering up with helping hand for relief and

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development to sponsor a skills of development and livelihood center

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training empowers beneficiaries to take charge of their own lives

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with dignity and determination. Our goal is to sponsor 138

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students, that is 138 women and youth who will learn employable

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skills and gain financial stability. Help us in making that

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happen by visiting www.hhrd.org

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forward slash sisterhood to learn more and donate. Now finally, back

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to the story, and his response was anger. He was furious. He pointed

00:32:17 --> 00:32:22

to a picture he had that he kept a newspaper article of Sheikha Om

00:32:22 --> 00:32:29

sadha Om sad was a Quran reciter in Egypt who had one of the

00:32:29 --> 00:32:33

shortest senads in the world. Men and women would travel from Saudi

00:32:33 --> 00:32:36

Arabia, from Kuwait, from Palestine, different parts of

00:32:36 --> 00:32:40

Egypt, to go and study under her one of the greatest Quran

00:32:40 --> 00:32:46

scholars, subhanAllah has his ijazah through her. Just so much

00:32:46 --> 00:32:49

knowledge in this woman. And he pointed to her, and he was like,

00:32:49 --> 00:32:53

Mariam, like, yelling at me. And he was like, he was like, Muslim

00:32:53 --> 00:32:58

woman have been Quran reciters and Islamic scholars in all of Islamic

00:32:58 --> 00:33:01

history. And like, he pointed at her picture, and he was like, Look

00:33:01 --> 00:33:05

at who she is. And subhanAllah, he yelled at me, and he was like,

00:33:05 --> 00:33:09

this is Islamic history. This is Islamic legacy. Do not let anyone

00:33:09 --> 00:33:12

else tell you otherwise. Do not let this narrative of women do not

00:33:12 --> 00:33:16

belong in the space of Quran change who you need to be. And

00:33:16 --> 00:33:20

that moment, for me was so shocking and also embarrassing. I

00:33:20 --> 00:33:23

was like, Sheik, I'm so sorry that I was like, Sheik, don't you know

00:33:23 --> 00:33:28

It's haram? Like, of course he knows it's haram. If it was haram,

00:33:28 --> 00:33:32

he would have known it was haram. Like, he's a scholar of the Quran.

00:33:32 --> 00:33:36

And then he was like, you are reciting. You need to show people

00:33:36 --> 00:33:39

that someone who is not Arab, a woman from America, can recite the

00:33:39 --> 00:33:43

Quran, and I certainly don't recite it better than anyone else,

00:33:43 --> 00:33:46

but in his words, he was like, better than someone who just says

00:33:46 --> 00:33:49

that they know the Quran because they speak Arabic. No, you have to

00:33:49 --> 00:33:52

study this, and you've shown that you study this, and you need to

00:33:52 --> 00:33:55

give that example And subhanAllah, so I recited at this banquet,

00:33:55 --> 00:33:58

because Shah wahib was very passionate about it. And you know

00:33:58 --> 00:34:01

what happened at the banquet? What? Let me tell you what

00:34:01 --> 00:34:06

happened. There were men and women who listened. And afterwards, some

00:34:06 --> 00:34:10

of the men came up and they said, Thank you for reciting. And a lot

00:34:10 --> 00:34:14

of women came up and said, subhanAllah, I I'm I want to do it

00:34:14 --> 00:34:18

too. And how do I do this too? And who do I study with, too? And

00:34:18 --> 00:34:23

those women saw someone recite, saw a woman recite, and they

00:34:23 --> 00:34:26

wanted to study, and those men said, Thank you, and they moved on

00:34:26 --> 00:34:28

with their lives. That's exactly what happened. Wow. And that's all

00:34:28 --> 00:34:33

that happened. But, but for me, but for me, that was really the

00:34:33 --> 00:34:36

beginning of my research on women as Quran reciters. That's that

00:34:36 --> 00:34:41

those two experiences as well as an experience when I was in my own

00:34:41 --> 00:34:45

local masjid, and the coordinator for outreach events had a high

00:34:45 --> 00:34:51

school girl, she was reciting the Quran for an event that taught,

00:34:51 --> 00:34:53

you know, taught the basics of Islam to those who are not Muslim,

00:34:53 --> 00:34:57

who are interested. And I was shocked that there was a girl

00:34:57 --> 00:34:59

reciting the Quran in the masjid I went up to.

00:35:00 --> 00:35:06

Her. And I was like, you know, very respectfully, women are not

00:35:06 --> 00:35:10

supposed to recite the Quran. It's haram. You shouldn't have a woman

00:35:10 --> 00:35:15

reciting the Quran in a public event. And she responded

00:35:15 --> 00:35:20

completely like, oh, oh, really, well, in Indonesia, women are

00:35:20 --> 00:35:23

Quran reciters. She's from Indonesia, and she said women are

00:35:23 --> 00:35:27

Quran reciters on television and in competitions. And I've always

00:35:27 --> 00:35:30

grown up with women as Quran reciters. And those three

00:35:30 --> 00:35:33

experiences led me to realize that maybe the experience, the

00:35:33 --> 00:35:37

perspective, that I had been taught, is not all of Islamic

00:35:37 --> 00:35:40

history, is not all of Islamic opinions. And Alhamdulillah,

00:35:40 --> 00:35:43

that's what really started the beginning of my journey to

00:35:43 --> 00:35:48

research woman as Quran reciters. Wow. So when did the When did it

00:35:48 --> 00:35:52

happen? When you mentioned you were invited to recite mashaAllah

00:35:52 --> 00:35:57

from understanding, am I correct? Oh, Masha. So I was invited? Yeah.

00:35:57 --> 00:36:01

I wasn't invited to be a reciter. I was invited with Al buruj Press.

00:36:01 --> 00:36:07

They lead groups to go to mashsaw and have lectures in mashal Aksa.

00:36:07 --> 00:36:12

So hamdullah had the blessing and the gift in 2019 I went with their

00:36:12 --> 00:36:16

group, and hamdullah myself and Sheik Hasib Noor, we were there.

00:36:16 --> 00:36:20

We were giving lectures in mashal Aksha. I was reciting the Quran in

00:36:20 --> 00:36:24

mashall Aqsa in the compound, there were so many men and women

00:36:24 --> 00:36:28

who were there. The Sheik of mashallah, Azhar was there. We

00:36:28 --> 00:36:31

were translating for his speeches. Sheik Yusuf, Abu sunina, may

00:36:31 --> 00:36:35

Allah, bless him, and Subhan Allah. It was just such a part of

00:36:35 --> 00:36:38

the it was just so people were just coming up to me and saying,

00:36:38 --> 00:36:41

mashallah was really nice to hear your recitation. It wasn't like,

00:36:41 --> 00:36:46

what are you doing in national it was just such a, such a beautiful

00:36:46 --> 00:36:52

panel, such a beautiful, you know, such a such a beautiful historical

00:36:52 --> 00:36:55

place to recite. And let me tell you something. So there is this,

00:36:56 --> 00:37:00

there is this Quran reciter who lived, he was very famous in the

00:37:00 --> 00:37:07

1920s and Subhanallah, he has this really powerful statement, um, he

00:37:07 --> 00:37:12

was reciting at a time when there were five women Quran reciters in

00:37:12 --> 00:37:15

on Egypt's radio. They were actually, they were actually

00:37:15 --> 00:37:20

reciters on the radio. And they, um, they had, you know, men and

00:37:20 --> 00:37:25

women reciting publicly. At this time, the recitation was also

00:37:25 --> 00:37:31

aired in Italy, aired in France, and women and men were reciting on

00:37:31 --> 00:37:35

the radio. And then, and even in Egypt's panel in the late 1800s

00:37:35 --> 00:37:40

the there was um Claudia, um Muhammad. She was actually

00:37:40 --> 00:37:46

appointed by the core of Egypt in the palace by Muhammad Ali besha

00:37:46 --> 00:37:49

to recite the Quran. She was a court appointed Quran reciter, and

00:37:49 --> 00:37:53

she passed away who she's buried next to Imam ashefair, irahi,

00:37:53 --> 00:37:59

Muhammad Allah And subhanAllah. This, this, this, this culture of

00:37:59 --> 00:38:03

woman is Quran reciters in Egypt right now, if you ask someone like

00:38:03 --> 00:38:06

the you know, the maybe the typical person who's grown up in

00:38:06 --> 00:38:09

Egypt, they probably would not have heard women escort and

00:38:09 --> 00:38:14

reciters in many public spaces. But you have to realize also what

00:38:14 --> 00:38:17

happened between the time of woman escort and reciters in the 1800s

00:38:18 --> 00:38:23

and now colonialism happened, and when we had women like panala for

00:38:24 --> 00:38:26

this app that I'm working on, which is called the Clari app,

00:38:26 --> 00:38:29

which, Inshallah, I would love to share with you soon, the we have,

00:38:29 --> 00:38:33

um, we've had recordings on there from the early 1900s women who are

00:38:33 --> 00:38:38

recorded in 1920 and 1910 they have recordings of their Quran

00:38:38 --> 00:38:44

recitations. They sound like Abdul Basit. So is Abdul Basit? Is Abdul

00:38:44 --> 00:38:48

Basit style? Or is it Shah mabruka style, Subhan Allah. So when you

00:38:48 --> 00:38:50

when you listen to their recitations, and they came from

00:38:50 --> 00:38:54

this time period, there was a sheik. His name is, his name is

00:38:54 --> 00:38:59

Sheik Abu ay nain shuy Shah, and he was the first Egyptian

00:38:59 --> 00:39:04

appointed to recite the Quran in Masjid Al Aqsa, so he recited the

00:39:04 --> 00:39:10

Quran in MySQL and he used to recite the Quran on Cairo's radio

00:39:10 --> 00:39:14

with these women Quran reciters like like Sheikha, Munir Abdu and

00:39:14 --> 00:39:19

Sheik Karima. And listen to what he said when Azhar passed a fatwa

00:39:20 --> 00:39:22

that woman cannot be public reciters, which, by the way,

00:39:22 --> 00:39:26

Darul, if that has has changed since that time, and now it's

00:39:26 --> 00:39:30

permissible. They mentioned conditions. But the point is that

00:39:30 --> 00:39:37

Subhanallah, his statement was, I will never my mind will never rest

00:39:37 --> 00:39:44

until the woman returns to being the Quran reciter on the radio,

00:39:45 --> 00:39:51

and we return to the time of Egypt's golden age the voices of

00:39:51 --> 00:39:55

women, the ones that we can hear, their recitation of the Quran.

00:39:56 --> 00:39:59

These voices have been present for more than 50 years.

00:40:00 --> 00:40:06

Like for me to recite in the same place that this shaykh of Quran,

00:40:06 --> 00:40:09

who was working with Sheik Abdul Basit, who came from that time

00:40:09 --> 00:40:13

period, and Subhanallah, he recited the Quran in the same

00:40:13 --> 00:40:17

place that I was so honored to recite the Quran. And his view on

00:40:17 --> 00:40:20

women's recitation was he will never rest until women become

00:40:20 --> 00:40:24

Quran Mercedes on the radio again. Subhan Allah, the history that you

00:40:24 --> 00:40:28

know because of our lack of knowledge, we say, it doesn't

00:40:28 --> 00:40:31

exist. Because of our lack of knowledge, we say, Oh, no one's

00:40:31 --> 00:40:33

ever I've never seen that before. Okay, if you've never seen that

00:40:33 --> 00:40:36

before, it means you need to study. It doesn't mean it doesn't

00:40:36 --> 00:40:39

exist. It means you're maybe ignorant. You should learn more.

00:40:41 --> 00:40:45

Pause, I know the story is getting so good, but wait, I have a

00:40:45 --> 00:40:48

message for you that you're going to want to hear. Okay, have you

00:40:48 --> 00:40:53

been looking for an opportunity to reconnect your faith by building a

00:40:53 --> 00:40:56

relationship with the Quran, or even learning Quran in Arabic, or

00:40:56 --> 00:40:59

even getting your questions answered about different rulings?

00:40:59 --> 00:41:04

Well, let me tell you, the Rabat academic Institute is an online

00:41:04 --> 00:41:09

program that provides traditional Islamic education for women by

00:41:09 --> 00:41:15

women. Yes, you heard me, right. Islamic education for women by

00:41:15 --> 00:41:20

women? Yes, all the courses are taught by female scholars, Allah

00:41:20 --> 00:41:25

mebatic, you have you have choice from over 50 courses ranging from

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SIG ra to Tajweed to fill and Hadith. You can even take in

00:41:29 --> 00:41:33

classes like the nine items of Allah or purifying the heart, or

00:41:33 --> 00:41:37

the reflections from the Quran and the lessons from the life of the

00:41:37 --> 00:41:41

prophet Sallallahu, alayhi wa sallam, as well as a mentorship

00:41:41 --> 00:41:45

Matters program on how to guide and support and help others. Rabat

00:41:45 --> 00:41:49

online classes have been reconnecting Muslim women from all

00:41:49 --> 00:41:53

around the world with their faith and helping them reclaim their

00:41:53 --> 00:41:56

traditionally held leadership roles in Islamic scholarship,

00:41:57 --> 00:42:02

mentorship and community care. All classes are held live online, and

00:42:02 --> 00:42:06

recordings are posted after class. And the courses, guys, the courses

00:42:06 --> 00:42:10

are affordable. They're not expensive at all. They also

00:42:10 --> 00:42:14

provide country discounts. And scholarships are available.

00:42:14 --> 00:42:17

Scholarships are available. So there's no reason why you

00:42:17 --> 00:42:20

shouldn't sign up. So if you're interested, visit robota. That's

00:42:20 --> 00:42:26

R, A, B, A, T, A, dot info, I n, f, O, forward slash, TDs and

00:42:26 --> 00:42:29

register today. So I have a question for you, since you've

00:42:29 --> 00:42:33

been since you were doing research for the app, right? You've been

00:42:33 --> 00:42:36

doing research for the app. My question to you is, what are some

00:42:36 --> 00:42:37

of the most

00:42:38 --> 00:42:40

incredible things that you found in your research,

00:42:42 --> 00:42:46

I think one of the things I've just been amazed by is the

00:42:46 --> 00:42:50

plethora of women Quran reciters throughout history, and how we

00:42:50 --> 00:42:54

just have been so unfamiliar with their names on a more public

00:42:54 --> 00:42:55

level,

00:42:56 --> 00:43:00

just the role that these women scholars have played, the role of

00:43:00 --> 00:43:03

women scholars who have taught the likes of Imam Malik and Imam

00:43:03 --> 00:43:09

ashefairy, Imam Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn Al qayyim, Ibn Hajar, all of these

00:43:09 --> 00:43:11

men, and all the men that we quote, and all the men who may

00:43:11 --> 00:43:14

Allah bless them, all who we learn from, who we study their texts

00:43:14 --> 00:43:18

from all of them. List women that they studied under Wow,

00:43:18 --> 00:43:21

SubhanAllah. And I mean, it's not one or two women. It's like, like

00:43:21 --> 00:43:26

in the in the 50s, in the 60s, as PandA Law, these are some of the

00:43:26 --> 00:43:29

greatest scholars of Islam, and they were taught by women. Their

00:43:29 --> 00:43:32

teachers were women. For me, the more exposure that I've learned,

00:43:32 --> 00:43:36

I've had to women's roles and shaping Islamic history and

00:43:36 --> 00:43:42

shaping fatawa, it's just so Pana. It's heartbreaking to me that that

00:43:42 --> 00:43:45

this isn't something that we know on the norm. Why isn't it? Why

00:43:45 --> 00:43:48

isn't why is it something that people are surprised to hear? It

00:43:48 --> 00:43:51

doesn't need to be something people are surprised to hear.

00:43:51 --> 00:43:55

Sheik abnedouhi, who has done so much work in women's scholarship,

00:43:55 --> 00:43:59

He's a lecturer in the UK. He's a hadith scholar, and he was

00:43:59 --> 00:44:02

teaching at Oxford and Subhanallah, he wrote al

00:44:02 --> 00:44:06

muhadithat, which is a compilation of that time when he wrote the

00:44:06 --> 00:44:10

introduction to the volumes that he has now he had in that book, I

00:44:10 --> 00:44:14

believe around 7000 had women, woman Hadith scholars in history.

00:44:14 --> 00:44:17

Now, because he's done more research, I think it's closer to

00:44:17 --> 00:44:21

10,000 and he's published al Wafa Bill Asmaa, which is in Arabic

00:44:21 --> 00:44:24

inshallah. There's a translation, I think, that they're working on.

00:44:24 --> 00:44:29

But the point is that, like he said, This is just my research as

00:44:29 --> 00:44:32

one person who's doing this on the side, because he does so much

00:44:32 --> 00:44:36

other work, imagine if we invested resources to looking at these

00:44:36 --> 00:44:40

older texts and seeing all that's been written by women, from woman

00:44:40 --> 00:44:44

about women who have shaped the narrations of the way that we see

00:44:44 --> 00:44:48

Islam. Subhanallah the Saddam Maria, decides to take things into

00:44:48 --> 00:44:51

her own hands by developing an app, an app that compiles a

00:44:51 --> 00:44:55

recitation of female reciters from all over the world, as well as

00:44:55 --> 00:44:59

clips of renowned female reciters from the past. And with every

00:44:59 --> 00:44:59

project.

00:45:00 --> 00:45:01

There are a lot of challenges

00:45:03 --> 00:45:04

in 2020.

00:45:05 --> 00:45:10

We had the pandemic at that time, Subhana law. I was very restless,

00:45:10 --> 00:45:17

because I felt like there's so many women who are professional

00:45:17 --> 00:45:23

Quran reciters, and no one in our area has heard about them, and yet

00:45:23 --> 00:45:27

these are women who are in so many parts of the world, in Nigeria, in

00:45:27 --> 00:45:33

Yemen, in Tanzania, in Morocco, in Algeria, in Singapore, in

00:45:33 --> 00:45:37

Indonesia, Indonesia and Malaysia, women as Quran reciters, women in

00:45:37 --> 00:45:41

competitions, women on stages. It's part of their norm, and it's

00:45:41 --> 00:45:45

approved and supported by their scholars. And so I just was

00:45:45 --> 00:45:49

thinking about subpanalo. We are in a time where we are physically

00:45:49 --> 00:45:53

locked in our homes. And at that time, everything was locked down,

00:45:53 --> 00:45:56

the parks were locked down. You had a curfew for leaving your

00:45:56 --> 00:46:00

house. And And subhanAllah, I just thought like, you know, men were

00:46:00 --> 00:46:03

talking about how we don't have access to the masjid. That's

00:46:03 --> 00:46:06

Ramadan. And so many women were thinking, but that's our

00:46:06 --> 00:46:09

experience in general. That's often our experience, depending on

00:46:09 --> 00:46:12

where you live, and depending on the masjid and and thinking about

00:46:12 --> 00:46:16

all of these things. Panama, for 10 years, I've been working with

00:46:16 --> 00:46:19

Quran scholars. I've been working with Islamic scholars of different

00:46:19 --> 00:46:22

fields, and working on the idea of how to create a space where women

00:46:22 --> 00:46:26

can view other women as Quran reciters. I've spoken to them

00:46:26 --> 00:46:30

literally for 10 years, quite literally, 10 years of planning.

00:46:30 --> 00:46:33

What would be the best way at that time social media had come up, we

00:46:33 --> 00:46:36

talked about maybe making a Facebook group. Like, what would

00:46:36 --> 00:46:39

be the best way to expose women, other women, to women, because,

00:46:39 --> 00:46:42

again, like, when you don't see it, you don't know you can become

00:46:42 --> 00:46:46

it. And for me, I had traveled throughout the UK giving lectures

00:46:46 --> 00:46:49

with a staff that Jinnah and Yusuf, and we had gone through all

00:46:49 --> 00:46:52

of these different all of these different cities. And there were

00:46:52 --> 00:46:55

hundreds of women who came to every lecture, and I was reciting

00:46:55 --> 00:46:59

the Quran in every lecture, and all of these women would come up

00:46:59 --> 00:47:02

to me afterwards and say you are the very first woman that we have

00:47:02 --> 00:47:05

ever seen reciting the Quran and the stories that they shared with

00:47:05 --> 00:47:10

me. One woman drove four hours to get to the event. We had been in

00:47:10 --> 00:47:13

her city the night before, and she said she had no interest in going

00:47:13 --> 00:47:17

to a random event. Her friend called her and she was like, you

00:47:17 --> 00:47:20

have to go to the other city that they're going to be speaking in,

00:47:20 --> 00:47:22

because you're gonna see something you've never seen in your life,

00:47:22 --> 00:47:26

she drove four hours away. She's in her 50s. Wow, she came to the

00:47:26 --> 00:47:29

event. She came to me afterwards, and she asked if she could hug me,

00:47:29 --> 00:47:33

and she said, I'm in my 50s. This is the first time I have ever

00:47:33 --> 00:47:37

heard a woman reciting the Quran. And had I known that women can be

00:47:37 --> 00:47:41

Quran reciters before, then, I would have pursued Quran too, and

00:47:41 --> 00:47:45

how do I start? Wow, she's in her 50s, and she's asking, how can she

00:47:45 --> 00:47:51

start to access the Quran? And she was just one of so many stories,

00:47:51 --> 00:47:56

one after another, of high school, college, young professional women

00:47:56 --> 00:47:59

in their 30s and their 40s, a woman in her 50s coming to me and

00:47:59 --> 00:48:02

saying, you were the very first person I've ever seen recite the

00:48:02 --> 00:48:05

Quran, who was a woman. I had no idea that women could be a Quran

00:48:05 --> 00:48:09

reciters. If I had known, I wouldn't have spent so many hours

00:48:09 --> 00:48:13

in choir at school. I would have memorized Quran. If I had known, I

00:48:13 --> 00:48:15

wouldn't be singing lullabies to my kids, I would be reciting

00:48:15 --> 00:48:20

Quran. And just the fact that this is generational, if this 50 year

00:48:20 --> 00:48:23

old woman had no idea, and if she had children and didn't raise her

00:48:23 --> 00:48:26

girls to know, and they have children, and they don't raise

00:48:26 --> 00:48:30

their girls to know, when we talk about women needing to, you know,

00:48:30 --> 00:48:33

claim the hijab or claim your Islamic identity, yeah, we're

00:48:33 --> 00:48:38

gonna be outside 24/7 covered, and everyone is going to know that we

00:48:38 --> 00:48:40

are Muslim, and we deal with Islamophobia, and we deal with

00:48:40 --> 00:48:43

judgment, and We deal with all of that. And then we come into the

00:48:43 --> 00:48:46

community, and we don't even know that we can be a Quran reciters.

00:48:46 --> 00:48:49

We don't even know that we can have a space with the Quran. And

00:48:49 --> 00:48:53

then people in the community have the audacity to blame women when

00:48:53 --> 00:48:56

they struggle with their Eman. It's just her obsession with the

00:48:56 --> 00:49:00

dunya she's obsessed with fashion. Maybe there's something more than

00:49:00 --> 00:49:05

obsession. Maybe it's she feels so far removed from her identity as a

00:49:05 --> 00:49:09

Muslim because she doesn't have access in the same way that her

00:49:09 --> 00:49:12

brethren do, and yet she's expected to carry all of Islam on

00:49:12 --> 00:49:15

her shoulders publicly, like so pan Allah, all of those

00:49:15 --> 00:49:19

conversations I kept having with one and kept having with scholars.

00:49:19 --> 00:49:23

Now we're in lockdown, and I'm thinking, so pan Allah, how, how

00:49:23 --> 00:49:27

much more disconnected do women feel right now? And so finally, I

00:49:27 --> 00:49:29

was like, You know what? We've been planning this for 10 years.

00:49:29 --> 00:49:31

We've been talking about it for 10 years. We've just never thought of

00:49:31 --> 00:49:35

like the best way to do it. Let's just do it. Let's just do it. And

00:49:35 --> 00:49:39

so we did a Quran campaign. It was called the four mothers campaign.

00:49:39 --> 00:49:43

It was through my Instagram account. I recited a surah of Jose

00:49:43 --> 00:49:47

Amma every single day. I posted it, and then I asked other women

00:49:47 --> 00:49:51

to recite too And subhanAllah, 1000s of women, they were actively

00:49:51 --> 00:49:55

listening. Women were reciting. Women, women who couldn't recite,

00:49:55 --> 00:49:58

were reading the translation. Women were sharing their

00:49:58 --> 00:49:59

recitations, and it was.

00:50:00 --> 00:50:03

Clear they had just opened the Quran, or they were working on it,

00:50:03 --> 00:50:06

or they were slowly working towards it. Other women whose

00:50:06 --> 00:50:09

recitations were just amazing. And of course, all of them are

00:50:09 --> 00:50:11

amazing. Masha Allah, I mean, every level is amazing. The

00:50:11 --> 00:50:14

prophet is the one who struggles with it. Has doubled the reward.

00:50:15 --> 00:50:18

But it was just women of all levels of in terms of where they

00:50:18 --> 00:50:21

were in their journey with the Quran, and the messages I got

00:50:21 --> 00:50:24

after that were quite literally in the hundreds weekly, weekly, and

00:50:24 --> 00:50:28

weekly, I was getting hundreds of messages. A woman telling me, for

00:50:28 --> 00:50:32

the first time in my life, I recited the Quran for my parents

00:50:32 --> 00:50:37

today. And this is a woman who was 40 years old, and she said that my

00:50:37 --> 00:50:40

mom cried and said, This is the best gift you could have ever

00:50:40 --> 00:50:44

given me and so many parents telling me that their eight year

00:50:44 --> 00:50:48

old, nine year old, 10 year old little girls are tuning in to

00:50:48 --> 00:50:52

Instagram so that they can hear the recitation of the Quran from

00:50:52 --> 00:50:55

women and saying, for the first time ever in their young lives, I

00:50:55 --> 00:50:59

want to be a hafida of Quran Subhanallah, that experience and

00:50:59 --> 00:51:03

hearing from so Many women who told me that when they were so

00:51:03 --> 00:51:06

young, they loved memorizing the Quran. I, you know, subhanAllah, I

00:51:06 --> 00:51:09

see children now, and they're, you know, they're into so many

00:51:09 --> 00:51:11

different things, but there are some that are very, actually

00:51:11 --> 00:51:14

excited. They are actually excited, naturally excited to just

00:51:14 --> 00:51:19

want to recite Quran. They enjoy it. And subhanAllah. Imagine how

00:51:19 --> 00:51:22

many young woman told me, and actually, you know, some of them

00:51:22 --> 00:51:25

are young, some of them are I mean, we could still say 30s are

00:51:25 --> 00:51:31

young. So 30s in their 40s telling me that when they were in their

00:51:31 --> 00:51:33

teens, their brothers were memorizing the Quran with them.

00:51:34 --> 00:51:37

They were going to Quran class. It was something they enjoyed. And as

00:51:37 --> 00:51:41

they were growing older, they were told you no longer can study with

00:51:41 --> 00:51:44

the Imam because you're too old. Now you're you're 13 years old,

00:51:44 --> 00:51:47

you're 14 years old, you're too old. And their brothers continued,

00:51:47 --> 00:51:52

and they completed the entire Quran. These these young women who

00:51:52 --> 00:51:56

were who had beautiful voices, who were so excited about Quran,

00:51:56 --> 00:52:00

became very hurt and very angry. They stopped their own

00:52:00 --> 00:52:03

memorization, and it was the first of many reasons why they started

00:52:03 --> 00:52:07

to feel distant from Islam. These women were telling me now that

00:52:07 --> 00:52:11

it's been at least 10 years, at least 15 years since they've

00:52:11 --> 00:52:15

opened the Quran and that Subhanallah through hearing other

00:52:15 --> 00:52:18

women, they came back. They started reading the Quran, they

00:52:18 --> 00:52:21

started to pray for the first time in their lives. The woman told me

00:52:21 --> 00:52:24

they started to wear hijab for the first time in their lives. It was

00:52:24 --> 00:52:28

a massive impact to hear other women's recitation and realize

00:52:28 --> 00:52:33

that this space is for women too. And I've heard so many people say,

00:52:33 --> 00:52:36

Well, of course, it's for women. Of course the Quran is for women.

00:52:36 --> 00:52:40

Yeah, you say that. But if you don't see it like all of these

00:52:40 --> 00:52:44

women, had a very particular story on how they came back to the Quran

00:52:44 --> 00:52:47

once they saw it. If you don't see it, you don't always know that

00:52:47 --> 00:52:51

it's for you two And subhanAllah, that just being able to hear other

00:52:51 --> 00:52:54

women, it was such a shift. I started this campaign throughout

00:52:54 --> 00:52:56

the year of interviewing women from around the world, women who

00:52:56 --> 00:53:00

have won an international Quran recitations. We started four way

00:53:00 --> 00:53:04

recitations, where I would invite, like a Sheikha from Indonesia and

00:53:04 --> 00:53:08

a Sheikah from different parts of the world, we would all recite the

00:53:08 --> 00:53:12

Quran together And Alhamdulillah. More and more more, the more that

00:53:12 --> 00:53:15

I had these, you know, these blessed encounters, more and more

00:53:15 --> 00:53:19

women were like, We want more. We want more. And I just thought, you

00:53:19 --> 00:53:22

know, the only place I know of, and I'm sure it exists, I just

00:53:22 --> 00:53:26

don't know of it in English, where all these different women exist.

00:53:26 --> 00:53:28

Of course, YouTube exists, but you have to really know who to search

00:53:28 --> 00:53:30

for. You have to know their names. You have to know what to search

00:53:30 --> 00:53:34

for. If you search female reciters or women reciters or you're gonna

00:53:34 --> 00:53:38

find a few. But it's not like this vast list. And so I thought people

00:53:38 --> 00:53:42

kept asking me, how like, is there a way I can download just the part

00:53:42 --> 00:53:45

where she recites? Because I'd interview, you know, I'd interview

00:53:45 --> 00:53:48

these Quran reciters for an hour, and they'd recite, you know, for

00:53:48 --> 00:53:51

five minutes. So people were telling me, I'm getting in my car

00:53:51 --> 00:53:55

for my commute, and I'm forwarding all the way to those five minutes,

00:53:55 --> 00:53:57

and then I'm re forwarding, and I'm like, rewinding and forward

00:53:57 --> 00:53:59

and rewinding. And they're like, is there a way that I could

00:53:59 --> 00:54:02

download this? And then I thought, subhanAllah, why don't we just

00:54:02 --> 00:54:07

have a way where women can hear women easily and access women

00:54:07 --> 00:54:10

easily through an app, and that that way women can hear other

00:54:10 --> 00:54:14

women easily. And hamduda, that was really the beginning of

00:54:14 --> 00:54:17

starting the journey to creating the clariah app, the woman Quran

00:54:17 --> 00:54:19

reciters, Alhamdulillah, wow.

00:54:20 --> 00:54:24

When I had started TDs, it started off with a duha,

00:54:26 --> 00:54:30

and I can confidently say that a lot, except for that dua, but

00:54:30 --> 00:54:33

something did happen afterwards, when you started, when I started

00:54:33 --> 00:54:37

to create this season, season one, you know, and you're in the middle

00:54:37 --> 00:54:42

of the work, but I started to doubt my efforts, if I could do

00:54:42 --> 00:54:48

this, if I was good enough. And when with any you know, project

00:54:48 --> 00:54:51

that you might do that you're super passionate about, especially

00:54:51 --> 00:54:55

a project that is faith based, or something you're doing for Allah's

00:54:55 --> 00:54:59

sake, you get in your own head, you almost convince yourself that.

00:55:00 --> 00:55:04

Can't do this job because you're not good enough, and the doubts

00:55:04 --> 00:55:07

just get louder and louder and louder.

00:55:08 --> 00:55:11

And so instead of Mariam, it was a lot like that.

00:55:12 --> 00:55:17

I'll share with you SubhanAllah. There have been so many scholars

00:55:17 --> 00:55:19

who have reached out. I haven't reached out. They've reached out

00:55:19 --> 00:55:22

to me. Of course, I've been working with scholars from the

00:55:22 --> 00:55:25

beginning, but scholars who I wasn't working with, who reached

00:55:25 --> 00:55:27

out to me, who heard about it, and were like, How can I support you?

00:55:27 --> 00:55:32

We need this so much. Just just the immense amount of support. And

00:55:32 --> 00:55:36

I was so, so grateful and overwhelmed by how many scholars

00:55:36 --> 00:55:40

are excited to use the app for their own children, for their own

00:55:40 --> 00:55:43

families and the curriculum of their schools. But there was one

00:55:43 --> 00:55:48

scholar who came up to me, and you know, out of, you know, love,

00:55:48 --> 00:55:52

extreme love, as she was worried that, you know, women shouldn't be

00:55:52 --> 00:55:54

Quran reciters in public. And

00:55:55 --> 00:55:58

you know, I shared with her that there are women who are Quran

00:55:58 --> 00:56:01

reciters in public. In so many countries, there's just their

00:56:01 --> 00:56:04

norm. They grow up with this. In fact, when we, when we announced

00:56:04 --> 00:56:09

the app, we have this list of the clarias and I, and I shared with

00:56:09 --> 00:56:12

them some of the feedback that was like, okay, just be aware we're

00:56:12 --> 00:56:14

gonna have some feedback that we're gonna need to work through.

00:56:14 --> 00:56:17

And these are senior Quran. You don't understand. These are not

00:56:17 --> 00:56:20

me, some random person recital Quran. These are senior Quran

00:56:20 --> 00:56:25

scholars in their countries, they recite in on television with other

00:56:25 --> 00:56:29

scholars like these are incredible people and incredible scholars.

00:56:29 --> 00:56:31

And subhanAllah, I remember saying, like, you know, we're

00:56:31 --> 00:56:36

getting this feedback and and, and the clarias, their response was,

00:56:37 --> 00:56:40

Oh, I've never heard it's not permissible for a woman to recite

00:56:40 --> 00:56:43

the Quran. Where did they hear that before? Like we've never

00:56:43 --> 00:56:46

heard that before, and SubhanAllah. The only people who

00:56:46 --> 00:56:49

have had that kind of like experience are really Muslims in

00:56:49 --> 00:56:53

the West. I mean Muslims on the app who are from the west. We've,

00:56:53 --> 00:56:57

some of us have heard that, but the rest, I mean Subhanallah, the

00:56:57 --> 00:57:01

the amount of, you know, the women from so many different countries,

00:57:01 --> 00:57:04

you know, it's just their experiences have been very

00:57:04 --> 00:57:10

different. And so when, when this, she was speaking to me, I was, I

00:57:10 --> 00:57:14

was, you know, I was, I listened to that. I always listen to

00:57:14 --> 00:57:18

feedback. I when it, someone comes and gives me advice. You know, I

00:57:18 --> 00:57:22

really think advice is a great if Allah shows you your fault, we

00:57:22 --> 00:57:24

should. If Allah shows me my fault, I want to say

00:57:24 --> 00:57:28

Alhamdulillah, like, Thank you, Allah for showing me my fault now

00:57:28 --> 00:57:31

so I can change it, Inshallah, so I can improve before it's too

00:57:31 --> 00:57:34

late. So I sat with the advice, and I was like, Thank you, you

00:57:34 --> 00:57:37

know, hamdulillah for the advice. And at the same time, you know

00:57:37 --> 00:57:40

this is, there's so many scholars who support it, and maybe this is

00:57:40 --> 00:57:43

a personal opinion, or maybe, you know, for whatever reason, but I

00:57:43 --> 00:57:46

still made istahara about it, and I was feeling very, very down,

00:57:47 --> 00:57:49

because this isn't some random person. It's someone I trust, it's

00:57:49 --> 00:57:52

someone I respect, it's someone who, you know, whose advice I

00:57:52 --> 00:57:55

value, and and so I just sat and I made istikhara, and I was like,

00:57:55 --> 00:57:57

oh, Allah, like,

00:57:58 --> 00:58:00

is this the right thing to do? There are so many scholars who

00:58:00 --> 00:58:04

support it, but am I doing the right thing? Am I is it the right

00:58:04 --> 00:58:07

thing? Oh, Allah, guide me. Guide me to what is the most pleasing to

00:58:07 --> 00:58:10

you? What is the most pleasing to you? What's the best for my

00:58:10 --> 00:58:14

personal hereafter? What's the best for the Ummah and and Subhan?

00:58:14 --> 00:58:18

Allah, I was very emotional. I was sobbing. I was making Ara, and

00:58:18 --> 00:58:22

then I finished praying. And shortly afterwards I get a message

00:58:22 --> 00:58:26

from a Quran scholar. I just get a random message from a Quran

00:58:26 --> 00:58:30

scholar who forwards me a video of Quran recitation. And I just want

00:58:30 --> 00:58:34

to share with you this scholar has never forwarded me a random

00:58:34 --> 00:58:38

forward ever. It was so random. So I opened so random. I opened this

00:58:38 --> 00:58:42

this. I opened this video, and it's Quran recitation, beautiful

00:58:42 --> 00:58:46

Quran recitation. And I was like, Masha Allah, Masha Allah, like,

00:58:46 --> 00:58:48

Who is this reciter? I've never heard and I've never heard but,

00:58:48 --> 00:58:51

but I'm wondering, because it's very similar, it's very similar to

00:58:51 --> 00:58:55

the Abdul Basit style, but it's not Abdul Basit. So it's like, Who

00:58:55 --> 00:58:59

is this? And the sheik responded by saying, Oh, this is Sheik Abu

00:58:59 --> 00:59:00

Alayna.

00:59:02 --> 00:59:08

And I was like, Subhan, Allah, wow, that Shaykh is the sheik that

00:59:08 --> 00:59:13

said, my mind will never rest until women become Quran reciters

00:59:13 --> 00:59:18

on Egypt's radio station again. And I was just asking, Allah, Oh,

00:59:18 --> 00:59:24

Allah, should I do this? Quran app for women, Quran app of women,

00:59:24 --> 00:59:27

four women, and I'm making a sakhara. And then I get this

00:59:27 --> 00:59:31

random I get this random video. And this random video is from a

00:59:31 --> 00:59:35

Quran scholar, and the video is the reciter who himself said women

00:59:35 --> 00:59:39

should be public reciters. And Subhan Allah, I was just blown

00:59:39 --> 00:59:43

away. And then I told the sheik the story, and he said, You know,

00:59:43 --> 00:59:47

I was not intending to send it to you. I meant to send it to someone

00:59:47 --> 00:59:49

else. My finger accidentally pressed you. And I was like, well,

00:59:49 --> 00:59:54

Inshallah, she'll benefit from it. Wow. So somehow I just sat with

00:59:54 --> 00:59:57

that, and I was like, every single time I've had a doubt, quite

00:59:57 --> 00:59:59

literally, quite literally, I made a sakhara about this.

01:00:00 --> 01:00:03

App an uncountable amount of times, anytime I have a doubt

01:00:03 --> 01:00:07

about it, I make a stehara about it. It's not like I need to wait

01:00:07 --> 01:00:09

until a month later to hear an answer.

01:00:11 --> 01:00:16

Allah will answer me immediately, like, like, hello. Within moments,

01:00:16 --> 01:00:21

he will show me a clear sign this petal of golf. Do it, and I beg

01:00:21 --> 01:00:25

Allah to accept it. I beg Allah to accept it. There are so many

01:00:25 --> 01:00:28

women, Masha, Allah, the recitations are out of this world.

01:00:28 --> 01:00:32

And imagine if a little if a six year old girl could hear Quran

01:00:32 --> 01:00:36

reciter and say, I want to become her, and then she works to become

01:00:36 --> 01:00:39

her, like these women who are incredible. Quran reciters didn't

01:00:39 --> 01:00:42

start like me when they're 17. They started when they were three.

01:00:42 --> 01:00:46

They started when they were five. They their voices can have such

01:00:46 --> 01:00:50

range because they've had decades of practice on stages that is so

01:00:50 --> 01:00:53

different from me practicing and whispering in my room to memorize

01:00:53 --> 01:00:56

my portion. The experience is different. And having other women,

01:00:57 --> 01:01:00

little girls, to have a little girl say, I want to be that when I

01:01:00 --> 01:01:03

grow up, and then Inshallah, to have an app where Inshallah, the

01:01:03 --> 01:01:07

app, this is just part phase one. We have a huge plan for where the

01:01:07 --> 01:01:11

app is going to go Inshallah, but to be able to create career

01:01:11 --> 01:01:16

opportunities for women to say, I want to pursue Quran as my career,

01:01:16 --> 01:01:19

and to be able to teach that, and to be able to recite that, to be

01:01:19 --> 01:01:23

able to give women who study a path that they know, one of the

01:01:23 --> 01:01:26

biggest hardest parts for women at my time, when we studied were

01:01:26 --> 01:01:29

like, where do we go with this knowledge? Like you can teach free

01:01:29 --> 01:01:33

sabida that in the masjid, but what if you have a family that you

01:01:33 --> 01:01:36

need to also support? Where are you gonna go with it? Panola to be

01:01:36 --> 01:01:40

able to facilitate that? I beg a lot to make it successful. For his

01:01:40 --> 01:01:43

sake, I mean. And I just,

01:01:44 --> 01:01:48

I just want to thank you sadly for this, because, you know, it's when

01:01:48 --> 01:01:52

I went to Minnesota in in the fall, I had met, oh

01:01:54 --> 01:02:00

yes, and they had so much confidence in the way they

01:02:00 --> 01:02:02

recited, and they had,

01:02:04 --> 01:02:07

they had like this, this ding in their eyes that wasn't like

01:02:07 --> 01:02:10

nobody, you could tell nobody had like and then maybe they have, but

01:02:10 --> 01:02:13

the way they carried themselves is incredible. This is one student in

01:02:13 --> 01:02:16

particular named so ad that I had met. She's gonna be so excited

01:02:16 --> 01:02:20

that I'm mentioning her right now. And she actually just finished her

01:02:20 --> 01:02:23

Quran. She just she became officially a half in she was on

01:02:23 --> 01:02:28

live with us, and she recited the last eyes for all of us so we

01:02:28 --> 01:02:31

could feel that we were there with her. And we always used to say to

01:02:31 --> 01:02:36

her, Inshallah, Quran competition, we're gonna be there. Yes, you

01:02:36 --> 01:02:40

know gonna be there. She's only like 15 years old, and she's like

01:02:40 --> 01:02:46

me, really? I said, why not? Why not? Why not? You know, and yes,

01:02:46 --> 01:02:49

it was like, she's like, I cannot believe you're telling me that.

01:02:49 --> 01:02:51

I'm like, I'm like, I can't believe the digital stories

01:02:51 --> 01:02:54

telling me I'm gonna be I said, we're all gonna show up, and our

01:02:54 --> 01:02:58

yellow the yellows is a joke. It's an inside joke with all of our

01:02:58 --> 01:03:01

listeners, because we said that when we attend her Quran

01:03:01 --> 01:03:03

competition, because it will happen. Inshallah, we're gonna be

01:03:03 --> 01:03:05

wearing yellow Java so she knows that we're on her team.

01:03:07 --> 01:03:08

Yellow.

01:03:09 --> 01:03:12

Yeah, yellow. So, just so you know that we're there to support you

01:03:12 --> 01:03:16

and I, and I, and I and she was our closing episode. She recited

01:03:16 --> 01:03:16

the Quran

01:03:18 --> 01:03:21

and and it was, I just wanted, I've always wanted people to know

01:03:21 --> 01:03:25

how important it was that women persist, participated in Quran and

01:03:25 --> 01:03:28

to this to the level that they participated in. And they're,

01:03:28 --> 01:03:31

they're incredible talent, you know, like, there were, women are

01:03:31 --> 01:03:35

so incredibly talented, you know, saying, and, like, there's many,

01:03:35 --> 01:03:38

and they're in their rooms thinking, Okay, it's even, it's

01:03:38 --> 01:03:41

ODA, to even speak. You know, I grew up right, taught that that

01:03:41 --> 01:03:45

women's voices were, Oda, you know, and to some degree, my own

01:03:45 --> 01:03:48

family still hear that your voice is outa, I said,

01:03:51 --> 01:03:54

What is it, Oda, you know, saying, and it's, it's just this huge

01:03:54 --> 01:03:58

misunderstanding that's going on that's being perpetuated on a very

01:03:58 --> 01:04:01

strong cultural level, and it has impacted us for, as you said, for

01:04:01 --> 01:04:04

generations. And I cannot believe there are women who have never

01:04:04 --> 01:04:09

heard women recycled. And it just blows my mind, yes, and it breaks

01:04:09 --> 01:04:12

my heart so much, because if they believe that and they haven't seen

01:04:12 --> 01:04:16

it, how many more are there out there? I had been planning to say

01:04:16 --> 01:04:20

this, and I it didn't happen yet, but you did a natural segue to it,

01:04:20 --> 01:04:24

Minnesota, Minnesota. And again, I could just not know it could

01:04:25 --> 01:04:29

totally be my own ignorance. But Minnesota itself is the only place

01:04:29 --> 01:04:35

I know of that is such a hub for Quran, for women, specifically so

01:04:35 --> 01:04:39

pan a lot. The Dubai International Competition is countries from all

01:04:39 --> 01:04:44

over the world and in Minnesota, masha Allah, three reciters from

01:04:44 --> 01:04:48

internet, from internationally, have won to Barak Allah, masha

01:04:48 --> 01:04:51

Allah, like Ahmed mashallah, who won first place, and then

01:04:51 --> 01:04:54

mashallah, we also have on the app. We are so honored, so

01:04:54 --> 01:04:58

incredibly honored to have a way to hafida away to and hafida Nura

01:04:58 --> 01:04:59

Masha Allah, support.

01:05:00 --> 01:05:05

The representation from the tibial center, Tabar quma Allah, bless

01:05:05 --> 01:05:09

the sheik who founded the tibial center, and the focus and the

01:05:09 --> 01:05:14

expertise he's put into teaching Quran and building this community

01:05:14 --> 01:05:17

of Quran, it's something that we need to see all over SubhanAllah.

01:05:17 --> 01:05:22

That is exactly where we see a woman who can win an international

01:05:22 --> 01:05:25

competition, and they're not even native Arabic speakers from the

01:05:25 --> 01:05:30

United States. So it makes me it's like watching a soccer game, you

01:05:30 --> 01:05:32

know? I mean, as like Dad, this is incredible. And I know it's

01:05:32 --> 01:05:36

incredible because I know what they where they learned, I know.

01:05:36 --> 01:05:40

And they learned in their masjids, who might be underfunded, they

01:05:40 --> 01:05:42

learned studying in their mother's living room, you know, saying, and

01:05:42 --> 01:05:47

here they are, like, winning, you know I'm saying and I like, I'm

01:05:47 --> 01:05:49

always such a fan, like, whatever avitava always tell them, like,

01:05:49 --> 01:05:53

I'm your biggest fan, and I'm always so excited to meet them. So

01:05:53 --> 01:05:59

my last question to you is, what 99 name of allah does your story

01:05:59 --> 01:06:02

resonate with most? Like, what name of Allah do you feel like

01:06:02 --> 01:06:06

SubhanAllah? I There are different times in my life where different

01:06:06 --> 01:06:09

names of Allah. I just, of course, we connect to all the names of

01:06:09 --> 01:06:11

Allah, but that I just feel so

01:06:13 --> 01:06:16

reflect so so so closely how I feel in my connection with him,

01:06:16 --> 01:06:18

Subhanahu wa taala. And right now

01:06:20 --> 01:06:25

it's al Alim and Al khabir And And subhanAllah. The connection of

01:06:25 --> 01:06:26

those two names,

01:06:28 --> 01:06:35

the way that the Quran itself, when Subhanallah love, how, like

01:06:35 --> 01:06:38

when, when you know it's like this, there's a story behind what

01:06:38 --> 01:06:41

happened. And when they asked the Prophet, sallAllahu alaihi, who

01:06:41 --> 01:06:42

told you, and then Allah

01:06:44 --> 01:06:57

as a response, who told who told him? Allah, alabi, Allah, I just

01:06:57 --> 01:07:01

think that's so powerful Subhanallah that Allah is the One

01:07:01 --> 01:07:05

who is so intimately aware of everything with his he just has so

01:07:05 --> 01:07:08

much knowledge of everything that is happening in your life. He's so

01:07:08 --> 01:07:13

intimately aware of it. And for me, because I have gone through so

01:07:13 --> 01:07:16

many stages where there's so much, so much

01:07:17 --> 01:07:23

commentary on my personality, on my person, on everything related

01:07:23 --> 01:07:27

to my existence. And I always go back to Allah. Is the one who

01:07:27 --> 01:07:32

knows he is the one who knows he is the one who's aware and and

01:07:32 --> 01:07:35

that that that's so comforting to me, that he knows

01:07:36 --> 01:07:39

it's not even about, oh, don't judge me. It's not like that. It's

01:07:39 --> 01:07:39

the

01:07:40 --> 01:07:45

it's, I'm not doing any of this for you. I'm not, I'm not doing

01:07:45 --> 01:07:49

any of this so you see me or that you know what I'm doing. In fact,

01:07:49 --> 01:07:50

I'm hiding 99.9%

01:07:51 --> 01:07:55

of who I am from you that like point 1% of who I am you can't

01:07:55 --> 01:08:01

even handle. And Allah made me this way, and he did out of his

01:08:01 --> 01:08:05

knowledge, and because he is the one who knows. And he's intimate,

01:08:05 --> 01:08:10

khabir al habibir, he is intimately aware of of every

01:08:10 --> 01:08:15

aspect of my heart and my life and and why I'm in the space right now

01:08:15 --> 01:08:16

and and

01:08:18 --> 01:08:20

sometimes when I just sit back and I ask myself,

01:08:23 --> 01:08:24

would I be?

01:08:25 --> 01:08:29

Would I feel at peace meeting Allah Spano with Taala like this?

01:08:30 --> 01:08:33

Obviously, we all have myself included, especially me. I have

01:08:33 --> 01:08:36

lots of things I need to work on, but this particular thing that

01:08:36 --> 01:08:39

everyone is like screaming at me about online or wherever,

01:08:41 --> 01:08:46

did I do it right? Allah knows how much went into this moment. How

01:08:46 --> 01:08:50

much is the Khara, how much consultation, how much studying

01:08:50 --> 01:08:53

went into this decision, whether it's ARIA app or anything else.

01:08:53 --> 01:08:58

And he is Al Alim and Al khabir, and he knows that, and and it

01:08:58 --> 01:09:00

gives me so much comfort. It gives me so much comfort.

01:09:01 --> 01:09:05

I'm so grateful that Allah has honored us with knowing some of

01:09:05 --> 01:09:08

his names, and I really recommend the book reflecting on the names

01:09:08 --> 01:09:13

of Allah by Jinan Yousuf. It's a very powerful, very easy to

01:09:13 --> 01:09:17

connect with book that will sha Allah help readers really learn

01:09:17 --> 01:09:19

about the names of Allah and be able to intimately connect with

01:09:19 --> 01:09:23

his names in our lives. Knowing that he's with us is one of the

01:09:23 --> 01:09:25

biggest comforts that we can go through when we go through

01:09:25 --> 01:09:28

hardship, no matter what type, and also when we go through E

01:09:28 --> 01:09:32

Subhanallah, I just want to say JazakAllah khair for coming. I'm

01:09:32 --> 01:09:35

excited for this episode. I love how passionate you were, and I

01:09:35 --> 01:09:38

knew this topic meant a lot to you, so I'm so glad you got to

01:09:38 --> 01:09:42

speak it at length. I'm excited to do the interview again to kind of

01:09:42 --> 01:09:45

talk about, like, where you're at, like, I can't wait for you to kind

01:09:45 --> 01:09:49

of add more to inshallah as the app grows and gets better and, you

01:09:49 --> 01:09:53

know, experience whatever it brings you inshallah. So this is,

01:09:53 --> 01:09:57

this is not an end. This is to be continued. With that being said,

01:09:57 --> 01:09:59

the Kali app is officially.

01:10:00 --> 01:10:05

Out. Go download it and stream, stream and listen to the beautiful

01:10:05 --> 01:10:09

recitation of the sisters from all over the world. And let it inspire

01:10:09 --> 01:10:10

you to read out loud.

01:10:12 --> 01:10:16

This episode is brought to you by beautiful light studios, recorded

01:10:16 --> 01:10:20

at MH studios Toronto, our executive producer. Thank you for

01:10:20 --> 01:10:24

this episode. Our recording engineer, Jonathan Lilo, our

01:10:24 --> 01:10:29

podcast intern, Niva Haroon, our graphic designer Sima aka wasiba

01:10:29 --> 01:10:34

fara, our project manager, Yasmin mahamud and our marketing solsana

01:10:34 --> 01:10:39

Abdullahi, thank you ladies for all that you do and brother or I

01:10:39 --> 01:10:40

said, ladies,

01:10:41 --> 01:10:44

not lady, sorry, it this podcast gave you value, we're leaving it

01:10:44 --> 01:10:49

up to you. Donate however much you feel like it gave to you. We have

01:10:49 --> 01:10:51

a big team this year who put in so many hours into bringing the show

01:10:51 --> 01:10:54

to life. If you can't give it right now, please keep us in your

01:10:54 --> 01:10:58

jaws. This week, we're helping a team member of ours raise funds

01:10:58 --> 01:11:01

for a family member that passed away. Please donate to the link in

01:11:01 --> 01:11:04

the show notes, I'll see you guys next Friday, in your ears, in your

01:11:04 --> 01:11:07

speakers, telling you A good story.

01:11:11 --> 01:11:11

You

01:11:20 --> 01:11:20

I

01:11:24 --> 01:11:25

Go

01:11:52 --> 01:11:52

om,

01:12:25 --> 01:12:26

Hold

01:12:27 --> 01:12:29

me Unless

01:12:44 --> 01:12:45

are In

01:13:37 --> 01:13:38

Me,

01:13:47 --> 01:13:48

Me, But

01:13:53 --> 01:13:54

either

01:14:41 --> 01:14:42

is a

01:15:00 --> 01:15:00

San

01:15:10 --> 01:15:11

soon

01:15:15 --> 01:15:15

so

01:15:28 --> 01:15:29

I'll kill

01:15:33 --> 01:15:33

us.

01:16:01 --> 01:16:11

Oh, Man, from

01:16:41 --> 01:16:42

Oh, man, Na,

01:16:44 --> 01:16:44

Yahoo,

01:16:51 --> 01:16:52

now.

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