 Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, welcoming everybody to our third women's conference, womenhood inspired, and each time, masha'Allah, we try to focus on drawing inspiration from women in our history to inspire women of our, of the present and future, insha'Allah. And so we thought it would be really nice as we kick off Rabi' al-Awwal, the month of Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was born, that we take inspiration from women who were inspired by the character of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. And so today we're going to spend time learning about different sahabi'at who embodied a part of the prophetic character that insha'Allah will inspire us. So I'm going to pass the mic so she can start our program off with some recitation. When the inevitable event takes place, then no one can deny it has come. It will debase some and elevate others. When the earth will be violently shaken and the mountains will be crushed to pieces, becoming scattered particles of dust, you will all be divided into three groups, the people of the right, how blessed they will be, the people of the left, how miserable will they be. And the foremost in faith will be the foremost in paradise. They are the ones nearest to Allah in the gardens of bliss. They will be a multitude from earlier generations and a few from later generations. All will be on jeweled thrones reclining face to face. They will be waited on by eternal youths with cups, pitchers, and a drink of pure wine from a flowing stream that will cause them neither headache nor intoxication. They will also be served any fruit they wish to choose and meet from any bird they desire. Masha'Allah. All right, so Stada Fasena is a Ghanaian-American student and teacher of Qalani Arabic under the guidance of Sheikh Abdul Nasir Janga. She graduated from the Qalam Seminary Program in 2015. She completed memorization of the Qalani in January 2018. She recently completed Ijazah in the Ashura Surah and Ashura Qubra readings of the Qur'an. She's currently a student of the Hadith at the Critical Loyalty Institute. She holds a being in computer science and a master's in information systems. She lives with her family in Texas for now and works as a software developer. Where does she belong? In the Bay. So without further ado, Bismillah. We welcome Stada Fasena, insha'Allah. All right, Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. We have a beautiful topic today that we are going to spend the next 30 or so minutes talking about. It's a topic that I really enjoy studying and one that I really enjoy learning about. But sometimes it can be a little bit daunting, I think, in some circles, the way we talk about and the way we discuss it. We're talking about sacrifice. Okay, sacrifice. Before we start, maybe let's see if let's test out my teacher-student theory. Would anyone here like to give me their one sentence definition of what does sacrifice mean? If you're explaining, yes. Very good. Giving up something for something else. That's very good. Mashallah, that's a good definition. I'm going to add to your definition just a little bit. The formal definition of sacrifice is to give up something you value. So give up something valuable for something else that you deem to be more important and more valuable. Okay, so you're giving up something valuable for something else more valuable and more important. That is the definition of a sacrifice. There are many amongst the companions of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam who personified this trait. And of course the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam himself also personified this trait. Today, inshallah ta'ala, we are going to be looking at the example of Sumayyah who has the distinct honor of being the first martyr of the nation of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Okay, we're going to start off with just some facts. I'm going to give you some facts. Okay, the reason I'm going to do this instead of just telling her story is I want you to have a context. It's important when we study the Sahaba to paint a picture of what they were living in. Who was this person? What was their society? What was their context? So that we can really appreciate what this person went through. Okay, y'all ready? So I'm going to tell you three things about Sumayyah that I want you to remember. Number one, her age. Sumayyah was about 20 years older than the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. How many years older? 20 years. She was also a black Abyssinian woman. So originally from Ethiopia, modern day Ethiopia. She was a black Abyssinian woman. So one, 20 years older than the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Two, she was a black Abyssinian woman. The third thing that you need to know about her is that she was a slave. She was a slave. She was owned by a man named Abu Hudayfah ibn al-Mughira. Okay, so what are the three things we're remembering about her? Number one, age, 20 years old in the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Number two, she's a black Abyssinian woman. So she's not from Makkah, right? Number three, she's a slave to a man named Abu Hudayfah ibn al-Mughira. Sumayyah was married to a man named Yasir. Yasir, was actually an immigrant to Makkah from Yemen. So he wasn't originally from Makkah either. He was from Yemen. And when he came to Makkah, he sought the protection of Abu Hudayfah, who owned Sumayyah. And so it is Abu Hudayfah who said, yes, you can be under my protection, and here you can marry my slave woman. And that's how the two of them were married, and they had a son named Ahmad ibn Yasir. Ahmad was about the same age as the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Okay, so everybody with me so far, we've painted a picture of the family. Now the next thing we have to do is we have to talk politics. Now y'all know how we Texans feel about Californians, so I'll just talk about Makkah and politics today, and we'll leave off American politics. Okay, so let's understand what was the politics of Makkah when the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam began his message. Okay, now the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is in a tribe called Quresh. Quresh is made up of many little clans, like little families that are within the tribe of Quresh. All right, the clan that Sumayyah is owned by is called Banu Mahzum. Okay, so Sumayyah is from a clan called Banu Mahzum. What's the name of the Prophet s clan? Banu Hashem. Okay, so you have Banu Mahzum, Banu Hashem. You all have to realize that Banu Mahzum and Banu Hashem are rivals. They've had this rivalry going on for decades, right? So Banu Mahzum looks at Banu Hashem and they're like, oh, y'all think you're wealthier than us? We're going to show you our wealth is more. Oh, okay, so y'all think you're better at poetry. We're going to go ahead and we're going to show you when the next poetry slam comes up what we can do. Oh, you guys think you're more hospitable? Well, we're going to come out when the pilgrims come out. We're going to roll out the welcome mat like nobody's seen, right? Banu Mahzum always wants to compete with Banu Hashem. And they're neck and neck, right? Banu Mahzum doesn't feel right now that Banu Hashem is better than them until the Prophet s salam comes along and Banu Hashem has a prophet from the eyes of Banu Mahzum. They don't look at it like Allah has blessed us. He sent us a prophet. You know, we're so blessed to be in the presence of the Prophet. No, they look at it and they think, oh, no, if we accept this man, then we have to accept Banu Hashem as an authority over us and they can't have that. So they get very upset and they start a campaign against the Prophet s salam and against the prophethood of the Prophet s salam. Does anyone want to guess who else is in Banu Mahzum who doesn't like the Prophet s salam? Just a wild guess. Abu Jahl. Abu Jahl is one of these members of Banu Mahzum, the clan that Sumeya is in, and he hates Banu Hashem and he hates the Prophet s salam. Imagine how he must feel then when a poor slave woman and her family go against this rivalry and they choose to recognize the truth and accept the Prophet s salam as their leader. Abu Jahl can't take it. He is angry and he says, I'm going to make an example of these people and all of the people who didn't have any means of protection, they didn't have any family, they were considered the lowest of the low in the society. If we look at Sumeya, she is at a complete disadvantage if you look at socioeconomic status, if you look at family ties. She's literally in the worst position possible if you look at it from that perspective. And yet she is intelligent enough to be able to recognize the truth and accept it. While someone like Abu Jahl with all of his status and all of his wealth and all of his position was not able to accept the truth. So Abu Jahl gets really enraged and he starts to torture these people publicly and his goal is to scare other people that if you go against Banu Matzum, this is what's going to happen to you. And as he is torturing these people Sumeya and her family publicly, they're not wavering in their resolve. Now I want us to pause here. I want to ask y'all something. How old was the Prophet ﷺ when he became a prophet and received revelation? 40. So how old was Sumeya? 60. She's 60 years old and this kind of makes me tear up a little bit because my mom is in her 60s and I just can't imagine anyone even insulting her, let alone beating her or harming her. Sumeya was in her 60s and Abu Jahl would come and he would put chain mail on them and leave them out in the sun. He would beat them. He would insult them. He would scream at them. He would tell them to renounce their faith and insult the Prophet ﷺ. But Sumeya and her family, they stood strong and Sumeya would respond to him and say, no, enemy of Allah. I will never do that. And she would insult him. It's narrated that when she accepted Islam, she went to the Prophet ﷺ and she said to him, she said, I bear witness that indeed you are the Messenger of Allah. And your promise is true. You see the amount of faith she had. She'd had no doubt in the Prophet ﷺ or in his message. And that faith gave her strength. And we know that the stronger she got, the angrier Abu Jahl got until it got to the day when he told her that she must curse the Prophet ﷺ in public and she refused and spat in his face. And at this point he took his spear and ran it through her midsection and killed her. And so Sumeya ﷺ became the first martyr, an old black woman who was a slave who had never seen any good in this life. At the very end of her life, Allah ﷺ shows her her position in Jannah because we know that the martyr has shown their position in Jannah, right? So at the end of her life, this is where Allah ﷺ gives her glad tidings and congratulates her and shows her the beautiful future that she is now embarking on. Her husband Yasser was even older than her and he died actually soon after she passed away. He was very frail as well and his body couldn't take it. And we know that their son, Ammar, eventually said the words that Abu Jahl had commanded him to say. And the Prophet ﷺ, what did he say to Ammar? When Ammar was feeling so sad and so devastated and traumatized, the Prophet ﷺ told him, if they tell you to do that again, go ahead and say the words, because I know it's not in your heart, right? Now I want us to just come back for a minute. We were in Makkah thousands of years ago. Let's come back to California in 2022 and let's ask ourselves about sacrifice now that we have heard the legacy that came before us. We said that it is giving up something you value for something you deem to be more important. So may Allah ﷻ gave up her life. Before that she gave up her comfort, her safety, her dignity was taken from her. She gave up a lot and these are valuable things. That's the first thing I want us to recognize about sacrifice. It does require us to give up something we care about. It's important to realize this because sometimes in our own lives when we are called to sacrifice for the sake of Allah ﷻ, we have a hard time recognizing that we're losing something as well and sometimes that loss comes with a feeling of grief, right? Think about, for example, somebody who has an amazing job, they love their co-workers, the pay is wonderful and then they start to do some research and they say, you know what, this business that I'm working at is not a halal business, right? It's not a great place to be working. The business itself doesn't align with my faith. They quit their job. They did something, they left something for the sake of something more important, but there is still a loss and it's okay to acknowledge that, right? I say this because the Prophet ﷺ cared very much about Ammar and the loss that he had gone through when he lost his mother and then his father. I want you to think what the state of Ammar ﷺ who must have been because realize that after his mother died, Abu Jahl continued walking the streets of Makkah, a free man, for many years, right? Abu Jahl died in the Battle of Badr, but his mother was one of the very first believers and died in the very early days of Islam. So it's probably another five, six, seven years before the Battle of Badr. What must it be like to watch the man who brutally tortured and murdered one's mother, just walking around in his tribe? No arrest, no trial, no justice, no care from the society. It was a great loss, but people didn't look at Ammar and say, well, your parents are in Jannah. Why are you sad? No. People didn't tell him that. They comforted him. And when Abu Jahl was actually killed in the Battle of Badr, the Prophet ﷺ made a point to find Ammar and tell him that Allah has killed the one who murdered your mother. Know that that justice that you needed, that trial that you longed for, Allah has taken care of it for you, right? Because he lost something valuable. It's okay to acknowledge that we have lost something that was valuable to us. The second part of our definition is you're giving up something you value for, something that is more valuable and more important. What was more valuable and more important to Sumayr, radiAllahu ta'ala anha? What was it that she longed for? I need y'all to be louder. Her faith, what else? Jannah, what else? Allah, Azawajal, right? The pleasure of Allah to stand up for the truth, to stand up for justice, to show others that she would not be moved, right? Sumayr, radiAllahu ta'ala anha, believed in the promise of Allah. And she stood by it until the end. May Allah be pleased with her. And this is what I wanted us to end with. Because you see, making a sacrifice is not easy, right? We will all go through something in our lives where we have to make a decision about something that might not be the best for our faith. It could be a job. It could be the company that you keep. It could be where you work, where you live, whatever it is, right? And in that moment, somebody might say, but I'm so afraid of losing this. I'm so afraid of losing this job and this amazing income. I'm so afraid of losing these friends who I have, right? I'm afraid of losing this. There is an answer that one might share with them that Allah ta'ala gives us. You see, here's the thing. Everybody in their life will experience some kind of loss, right? Life has ups and downs. Nobody's life is perfect. Nobody is 100% happy in this life, right? Allah ta'ala promises us and he makes this declaration in Surat al-Baqarah where he says, Allah says that without a doubt, we will test you through some sort of fear that you might face, hunger, a reduction in wealth and even in lives and in fruits. And this is everybody in the world, Muslims and non-Muslims. We're all going to go through trials. What's the difference then between a person of faith like Suma'ya Rode Allah ta'ala anha and a person who's lacking faith? The difference is the benefit that they get from that trial. Allah ta'ala says, at the end of this statement, Allah says, congratulate those who are steadfast and have resolve. Those who when some sort of difficulty comes to them, they say, and what is it that the Quran tells us to say at this point? This is not something you say only when someone passes away, but it's something that we actually say during any sort of difficulty. Why? Because it helps to ground us and it gives us a perspective. Inna lillahi. Indeed, we belong to Allah. Why is this important? Because it reminds me that I might be feeling a loss, but Allah owns me. I belong to Allah. And so I don't really own anything in this life. How can I say I own something and therefore I lost something when everything, even I belong to Allah? So that's the first thing, the first perspective that we have to have. The second perspective is we're returning back to Allah. It reminds me to focus on the bigger picture. I might not be worried so much about losing a six-figure job when I'm thinking about the Akhira. No six-figure job can buy you the Akhira, the paradise that the Prophet As-Salam promised, Sumeya and her family. No money can buy that. No status can buy that. No president or king or queen can ask Allah to give you that. Right? Once you realize that, then you start to prioritize a little bit more. That thing that we were worried about might become a little less important. And pleasing Allah, keeping our faith and moving forward and growing to become better servants of Allah becomes more important to us. Right? So we say إِنَّا لِلّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ. Allah says, those people those people will have Allah's blessings and His mercy. Those are the ones who are truly guided. Right? Allah is giving us a perspective. There's another ayah that's very similar to this that I really like. This ayah is in regards to the Muslims when they are in times of war. So this ayah is particularly talking about in times of war, but it can be generalized as well where the Prophet As-Salam, or sorry, Allah Azza wa Jalla tells the believers, وَلَا تَهِنُوا فِبْتِغَاءِ الْقَوْ. Don't get tired and don't stop pursuing the enemy. إِنَّا كُونُوا تَأْلَمُونَ فَإِنَّهُمْ يَأْلَمُونَ كَمَا تَأْلَمُونَ. If you're experiencing some sort of loss or you're suffering then realize that they are also experiencing loss and suffering. Right? I mean this is a battlefield. Everybody's going to experience loss. There's going to be difficulty. But what's the difference between you two? You Muslims, you have hope in something from Allah that they could never hope for. You have hope in something from Allah that they could never hope for. Allah is all-knowing and wise. Allah knows what we're going through. He is a Raouf. He knows what we're going through and he cares about us. Allah s.w.t sees the pain. Sometimes people don't understand our sacrifices. Sometimes people belittle our sacrifices because remember we said you're sacrificing something you value. Other people may not value that thing that you sacrificed. Right? People are different. I'll give you, y'all want to hear an example? I'll give you an example. So I grew up in Saudi Arabia. I was there for 17 years. Then I moved to Iowa for college. Do you know one thing that's in Saudi Arabia that we don't really have in Iowa? You want to guess? Hello? Yes, thank you. Here somebody gets it. Hello, meat. Hello, meat. So we moved to Iowa and we're basically on this vegetarian diet. I moved with my twin sister. So I'm on this vegetarian diet. And here's my twin sister. Oh my god, it's so hard being vegetarian, so hard to find food. And I couldn't understand her suffering. Do you know why? I've been vegetarian since I was five. I don't like the taste of meat. It does not taste like food to me. So I didn't really care. Statham Mariam mentioned the ayah in Surah Waqia, right? My sister loves Surah Waqia. She always quotes this ayah to me. She's like, you need to get to Jannah so you can eat meat and like it, right? So her sacrifice, I couldn't value it. I mean, I understood she was a little miserable, right? All y'all who eat meat can probably sympathize with her more than I did. But I didn't value it. Yeah, I had my corn. Iowa's corn country, they have great corn and I really like corn, right? So I couldn't value her sacrifice. I do understand what the big deal is. There's plenty of food, right? Yeah, some people here are like, you are a terrible sister, right? But that's how I felt. And May Allah s.a.w. reward her for her sacrifice and forgive me for being unsympathetic. But people won't always understand what you're going through. But Allah sees it, right? So whenever we are called to stand for what is right, to give up something we value for something even more important, we have to remember that Allah sees us. And Allah understands us better than we understand ourselves. And even if the rest of the world doesn't know what you went through to get to where you are, or they don't appreciate what you went through and they don't acknowledge it, Allah sees it. Allah appreciates it and Allah acknowledges it. So I pray that Allah allows us to be people of true faith, who are able to overcome the difficulties that we have in this life because we have hope in Allah in the next life. I pray that Allah allows us to look at the example of Suma-e-Rode Allah ta'ala anha, our beautiful forerunner in the Deen, and allows us to really appreciate what she and her family went through in order for us to be able to inherit this beautiful Deen and to be able to practice it. I pray that Allah says allows us to be people of true Saba. And Allah says allows us to be people who when we are going through difficulty, we say with sincerity, and we pray to him and we ask him for his guidance. May Allah accept all that is said and heard here today, anything that I have said that may have been incorrect. I pray that you all forgive me. I pray Allah forgives me. And I pray that Allah will allow us all to reunite with those we love in Jannah. I pray that Allah allows us all to meet the prophesies of him and his companions and Suma-e-Rode Allah ta'ala anha and to you know, finally thank them for everything they went through for us. May Allah make it easy for all of us. JazakAllah Khayyat. That was beautiful. Thank you so much. So Stada Hussain Mujaddidi is co-founder of the Mental Health for Muslims, a site dedicated to providing mental health related content tailored to the Muslim community. She has served the American Muslim community for over 20 years as a spiritual advisor, mental health advocate, writer, editor, mediator, interfaith organizer, and public speaker covering a variety of topics, including women's issues, marriage, family, youth and teen issues, education, self-development, interfaith bridge building, spirituality, and many, many more things. Mashallah, she's just amazing. Alhamdulillah. She currently offers monthly self-development and spiritual wellness classes with the MCC East Bay here. So you can look at her schedule online if you go to mcceastbay.org. She has regular classes here and she offers regular educational workshops for students and teachers at the local Islamic schools. She also provides periodic talks throughout California and nationally for the Muslim community on various topics. She enjoys reading and writing and blogging via social media doing arts and crafts, visiting gourmet coffee shops, exploring the countless beautiful beaches and state parks in this beautiful state of California instead of Sena. Where she lives with her husband and two sons and she has a website hosayamajadid.com. Her topic today, Resilience Personified, expands on her willingness to help protect the Prophet SAW when his life was threatened despite her complex condition. She's pregnant, the trek she made to the cave. Also other notable moments like her immediate submission when reminded to cover adequately and the dignity she accepted being corrected. So inshallah, we welcome Ustada Khusaykh. As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh. Now I chose Asmaa bint Abu Bakr because when I was thinking about who do I want to learn from and there's so many incredible women in our tradition but I realized I had very limited knowledge about her and I thought like what do I know about her as you know someone who's clearly a figure in our tradition she and and I thought there's only a handful maybe two stories that I can think of so I intentionally chose her because I wanted to learn more about her and this is where you know for all of you to keep in mind we are students of knowledge you know we we sit up here we might seem like we're you know in this position of teaching but we are actually always learning and I know that we're always learning so for me I'm so grateful for these programs because they allow me the opportunity to also learn so I am excited to share what I have learned about this extraordinary example for all of us. So she is Asmaa of course the daughter of Saydina Abu Bakr as well as Qutayla bint Abdullah Uzza and she was the first wife of Saydina Abu Bakr. She did not become Muslim so they actually divorced before the provost license mission began so she's the half-sister of of course our mother Saydina Aisha Radhullah Anha whose mother was Umrah Man so just important things to know because sometimes you hear that they're sisters but that distinction is important. Now according to Ibn Tathiyar Asmaa Radhullah Anha was about 10 years older than Aisha Radhullah Anha but others like Imam Adhabi say that it was a much bigger wider age gap between 13 and 19 years so Allah knows but she embraced Islam at 11 years old. Are there any 11 year olds here? Anybody 11, 10 in that range? Anybody has a daughter that's 10, 11? I just think about I mean I have a 10 year old soon to be 11. Think about what a precious time that is and that you know Subhanallah through her father of course she embraced this faith and I just thought wow she you know it's such a young tender age she the faith you know entered her heart. She's considered again there's a difference of opinion to be the 15th some say 17th some say 18th person to become Muslim in the earlier community so she was prominent from the very beginning she was there and she was like all the earlier converts they would gather in Dar al-Arqam and study with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and in those earlier years we don't know much about her life but we do know that she marries another very important person who is Azubar Ibn Al Awam and who is He radhullah Anhu. He is the son of Al Awam Ibn Khawwalid who is the brother of Sayyidna Khadijah our mother Khadijah radhullah Anhu. So making him her nephew Sayyidna Khadijah's nephew and then his mother is Safiyah bin Abdul Muttalib who is the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam's aunt so that makes him the first cousin to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So she marries someone again from this incredibly noble from both mother and father her lineage is very noble and he is also considered the fourth or fifth male adult to become Muslim in that earlier community so just an amazing pairing and of course he just FYI he goes on to be part of the Ashera Mubashirah the ten who are promised jannah so her husband is again an incredible and he has his own story which one day inshallah maybe we can go into but the Sayyidna Abu Bakr also brought him by the way also to Islam so it's kind of it's really sweet right like the man who would go on to be his daughter's husband came to Islam through him as well really beautiful now their beginnings as a couple were were difficult like many of that earlier generation they didn't have very much and Zubair Al Awam was known for having just one possession when he came to ask for her hand which was a horse he didn't have much else other than this horse but of course his character and that's why Sayyidna Abu Bakr gave him his daughter because of his incredible character so they had very humble beginnings and Asma talks about that in her you know in her hadith that she she related some hadith which we'll get to but in some of those hadiths she talks about the challenges that she had as his wife and just you know the struggles of the the life that they had the hardships and the poverty that they endured so during right before the Hijadar or at that time she becomes pregnant with her first son another very notable in our tradition of the life in a Zubair Al Adilah and so she becomes pregnant with him and this is when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and Sayyidna Abu Bakr flee right we know the story that they go to seek protection in Thor and for three days and three nights and so they're looking to keep this obviously under wrap with only trusted people and you know it's a very you know secret mission but she steps up to the plate of taking on the responsibility as a pregnant woman in her third trimester anybody here in their third trimester anybody oh mashallah so we have one a couple sisters and I want you to think about this you know we those of us who have had children we know what the third trimester is like you can barely walk you know a few steps without needing a break right your back is hurting you've got a lot of things going on so just I just was floored when you read the description of what she did in that state we have to remember I mean we're talking about the middle of the desert Mecca leaving the outskirts with people seeking to kill the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and her father but she steps up knowing that she is also with child and she clearly is in in her act showing where her love and her priorities and her hearts are she wants to protect the messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam she wants to protect her father even at the risk of her own life and her own child's life so this is an extraordinary woman who goes out I want you to take a guess does anyone know how far Gharathur is from Mecca how far anybody get take a guess and use miles you know everything I read was like kilometers I'm like I'm an American I don't I don't know kilometers so miles please anybody miles what do you think how many miles how many 20 miles mashallah anybody else any other guesses 10 very close seven miles seven miles she would walk it took her about two hours in the blazing sun as a third as a pregnant woman in her third trimester and this is where you know she again stepped up to the challenge and what was her purpose she she took them provisions and she acquired this beautiful nickname because when she was putting together the provisions she didn't have anything this is again to show you how little they had she had nothing else to tie the water you know the water what is it called the the leather water pouch there's a term for it but she didn't have anything to tie that or the food so what did she do at that time the women used to wear a waistband that would you know prevent their dresses from falling so she took that waistband and she tore it into two and this is where she got the nickname that that's when the taqayin right which is referring to the the woman of two waistbands because when the Prophet saw what she had done when he when she came and she's you know to untie her you know waistbands and giving them the provisions he made a beautiful dot for her and he said indeed Allah has given you so the words are important to to pay attention to indeed Allah has given you in exchange for these waistbands two waistbands in paradise so he is indicating to her that she is in jannah she is guaranteed jannah which is a again an extraordinary gift so subhanAllah this was her sacrifice and she was again willing to take um that you know that uh trek into the desert risking her own life two hours two hours there two hours coming back four hours for three days right now fast forward she alhamdulillah you know makes hijra as well and on her way to medina she delivers her baby that's how close to delivery she was and she delivers in quba and this was a really great extraordinary moment for the muslims there because at that point the jews were you know they were they had spread this rumor that they were cursing the muslims so that they would nobody would ever have a baby in medina so she was her son was the first infant to be born in medina as a muslim so again another great honor for her and so the muslims were of course celebrating his birth now again for those of us who have had children before instinctually we know immediately you get the baby whether you're at the hospital or at home or however the birth is and your instinct as a mother is to latch on nurse so i want you to imagine how much strength it takes for a mother to again think of like what is best for my baby instinctually i feel like i need to nurse him but she was aware that what was better for her infant was to send him to who none other than rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam for him to perform tahneek which is the process of taking a date and mixing it with his saliva and breaking off a piece and putting it in the mouth of the infant so that it promotes well-being and health and of course any any mixture of his noble mubarak mubarak saliva is is she faffer him so she did that and you know again just put yourself in her place like to to know these things and to separate yourself from your child upon birth it's not easy to do for everybody but of course these are people who had a greater understanding subhanallah so she goes on in medina to become again a devoted wife a devoted mother she bears seven more children subhanallah i mean i have two and to me i i'm like i when i see anybody with two or more i really i'm just like in awe but to imagine seven subhanallah and again in a time of immense difficulty but she went on and she did it mashallah and she spent her time just serving serving her family she was known to be incredibly charitable this is one of her qualities that even her own son abdallah and he and hadith noted about her he said that i have never known two more generous women other than my aunt aisha radhullah and her and my own mother asma now he made a really great observation and how they were different in their charity and again i want you to think about who matches your style more so i inshallah and ha she was the type that would collect a good amount of money right so it's like she's saving saving saving and then once she saved or whatever it was maybe it was food then she would go and distribute it but she had this habit of wanting to save it first and then at once give it away right so think of are you do you follow that or do you follow asma's example radhullah and ha which was to give it away immediately so she didn't hold on to anything that was given to her if it was an excess she wanted to always give it away right away so some of us you know we we operate differently but it's really nice to try to connect like where would i be in this spectrum right and so um her uh situation as she you know lived with a zubair and medina and they you know grew their family actually turned around completely he became one of the wealthiest men of medina and then later mecca uh after the fatah so she was known then for feeding the poor and anytime she got sick which is a really good tip for us to think about i remember my mother allah hamha anytime there was anything that happened to the family her instinct was always sadaqa she always had she had we had a you know on the mantle um above the fireplace in her previous home she had a Quran and then she would have a place right next to it that she would put her money that she was going to give for sadaqa but it was her habit anybody's sick anything happens god forbid a car accident and this was the way um and so how many of us do that and how many of us think again as soon as something befalls us that we need to look to purifying our our wealth and and seeking allah subhanAllah's help and also thinking of other people benefiting other people right it's very natural to think of yourself and want to preserve yourself in those situations but subhanAllah um you know people of a greater understanding again knew that no you want to take care of others so this was her way as well and she would feed the sick and she would free the slaves so this was her habit if she was ever sick she was also known for teaching fiqh of hajj for the during the hajj season and these are the facts that just you know for your information she narrated a total of five hadith alhamdulillah um and you can you know if you're ever reading books you might see you know narrated by asma which is an incredible honor we really have to think about the fact that you know there are so many people around the process of them but not everybody is in the hadith collections and here she is narrating five hadith she also is a warrior on top of all of this she fought in the battle of yarmouk uh later on in life subhanAllah so she was an she was actually on the battlefield and they said she was a fierce warrior and anybody want to take a guess what age she reached before she passed just throw out a number right the older older than 90 years old a hundred years old and subhanAllah the climax of her story and right before she passed away is one of the most incredible things i've ever read her exchange with her own son i just you just can't help but just be so in awe and humbled by these women because again we live in a time where where we don't have these living examples i mean i'm sure there's beautiful women everywhere but these stories these epic stories uh bad fighting battles you know raising seven children suffering through famine and so many other things um uh sanctions and then to also live 200 years old but i'll get to that point in a moment about her her end of her life so there are a few really key lessons from her life that i just felt were really important to know in addition to all of that we just shared the first as was mentioned in the description of this talk was the hadith that a lot of us may associate with asma uh bintabi bakr radi allah which is the narration where she entered the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam's home this is according to aisha of the allah and her sister and she was wearing a thin garment okay a see through garment and at that time the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam this was again before the aya of hijab was revealed but she the prophet sallam turned away from her and then he said to her oh asma when a woman reaches the age of maturity it is not proper for her to show anything but this and this and that was referring to her hands and her face so this hadith is really important for us to think about as women for obviously the context because we live in a time as we know women are exploited constantly and women's fashion even what has been introduced in the you know fashion of hajabat many things would be considered inappropriate and we have to just be real we have very clear boundaries in our sharia about what is acceptable and what isn't and this is why this hadith is something we have to pay attention to so when you get dressed you have to think about would i be someone that the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam would turn away from based on what i'm wearing right now i i mean i would i think that would be the most mortifying thing ever i would do anything for him to have a one glance of his so is it worth it to wear the yoga pants no sisters it is not is it worth it to wear the see-through things that show your shape just because you want to keep up with the fashion trends and look really this or that no if it compromises you're standing with allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi sallam it is not worth it and that is why i so appreciate the grace and the beauty that asma she she was in submission she was in submission she accepted it she didn't challenge the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and that's why we have to pay attention to the language of today of the the modern zeitgeist it's all around these themes that are alien to our tradition she wasn't triggered when he said that she didn't take offense and personalize it and you know say oh the patriarchy she understood this is the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi sallam he his entire life is for my salvation so if he's going to tell me something to do or not to do i will accept it and she accepted it and then and then you know the the the mufasudin say that shortly after um the the verse of uh you know hijab was revealed and the specific hadith relates to verse 31 where allah sallallahu alayhi sallam says except for what is a parent he goes you know tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their chastity and not to reveal their adornments except for what is a parent so it's really she's she had you know subhanallah apart in this beautiful verse being revealed to us so she's again an extraordinary example for us and so we want to think about that when we are if our spouses or if our parents are challenging the way we dress we have to think about what is their intention sometimes it could be control and there's no real you know noble intention it's just control but other times it actually is for your betterment and it's good to question why not just what they're saying but why are they saying that to me you know is it for some ulterior motive or is it really because they're looking out for me and nine times out of ten inshallah because you have we we want to always have the best of opinion of our parents and our family members and our loved ones they are looking out for us we just need to accept that and not question and have you know these doubts about everyone which is what again the modern zeitgeist does it just promotes this you know constant you know friction between us so really powerful um uh story about that and there's there's more but for the sake of time i'll go to the next point which is her this is also another really incredible lesson we can take from asma asma was amazingly brave and courageous she had real courage she spoke out when whenever there was uh you know i mean we already saw mashallah what she did in terms of protecting the process and but even speaking to people and having the emotional intelligence and wisdom to know how to say certain things effectively which is a tool something we all need to learn this is why grammar matters rhetoric matters our liberal arts matter because we have to be empowered with language to be able to say things effectively and she and her discourse and her dialogue she was incredibly wise so there's a story of her grandfather so who is the father of Sayden Abu Bakr his name is Abu Qaafa so he did had not yet accepted Islam when the Prophet ﷺ and Abu Bakr migrated to Medina he was still a non-muslim so he was really hurt that they fled because his grandchildren are left in in his son's home without in his estimation any care and he kind of came into the house and said to his grandchildren oh your father has left you in a really terrible situation he's he's taken all his money at that point Abu Bakr took all of his money which some say was around 6000 dirham or dinar to help the muslims so he took his wealth with him and so when her grandfather walks in seeing the situation of his grandchildren he immediately you know says these things in a way to bring doubt into their hearts about you know the what what their father did but she had so much later for her father and as well as the image of Islam and the muslims that what did she do he was blind okay so he was blind so she went and she quickly gathered a little bag and she put pebbles in it like stones and then she put it in an area and covered it and she took her grandfather by the hand she said no grandfather he didn't leave us without anything look touch this this is all the money he left us so he was like oh okay in that case then there's no blame if he left all of that for you but she had this beautiful radar again to protect the image of her father protect the image of the prophet said and the muslims to do that and then another story comes out of when she was in medina so now fast forward seven years after she's uh she's left and she is in medina she's an established mother has her own family what happens her own mother remember her own mother potato who had not yet accepted Islam she's still and she dies in that state all the blood but she visits the visits her and she brings with her all of these treats and food and like ghee and raisins and other foods and she wants to give all of these gifts to her daughter now it smells conflicted right she's like wait a second even though you're my mother you're still on the other side of this and I need to make sure this is okay for me to even accept you as my guest and accept your gifts so she had again that wisdom and that um raida deep raida for for her faith to go and ask the prophet through her sister aisha can I accept my mother even though she is not a muslim and she's brought me all of these gifts and this is also really relevant okay how many of you are converts in this room now Allah protect and preserve all of you and inshallah bring hidayah to all of your loved ones we had a sister here I don't know if she's here I don't want to call her out but she was here yesterday for our liquor that we did and her heart was really heavy she's a convert and she said I have no support system and this is the situation of many of our convert sisters which is why it's so important that we hold space with one another and that we bring our convert sisters and brothers into our communities and make sure that they never ever in their life feel that they have no support system but we all of us and especially our converts you owe as ma bint abhi bakar a lot for what she did in this exchange because because of her and this situation with her mother and seeking the advice of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam the ayah was revealed which is Allah does not forbid you from dealing kindly and fairly with those who have neither fought nor driven you out of your homes surely Allah loves those who are fair this is chapter 60 verse 8 this ayah was revealed to reassure everyone whose family and loved ones have not yet adopted the faith that you can still have them in your life you can still have a beautiful relationship with them as long as they're not forcing you out of their homes or torturing you or doing anything like that to you know again bring them into your homes and and treat them with the same love and dignity and respect he gave that permission and so she was relieved and she accepted her mother but another again incredible story that we get from us ma the third is the story that she had with them just such a powerful story subhanAllah so again we're going to rewind a little bit when she didn't have a lot and you know her husband as a bear was struggling and they had this horse at that time in her life she did a lot she was the she would go out early and get water for the horse feed the horse bring it fodder she would walk it she would go and get um dates seeds and they would they would at that time crush it and it was a very labor intensive life and um at one point she had to walk about two miles to do this process of crushing these date stones and then they would carry these massive things on their head so I again try to visualize this she's walking two miles exhausted she's been laboring all day just trying to make it survive and who comes and crosses her path none other than the beloved sallallahu alayhi wasallam and this is his sister-in-law so you know sometimes and this is again something that we should just really appreciate that is lost unfortunately today in the nonverbal communication that can sometimes be really powerful not everything always has to be said sometimes the states and the hearts are communicating so the prophet sallallahu alayhi said him sees his sister-in-law in this state without a single word he stops his camel and orders the camel to kneel and then he's he makes a sound or if something to that effect which was an indication to her like come on I got you sit sit on the camel I'm gonna take you the rest of the way he had this compassion for his sister-in-law seeing her in this state but subhanAllah and I want you to see what she does this is again emotional intelligence of a wife and a woman who is using her intellect to assess the situation there's all these men here the process is here I could really use a ride right but her husband is jealous I can't do it without words without any words what does she do she just stands there and the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam again he knows the hearts no communication they just understood each other he understood that her shyness meant she wasn't going to get on and he just proceeded forward and she went home rushed home to tell her husband about this whole incident what happened because she wanted to be transparent we and we have to again apply this in the modern context a lot of things are happening in spaces private and marriages and lives all over the place and everybody's all about privacy now give me a break you're married transparency you should have you know access to to one another's you know whatever is is public right but this idea that no I can do my own thing and I don't have to share so just let's learn from her she wanted to again show her husband that I honored you in your absence so she tells him what happened and his response is also really beautiful because it just gives us insight that they actually cared about one another and it wasn't this whole you know power game all the time like I want this and I want that they weren't about that they were about the hearts so he told her he said by Allah you're carrying the date stones and you being seen by the possibly said I'm on it with that you know with that on your head in such a state is more shameful to me than you having taken a ride with him so he's letting her know like I'm pained that you were in this that I've put you in this situation I don't care about that but they were so considerate of one another's feelings so we have to think about that in the context of you know who are we are we you know again not sharing certain things with our spouses or are we taking these positions that are not really thoughtful about one another's feelings and this applies to the brothers too I hope they're watching this it's or will watch it at some point but you know if your wife asks you not to socialize with certain people it's respect that you honor that request and vice versa and I think we just have to you know take take that you know Nassiha from this but she prioritized her husband's feelings in that incident and then quickly because I know we have oh sure thank you just like you're looking at the father myself she's awesome she reminded me to define the word ra ra is a type of jealousy but it is a beautiful jealousy right it's feeling that you know you're to want to protect the honor of something or someone so that's what what that word means I'm in it applied to the story before but she had immense red and she was known for that I'm sorry what how much time do I have I just don't want to just so I know what is it like am I done five minutes okay well I'll try to finish this up as quickly as I can it's just she's got so many gems from her stories upon Allah but we received two really important hadith from her that warned about ingratitude so that's why I think she's such a great role model for all of us she this is from her own narration so she reports that the Prophet ﷺ passed by a group of women in the mosque one day we're a group of women can you just imagine this we're all here we're remembering Allah swt and the Prophet ﷺ walks by and he waves so beautiful what probably with the right hand he waved with his hand to greet them with peace and then he said this is his nasiha to the women beware of ingratitude to those who bless you beware of ingratitude to those who bless you and we know that the Prophet ﷺ when he repeated something he was driving a point home he was trying to penetrate the hearts and one of the women said oh messenger of Allah I seek refuge in Allah or Prophet of Allah from being ungrateful to Allah and you know she's seeking like what explain and he says rather one of you will be widowed for a long time throughout her middle years then Allah provides her with a husband and he benefits her with a child the joy of her life then she gets very angry and she swears by Allah saying I've never one good I've never had one good moment with you that is ingratitude to the blessings of Allah that is ingratitude to those who bless her that's one and then another hadith she also narrates that the messenger of Allah ﷺ said spend in charity and do not count it lest Allah counted against you do not hoard it lest Allah withhold you from you so we learned again her way according to her son was she would just give it away so she's teaching us be in a state of gratitude don't deny blessings don't magnify incidents because this these are shaitanic you know thoughts when you magnify an incident and it overshadows a lifetime or years of experiences this is what rafran what is it uh is it rafran no thank you rafran anem thank you this is ingratitude directly because shaitan wants you to hyper uh again focus on one thing that was said to you one thing that was done to you and that you negate everything else may Allah protect us from that we never want to fall under the category of those who are ingrate ungrateful in fact we want the opposite we always want because you know the opposite of gratitude is kufr so may Allah protect us from that and then to spend in charity and to give away without counting so this is really great nasiha sometimes you know we are in positions where we might have to give and if you're the type who is worried about giving away your wealth this comes from again a lack of understanding may Allah increase us in understanding that never are we losing when we give for the sake of Allah swt that never is it a loss it is always a gain it is always an investment so we want to you know really fight do that majjahat enough that we give if it if you feel the impulse just give and don't think twice about it don't let that internal conversation have well maybe i'll just do half this time and i can do it another time and no nafs shaytan work together to try to you know prevent you from getting the maximum reward so she's teaching us right spend don't count it because then Allah will count it against you and then finally and this is what i wanted to end on um i mentioned one incident where she spoke to a tyrant of her time they call him the fraun of our umma abu jahl right um or i might i might not have given you the detail sorry i think i mentioned it but i didn't get the detail so here's the detail of what happened abu jahl during the time when the prophet said and said nabbu bakr we're missing he stormed into her house and he demanded from her where are they tell me where are they and i want you to again imagine she's a pregnant woman pregnant so vulnerable there's no protector her father is not there she stands up to him says i'm not telling you anything i don't know anything he slapped her so hard on her face that her earring fell off and she still stood firm in front of him and he realized i can't get anything out of her and he left so that's one incident earlier in her life at a hundred years old her son abdallah ibn zubair was uh executed and crucified by al-hijjaj ibn yusuf at a hundred years old and right before this incident happened where he was executed they have this beautiful exchange her mother and son he actually goes to her seeking counsel on what to do because he knew that if he fights al-hijjaj he's going to be killed so he didn't know should he surrender should he fight him and this is a mother talking to her son knowing that she's sending him to certain death and she basically says to him i would much rather you die a noble death than go and you know basically be beholden to this tyrant so she it gives him this encouragement and this nasiha and it's this beautiful back and forth and then he says to her you know about being afraid he's vulnerable this is his mother and he says to her i'm scared about being crucified after death and she says skinning a slaughtered goat does not bring it pain off you go and seek Allah's help a hundred years old sending her son to do the right thing and he she noticed that he was wearing armor and she said what what are you wearing take that off that's not the clothing of someone who's going in to to martyrdom you have to stand firm so she gave her son that encouragement because she knew that that was you know his he was already promised jannah she knew where he was going and she wanted to give him that you know fight like end his life in the in this beautiful way and not to cower to this tyrant now a judge of course being who he was he wanted to taunt her so he did he taunted her and he called he went and send one of his minions to go get her and said come face me you know what did i do to your son basically taunting this a hundred year old woman and she refused to see him and then he doubled down and said if you don't come i'm going to drag you by your two braids and again she was firm and defiant she's not going to capitulate to him finally he had no choice but to go to her and you know again he's trying to taunt her and she says to him something so powerful remember this she says you may have ruined my son's dunya but he has ruined your akhada Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar that is who asma bint abhi bakar was she was an incredible force a loving mother devoted wife daughter sister-in-law everything and she had this life of a hundred years Allah gave her and now alhamdulillah here we are celebrating her life inshallah i'm so honored again to have learned about her life with all of you and i hope you'll learn more about her and all of the other wonderful sahabiyat and women around our prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam as we usher in this mubarak mantab rabbi al awwal jazakum allahu khayran wa salaamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh thank you so much stanah aside for that beautiful lesson so stanah mariam and me and i'm gonna reintroduce her just in case you came in late or um you didn't get to hear her beautiful recitation she received her master's degree in education for me at cla and she holds a second degree in islamic studies through al azhar university she studied in egypt memorized and researched a variety of religious sciences for over over the past 15 years she has done so much to benefit the umma but my favorite thing to talk about is the qadiya app mashaAllah that she has launched with her team all female reciters amazing amazing app that where you can just listen to female reciters any sura it's a free app you can download on now android and apple right and so that's really exciting she has a you can't mess with her so she says takbir you have to say allahu akbar because she has a black second degree black belt you know so you know allahu akbar so when she says takbir you better say allahu akbar back right when the muslims believed in the revelation so many of the qureish began to persecute them and we heard about the persecution of the very first martyr sumayah from our beloved estate of husaynah and there were other men and women who were persecuted for example umshu rake radi allahu anha she and her husband accepted islam and when her husband was away her in-laws came and they asked her whether or not she had actually converted and when she affirmed her in-laws carried her out of her home on their shoulders basic basically kidnapped her took her and force fed her bread and honey and then would not allow her to have any water so you can imagine how dry her mouth felt and her throat and then they left her in the desert sun for three days and when they did so and they came back three days later she had lost her sight and they asked her does she still believe in allah does she still believe that there's only one god and the way that she responded was still one finger up to the sky in affirmation of this belief this persecution was so intense that we know that there was a migration from mecca to abyssinia and we also likely have heard of when the muslim stood in front of an nijashi and jaafa radi allahu anhu the son of abul talib stood and responded to an nijashi's questions on why they were here because the qurish had sent people to follow them to abyssinia to get them back and when jaafa radi allahu anhu stood and he explained how the prophet sallallahu took them from the darknesses to the light the way that they used to harm people and hurt people and didn't take their responsibilities towards people seriously and then he recited the beginning of surah maryam he said thank you just a couple of things can you say it to me again he continued to recite this surah as um salama explained the narrator of this hadith is um salama radi allahu anhu have you heard of this narration before this incident have you heard of jaafa radi allahu anhu going to abyssinia and speaking in front of a nijashi did you know that um salama is the one who narrated it a woman was the one who told us of this incident and we wouldn't have known about it if she hadn't and with jaafa radi allahu anhu and the muslims in abyssinia were over 20 women who had migrated from mecca to abyssinia some of them didn't have any any animal to ride on because they couldn't afford it so walking and riding on animals they went through the desert onto a ship none of them had gone on a ship before now they're going on ship they're going to abyssinia and this is where they stay for some time esmat ziada who is a scholar who wrote the book the the political role the political roles of women in the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the righteous hulafa she speaks about how when she did research on more contemporary historians when we look at the narrations that they include they include narrations like jaafa radi allahu anhu speaking they speak about his life radi allahu anhu but it's not simply that they mentioned for example and his wife but don't mention the name it's that they simply don't mention women at all and that this is such a stark contrast from the earlier books of history like ibn saad's al-qabaqat or ibn hajr or um or ibn heishan that these books talk about the roles of women and the presence of women and the way that woman impacted society and yet over time that shifted so that many of us today maybe have asked where really have been women in asthmatic society what are really women's roles or contributions especially when we keep hearing that there's really only one role that women play in our community and this isn't to say that all history books right now omit women or that they were intentional in doing so but the point is there's been a shift of culture even in the books that've been written and so when a young woman like myself when i was younger like many of you when you've been younger or maybe now are going to the masjid and you're not hearing about any of the woman companions sometimes we wonder well did they even exist i remember feeling so connected to khalid ibn walid radi allahu anhu fighting battles on behalf of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam for the azza of islam or bilaad radi allahu anhu and he would give the adhan in the powerful way that he would give the adhan the tafsir of the quran and i felt so connected to all of these companions radi allahu anhu but one i would hear aisha radi allahu anha or khadija radi allahu anha or faatima radi allahu anha of course i knew i believed in the the the immense iman and the sacrifices of these women but did i feel connected to them not really and the reason was because i have a more extroverted personality and the only way that woman were presented not hamdulah by my parents may Allah bless my parents and my family and all of your parents and families but in muslim spaces was often that khadija radi allahu anha was a supportive wife because she was that faatima radi allahu anha was a supportive daughter and mother which she was and i said radi allahu anha was a scholar with immense modesty which she was but that was all and to not know their personalities to not know how they interacted in society to not understand the roles that they played made it difficult for me to understand how i can follow their example here in my society with the personality that i have which i continued to struggle with until this day thanks to the wonderful muslim community that i love so much may Allah bless us all and i mean that sincerely may Allah truly bless us all but i keep hearing this from young women i keep hearing this from little girls and the fact that it's still an issue breaks my heart that so many of us grew up hating ourselves for no reason literally no reason other than we were told we were not modest enough for existing and when we look at asmaab into omais radi allahu anha she gives us permission in her example to play so many different roles in society and in our homes asmaab into omais radi allahu anha was the wife of jaafar radi allahu anha the one who gave that speech to najashi radi allahu anha the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam in an earlier time when the qureish were dealing with a lot of difficulty without food and a boutalib when he had multiple sons to care for the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam went to his uncle abbas radi allahu anha and suggested that they both take some of the sons and kind of care for them in their home and so ali radi allahu anha went to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam to be cared for in the home financially supported and cared for and jaafar radi allahu anha went to the home of abbas radi allahu anha abbas was married to lubaba who inshallah saramin is going to speak about umal fadl and her sister is asmaab into omais radi allahu anha other sisters of asmaab into omais are maymuna who became a mother of the believers salma who was married to hamsa radi allahu anha and asmaab she's the fourth one and so she marries jaafar when they're young and woman played a political role in the society of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam because she was amongst the very first ones to give bayat to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam this is a political act and then she seeks political asylum in abasinia a political act and when she is in abasinia growing the community she had three sons there along with the small muslim small group of muslims who were there all of them were part of the abasinian society impacting the society and anna jashi became muslim while they were there radi allahu anha they stayed there for 10 years and they impacted the way that islam began to spread in that part of the world when finally it was time for them to make hijrah to medina subhanallah and nijashi sees them go onto the boat and he's giving them his goodbye and he says give my salam to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and one of the woman narrates and she says i got to give a nijashi salam to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam so now they come to medina they've made a hijrah from abasinia from mecca to abasinia and now from abasinia to medina and when they are in medina people are speaking about them they're speaking about how these people of the boat didn't make they're not really considered migrants they're not really considered like the the migrants that came to medina from mecca and so asma radi allahu anha one time she is sitting in a room with hafsa radi allahu anha and hafsa is the wife of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the daughter of amr radi allahu anha and so amr walks in and he sees a woman he doesn't recognize and so he asks his daughter who is this and she replies and says this is asma and so amr says oh this is the the the one from abasinia the one who was on the boat i love the shift in narration here because initially it's amr speaking to hafsa radi allahu anha hafihi oh this one is the one and then asma responds and she's like yes she takes on the conversation and so we love him so much and he's a person of part promise paradise radi allahu anha and so he speaks to her and he says we got to medina before you therefore we have more of a right to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam than you do and this narration isn't is in bukhari asma radi allahu anha when she hears this fa ghalibat she got angry and then she responded to amr radi allahu anha and when she responded she didn't say you're right you are amr radi allahu anha i i have nothing to say in front of such a great man which she could have a hundred percent said and would have been a hundred percent true radi allahu anha she didn't say well i'm a woman and so i shouldn't speak in front of a man maybe i should go speak to another man to speak to amr radi allahu anha who like maybe she's have careful speak to amr radi allahu anha she became angry and she responded to amr radi allahu anha and she said to him that they had been there with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam teaching them and feeding them and helping them and mentoring them and this is a summary of the hadith and they were far away and she's like i swear i'm not going to eat and i'm not going to drink i'm going to go to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and i'm going to tell him what you said and so she goes to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and she expresses the conversation with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and then he gives her the glad tidings that to amr and his companions there's not more of a right of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam to them than to her and her companions they made hijra one time but asma and her companions made hijra twice this narration was so beloved to the community of the migrants from ebesinia the abumus al ash'ari who's a great companion of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and the group who came with her kept coming back and asking her to say the narration over and over again because it made them feel so honored also note that the conversation before this narration took place was about how they hadn't been really considered immigrants that was a cultural conversation happening in the community asma allah by speaking up changed that narrative to then become amongst the highest the elevated spiritual status to have made hijra twice with the community when we use our voice as woman we may not see the outcome in our lifetime but we help shift cultural narrative and that's why your voice is so critical for our community just like asma allah teaches us ja'afu allahu anhu was sent as a flag bearer as a leader in the battle of mu'ta and after zaid ibn al-haritha was martyred ja'afu allahu anhu was martyred this was about a year or less from the time they came from ebesinia into madina and so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam kuit was said ja'afu allahu anhu looked the most like him this is his cousin he was so happy when ja'afur came from ebesinia that he said he wasn't he wasn't sure what made him happier the fact they sing ja'afur or the fact that they had won the battle of khaybar that day and so when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is informed of the passing of ja'afu allahu anhu or knows about the passing of ja'afu allahu anhu he was known as ja'afu al-qiyar al-qiyar because he lost both of his arms and so now he doesn't need the arms of us to move inshallah he is considered a martyr in paradise when the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam came to the house of asmaa radiallahu anha he was emotional and he was overwhelmed as he was hugging and kissing her three boys and so she asked him she was afraid to ask him about the news because there might have been news about ja'afur allahu anhu when he confirmed her husband's martyrdom she was overcome with emotion just like the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was overcome with emotion and in this moment subhanallah while the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is affirming the immense loss to the community and his immense personal loss while he is seeing her children and so saddened by the fact that they are now an orphan while he said tafaltima radiallahu anha that this is or a summary of what was said that this is certainly a day to be sad someone to really cry over he informs asma radiallahu anha not to scream and tear her clothes this is such an interesting point have you ever heard that women should not go to the grave have you ever have raised your hand if you have never been to the grave to a graveyard to a cemetery raise it really high let's look around women who've never been to a graveyard or cemetery okay raise your hand if you've been told women shouldn't go to the graveyard or to the cemetery okay raise your hand if you have been told you shouldn't even pray the janaza all right in the beginning in mecca the companions radiallahu anha were new in their belief they were still following or learning still learning about islam and about the cultural practices that they used to practice not being appropriate anymore one of those practices was going to the graves and when they were at the grave they would call out to the dead one is they would praise them to the point of almost worship two they would take them as intercessors between them and a lot three they would hire people part of their custom was to hire people and specifically women to come to the grave and to basically build up the personality of the person who died so they could pay someone a person could pay someone before they died or pay women specifically because this was especially a part of the pre-islamic women's culture to go to the grave and to be the hype people of this dead person so that the people still living could be like wow all the living come from that family they would become arrogant about who had passed away so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam forbid men and women from going to the grave to protect them from falling into these practices that could lead to calling out to the dead instead of a law once their hearts were firm once e-men had been strengthened in their hearts then the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam changed that ruling and instead ordered and recommended that the believers men and women go to the grave go to the cemetery because it's an opportunity to remember how short life is it's an opportunity to think about our own lives and how we are going to live when we're here and it's an opportunity for grief to process grief to realize that Allah is the only one who is really with us in these moments and this is why there's a specific narration of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam cursing women who frequent graves going day and night every single day day and night every single day obsessively going and not doing anything else and not being able to focus on the other things in life including the responsibility upon your own body why because this was a practice that was especially common amongst women that included ripping their clothing and screaming. Asmaud alaihi wa sallam had been in Abyssinia so she had not been in Medina she had not been in Mecca for many years in which the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam was teaching filth so in this moment the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam despite the fact that he has lost his own cousin whom he loved so much after being apart from him for 10 plus years despite the fact that he has so much mercy for his uh these new orphans that he is crying and overwhelmed with emotion despite the fact that he says to the people of Medina to cook food for Asmaud and her family so that she doesn't have to take worry about that in this moment she can focus on her family her children and her grief the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam respectfully kindly lovingly teaches her filth have you ever been taught filth in such a way in such a moment or have you been in the midst of your grief and because you are a woman have been told you cannot even cry this person that you love is going to hear you crying and they're going to be punished the immense pain that woman experienced sometimes in even the biggest spaces of pain is a testament to the strength of your faith we ask Allah to make us sincere and give us the bat and i didn't give you so many references in what i just mentioned because of the shortness of the time that discussion is literally an entire hour but how did i just finished writing a manuscript for a book addressing all these issues related to women and in shala all the sources are going to be in there in shala in two years when it's published so in shala in one year in shala but the point is that we have too rough we have so so much scholarship that has addressed this and why it is and the way it is in the context has any of that context been even ever mentioned to any of you when it's been told women shouldn't go to the grave where is the context context is so critical because if we only take one statement then we can say oh the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam just send this to asmaa we don't know that he was in pain we don't know that he went to love and support her family sallallahu alaihi wasallam after jaafar radi allahu anhu passed away abu bakr radi allahu anhu lost his wife umru maa the mother of aisha radi allahu anhu and after the idda of asmaa radi allahu anhu abu bakr and asmaa radi allahu anhu got married and so now she marries and she's pregnant and they go to make hajj while she's pregnant and guess what happens she gives birth on their way to hajj and so now abu bakr radi allahu anhu asked the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam like what should she do she's in me fast now she is bleeding a particular type of blood that we're not supposed to do sallallahu anhu and they're going for hajj and in amra or hajj there are parts that we need to be in will do so what should she do the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam doesn't say oh she should turn back or we should stay here and no one should go or the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam just teaches the filq of what to do and she continues on the way and makes hajj the farewell hajj with the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam the same hajj in which aisha radi allahu anhu also got her period and that she shared the fact that she had gotten her period and now all of the muslims until the end of time know that asma radi allahu anhu was in postpartum bleeding during hajj and that aisha radi allahu anhu was in her period during hajj so that all of us women today when allah has honored us with something that's so critical for the continuation of humanity that we do not feel like it's something terrible like it's a punishment from allah like it's something that we need to be ashamed of because it's a natural part of our bodies that allah's panawata created us with and we can still go for hajj and umrah even in this state what a mercy from allah that he has given these women as examples to us that we have because of their modesty because of their modesty we know these stories because their modesty meant commitment to allah and what better commitment than being so clear about what's happening to you that you can help other women's centuries later when faltima radi allahu anhu was very sick and passing away asma radi allahu anhu was taking care of her and as she was taking care of her faltima told her that she doesn't like the fact that when a woman passes away or when she passes away that the burial shroud kind of shows the shape of her body and so asma had seen in abyssinia that they would build with sticks and with different pieces of nature kind of like a like not a coffin but something that would hold the body when it's being delivered from the jinn asa to the to the grave so as faltima radi allahu anhu asked to see what that looks like and so asma radi allahu anhu built it for her faltima saw it she liked it and when faltima passed away she was taken in this uh coffin like box and that was how her body was transported radi allahu anhu and it was from asma radi allahu anhu seeing that in abyssinia and then sharing that with faltima radi allahu anhu but also let's let's take a minute to consider that faltima radi allahu anhu is passing away and her concern is that the shape of her body is going to be noticed after she dies it'll be allahu anhu yes we have an obsession about speaking about modesty in our community sometimes and may Allah bless our community and help us you know feel loved in every way but also on the same end we speak about hijab in ways that sometimes women in our community feel so hyper sexualized that we don't even feel comfortable being women in muslim spaces completely covered because of the hyper sexualization of women in our community faltima radi allahu anhu her concern was in connection to Allah it wasn't a political act it wasn't about it it wasn't about uh when sometimes we seek that hijab and we say oh you know uh don't be obsessed with the dunya it was worship that's all it was it was worship for her and as a community we need to step back especially considering globally and consider are we building the identity of our sisters helping our sisters feel connected because hijab was not revealed until at least 14 years after that beginning of the revelation do all of us have 14 years of mentorship by someone like the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam where the focus is building our imam and building our individualized personalities and ourselves and our connection and the importance of our contribution before we obsessively speak about hijab faltima radi allahu anhu saw this as an act of worship as it is and so when asma radi allahu anhu is taking care of her body she was one of three who washed the body of faltima radi allahu anhu we can see the honor that she gave to her wishes after faltima radi allahu anhu passed away abu bakr radi allahu anhu passed away and abu bakr had stipulated that he wanted faltima excuse me excuse me asma to wash his body not his sons not muhammad ibn abu bakr the son between asma and abu bakr or any of his other children asma radi allahu anhu she washed the body of the first caliph of islam one of the the best the most righteous companion radi allahu anhu and after she had washed his body she came out and she said today i am fasting and it is a very cold day do i need to make a whistle because i made a whistle for the person who passed away and there are two narrations one say she spoke to a group of muhajirun another said she spoke to arthman radi allahu anhu and amr radi allahu anhu overheard and they said no you don't she washed the body of her husband she's an immense grief and she says she's fasting and she's wondering does she need to make a whistle despite the fact that she's exhausted and she's emotionally overwhelmed and it's a freezing cold day does she still need to make a whistle the fact that she's considering these issues shows to us that we can be focused on the technicalities of how to practice while still fully embracing all aspects of our pain and our joy and our personalities and who we are internally and externally she marries ali radi allahu anhu after abu bakr radi allahu anhu and one day her son muhammad the son of jaafar gets into an argument with her other son muhammad the son of abu bakr and she has two sons with ali radi allahu anhu and so they get into an argument and what is like my father was better than your father and the other one says my father is better than your father and so what does she ali radi allahu anhu say he says what did you say to her and she says i told them that jaafar was the best of the youth and that abu bakr was the best of the elders and ali said to summarize he was like would you leave for me radi allahu anhu in asma radi allahu anhu we also see that when she is in grief subhanallah she's still narrating hadith that she's gone through so much in her life but she doesn't compromise on who she is and the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam taught her a dua or she narrated a dua and this dua that she narrated when you say it when you're afflicted with sadness or depression when you make this dua Allah will lift it from you and that dua is allahu rabbi allahu rabbi la sharikalah my lord allah is my lord my caretaker my nurturer and there's no one worthy of worship with him allahu rabbi la sharikalah and i'd like to add and say that when you make this dua if you're going through depression or anxiety or you are having thoughts of unaliving or anything related also seek therapy because the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam was there as a mentor he was there as emotional support for the companions he was teaching duads to he himself sallallahu alayhi wasallam sought support from umsalama radi allahu anhu from khadija radi allahu anhu we have specific narrations of this so when the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam is teaching us about duads that we can say to help us through those times of emotion it doesn't mean only say this dua and all of a sudden everything's great make this dua and also seek support maristan is right here may allah bless drania and all those involved in trying to support the emotional overwhelming experience emotionally overwhelming experiences that many of us may experience finally asthmat radi allahu anhu teaches us that like the woman companions we can be shy or we can be extremely bold we can be extroverts or introverts or someone in between or a mix of it we can be housewives and stay at home moms or we can work or we can be a mix of all but no matter what we have a role to play you were created in this time period in this space in this land for a reason a love place you hear intentionally you're not a random person that was born and that's going to die you were here for a reason whether that means you were here to support the next generation of children and grandchildren with the most healing love you can share so that inshallah we can work towards a healed umma or whether that means you are building an institution or working or whatever it means you have a role to play and in asthmat radi allahu anhu we see that even unfortunately when we speak about women we actively consider her relationship status as what gives her worth and yet whether a woman is a divorced or a widow or has always been single or married three times like asthmat radi allahu anhu you have worth because of who you are as a believer you have worth because of who you are in connection to Allah's panawata and how you use any of those relationships in your life to come closer to him and to help others come back to him JazakAllah. I didn't thank you so much. So I have the honor to continue this program today introducing somebody I actually had never heard until she was invited to speak at the womanhood the conference the the first one so I'd never met Dr. Meena Dadawish I didn't know who she was I'd never heard her speak and then when I heard her I fell in love it was like instant mashaAllah she's very sweet and very knowledgeable very passionate about her work she started as the associate dean of religious and spiritual life and advisor for the muslim for muslim life in february 2021 she served as the first full-time muslim life coordinator at columbia dr. Dadawish has a decade of professional experience working with the muslim community she also brings years of experience building and serving in non-profit organizations she brings a unique blend of understanding of different cultures within the muslim community while staying grounded in traditional islamic scholarship she earned her phd in chemical engineering before switching careers to follow her true passion for community building she remains passionate about uh she remains passionate about ethics and meaning and service in the stem disciplines she strives to create a culture of openness and consistent kindness in the community she serves she earned ijaza's traditional islamic studies certifications from the uh al-qalam and critical loyalty seminars critical loyalty seminaries including an ijaza in the ten kiraat dr. dadawish has studied individually under different scholars from different parts of the world and has uh taught college level coursework on islamic muslims and she's currently serving at stanford so i welcome uh dr. emina dadawish inshaAllah the lord of mercy the giver of mercy and prayers and blessings be on his beloved prophet muhammad sayasallam the companion that i get to talk about today alhamdulillah is a woman by the name of lubaba bint al-harith radiullah anha so i'm just gonna like talk about her name for a second so lub is the the essence or the core of something and i remember as a child anytime my mom would be doing something my mom wants me to stop she'd shoot me this look and she would quote this line to me and it says certainly the person with intellect with a core that is grounded can understand from just a sign and i knew that that meant that i was going to stop doing whatever i was doing alhamdulillah it's funny my brother at some point called and he's like you know how mama would like just look at us and just stop i'm like yeah and he's like i stared at my son he stared right back i don't think i'm doing it right man i'm like no dude i don't think you're doing it right like what do we do like practice in the mirror like try to figure out do it just right alhamdulillah mashaAllah reward my mom alhamdulillah and everyone's mom alhamdulillah so lubaba bint al-harith her her kunya was um al-fad and this is not something that we really do right now but it's like your i don't want to say your stage name because it wasn't a stage but it was this is what she was known for and it was because her eldest son was named al-fad and she was known as um al-fadl the mother of al-fadl but in the arabic language when you would call someone um something or abu something you're actually also attributing more to them than that and she is so deserving of this so fadl is is more than just it's a form of excellence like when we say fadlullah sb Allah sb fadl on us it's not like your needs are met it's your needs are met and then so much more it's someone that is so generous giving from such an endless bounty that's what fadl means it's one of the higher highest levels of excellence sb and her eldest son was named al-fadl and so she was known as um al-fadl the mother of al-fadl also she was um al-fadl not just as a mother to her son but also in terms of her character rallyullah anha so the first thing i want you to know about her is that she was khadija radiullah anha's best friend which i mean subhanallah the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam says the person is with uh you have the same religion as your khaleel and the word khaleel it actually has the same word word as khalla as deficiency that when this person's missing you feel like something's wrong right you know how you like you do something you're like oh am i gonna call and then the first person you call so she was khadija radiullah anha's best friend and what an incredible best friend so based on her narration she said i took my shahada the same day as khadija radiullah anha who was who was the first person to become muslim khadija radiullah anha that's completely agreed upon there is zero dispute over who the first muslim was it was khadija radiullah anha and she's saying i took my shahada first same day as my friend khadija radiullah anha so by all accounts she is the second woman to become muslim and then we don't know was there any of the men that became muslim before her or not we don't actually know so she could have been the second muslim outside of the family the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam of course just period when we say the first and the second we don't meet like of course his daughter fatima radiullah anha's daughter ruqaya zaynab and i'm kuthum radiullah anha the people in the household of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam subhanallah but outside of the house of the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam she was the second woman to ever become she was became muslim after her friend khadija radiullah anha her husband was the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam's uncle he was three years older than the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam and if those are your family friends you know you get married you have couple friends these were their couple friends they had kids that were of similar age they were just really really really close friends my one of my closest friends she used to live right next door to me we used to drink coffee together every morning like we were friends friends and some of the narrations about her the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam used to go visit her and used to take naps at her house that's how close they were like my friend i go drink coffee at her house i'm like oh i have to do this i'm just gonna sit on your couch i'm gonna take a nap for like 20 minutes and i'm gonna get up i live next door like i don't need to nap on her couch but i felt comfortable enough napping on her couch subhanallah and you can imagine the prophet sallallahu alayhi sallam doing this in the house of umal fadr radiullah anha in the house of his uncle abbas radiullahan who is only actually only three years older than him abbas radiullahan who is tasked with asikaya and imar al-hadjaj so when people would come to mecca from all these different places intending to visit the kaaba el abbas radiullahan was actually responsible for giving them water and they would give them water from the well of zemzam does anyone know where we got the word zemzam yes someone said yes who came up with the name hajr alayhi sallam so we know the story of how she was making draat she was going back and forth between nasafa and the marwa she's making all this draat she's working really hard and every time someone goes to hajr umla they follow in the footsteps of our mother hajr alayhi sallam i'm not saying this just because i'm egyptian but she is from the land of the nile al-lil'ana our mother hajr alayhi sallam but the reason that's significant is when the water started gushing out and people started she tried to collect it and she kept saying zumi zumi collect collect this is where we got the word zemzam and the other tribes came in and they said we want a portion of the water she says yes but i manage it because none of you know how to manage a water resource i'm from the land of the nile i know how to manage a water resource and when we think of lubaab al-lil'ana she is the inheritor of our mother hajr alayhi sallam she's best friends with khadija al-lil'ana but also in this role an inheritor of our four mother subhanallah so something that's i just wanted wanted to stop for a second just talking about mecca mecca was the city of our prophet Muhammad sallam and ibrahim alayhi sallam neither one of them is actually buried in mecca ibrahim alayhi sallam is buried in khadija in falustine and the prophet sallam is buried in madina the two people that are actually buried in mecca that are holding down the fort are actually our mothers hajr alayhi sallam and khadija al-lil'ana so the amount of loyalty that lubaab al-lil'ana had to her friend khadija was so incredible and every time i think of her i think of baraka al-lil'ana who inshallah dr runian we'll talk about next she was friends with amina and continued on being a mother to the prophet sallam long after amir al-lil'ana passed and lubaab al-lil'ana if you can imagine the role khadija al-lil'ana had after her friend passed away that was the role that she took on to honor her friend khadija al-lil'ana being a mother to the umma we think of the prophet sallam as the father to the umma and umma hajr al-lil'ana the mothers of the believers are the mothers of the umma and they carried us through after the passing of the prophet sallam when you lose a parent you rely on the other we relied on the mothers of the believers al-lil'ana and lubaab al-lil'ana has served a similar role to her her best friend khadija al-lil'ana so i just sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam sallam had mentioned this where she was talking about some of her in-laws and there is a narration while al-lil'ana it's not a strong narration but it's still a narration where the prophet sallam says the believing sisters and he lists them he says maimouna the wife of the prophet sallam her sister umma al-fadl so maimouna and umma al-fadl actually shared both parents and then the other two sisters asma and salma the wife of um excuse me asma bint ummais radiullah ana who maria had just spoke about and her sister salma bint ummais who were actually um they shared a mother but didn't share a father with umma al-fadl al-lubaab al-lil'ana so they were half sisters subhanallah i just want to add that it doesn't actually end there because they had another she had another half sister zaynab radiullah ana who actually married the prophet sallam in the third year of the hijrah and passed away within a few months zaynab bint al-khuzaima radiullah ana so she has two sisters who married the prophet sallam a half sister and a full sister subhanallah the other person she also had a younger sister named lubaaba radiullah lubaaba sughra so they they loved the name so much they said lubaaba the older and lubaaba the younger lubaaba the younger was actually the mother of khal al-lulid radiullah and you're seeing you're hearing all these family connections subhanallah those four sisters are actually part of what bound all of these leaders of laka together if you think of sisterhood we should be thinking of these four women subhanallah and part of what's fascinating about sisterhood is that women in general the way that women lead is very different from how men lead for the men to lead you have to have one person standing at the front and it's clear there's the person leading with women the leader actually stands in the middle i remember the first time i had to lead sallan i was so scared my friends like i'm gonna support you i'm like how are you gonna support me like either you're leading or i'm leading and she's like i'll stand next to you i'm like okay that's that is true and she says have gambik which also means like i'll support you but i'm like it literally means i'm just gonna stand next to you and i'm like well cool alhamdulillah she did stand next to me it was very helpful this this is how women lead subhanallah and they're raising this generation of people together so luba became muslim all the way at the beginning and we know from the seerah of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam there were three years that they were doing da'wah the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was doing da'wah in secret and she's someone that had to keep that secret for a long time her husband abbas did not become muslim material years later subhanallah he was actually one of the only two of the uncles of the prophet sallallahu became muslim hamsa and abbas and subhanallah and subhanallah that these two sisters were married to those brothers subhanallah so luba becomes muslim within the first year of the of the of the prophet inside within the first year of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam receiving revelation and then three years in the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam receives a command from the from allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam it says And warn your closest family. So the Prophet ﷺ hosts a family gathering at his house. He invites all of them over and they all have this huge meal. And right as he is about to talk, mind you, the Prophet ﷺ has spoken to his family members before. They know what he's talking about. And there's one person in particular, one of his uncles, Abu Lahab, who before this point had been very supportive of the Prophet ﷺ. He loved the Prophet ﷺ. He's actually the one who paid for his Aqirah. You know, when the child is born and someone donates the animal and has the dinner and all, like, Abu Lahab actually did that. And initially when the Prophet ﷺ told him about Islam, he actually is like, yeah, this is a cool thing. And then he looked and in an enslaved man, he said, me and him will be equal. I don't want what you're selling. Imagine how hurtful that is. It was really, it was literally his arrogance that got him. May Allah protect us from arrogance. And may Allah protect us from ever looking at another human being and saying, I'm better than them. Because that destroyed Abu Lahab. The Prophet ﷺ invites everyone over. Before he can get a word out, Abu Lahab stands up. He says, if we don't stop him, all of the Arabs are going to fight us. And he ruins the Prophet ﷺ's dinner. The Prophet ﷺ will go home. He calls another dinner. Lubab, al-Radiullah, is there. Labbas al-Radiullah is there. She's part of the family. She's probably helping her friend Khadija, al-Radiullah, on her. She's her best friend. Every time my best friend hosted a huge dinner, I was there cooking with her. This is what your friends do. They had another one. Everyone comes over before they finish the meal to pre-empt Abu Lahab. The Prophet ﷺ starts calling to his family. He tells them, if I'm going to lie to anyone, I wouldn't lie to you. You're my people. You're my family. And subhanAllah, al-Abbas al-Rani turned away. He didn't assault the Prophet ﷺ, but he wasn't ready. And we know this famous moment where al-Radiullah, he says, I'm going to do it. He was 10 years old. SubhanAllah, we talked about Asma'a al-Radiullah and converting when she was 11. How many young people in our community are like, oh, what do they know? Oh, what did al-Radiullah know? Again, don't be the person that dismisses al-Radiullah. May Allah protect us from ever being that. But she's there. She's a witness to all of these things. Finally, the Prophet ﷺ stands on the mountain of Saffa. He calls out to everyone. And again, Abu Lahab is the one who insults the Prophet ﷺ. And subhanAllah, he said, he told the Prophet ﷺ, tabban laka sa'ir al-yawm. May you be cursed the rest of the day. And the Qur'an was revealed, said, tabbat yadah abilahab al-matam. May the hands of Abu Lahab become cursed, subhanAllah. May Allah protect us from that. Which, I mean, you insult the Prophet ﷺ, it's a short surah, so like five year olds and the ummah are learning it till the day of judgment. Do not mess with the Prophet. Don't ever do that, subhanAllah. But she's a witness to all of these things. And all of these things are happening in front of her eyes. There are people that have left. SubhanAllah, there was a moment where we know when the Prophet ﷺ was a young child, when after the passing of his mother and the passing of his grandfather, the Prophet ﷺ, his grandfather, asked his uncle, Abl-Muttalib, to take care of him. And he, in fact, lived in the house of Abl-Muttalib. And then at some point, Abl-Muttalib became so overwhelmed. He had 10 children. He couldn't support all of his children. So, Al-Abbas and the Prophet ﷺ said, let's take some of his children and take care of all of their needs and all of their finances. And that's actually how Sayyidina Ali, radiullah, ended up in the house of the Prophet ﷺ. Ja'far radiullah, we talked about, who was married to, his wife is Asmaa, radiullah, Stathamarium talked about, he grew up in the house of Al-Abbas, where Lubaba was a mother to him. He wasn't her biological child, but she raised him in her own house. And we know that Ja'far radiullah was the closest person to the Prophet ﷺ in looks and in characters, pan-Allah. This was the Prophet ﷺ telling him this. By the sixth year, since the beginning of the revelation, now at this point, the Prophet ﷺ and his words, the Quran that he was reciting and the truth that he was giving people became so powerful, they decided they're gonna boycott them. And mind you, when they're boycotting them, they're not boycotting the Muslims. The majority of the Muslims, some of the Muslims ran away to Abyssinia in modern-day Ethiopia. Some of the Muslims, which is pan-Allah Najash, he's the first king to ever become Muslim. SubhanAllah. Some of them are hiding their Islam. They can't go anywhere. And then the entire family of the Prophet ﷺ gets forced in a place called Sha'ab-Bani-Tlardub. And they were between the mountains. No one was allowed to trade with them. And the majority of them I wanna point out were not Muslim. They were standing on principle. They were not actually Muslim. And you can imagine the guilt the Prophet ﷺ is feeling. His entire family is getting pushed out. Can you, like his uncle, made him sleep in a different place every night, out of fear that someone would betray him and sell him out from hunger? In the midst of all of this, Lubaba's witnessing her best friend, Khadija-Rabbi-Llana, get weaker and weaker. And SubhanAllah, everyone's really struggling. And it was actually then that Allah gifted her her son, Abdullah ibn al-Abbah, Surah Al-Lahan. Can you imagine being the person that is bringing this joyous news to the Prophet ﷺ? And I wanna point out that her son, Abdullah ibn al-Abbah, they call him Hibr Hadeel Ummah. He is the scholar of the Ummah. Which, I mean, wow. He's the scholar of the Ummah. She made dua that Allah gifted him knowledge. And he was the one that carried on the legacy of so much of the family of the Prophet ﷺ. He carried on the legacy of Hadith. There's so many stories about him that when he would like the Sahaba, the elder Sahaba that he said, he realized he told his friends. He's like, the Sahaba are starting to pass away. I need to go ask them, stop. So he goes sleep in front of their house. The Sahaba ibn al-Llani'd open his door in the morning. He'd find Abdullah ibn al-Abbah sleeping in front of his door. SubhanAllah. That was her son. And this is the moment when he was born. Giving hope to the Ummah. And when he was born, we talked about this idea of tahneek where you take the date. They didn't have a date. Prophet ﷺ took his saliva and he put it inside of the mouth of Abdullah ibn al-Abbah sobiyullah, his newborn child. The son of Luwaba, sobiyullah. SubhanAllah. Alhamdulillah, the boycott is lifted. The next year is actually called the year of sorrow. Because Khadija, sobiyullah passes away. And the uncle of the Prophet ﷺ was protecting him, passes away. So two things happened. The protection of the Prophet ﷺ moved on to Al-Abbas, to his other uncle. So again, even though he was not Muslim, he was protecting the Prophet ﷺ. And can you imagine what Luwaba took from her friend Khadija? To continue protecting, she was known when you were stuck in Mecca. And you can't get out when you're Muslim and you need help that Luwaba is the person that you go to. And everyone knew this. This is what she was known for out of loyalty to her friend Khadija. SubhanAllah. When the time of the hijra comes, she's Muslim. She can't leave. Her husband's not Muslim. Her Islam is a secret. And even Abdullah bin Abbas, all the Allah, he said, my mother and I were from those who were oppressed in Mecca that couldn't leave. But she was given a task by the Prophet ﷺ to protect everyone else that was stuck in Mecca that also couldn't leave. And she did this with loyalty for years. And it's one thing to be like, MashaAllah, we talked about the people that went to Abyssinia. They're the people of the two hijra. Luwaba was stuck in Mecca, in the center of it all, watching them raise an army against the Prophet ﷺ. During the battle of bed, her husband, Al-Abbas, was actually forced into the battle against the Muslims. And she's watching him go to join an army to fight the Prophet ﷺ. Like imagine what she is going through. As she's witnessing this, SubhanAllah, the Muslims, we know the Muslims won in Badr. The Meccans had never imagined that. They were undefeated. Badr was such like blew everybody's minds. People could not unfathom like, actually, SubhanAllah, the Qur'an calls it Yom Al-Fulqad. It is the day where truth has become evident, SubhanAllah, in the battle of Badr. So the battle of Badr happens. The disbelievers are running back to Mecca and there's only one leader of Mecca that didn't leave with them. He was a coward and his name is... We talked about him already. Who was the coward that didn't go? Abu Lahab. He paid someone else to go on his behalf. He's like, you owe me a debt. Go to this battle. I don't want to go. So he's the only leader of Mecca that didn't go. And SubhanAllah, the Muslims win such a resounding victory that now there are people that are just running, trickling back into Mecca. It's not a celebratory army that's coming back with a parade or anything. Like people are just running back into Mecca. So they run back into Mecca and everyone's saying, we lost, we lost. But I was just like, wait, what? What are you talking about? More and more people kept coming in until finally a man came in and Abu Lahab held him. He's like, tell me what happened? And he started describing the battle to him. He told him there were these men that were wearing all white. They were on horses that were between the heavens and the earth. He's describing the angels. And he said they would strike someone and the wound wouldn't be red, it would be green. And SubhanAllah, there is a Maula, an enslaved man that was living in her house who was also Muslim. And his Islam was a secret. He started, he couldn't contain himself. He's like, the angels, the angels. Abu Lahab was furious. Took this man, he started to beat him. Like, even the narration said he was literally on top of him, hitting him. And I want you to picture this because who has power in that moment? Abu Lahab does. Who has the clout and the authority in that moment? Abu Lahab does. And I don't mean to, like, in America, we all know this. If you see an officer standing over a man, beating him, who has the power in that moment? How terrifying is it to stand up to that person who clearly has no problem using all of their power and all of their authority to physically harm someone? Luwaba, Rabiullah, picked up one of the poles of the tent, which I can't even imagine, like, the adrenaline that she must be growing through her body and the physical strength that she had, she went and she whacked Abu Lahab on the head. That was the only way to get him off. You know, when someone's crazed and won't let go, she knew it and she whacked him. Yeah, oh, she is a boss lady. And she told Abu Lahab, you think, because the Abbas is not here, that you can do this to a member of our household? I want you to also understand, in that position, she's also a member of the Abbas's household. Clearly, Abu Lahab had no problem beating anyone in the house of the Abbas. And she took that stand anyway. It's one thing when it's subhanAllah, because now we watch all these videos. Unfortunately, there's some horrendous videos that you witness and there are other videos where you see another cop that stood up to a cop and said, hey, we're not doing this. This was another person that stood up and said, I'm just as vulnerable as him as I'm gonna stand up for him anyway. Within seven days, Abu Lahab had passed away. Not from that hit, but actually from an infection that he got from it. So even though Lubab al-Dillah was not part of the battle of bed, the remaining leader of Mecca that was fighting the Prophet's life, I know she's actually the one that got him. And she got him defending another person, subhanAllah. Someone that Mecca had decided was vulnerable enough and not worth fighting for, subhanAllah. She stood up and fought them, subhanAllah. By the third year of the hijra, that's the point where her half-sister, Zayna bint Huzayma, married the Prophet's life after her husband was martyred and within a few months, she passed away. By the fifth year of the hijra, all this she stuck in Mecca. Everybody's like, all this stuff is happening now, so they're coming, they're creating this treaty with the Prophet's life. They were coming to do Umrah, they get sent back from the Umrah, they sign the treaty. By the sixth year of the hijra, they're doing something called Umrah al-Qadah where the year after, they came back to do their Umrah. During that Umrah, everyone in Mecca emptied out because they didn't even want to witness the Prophet's life coming in all of his glory. They actually started, sorry, I don't know how much time do we have? Okay, alhamdulillah. They started this rumor about the Muslims, they're like, oh, they've gotten diseased and now they're sick in Medina and they're not okay. Do you, how many people have been to Umrah? Few people. You know that part in the Sa'a where there's like the green lights and people run faster? That was the only part that the disbelievers could see the Muslims doing their Sa'a. So the Prophet's life told them in this portion, I need you to run faster and that's why we run faster. Of like, oh, you're calling us sick, we're doing our Sa'a and we're running in the Sa'a. And they're like, man, I'm really strong. Subhanallah. But the Lubaba and Abbas, they were still living in Mecca and her sister Maimuna was actually living in her house until the Prophet's life came and proposed to her. And that's actually where the wedding happened. It happened in those three days in Mecca and the Abbas and Lubaba were actually the ones who hosted this wedding where she is her full sister, Maimuna is marrying the Prophet's life and she was the last woman to actually marry the Prophet's life. She was the last of the mothers of the believers, Subhanallah. In the eighth year of the hijra, that's how long it took. Finally, the Abbas became Muslim. He became Muslim. He took his Shahada, he decided to do hijra. He is actually counted as the very last muhajad because for you to be a muhajad, you have to take your Shahada and go towards the Prophet's life before the conquest of Mecca. He leaves Mecca with the intention of joining the Prophet's life and lo and behold, the Prophet's life are all just outside of Mecca, now coming for the conquest of Mecca, Subhanallah. So the Prophet's life comes in, they conquer Mecca and the Prophet's life, there's so many moments like it wasn't just her, it was her and a few other people. That the Prophet's life, Asalaamu Alaihi Wasalaam asked him, she's like, you've been with these people for a long time, who are they? Like there are some important dignitaries that's this or it's that. He says we're remembering the good old days of Khadija. He's coming home to his house where Khadija was buried. This is now a decade later, this was her friend and the Prophet's life, Asalaam's just excited to see her. Subhanallah, after that moment, she actually her and Abbas and their whole family actually joins the Prophet's life in Medina and he was in those last two years of the life of the Prophet's life when they're living in Medina that we now get all of the narrations about her and her attractions with the Prophet's life. She narrates actually a few hadith from him and her son, Abdullah Abbas, who is known as the narrator of hadith, he actually narrates from his mother, Lubaba, radiallahu anhu, umul fadl. There are two narrations, one of them that I think is hilarious. So when Hussain, radiallahu anhu, the grandson of the Prophet's life was born, and Lubaba actually nursed him. So she was a nurse mom to Hussain radiallahu anhu. And she was carrying the baby and she goes to the visit the Prophet's life, Asalaam, she hands the Hussain radiallahu anhu to the Prophet's life, Asalaam. And this is just funny because it's, I don't know, human and then Hussain radiallahu anhu he's all over the Prophet's life, Asalaam. I mean, they're just normal human everyday things. Babies do this. She tells the Prophet's life, Asalaam, you know, if you go change, I can wash it for you. This is actually where we get the Fikr ruling where the Prophet's life says for a newborn boy, you can actually just sprinkle water on it. It doesn't ruin your tahara. But for if it's a newborn girl, then you actually have to wash the garment and there's, yeah, I'm not gonna get into the Fikr of that because it's too long. Alhamdulillah. But I just think it's really fascinating. SubhanAllah, again, it's everyday things. The reason we know how to make hussain is because her sister, Maimuna, is the one that told us, the one. Like who else is gonna wash the Prophet's life and make hussain? He had to be his wife. The narration was from Maimuna, Rabiullah. That's how we know how to make hussain. This is the value of these women, SubhanAllah. She went with the Prophet's life during Hajj al-Wadaa. And during the Hajj, there were people that were having a discussion. They're like, is the Prophet's life fasting as the day of Arafah? Is he fasting? Is he not fasting? What do we do? And she knew he wasn't fasting. But she did something that was very subtle and very smart. She just took some milk, went to the Prophet's life and handed him the bowl. He stopped. He drank the milk in front of everyone and everyone was like, okay, not fasting. That's how we know that ruling. And the reason I mentioned how she did it is in that subtlety, we might miss that it was a woman's wisdom that gave us this ruling. No one, when you read the Fiqh-ul-Banan-l-Lubabah, Rabiullah, has the reason that we don't know. Like, she's not necessarily listed in those books but we know it was her wisdom that did this. Just because we don't know the stories in the women and our mothers and our foremothers that came before us doesn't mean that Allah did not see them. I remember going to my teacher, Allah al-Hamdu l-Shaykh ayyum, and I got so frustrated about things. He's like, why do you care, Allah knows. I'm like, oh, but Shaykh, someone's taking credit for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I get so mad. And he's like, why do you care, Allah knows. I need Allah to know. I don't need everybody else to know. I just think it's so beautiful, SubhanAllah. There's another, how much time do I have? Okay, alright, Alhamdulillah. There was one of my favorite narrations from the time where the Prophet, because part of this is, Lubabah, Rabiullah, and besides making dua for her son, Abdullah, and Al-Abbas, she's now taking him to actually have access to the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And this is the hadith that I teach my, well, if you're on campus, welcome Halqa on Thursday, is this hadith. Heads up. But Al-Abbas, Rabiullah, and he's saying, one of the days where I was riding with the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, they're famous, like, can you imagine? Like, and then we were driving, and I was riding shotgun, and the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was riding, you know, you know, as you do. He's just riding with the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam looks at him, he says, Ya Ghulam, oh, young man, in you alimika kalimat, I'm gonna teach you these words. Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, like, watch attention, pay attention to him. Watch this, this is important. Listen up. And he tells him, Be mindful of Allah, Allah will be mindful of you. Be mindful of Allah, and Allah will be feasing you, Allah will, like, personally be taking care of you. If you ask Allah, if you rely on Allah, and know that if the whole ummah got together with something to benefit you with something, they can't benefit you with something, except that Allah has already pre-written for you. And if they all get together to harm you with something, they can't harm you with something, except that Allah has already written for you. The pens have been lifted and the ink has dried. SubhanAllah. Her being in Medina means that we have this hadith, so her son can learn it from the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Her son was actually an advisor, Sayyidina Amr al-Dillah. He was 13 years old when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam passed away. Again, we can't dismiss the young people. SubhanAllah. Oh, so much. Okay, way too much. I'm just going to try to wrap up. Lubabah al-Dillah passed away during the time of Sayyidina Uthman al-Dillah. Continued to be a support for different people in the ummah al-Dillah. I just wanted to stop for a second and point out that her son, Abdullah bin Abbas al-Dillah, was known for his knowledge in the ummah. Her nephew, Khalim Al-Walid al-Dillah, was known for his military might. And in one of the narrations from the narration, I don't know what's happening with the microphones. Well, we should have done that a long time ago. Safiyan ibn Ayyina, in one of the narrations says that the women of Al-Hilal, as she is from Bani Hilal, they mothered so many of these leaders of Makkah. Some of them had political power, some of them had military power, some of them had knowledge, which in and of itself is power. And she is the mother of the one that actually had the knowledge. And I want to, like, subhanallah, this is a form of power. We don't realize the power that knowledge gives us. It can make every, like an entire, like our communities are made of people. If we change our behaviors and all become different, the ayah says, In Allah, la ilayh wa ilayh, ma bequm, min hadiriru, ma bi anfusim, Allah doesn't change what is with the people until they change what is within themselves. We look at these huge systems. How are we supposed to end systemic racism? A system was made by people. We'll change the people and we'll change the system. Subhanallah. That's how the system has actually become changed. I don't know if that was a cheer, but woohoo, and hamdallah. Allah. Okay, wait, I'm not done yet. Last thing, I just want to say that community building in and of itself is a form of knowledge. And this is the knowledge that Rubaba, radhullah anha, the one who is known before wisdom, the one whose name actually means the core and the essence, the kalb. This is what her name means. That is the wisdom that she possessed that Allah swt gifted to her. Community building is a form of knowledge. It's a form of scholarship. When we talk about scholarship, a lot of the times we think, who can quote all the de form adhaab anas and that and knows all the de laal. That is a form of scholarship. Community building is also a form of scholarship. And I say this because sometimes you walk into, you go into different Muslim spaces and a lot of the times it's un-thanked women that are the ones that are actually building the community that are calling, who's, who's in trouble? Let me call her, who needs this? Let's figure out what's happening. It's usually the women. I want us to know that that in and of itself is a form of knowledge. It's a form of alim and it's a form of scholarship. And that was the scholarship of our mother, Lubaba, radhullah anha. Allahu akbar, subhanallah. She inherited it from her friend Khadija radhullah anha to be the mother of the ummah. One of the mothers of the ummah, whether she birthed that child or not, subhanallah. May Allah accept from us all, may Allah allow us to live along the footsteps of Sayyid al-Lubaba, radhullah anha. JazakAllah khayran. I know I do. Thank you. Last night. Wow. Hopefully you all know Dr. Rani Awad. She is a co-founder of the Rahmah Foundation. She's a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford University. School of Medicine, she's director of the Muslim Mental Health Lab and Wellness Program and the director of the Diversity Clinic. And she pursued her psychiatric residency training at Stanford and completed a postdoctoral clinical research fellowship with the National Institute of Mental Health. I have to say she's a transplant too. She pulled her from the Midwest. So her courses at Stanford range from teaching and pioneering, study on Islamic psychology, instructing medical students and residents on implicit bias, and integrating culture and religion into medical care, to teaching undergraduate and graduate students to the psychology of Zidophobia. Her most recent academic publications include the edited volume on Islamophobia and psychiatry, Islamic psychiatry, and upcoming texts on Muslim mental health. She's done so much, masha'Allah. And now she's doing madistan. In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. I pray to Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. And to my family, my friends and my family. Alhamdulillah, we've had the honor of really hearing of so many of our wonderful and blessed mothers of the believers, our Sahabi'at, our women role models. And now, insha'Allah, we're going to hear of yet another one. Today, insha'Allah, I'm going to share with you about Baraka, Baraka bint Taliba. Otherwise known as Um Ayman. And, as I tell you a little bit about our life, there is something very unique about her that no other, not just no other woman, no other person in history has been able to accomplish or is, can claim that this is something, you know, for them, this is unique to Baraka. But I'm not going to tell you what that is, because insha'Allah, you're going to listen very intensely. And tell me at the very end what that is. Now, I said that Fusayn at the very beginning shared with us about Sumayyah. That was the very first lecture today. And she said there were three characteristics, let me test you a little bit, just a little quiz here. What were the three characteristics of Sumayyah, radiallahu anha, that she said at the very beginning about her? She was? Wow, insha'Allah, amazing. She was Abyssinian. She was? 20 years old in the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and she was? A slave. Dammam, you were listening. Allahu Akbar, insha'Allah. Now, Baraka, who we're going to talk about here, shares almost all the same characteristics of one slight difference. Like Sumayyah, she's also from Abyssinia. We don't know a lot about her roots, her parents are her lineage, but we know that she's Abyssinian. We also know that she was a slave and we also know that she was older than the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, but not quite as old as Sumayyah. She was probably something like 10 years or less older than the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Some narrations, they don't have exact numbers, they say maybe six, seven, eight, somewhere in that range, less than 10, years older than the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So here's what we know. And make sure you're keeping track. Keep track with me all the dates and times as we talk about them and also keep track of the special unique characteristic about her as we go on. So what we do know in terms of being a servant, a slave, which in that period of time in history was the norm. Of course, Islam is going to come later and abolish this slowly, but surely, and we'll see this directly in her own life. But in that period of time, slavehood was common and she was in the household of whom? Who? Who's household was she part of? Before? Maybe somebody said it, yes, somebody said it. Abdullah, who's Abdullah? The father of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. So she was in his household, taking care of him, serving him, yeah, as a servant may in a household. And what we know is that once he married who? Amina, right? The mother of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, Baraka continued to follow him to that household where he was married to Amina and she served Sayyida Amina as well. Now the story goes and so much of the life of Sayyida Amina, the mother of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that we know actually is directly narrated by Baraka herself, because she was the one in the household. In fact, she says many times she was the only one in the household. So so much about Amina's pregnancy and her entire time being pregnant with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and delivery, a lot of it's narrated by Baraka herself. So what do we know about her? Here's what we know. We know, for example, that she was treated very kindly, unlike most slaves by Abdullah, the father of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and by Amina, and that when she, within a couple of weeks of marriage, Abdullah was called by his father. Who's his father? Abdul-Muqalib, right? The grandfather of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and asked to go to a caravan to Syria. Amina was upset. She said, I'm just a few weeks married and my husband's going to leave. And he did in fact go with the caravan following his father's orders and she was alone. Baraka says, I was with her. I took care of her and she became so sad that she was bedridden. She didn't want to leave the bed. So Baraka served her and she said she would sleep right at the foot of her bed so that if she was needing anything at all, she would help her and nurture her and take care of her. This is really important because it's a very close, close relationship. And in this period of time, Amina's really sad and she talks about that. But then one night she wakes up and she's so excited, so excited and she's just beaming with joy something like you haven't seen before. And so Baraka's narrating the story and she says, Amina woke up and she said, Baraka, I had the strangest dream. And it's a beautiful dream. She said, I could see from my abdomen light and the light is emanating and everywhere I look from the east to the west, there is light everywhere. And so at this point Baraka says to her, do you think you might be pregnant? And so she says, I don't feel pregnant. As women feel pregnant, they feel the physical difficulty of pregnancy. She said, I don't feel this way. But later she narrates because she was asked this question again later, did you feel pregnant? And she said, I didn't even know why I was pregnant and what she narrates is something really beautiful. She says, when I was between a sleep and a wake I heard a voice say to me, you are carrying the leader of a nation. You are carrying the next prophet. And she kind of, you know, when you kind of hear something, you're startled by the voice, like where did this come from? And she said, she heard that in the beginning of her pregnancy towards the beginning and she heard that again at the very end, right before she delivered, the same voice. And she said, that's how it was confirmed to me that I was pregnant because I never felt pregnant the way other women may feel the pregnancy of the Prophet Muhammad, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. So here she was pregnant and being taken care of by Barakah. And at one point, Abdul Muqlalab who continues to visit her, her father-in-law continues to visit her, check on her, see how she's doing. He visits her and he says, you need to leave this area that we are, we are all leaving Mecca. We have to go into the hills, the mountains to hide because news has reached to us that there is a leader from Yemen that has come and is going to destroy the Ka'ba. Who is this? Abraha. News had reached them that Abraha and his whole army is coming to destroy the Ka'ba. And she said, I'm too weak. I'm not able to leave this bed. So you could see how Barakah narrates, you could see Abdul Muqlalab getting kind of a little agitated. Like he wants his daughter-in-law and the baby that she's carrying to be safe. So he wants her to go. And so she says to him, she says, the Ka'ba is protected by its Lord and he will never reach the Ka'ba. He will never even enter Mecca, she said. And so even though he was kind of upset and he wanted her to go, he let her be because he said to herself, she's got a good point. Allah will never let the Ka'ba be destructed. SubhanAllah. So here she is continuing on a couple of months more into the story. The people who had gone to the caravan to Syria started to return little by little, little by little and everybody's welcoming them. They're excited to have them back. It's an arduous journey. It's difficult. Barakah says she sneaks out and she sees every time new people come, more people come back from the caravan. She's trying to figure out, is Abda low with them? Is Abda low with them? Did he come back? So that she can give news to Amina. He never seems to appear with any of the people who are coming back. Finally, she hears some whispering that he didn't actually make it, but she doesn't want to be the one to tell Amina. So she waits until finally there is actually confirmation that on the way back from Syria, they stopped in Yathrib. What is the city that we today call Yathrib? Medina. His maternal uncles and aunts were in Medina and he stopped there to visit them after the return of the caravan. But Medina also had a terrible illness that many people who were not from Medina would get sick when they would go. They'd get a fever. And with that illness, he had a fever and after a month of battling with it, he actually passed away. And he was buried there in Yathrib. When the news came, Barakah happened to be in the house of Abda Muqlalib and she heard it and she said, I screamed. I just, you know, like when you lose your, it just suddenly, it's something affects you suddenly. And she said, I can't even remember what I did. All I know is I have ran to Amina and I told her the news. And she said at that point, Amina fainted. And so here she is, pregnant with the news of her husband who's just newlyweds. And she's going to now raise this baby that's in her womb alone. And not only that, but it's shocking to your system altogether. And so now Barakah says, at this point, I continue to nurse her and help her and take care of her as she was continuing the rest of her pregnancy. Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta'ala sent beautiful messages to Amina all throughout the pregnancy. There were all these signs and things that were happening that she was carrying in her womb someone who was very, very important. And this helped comfort her throughout this very difficult period of time. Now Barakah says that she continued to take care of her until the baby was delivered. And on that night, she was the very first person to hold the baby. She was the very first one to hold the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And she witnessed so many miracles that she narrates. There were other women there too. She wasn't the only one. For example, you have, for example, other women who were there that particular night and they narrate some beautiful stories from that night. Remember the dream that Amina had about light that she saw everywhere? That night, all of the women who were there who were helping in the delivery process, they too could see light emanating. Amina herself said, I could see light that lit up the entire, all the hills and mountains of Mecca. I could see so far from this light. And other women talked about how the stars were so bright it was so low as though they were gonna fall right in your lap, Subhanallah. And there were other really amazing signs that not just happened in that room, in that house that was where the Prophet was delivered, but also throughout other countries and other nations. Like they talk about, for example, in Persia, how the Emperor there, there was a flame, there was a fire that was being kept in Persia for over a thousand years and that night it went out. And how in the castles of some of the rulers as far out on either side of the world, parts of their buildings crumbled. Now people didn't know, because later they were going, later they kind of connected all the stories together and they found that it was on the birth night of the Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. The Jewish people of Mecca and Medina, especially from Medina side, they knew that someone special, in fact in their books had said that this particular star when it emerged, that means Ahmed was born. And they knew the next Prophet was named Ahmed, but they didn't know who he was going to be, whom he was going to be, what family he was going to be born into. And so when no one was born on their side, they went to Quraish and said that anyone get born on your side. And at first they didn't know. And eventually when they heard news, it was Amina who had a baby that night. There were these amazing narrations where they said to them, we're so sad, because Amina's prophecy was taken out of Bedi Israel and it's now went to Quraish. They knew, at least the early ones did. And so there were so many, we can go on and on in the seat of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam about the amazing miracles of his birth and of that night. Back to Barakah, she talks about how not only was she there to help with the actual birthing process of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam but also his first few hours and days and especially in the beginning as they decided and tried to figure out who would be his wetners. And you know the story of Hanima. So insha'Allah another day come to that story because you know it insha'Allah. But Barakah wasn't the wetner. She was the person who followed from his father's home, Abdullah, to his mother, to the married home of Abdullah and Amina. And now she's going to continue serving Amina as she now has this young baby. But we know that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam for the next five years goes with Halima Sa'diyah to the Bedouin, right? For the fresh air and the beautiful Arabic tongue that he would learn and so on and so forth. And in those five years, Barakah stayed back with Amina and she took care of her onward. Always there, always in the background, always taking care. Now, five years pass and there's an incident that happens that we won't go into much detail but you all know the incident. What is the incident that Halima, even though she really wanted to keep the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, well past his nursing days because of how much Barakah, how much blessings he brought that household. What is the incident that brought him back when she rushed back to give him back to his mother? Yes, the incident in which his brother, actually his, by nursing, saw two men come and open up the chest of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and do something. He was terrifying to him, right? He came back and his face was all pale, you know, ashen, terrified of what happened. And at this point, Halima said, I can't take responsibility for something like this happening. And she rushed him back to his mother and the mother asked what happened and she said, oh, I'm just giving him back. And she said, you were so insistent on keeping him. What happened? And so she told the story. And this is the beautiful thing, not just of the mother Amina, but the firmness of faith. The same thing when she said, Abraha will never be able to reach the Ka'bah and of course he never did. The same thing happened here, where she said, no harm will ever come to someone who Allah has protected, right? She's very firm about this. So the Prophet has returned to her household and Barakah says how excited she was that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is now back in their household and she can take care of him again along with his mother. Now this is at year five. One year later, at year six, is when Amina decides that he's, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is old enough to go visit the grave of his father. So she's going to travel from Mecca to Yathrib, which Medina was then called, as we talked about, Yathrib. And they went to Yathrib and Abd al-Muttalab tried to tell her and Barakah tried to tell her, there's a fever there, don't go there, people get sick there, but she really wanted to visit the grave of her husband. So she went and the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam went as well and so did Barakah. Barakah said the entire journey that took 10 days, she carried the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, right? The six year old and the entire time he was holding onto her in the entire ride. When they arrived there, the Prophet's maternal aunts and uncles are in Yathrib. So the Prophet talks about staying with them and they stayed about a month. Every day, Amina would leave and go visit the graveyard. And then she'd come back and visit the graveyard and come back and this was her journey for about a month. When the month passed, now it's time for them to go back to Mecca. Halfway through the trip, she gets sick with that fever and she falls really sick. And they're in a halfway point between Mecca and Medina. Anyone know what that city is called? Abua, yeah. And so she's there and Barakah talks about taking care of her. And so she's taking care of this very sick person, Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and there's a six year old boy. And one day she got so sick, the mother Amina got so sick that she whispered into Barakah's ears and she said, I'm not gonna make it. I'm gonna die here. I'm asking you to take care of my son. Never leave him from your side. So Barakah is trying to muster up all of her courage and she promises her that she will take care of Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And sure enough, that day she dies and Barakah talks about how she herself with her own bare hands dug out from this sand a grave for Amina. She said her tears moistened the very sand with which she was digging the grave. And she herself buried Amina in this grave in Ebua. And then now she has a six year old boy that she promised her mother that she would take care of. Now, it's not a small thing to go from where she was back to Mecca completely alone. There is a caravan, but she is completely alone in charge of this little boy. How old is Barakah? Does anyone know at this stage how old she is? Oh, good. So there's some guesses. There's various guesses. We don't have an exact age, but what we know is that she was definitely no older than a teenager. Definitely no older than a teenager. Some of the earliest say maybe a 12, 12 years old. Others say maybe she was a little older of a teenager, but no older than that. So this is a massive responsibility that now you're in charge of a six year old not only to return him back to safety, but he is the pride of Quraish. His father was the pride of Quraish and Aminah was the Sayyidah of Quraish. She brings him back first to his grandfather and who takes him in and Barakah stays there too, because anywhere the Prophet goes, she's gonna go. This is her son. She feels that Aminah told her, this is your son, you're going to take care of them. And for some period of time he's with the grandfather then as you know, the grandfather passes away and where does he go? To his uncle, who? Abu Talib. And Barakah follows along. So how many households has she been part of? Right? Everywhere, essentially the Prophet goes, she goes. Now the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam lives in the household of Abu Talib until he becomes a young man. Until the story that you might remember from an earlier conference, when we talked about Sayyidah Khadija and how he stayed actually in the household of his uncle until he married Sayyidah Khadija. And Barakah is right along with him, inshallah, this entire time. Now when he gets married to Sayyidah Khadija, he's going to move into Sayyidah Khadija's house. Who comes with him? Barakah, but here's something different happens. Now, he finally has, remember, he didn't come from wealth, he's an orphan. His family is well off of beautiful lineage, but the house he was in Abu Talib was not a wealthy house, old. And he worked as a shepherd you might remember. You might remember the story from the previous conference that when the friend of Sayyidah Khadija, her cousin friend came to ask about her and she said, oh, Muhammad, why aren't you married yet? And he said, I don't have the means, right? And she said, well, what if the person was smart and beautiful and wealthy and you didn't have to worry about that. He said, who's that? And she said, I'll take care of it, inshaAllah. And so this is, by the way, we said this at the last conference, this is the importance of not doing this on your own, of having trusted friends and people to actually help you in this process, even if you're the one who's asking someone else's hand in marriage as a woman. And so here we are, now he finally has, he's standing on his own two feet, right? He's now married man and able to have his own finances. And so the very first thing he does is he frees Barakah. He says, I don't want you to be a slave, you have your freedom completely. Despite that, Barakah says, I wanna live with you. She says, how does a mother let go of her son? And so she moves in to the household, even as a freed woman, into the household of Khadija and the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Now let me tell you something, in that other conference you might remember, we talked about Khadija and how Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la had promised her paradise and there was a very specific language in the Quran and what in paradise she's promised. Does anyone remember that? I know I'm quizzing you from like a while ago. What is it? I guess? Yes, but what specifically? What's the language of it? Anyone remember? Yes, Allah Akbar, do you remember Allah Akbar? Why did Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la to facilitate her explanation say that in this majestic castle that she's going to be given in Jannah, there is no toilet or trouble and some of the Mufassidians say it also means there was no noise. Why? Why the no noise? What was happening in the household of Khadija? How many people were in that household? Let's count. You have, we talked about Khadija, you have your own family because Khadija was twice married and twice widowed before the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. She had her own children and at that point in time at least Hind was there. Okay, who else? When the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam gets married to Khadija, he also brings some people along. Who does he bring? Ali ibn Abi Talib, who else? Ibaraka, yes, who else? Zaid ibn Haritha, masha'Allah, that adopted, if you will, son of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. In fact, that's what he was called. He was called Zaid ibn Muhammad for the longest time, right, until the verse came down and explained that adoption is different in Islam. And then you have all the children who Khadija is going to bear for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and how many were they? Huh? There were six in total. Two of the sons, of course, as we know, died in infancy for daughters. How many people are in that household? Allah, someone said Allah. There were a lot of people in the household. A lot of young people in that household. And so when Allah says to her, you are promised no noise. We know what he's talking about. Subhanallah. But all these people, people we talk about today, we talk about blended families. You want to see a blended family that's living so beautifully. You have step people. You have fostered people. You have adopted people. You have biological people. You have all kinds of blending happening in this family. And it is said it was the most peaceful and happy home in all of Mecca. Really, something to study truly and to learn about family dynamics. Another day for another time. But as we go, keep going here. Barakah is living in this household. She's so happy. One day, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and Sayyid Khadija say to her, and let's think about how old do you think when this story happens? They say to her, you're getting a little bit older now. Why don't you get married and settle down? Right? You've served me so long and served my family so long. How about you have your own family? And she said, who am I going to marry? O Rasulullah. And so he introduces the idea of someone who had come to ask for her. Anybody know who? Hmm, little Sida quiz here. Hmm? Maybe? Albaid. Yes. She married Albaid Ibn Zaid. And they had a son. The son's name was Aimen. This is why Barakah's other name is Um Aimen. So sometimes in the Sida, you'll see her written as Barakah. And sometimes you'll see it as Um Aimen. Now, unfortunately, Albaid died very soon after their marriage. So it didn't actually last very long because he died very soon thereafter. So here she is with Aimen. Once her husband dies, she's like in her 30s at this point, whose household does she go back to? Right back to the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. But this time she brings Aimen along. So even more people coming back into the household of the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. She says, this is my household. Every time something happens, she's right back to the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to be there because she loves being there. So at this point in time, now very soon after the story, you have the revelation comes to the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. How old was the Prophet when he received revelation? How old would she have been? What did we say? Nope, she's older. Yeah, that may be 50 or not quite 50. Maybe, yeah, about seven, eight years or so older than him. So she's not a young person. And within those first few years, daughter Alqam, where they were meeting and talking about Islam in those early years was very dangerous. And she would risk her life often to go there and especially to bring news about what the Mushriki were doing. And so she often actually put her life on the line in one of these nights where she really could have lost her life. The Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam thanked her. And then when she left, he turned to his Sahaba and he said, if any of you want to marry a woman of Jannah, marry on Aimen. Hmm. How old did we say she was? Yeah, close to 50. Who came forward? Hmm. Who? Zaid ibn Haritha. Zaid ibn Haritha came forward. What's the age difference? Ah. Well, let's count. If she's about 50, yeah? He was at least, they say, at least 20 years younger. So it wasn't just the Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said the Khadija that had the big age gap. What's their age gap? No, 15, 15 years, yeah? And what's the age gap between Zaid ibn Haritha and Omeyman? Barakah? About 20. When people say these funny ideas, all these weird cultural norms that we sometimes have of it can't be like this and it can't be like that and they can't be younger and they can't be older or the first sibling can't get married until, the second one can't get married until the first sibling gets married and that's a Barakah law. It's a little exhausting, honestly, and we say, what about our early examples? Zaid ibn Haritha said, O Rasulullah, I will marry her. He said, because he just heard the Prophet say she is a woman of Jannah, he said she will be better than anyone who is younger, more beautiful or comes from a better lineage because we don't know her roots, right? And Quraish, they were very particular about their lineage and roots, right? Subhanallah. Sure enough, Zaid ibn Haritha married Omeyman and they had a son. What was the son's name? This is an important, very important, they're all important, very important here though. Who? Usama ibn Zaid. Now, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would say about Zaid himself, he would call him his beloved. And so when his son was born, Usama, what do you think Usama's name became? The beloved of the beloved of Rasulullah. Isn't that beautiful? The beloved of the beloved of Rasulullah. I mean, high, high status that these people had, yes, Subhanallah. And he too grew up in the household of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Why? Because Zaid was already there. So was Baraka, and so therefore, so was Usama literally raised and nurtured in the household of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. Subhanallah. So then we move forward, insha'Allah, in the story here and we continue here and now you have, and I didn't say this earlier, but I want to say this, that every time the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would talk to Umayman, he would call her Ya Ummi. Like that was his name for her, oh my mother, Ummi. So beautiful, Subhanallah. And so some beautiful things about her that you should know that whenever it is that anyone asked her about how she was doing, she would say, her line that she always says, I'm fine as long as Islam is fine. She was so strong about it. She too went to the battlefields. She too nursed the ill on the battlefields. She too held strong and was always serving and nurturing always from behind. Subhanallah. Not in the limelight, not somebody would see and know the guaranteed paradise and always survey. Subhanallah. When the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam passed away, Sayyidina Abu Bakr and Sayyidina Umar went to her because they knew that she was in the maqam or the place of the mother of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. He would call her Ya Ummi. And so they went to give her condolences knowing that how sad she must be. When they entered in to see her and to give her their condolences, they found her crying, tears in her eyes. And so they tried to console her and say, no, no, the Prophet's, you know, with Allah, this is Allah's decree, this is better, this is, you know, they were trying to figure out what to say to what would be like the mother of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And so she stopped them immediately. And she said, that's not why I'm crying. She said, I'm not crying because the Prophet died. She said, by Allah, I knew the Messenger of Allah Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam would die. That's not why I'm crying. We all knew one day he would die. Why I'm crying is because now that he is dead, revelation, Wahi has ended for all of us. That's why she was crying. And so they said, we came in to console her. For her crying, we started crying along with her. And she started to console us, Subhanallah. Can you imagine being in that room where there was amazing people who were the closest to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam? So Barakah was not only somebody who was very close to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and essentially part of his household. But when someone is that close to someone so beloved, they can't bear much longer after they die. And so a lot of the, you know, narrations say that it was only months, five, six months perhaps after the Prophet's death that she too passed away. Some say it was in the Khilafah of Sayyidina Uthman, which is soon thereafter. So now that I've shared this part with you, I want you to walk through this timeline with me. How many households was she part of that the Prophet was part of? How many did you count? Count with me. Which ones? The House of Abdullah. The House of Aminan Abdullah. The House of Abdul Mutalib. The House of Abu Talib. The House of Khadija and the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam. And I guess you could say when they moved from Mecca to Medina, there was another home of course that she was part of. So what is it that's unique about her? What is it that no other human can claim? Ah, Allahu Akbar! Because some people were saying birth, but there were other people at the birth. And some people were saying what? The death, but not some other people were at the death too. Huh, what's unique about her? She was literally the only, not woman, the only human who was with the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam essentially from birth until death. No other person could claim that. No other person lived that long or lived through and was with him in all of those stages, Mecca and Medina and back and forth. Nothing, nobody else. So when we say this is somebody, or we have to take that kind of inspiration from, it truly is the case. And so as we would say that even though we don't know her roots and origins, other than that she was from Abyssinia, we know where she's going. Tujannah. And that's what matters. So with that in shalom, I hope we reflect deeply on what that means to be in service of others, to be somebody who's constantly helping. Because it may not be that any one of us is necessarily our life, the way it ends up shaping up, is that we are in the forefront. You've heard of some of the others, who said that Medina mentioned different delbyas, different characteristics. Omeyman was definitely someone who was much quieter and much more in the background, but there and always there. And absolutely carried Islam and helped carry Islam from the beginning until the death of the Prophet in her own death. The death of the Prophet ﷺ. So insha'Allah with that will close, and I hope insha'Allah that inspires us to really be from any one of these women that you've heard, any one of them. The Prophet ﷺ said, my Sahaba, my companions, and this is male and female, are like the stars. Ashabika nujum. Bi ayyihim iqtadaytu ihtadaytu. Whoever it is that you seek guidance from to follow in their example, you will be guided. So I hope insha'Allah with all the people that we hear today, you find your star to guide you insha'Allah. Wa-alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa-sallallahu ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa-alaihi wa sallam wa sallam. Thank you Dr. Rania for that beautiful and inspiring presentation, Next I'd like to welcome Dr. Haifa Yunus. Dr. Haifa insha'Allah is going to speak about strength personified. Nuseba radiallahu anha. Dr. Haifa Yunus is an American board certified obstetrician and gynecologist with Roots and Iraq. Her pursuit of Islamic knowledge was initiated when she began to study with various Islamic scholars from across the United States. At the same time, she simultaneously attended individual courses and lectures on subjects including Al-Aqidah, Fikr, Surah al-Fikr, Hadith, and Taskiyah. From the United States, she moved to Saudi Arabia where she graduated from the Mecca Institute of Islamic Studies in Jeddah and Al-Hudah Quran memorization school in Jeddah where she completed the memorization of the Quran. She is the founder and chair woman of Jannah Institute which reminds me. Dr. Haifa currently, she teaches seminars on the thematic commentary of various chapters of the Quran and their practical relevance in our day. She's also on TikTok now. Somebody's managing that account for her. She's not doing her own TikTok. They're taking her content, alhamdulillah, and using it for Dawah, which we appreciate because you have to have more positivity in the world. So we welcome Dr. Haifa again, inshallah. This is her third time coming to our program and we're so happy. Peace be upon you. God willing, may Allah bless you. In the name of Allah, most Gracious, most Merciful. Peace be upon the Messenger of Allah, and upon his family and companions. And from Allah, we have been taught what we have been taught and what we have been taught. You are hearing and answering the prayers. Allah, whom I seek refuge with, from the knowledge of Allah, does not benefit, and the heart does not fear the soul, does not doubt, and the prayers of Allah, do not listen. Our Lord, do not be angry with us after you have guided us and have mercy upon us. You are the one who is willing to explain to me is that Allah, for coming, may Allah reward you, may Allah reward everybody, may Allah reward the organizers. There's a lot of khair came from this conference, actually. I don't know if some of you followed my Instagram account. There's a young girl, literally, it was Friday, what's today? Sunday, Friday or I think Thursday night. Someone sent this video to my Instagram through Messenger, actually. And I just saw a young girl. It's like, okay, but I don't know why Allah made me open. I normally don't. Honestly, please forgive me, but I really don't have time for all that. But for some reason, Allah wanted me to check the Messenger and wanted me to see, and it was a young girl. And I clicked it and guess what this girl was doing? It was here, that's why I'm saying this. It was last conference here. And of course, I don't remember what I said, but somebody made a clip of it. And the clip went all over. So this girl was doing exactly the clip. It's amazing. And she was doing it the same way. Like, you know, if I paused, she paused, right? And then I even, and I remember, yeah, you can see it. If you're on Instagram, you'll see it. But there's a reason why I'm sharing this. Because I remember as I was saying how much time, it was about Salah, how much time we spent for Allah. And then I said, how much time we spent on Instagram or on our social media? And somebody, I remember very well in front of me. And I said, in the kitchen, and somebody laughed in front of me. And at that moment, I said, it's not funny. And I said it in a certain tone. This girl said exactly the same. It's not funny, anyway. Her mother, this is what I wanna say. And the reason I said this, because I was asked about six or eight months ago, I was in Upstate New York. And the board of a Masjid with the Imam asked me this question. If you are in the Dawa and my beautiful sisters and mentors and teachers here on the left, they know, you sometimes reach a point where you say, this is getting nowhere from what you hear. You don't see it, we see it, we hear it. So the sheikh was asking me and he says, Dittor Haifa, do you think what you are doing is bringing any fruit? And I know why he was asking this. And I said, wallahi ya sheikh, I don't know. Allah knows. And nobody is gonna praise themselves. But I can tell you, every now and then I get an email or I get something that gives me hope. And then Allah send me this and then I didn't know who's this woman. So I actually responded, which I rarely do that. I responded on the messenger and says, who is this girl? And her mother responded. Now this is for all of you. She said, she's 11 years old. Where does she live? Australia, in a city I don't know where is this place? And she said, she loves the videos and she memorized them. Now two things came to my mind first. Who introduced her to these videos? That's what I want you to know. This is an 11 years old. I doubt she has an Instagram account. And she looks actually like nine. So it is the mother. So here you are mothers. What do you watch? What do you see? It comes to your home and has an influence. And you just heard all the beautiful stories. And then the encouragement. This is what really impressed me. Cause who posted this? It's the mother. Cause at the end the mother was communicating with me and I took out permission. It's like, is it okay if we post it online? And then the team did this where they put mine and hers. I was talking, she's talking. So that you know this is, so the idea what I am trying to say is, whatever you do in the house, negative or positive, it has an impact on your children. So don't blame the school. And I'm not saying the school has no impact but don't blame the school first. Don't blame the friends first. The thing that you need to always look internally to yourself is what impact I had on my children, on my family, on the community and on the society. And that's what we have been learning since one o'clock. A good number of you probably don't know the names. You may have heard of Um Aiman, but I don't know how many of you knew her name was Barakah. But what an impact she had. So what I want to end up with, and Subhanallah, I didn't chose Nusaybe but I was hoping I would be assigned Nusaybe. Literally, I first I wanted to text the Hussain and ask like, you know, give me Nusaybe. Like, no, that Allah chose for me. Honestly, I always like Allah to choose for me because Allah is the best one who choose for you. And then she texted and says Nusaybe and I said Subhanallah. This is what I wanted. The question all of you, before I even talk about Saida Nusaybe, who are you? From all what you heard, who are you? And number two, what impact, what legacy you're gonna leave after you? Who's gonna talk about you in 100 years from now? Who's gonna remember your name? Which conference is gonna mention you? True or false? What do I need to do? I have to do something. Majority of people don't know, don't do. It has to be very hard. It has to be very difficult against the flow. And if you read, if you listen to all these stories, what was the common between everybody? They were different. They did something nobody else did. They said something nobody else said and I'll come to Saida Nusaybe. This is what you only, this is why we do these conferences. It's just not only general information. You can type the name Baraka and you will get it on the internet. But that's not the goal. The goal is you, 10, 20, 30, 50 years from now, we're all gonna be gone. What did I leave? Some of these ladies didn't have children. Or their children died before them, like Saida Nusaybe. But what a legacy they left. So this is the first thing every woman, and I focus on the woman, what legacy? You're gonna leave behind you. And for the youth, what's your goal? I don't wanna hear college name, honestly. And I don't wanna hear, I wanna do this and I wanna do this. I wanna hear what legacy? You're gonna leave. And what did you do for Islam? What did you do for Islam? That was very hard, very difficult. And majority of people did not do it. And this is takes us to Nusaybe, Um Mu'amara, as they call her. Who is she? We don't even know her age. We don't know anything about her before she became a Muslim, very different from the others. Nobody knows why that's something for you to remember. Because nobody will remember you unless you do something different. And that's why no one talked about her till she came to give allegiance to Rasul Ali, as-salatu wa s-salam. So this is about 1400 and 40, about 1430 plus years. So Rasul Ali, as-salam, was from Medina. She was from Medina. She was Ansariya, as they call it. So she was born, raised in Medina, from Ben-un-Najjar. But nobody knows anything about her at that point. And then Rasul Ali, as-salatu wa s-salam, sent the first ambassador in Islam. Who was that? You all should know the name. There's only one. The first ambassador in Islam, who was he? Who he was? Rasul Ali, as-salatu wa s-salam, sent him to Medina. No. Mu'ad al-Rujabal was sent to Yemen. I heard it. Yes, Sayyidina Mus'ab al-Nuhameer. He was the first ambassador who Rasul Ali, as-salatu wa s-salam, wanted to see if he will migrate to Medina. Will that be a good place? Planning. Investigating, researching, searching. So he did. And Sayyidina Mus'ab al-Nuhameer did an amazing job. What happened afterward? You should all know this, but I don't wanna talk about the Seerah. I wanna talk about points that should impact you and me as a woman. 74 people from Medina decided to come to Mecca and meet Rasul Ali, as-salatu wa s-salam. 74. How many women among them? How many women? Only two. What's the ratio? It doesn't matter the number. It doesn't, what matters is, what did you do? So, Um Mu'amara and As-Sma'am, both of them. They didn't jump on Rasul Ali, as-salatu wa s-salam and I'm coming and I have to do this. You can be very powerful and impactful, but in the right way. You don't even have to raise your voice. You don't have to go and write and do the right thing. So what did they do? They wanted to give. Ali Jinn, as-salatu wa s-salam, this is Bayat al-Aqabah, the second one. She left Medina. She came with her husband and two of her sons and her sister came coming to Rasul Ali, as-salatu wa s-salam. But they didn't go to him and says, I want to do it. She sent the husband of As-Sma'am, to Rasul Ali, as-salatu wa s-salam. And he said, Ya Rasul Allah, the woman wants to give you the allegiance like the man. And what did he say? You need to know this because there's a hukum here. There's a fiqh, ruling we're gonna learn. What did he say? What did he say? You're close, but what did he say? He said, that's fine. Let them come and give the allegiance, but I will not shake their hands. Because normally, how do you give allegiance to someone you put your hand on top of their hand? He said, I will not. Did they get offended? Why me? Discrimination? Because I'm a woman? You know my point? Again, I'll say this every time I speak to a woman, don't fall in that trap. Focus on the goal. They came because they want to make a statement. What was the statement that Nusayb did on that day? That the woman's faith is as strong as the man's faith. And whatever it will take to show this faith, she'll do it. So she came, gave the allegiance to Raswar-e-Assad to Assam, went back to Medina. Nobody knows much now. Till when? Till when? Where do we know her? Ohad, exactly. How many years? At least five, right? At least five or six. Ohad, after Badr. What happened here? Women always, when they go for expeditions with the Raswar-e-Assad to Assam, what do they do? They usually, in the back, serve the fighters or, or, or take care of the wounded. And that's what she did. Now, if you learn the rest, you will say, anybody else in this day, no, no, no. I don't want to stay in the back. No, I am as strong as them. I want to be in the front. Are you getting my point? She didn't. She was in the back. When did she come to the front? And this is a lesson for all of you. Wait till Allah use you. Don't jump to it. She didn't go out to make a statement. And so, history will talk about her. And the Rasu'a Aleyhi Salatu Wasalaam said this famous, more than one statement about her. That's not her purpose. She went to serve Allah. She went to serve Allah the way, usually, women serves Allah. But Allah had another plan for her. And what happened? What happened? Come on. It's Ohad. So as long as the Muslims were winning, she wasn't in the back. Now, what happened? You all know the story. Now things turned around. And what's happened to the Muslim? The fighters, companions, what happened? They ran away. And this is how it's described. And if you read, you will find the same description. Very few people, they said, less than 10 companions, sahaba, ran away. Very few, less than 10 stayed shielding Rasu'a Aleyhi Salatu Wasalaam. Who was it? One of them was she and her son. She and her son. She didn't go for that. But when the opportunity comes in to serve Allah, to do something most don't do, she was there. And what happened? She did not go out as a fighter so she doesn't even have a shield. She ran with only her sword and bare, nothing. And the Rasu'a Aleyhi Salatu Wasalaam is behind her. The fighters were running and the Rasu'a Aleyhi Salatu Wasalaam looked at one. There's no name. And he had a shield. And he said, if you are not fighting, give me the shield. He gave him the shield and he gave the shield to Sayyid al-Nusayibah. You know what is this? Again, when Allah wants to use you, he creates the opportunity for you. And he facilitated. And he facilitated, facilitated in a way perfection. Don't do it. Don't do it with yourself. Meaning, ask him to use you. But don't put orders to Allah, as I say this to myself. I want it this way or that way. I want to serve you, Ya Rabbi. You want me to serve you as a speaker? I'm here. You want me to serve you as the person who cooked the food to serve the people who attend the conference? I'm there. You know what I'm saying? Don't pick and choose. This is the Dean of Allah. He choose where he wants you and where he's going to use you. And the result is the same. So her son comes in. She had two. Both of them died. But not in Uhud. Habib and Abdullah. So Habib was running and he had a wound in his arm, bleeding. And al-Raswali S.A. told him, tie it and come to your mom. You need to feel this. It was a fiasca, it was a mess. They were losing and running. He comes in. What is she doing now? Now this is the mother. This is her son. Now this is the fighter. Look how many hats she was wearing. Now she's the nurse. She pulled her son. She had around her tied some bands because she was going out for nursing. She take one band, tie her son wound, bleeding. And what does she say? Go back and fight. Look at me and you. Go back and fight. What did he tell her, al-Raswali S.A. No one can do what you just did, Muammar. This is one of the statements he said about her. No one can do that. Your son and everybody is being killed. And they're mass bleeding. Anybody else will say, you know, he's bleeding, go home. My baby. Not Muammar, not Nusayeeba. Allah knows you and me what would have done. And then she sees a warrior coming to kill al-Raswali S.A. She has nothing. She's not a fighter. But when you have the faith, when you really love Allah, when he puts you in the place where he wants you to defend, I'm there. And then he comes in and they were all on horses. She was not riding. They were all standing. And that man comes in and he missed her. Then turned and then she hit the horse. And the horse fell and the man fell. And then she killed him. Nusayeeba. That's why he said, may you take what you... Laanu ta'iqumata ta'iqina ya'um Muammara. We can not do what you are doing. That's a woman, one, only. And then at that point, she said to Raswali S.A. What did she say? Pray for me and my family in the middle of the battle. Pray for me and my family that we are with you in Jannah. And of course, he prayed for her. Did you see the point? In the middle of whatever, the focus is what? It's the Akhirah. Jannah, where I am going, what do I want to do? It's not this life, it's the way I look. What I have, where is my child is going? The focus is at Akhirah, including how I use my children. Because that's why she told her child, go, done. I took care of it. Go back. Subhanallah. Is this is done? Do you think the only landmark of Sayyidina Sa'ibah is because of her courage? Then you don't know that well, the Seerah. There's a verse in the Quran was revealed because of her. There's a different opinion about whether it was Musalama or was Nusaybah, Sayyidina Sa'ibah. What was this verse? Or what was, what did she come and said? She came to Rasul Aliyya S.A. and said, Ya Rasulallah, everything in the Quran is for the men? Now equality. Now I want my rights, but what rights she was looking for? She said, Ya Rasulallah, all the rewards goes to the men. The rewards goes to the men, what about us? And then Allah revealed. It's in Surat Al-Ahzab. Which most of you, insha'Allah, you know the verse. Inna al-Muslimina, al-Muslimat, al-Mu'minina, al-Mu'minat, al-Qanitina, al-Qanitat, al-Sadiqina, al-Sadiqat, al-Saberina, al-Saberat, al-Khashi'ina, al-Khashi'at, al-Mutasaddiqina, al-Mutasaddiqat, al-Sai'mina, al-Sai'mat, al-Hafidina Furoojahum, al-Hafidat, al-Dakirina Allaha kathira, al-Dakirat. A'adda Allahu lahum, maghfiratan wa ajran al-Azima. And this is one of the few verses where Allah divided the gender. You're a Muslim, she or he. A believer, she or he. Submitting to Allah, he or she, or she and he. He started with he and she. That's when I ask for my rights. That's when I wanna be equal, if not in the front run. It's not everything. That's a Sayyid and a Sayyiba. The other thing, her son, Abdullah, was the only Sahabi who described the wudu of Rasulullah. What an honor. All the Sahaba, it's her son, described. Third thing for her, another hukum. So I want you to know, it's not about courage only. What she has that we all need, especially this day and age, they are the certainty, the unshakable faith, I call it. This is who she was. Unshakable faith. I am a servant to Allah wherever Allah you put me. So Rasulullah came to visit her. What was she doing? She was fasting. He was not. Alaihissalaatu wassalaam. She served him food. And he said, why you're not eating, Ghanu Sayyiba? Ummu Ammaram. Said, I'm fasting, Ghalasuhullah. What did he tell her? Anybody knows? Yes. He said to her, the angels pray for the house that the owner is fasting and he serves food to people. What a faith, practicing faith, courage. Ohad was not the only one. She was involved in one of the most unique allegiance to Rasulullah. That's what they say, if you read about her, they tell you she is one of those who Allah said, I'm pleased with her. Can you claim this? Can I claim this? How dare I am? But this one is not a claim. It's true. It's a fact. Allah swt said in Surat Al-Fattah, Let's translate. Allah said, Allah is pleased. The believers, the believers, but who are they? Which one? Not everybody. This is specific. Those who gave you allegiance under the tree. She was there. Second. And this which allegiance is when Sayyidina Uthman went to Makkah and the news came in that he was killed and our Rasul Ali SAW said, Who is going to give me allegiance? Will be with me and we will get our revenge against all four Sayyidina Uthman. It was a rumor. She was there. By Allah, I was reading this, writing and preparing this. I took a pause and I said, Can I say to Qadr, may Allah be pleased with me and the believers on my side? Can I claim it? Do I even have the audacity to say it? Of course she said. And of course she can say it with full confidence. Why? Because Allah said it. Allah said it. Her son, so now she's a mother. Her son, Rasul Ali SAW sent him to talk to Musa Ilam al-Kaddab. Musa Ilam, the one who claimed prophethood. And Musa Ilam stood in front of him, her son, Habib. And he said, do you bear witness? That's Rasul, that's Muhammad is Rasulullah, he said, I do. And he said, do you bear witness that I am a messenger? And he says, no. Every time he asked him this question, the answer is no. He chopped one part of his body, a hand, an arm, every part till he died. Later on in the Yamama, in the Battle of Yamama, after the death of Rasul Ali SAW, she was there fighting with her other son. And she saw him dead. And she said, the meaning of Alhamdulillah, that Allah made my heart in peace, because he was killed. Sayyidna Abu Bakr and Sayyidna Umar, the giants. Men, they used to go and visit her specifically. You want your right? You want to be identified? You want to be special? It's not words, it's action. It's action. And it's a hard one. And most people don't do it, but you will do it, not to impress anyone other than Allah. Not looking for any praise other than his praise. Not wanting anything of this dunya, other than the pleasure of Allah SWT. She died 13 years of Hijrah. They said that she died at the time of Sayyidna Umar. No one talked about how she looks like. This is what I want to end. No one said about her skin color, or how long her hair, or what was her weight, or how tall, or what did she dress, or where she bought. But everyone talks about her courage, sacrifice, faith, certainty, how much we have of this. SubhanakAllahumma wa bi-hamdika shadu an la ilaha illa anud. Astaghfiru qawatubu ilayk. Sallallahu ala Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahabi. Tasleeman katheera. Jazakumullahu khayran. Assalamu alaikum. Jazakumullahu khayran, Dr. Haifa. We're going to do a Q&A. The first question is for Stada Miriam. So it says, how do I build my confidence to put my face on social media? I have studied Islam and counseling. I have so many things I would love to share. So I could also connect with like-minded people. I feel like I learned so much. You only have minimal friends to share with. When I share, I feel amazing. I also want to have the right intention and have been told that I could attract Aayn. So I just want to obviously be a target for Aayn. Can you give her some advice about being in the public eye and avoiding the eye, perhaps? Just using social media for good and how to kind of check your intention. Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, Alhamdulillah. I hope you'll be able to see the beauty of Islam. When I first joined social media, it was because I wanted to make da'wah to a cohort that I was part of and just help them see the beauty of Islam. In that time, I never put my face up and I was just like, absolutely. I would never put anything related to my person online. And I just want to share with you this development because I think it's important for us to think about all the different aspects if anyone's doing public work. Over time, as I was giving lectures, some of my lectures were shared online and so slowly my face is online more and more because people are sharing the lectures. And then eventually, I started getting messages from sisters who were really struggling with being a visible Muslim. Just very, very, very hard. There was an era in which a lot of social media influencers who had established hijab companies and who had been the pillars of encouraging hijab were going through a difficult time and removing their hijab and may Allah bless all of them. And hijab is a very difficult subject in so many ways. So in that time, I was getting so many questions related to just hijab and being public and all of that. And so I started to ask my teachers and the people who mentor me, scholars who mentor me about how to help women see themselves in different areas. And one of the pieces of advice that I kept receiving was they need to see other Muslim women who are in different spaces. It's one thing to see flowers with a caption and it's another thing for them to see someone who they can relate to. And I have to say that I am physically, I don't post my picture unless there's a reason. I don't have like, it's a personal choice. I just, I don't have like the photo shoots of myself like at the beach and respectfully to anyone who does it. That's just not my style. I try to make sure that what I post is with an intention that is showing other women or it's talking about an aspect of character. That's a personal thing. Videos, I've talked to Dr. Haifa about in the past. The style of social media right now is videos are here. And it was something I really struggled with because when I did take a video from, you know, like that pillar over there, people just felt like they couldn't connect to it and I would get that feedback. And I wanna say that I really dislike being social on social media. I hate having my picture on social media. I hate being in videos on social media. I would completely leave social media if it wasn't for the messages that I receive specifically from women who talk about how just seeing the visibility has made an impact on their lives. And it's not because I'm actually doing anything good or because I'm worthy of that. It's just literally sometimes someone needs to see someone else to feel like there's community and they just feel that community. And so when I'm sharing with you this advice, I'm sharing it from a place of hating being public. I don't like to be public and I wouldn't encourage someone to be public not because it's not helpful. I've told Dr. Renia to get a TikTok. I asked Dr. Haifah to get a TikTok. I think... I hope all of us have a TikTok. Okay. She put the camera in our faces. Let me just say, I told everyone but two of them actually did it. So what that says about them? Masha'Allah, Tabarak Allah. Some of them are the chosen. I'm just kidding. No, I'm just kidding. TikTok is a beast. But the people on TikTok are young people. And the types of messages that they're hearing on there are from people who know nothing about Islam, who have 500,000 followers and who are like women who are the majority of health. I'm like, This is what young people in high school and college are hearing about. The idea that they're living is so supportive. Be whoever you want. Be whatever you want. If you want what you got, everything you want, you're accepted. But in the Muslim community, no, apps don't be whoever. You end up hide everything about your existence because it's better for a woman not to exist in the first place. And that message is really hard for a young person who's struggling to figure out what their identity is. And so why I'm telling you all of this, because the benefit of being on social media, I have seen it. I'm sure anyone here, Dr. Renia, Dr. Haifa, anyone else? Oh, Sada Hussai. Why didn't I see you, Sada Hussai? Sada Hussai, may Allah bless them for the difficulty of experiencing the reality of social media. It's a beast and there's so much hate and there's so much frustration. The amount of nights I've waken up with anxiety in the middle of the night, because my face is online, is just so much. But what I've seen is the messages from sisters, especially younger sisters and older sisters, it's just been so worth it. And so why I'm telling you all of that is because if you feel like what you wanna do is give a particular message and in a field that really needs to be represented, especially from women, especially supporting other women, I think it's such a critical role that someone needs to take. What I would recommend is number one, make istikhara. I personally make istikhara before basically any post. I make istikhara multiple times before doing things and I ask for advice. I send what I'm about to post to other people getting their feedback before I do. I think that shura is really important and the intention thing. People ask me this, they're like, how can you maintain a sincere intention with the more and more people that might see, the more and more people that it's about followers, it's about likes, it's all those things. I think the best advice that I can give you is be an extremely insecure person because nothing will impact. You will never be good enough. And so that's my advice, just be really insecure and make istikhara. I like not only the people here are lacking because they know my insecurities, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, at the end of the day, you always think like, this is not coming with me to the grave except to be a punishment unless you do it for the sake of Allah. And if you're not doing it for the sake of Allah, what doesn't matter how many followers you have? First of all, Facebook was a big thing. Barely anyone uses it, I mean, all respect to the people who actually do. And now, okay, so then all the, now what? Now TikTok is the thing. And 10 years, what's this kind of, no one's going to remember who we are. This life, this life, probably most of our names are not gonna be remembered except for inshallah, all the sisters that everyone in the stream and everyone that we love, I mean, but the point is that, I just really haven't had time for 20 minutes. Oh my gosh. Ask a lot of people, may Allah make you sincere and always ask Allah to purify your intentions, to be sincere and think about what you're doing before you do it. Make multiple intentions before you press post because really, it doesn't benefit you in the long run for any other reason other than you doing for the sake of Allah. May Allah's plan until I make us all sincere. I mean, also PS, please download Qariah, the woman Quran reciders app. Since we're talking about social media, it's on, app stores, both of them, Q-A-R-I-A-H. It's free, it's for women, Qariah, the woman Quran reciders app. I've met so many of you who are like, I love the work you're doing. I'm like, have you downloaded the Qariah? They're like, no. I'm like, why? It's free. All right. And I just add one thing. Yes. Zaki Lahiriya, Mariam. This was one of the best advice I was given 20 years ago. Don't learn to teach and don't learn to be famous. Don't go on social media if you want to. Don't. Go against your nerves because you're going to be drained. You're going to be following how many people they like me. They don't like me and the followers. Don't wait. If Allah wants to use you through social media, He'll use you, what I just shared with you. The TikTok that now I am on, Allah knows how many people for years they were after me and I was absolutely against it. You know how Allah made me do it? You've talked to me, but I wasn't convinced. A 16 year, you know why? Because you always wait till Allah shows you. This is very important. 16 year old boy, his mother sent me my clip. She said, someone put it on TikTok. And I said, really? Was not us, someone. And I said, and she said, please put yours on TikTok. I said, why? My son really loves it. Halas. Done. Did you see my point? So for the sister who asked, Allah gave you the knowledge, but He didn't tell you to teach. And He didn't tell you to go on social media yet. He taught you, wait. Ask to show you. Because that's a dangerous trap. Social media, being popular, being famous. Don't you think it's easy to be in the shoes? You know what I'm talking about. So wait, if Allah wants to use you, do you trust me or don't you trust me? Ya Allah, use me and don't replace me. And He will use you the way He thinks is the best for you. I'm sorry, I took it, but I just wanted to make this point. It's okay. The next question is actually for you, Dr. Haifa. What to do if two people are strongly convinced that they are being wronged by the other person? Both are taking guidance from the Quran and Sunnah. What are looking at things from a completely different opposite lens? Okay. I'll remind you of Haditha for Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. Man taraka al-jidal, awul-mirah, wa huwa ala haq. I think he said, Alisa, the meaning of liandu ila makkani fil jannahum. So ever leave an argument and you know you are right, but you leave it. Look at your place in jannah, that's the answer. Period. Because if you were right and you did it, your place in jannah. And if you were wrong and you live it and you left it, alhamdulillah, period. This also goes to tusk here and to your nafs. Don't defend your nafs. I have to show her I'm right. That's your nafs talking. Leave it. Leave it for Allah. And He will absolutely defend you and show you. Bi-idnillah. Does that go to the Hussai, the Mike? Regarding privacy within the marriage, you talked about transparency. What are the limits? What if others like the in-laws ask a spouse not to share a halal but private conversation? Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem. I saw that question, I was a little confused by the context. The in-laws are speaking to whom and it was a bit confusing for me, but in general I would say that as I mentioned during the talk, there are certain things that are sacred in the marital relationship and the bond that we have with our spouses is really important to maintain. As we know, Iblis seeks to destroy the family because if he destroys the husband and wife, he destroys the family, he destroys the community, has a circle effect. So we have to be on guard and know his tactics and having secrecy in these duplicitous natures where I have my life and you have your life and we don't ever really have transparency, I think is very dangerous game to play and it comes from a lot of these modern ideas about women and men having to always have everything as Dr. Haifa beautifully alluded to. It's always these political ideas that come into our marriages. We have to use hikmah, we have to use wisdom and I think just having some basic understandings between you and every couple's gonna have to decide what that means. For example, my marriage, my husband any time of the day, it doesn't matter if it's in the middle of the night in the morning, if he wants to see my phone, Marahaba, here you go. There's no, oh no, you can't look at my stuff, it's private, he doesn't have access to my passcode. I just don't believe that that's healthy so he can get into my phone and I can go into his phone. I have all his access to his emails, he can go into my email, he can do whatever he wants but he knows respectfully, there are certain things that are very private and I tell him because I have sisters that message me for that reason please do not touch these things because it's confidence that I have of other women or other people but everything else between him and I, there is this understanding that there's no privacy so I think really having a culture of mutual respect, of honoring one another's preferences, some people might have more things that they are, that they want just from experiences. I know people who've come out of really unhealthy relationships so they might need a little bit more in their current relationship because of their past so just being compassionate and seeing people where they are and having open dialogue I think will remove a lot of the doubt and suspicion and all of those things of Shaitan and that he wants to create between the couple so just have open communication, that as far as in-laws and other people, again we have to be very clear about boundaries within our marriages and that goes for anybody that's not involved in the marriage. You can always seek advice but to have people meddling in your marriage I think is also a very dangerous thing so we should be very clear that we will, as a couple for example, if we have problems that we have one person or at least there's a due process of how we're going to mediate our problems but it's not this kind of open haphazard way of letting anybody into the marriage because there's things that are very private and once you lose trust, again this is how Shaitan sows those seeds of discord so these agreements a lot of the stuff can be taken care of with premarital counseling so please if you're not married go into premarital counseling because experts like Mashallah, Dr. Rania and others who are in the field of either mental health or do this as a professional this is part of their expertise they will guide you on how to have these contracts that are mutually beneficial, that is the key it has to be mutually beneficial that's very different than equal, okay and those words I know are interchanged but mutually beneficial is rooted in respect it's rooted in again taqwa and inshallah in the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala above the nafs and if we I think conduct ourselves in that respectful way we will have agreements with our spouses that will not leave anyone feeling that they have a need to hide or have a need to do things any other way so I hope that was clear which is that good, Oyeq we got a question somebody wants to take their shahada and we don't know if it's in person or online Allah because Allah Allah Allah Wow Subhanahu wa ta'ala How'd it go? All right, can you tell us about yourself? I just received the question, right? So I have some friends in the community I live in Pacifica, Madison nice to meet you all thank you I actually come from an atheist family and I've done some research here and there about all the religions and just so happens that this is the one that sat in my heart I had some trouble kind of connecting my head and my heart because there's some things I'm trying to learn about logic and but I feel it in my heart and I'm ready to say the shahada Yeah So Madison, just let me give you a little bit of so you're coming to a religion which is the essence of it is the base of every religion it's only one God you worship then you submit that's basically it and all the other religions the base is the same but then things change and that's probably why your heart fell to there and that's the usual story because anything else I wouldn't say it doesn't make sense but doesn't make a pure sense can't be more than one this is too perfect this is too sophisticated to have too many people you know what I'm saying? So it is one so this is basically what Islam is submission to the will of God that's what we were all talking about and basically what I'm gonna you're gonna say after me I'm gonna say it in Arabic and just say it then I'll say it in English I wanna say it very, very slowly I'm like driving in the car now I say you're practicing and there's a disclaimer honestly we had no idea I just, the question I, if you saw me I was, I leaned exactly and I leaned to Stada Fadwa I was like, oh and who is she? We don't know, alhamdulillah so basically the declaration of shahada of the declaration the door to get to Islam is that you declare two things that Allah, God is one and Rasul alaihi s-salatu wa s-salam the messenger, Muhammad peace be upon him is his messenger that's basically so bismillah Ashhadu Ashhadu An La Ilaha Illa Illallah Wa Ashhadu Anna Muhammadan Rasulullah I bear witness there is no deity other than Allah I bear witness that there Muhammad his messenger and the last messenger Allahu Akbar Welcome to Islam You know Allah keep her strong you are a beautiful community may Allah keep her strong everyone she's an amazing community make a dua for us I'm jealous because you're pure and I mean it the person who enters Islam everything else is white so I have a lot of things to clear everybody she is pure whiteboard so welcome my dear may Allah make you a key that you guide other people Ya Rabbi, now you can hug On behalf of the Rahmah Foundation especially the MCC we wanted to give you this gift box called being Muslim inside you'll find a Quran and a prayer rug and some other books to begin the journey and some other goodies and things but we are here in person so this is for you Madison this wasn't planned this wasn't planned I swear, they just brought this out of nowhere out of nowhere MCC Masha'Allah may Allah bless this Masjid and the Convert Committee that's here there's some wonderful programming here and we hope you'll join us of course but it's my first time I don't feel like I'm on YouTube I'm serious I just found you on YouTube I'm serious she's saying she's saying she just found us on YouTube a week ago Allah Akbar Allah guides whom he wills Masha'Allah we're here for you too MCC, yes the superhero Masha'Allah you know I want to say one thing whenever you do a good deed the sign that the good deed is accepted when Allah follows with another good deed so look at this Subhanallah you came, you support may Allah reward all the organizers and this is the second time actually this is the third conference this is the second time last time the same thing happened and that lady was actually not in the conference she texted and says wait for me remember yes and we waited for her may Allah accept from all of us may Allah make us an example to the people outside that they see us and they want to enter Istanbul European alright back to the questions just real quick Stada Hussai who was the one who slapped Amin Ar-Radi Allahu Anha Abu Jahl for those of you taking notes alright Stada Hussai again so what author's books did you utilize for your talk and would you recommend to learn from I can't remember I have some children's books on like Sahaba and Sahabiyat and then find sources there's Masha Allah a lot of Hadith websites a lot of the contents available on Hadith and there's also great talks I listened to one by which is a really great talk Dr. Omar Suleiman Masha Allah he did he has a series so I would definitely recommend listening to that one I is it the first I don't know if that's the title of it I'm sorry the first yeah he did it on different like Sahaba and Sahabiyat Masha Allah very rich information yeah Dr. Rania as we know about the roles of women outside of motherhood but for me it's been challenging to learn about Sahabiyat during their pregnancies and challenges other than the story of Esmat and Medhyam it is a blessing but there are mental physical challenges and wish our culture wouldn't minimize them are there any resources for that also does Manistan offer therapy or care for postpartum depression absolutely absolutely I could probably talk about postpartum depression forever SubhanAllah and how much our cultures and ourselves particularly even as women but I'll also say all people including doctors I can't tell you how many doctors don't believe in postpartum depression it's the strangest weirdest thing I'm like how did you graduate from medical school and you don't know that postpartum depression is real sometimes it's their own lives as physicians that I'm they're saying yeah get over it what do you mean get over it have you not studied that particularly I'm going to go into whole spiel now forgive me but certain mental health certain mental health conditions are biologically connected postpartum depression is absolutely one of those because it is hormonally based more often than not other types of sometimes in the postpartum depression itself for other forms of depression anxiety could also have environmental causes so if you're living in some really difficult circumstances think about all kinds of things that kind of really cause you anxiety and difficulty could also cause you postpartum depression after the birth of the child or now we mostly could call it peri-partum depression even within the pregnancy and after it or if it's not biological and it's not genetic and it's not environmental it could be actually cognitive it could be spiritual it could be many different things actually but to me it's so amazing that we get so stuck on these things can't possibly be true when in reality the very same hormones that allow that baby to be in the mother's womb and carried for all those months is also are the same hormones implicated in postpartum depression if you believe pregnancy can happen then you believe postpartum depression can happen too plummeting of those hormones causes some women to experience postpartum depression we had I don't know how many how many did we have in the room over 300 yeah the stats are one in four women experienced postpartum depression now count off one, two, three there are so many women in this room alone plus all of our sisters online we see you in here we love you who also experienced postpartum depression in their life so when women negate that I'm like hold on you know your own sisters and yourselves this is very common the quicker that we could actually get over this issue and be there as a support for each other the better we're all going to be for it the better that we say to our own daughters and our own sisters snap out of it or shame on you Allah gave you a kid how dare you be upset these are real things that happen and so in short yes Maristan Alhamdulillah is our local Islamic non-profit that's dedicated to mental health and actually integrating Islam into the therapy it offers all kinds of therapy and support Alhamdulillah professional by those who are trained professional therapists the booth is at the back I think sisters just meet us or somewhere and can answer your questions inshallah but also please know that it's also virtual so again for the state of California anybody in the state of California can access that care and also please know that we also make sure that it's financially available MCC has been a wonderful partner we're able to have financial support for those who can't afford the therapy and I encourage everybody to get that support even if it's not postpartum depression even if it's family counseling for your own kids if it's academic support that people are struggling with test taking anxiety let's say or whatever kinds of difficulties please get the help folks now back to the sister who's asking what can I do about the stories related to pregnancy that seems that I was very clear about the story that I told about say the Amina the mother of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam what she experienced was a miracle are we clear about that the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is entirely a miracle and so clearly his pregnancy was going to be a miracle too the fact that she didn't feel the heaviness that a woman feels when carrying a child or the difficulty that comes with it or the very mere fact that when he was born he didn't have any of the filth the stuff, the fluids that are on a baby he didn't even have that when he was born the whole thing Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam the whole story is a miracle so clearly that's different than any one of us and yeah pregnancy is tough and I too wish that our cultures and communities would stop minimizing the difficulty that actually comes with it and also the struggles and pains of infertility there are struggles and pains all throughout whether having children or not having them and so what do we do we support each other and we understand that Allah SWT actually allows for us to understand the wisdom behind either the challenges or the ease that Allah gives us and every one of those pregnancies is different and the lack of them is something also challenges and difficulties that Allah has given us to help us through into that next stage but a lot of that comes with wisdom and I hope you'll find that people along your path Insha'Allah to help you understand those wisdom Insha'Allah You mentioned that Simeon radi Allahu Anha made a sacrifice giving away something that is valuable for something that you recognize as clearly more valuable but how do we reach this date where we can achieve those sacrifices in our daily lives if necessary for us from pertaining to our deen especially when it seems so hard at times is there anything that we can do to achieve that level of taqwa JazakAllah Khair I really loved your talk JazakAllah Khair and Insha'Allah when I reach that level of taqwa I'll share my tips with you we're all struggling right we're all on a journey nobody is perfect nobody has got it all figured out so when we're talking about trying to reach a particular stage of taqwa I don't think any of us has like okay next Thursday I'm going to be done Insha'Allah I'll be you know like I've reached that stage right so what do we do when we are faced with some sort of struggle or sacrifice I think the the biggest thing that I would suggest obviously after da'a and turning to Allah and making sincere da'a to Allah is also make sure you have a support system a lot of people go through these things alone they feel maybe embarrassed that maybe they feel like the thing that I'm going through is trivial so they trivialize it and they feel embarrassed because they think other people are going through worse what do I have to complain about and so they don't seek support or they feel like nobody in the world could possibly understand what I'm going through I've got it so terribly that they just feel like they feel hopeless and we don't want to be on either extremes and we ask Allah to protect us always seek support you look at the lives of the prophets they sought support we look at Musa A.S. when Allah tasks him with going to Finaon he has this entire conversation with Allah Allah shows him these miracles he's speaking directly with Allah Allah shows him these miracles and Allah tells him to go to Finaon and Musa A.S. says ok let's go he makes dua and actually he makes dua and he says ok I'm going alone he says let my brother come with me and Allah accepts his dua Allah doesn't say didn't I just say I'm with you why are you asking so it's ok to seek support the Prophet S.A.S. sought support right what is we know that the Prophet S.A.S. made dua that Allah allowed one of the two Umar to accept Islam and Umar bin Al-Khattab was the one that Allah S.A.S. chose to bless with guidance the Prophet S.A.S. sought support so that's the first thing that I would suggest and really the main thing I would suggest is seek support I can guarantee that the sacrifices and the difficulties that we go through somebody has probably gone through something similar if not the exact same thing right so talk to your sisters and the community get to know your sisters reach out to professionals if you need to but don't go it alone ok keep your dua's with Allah keep Allah close to you ask Allah for help but also seek support from those who love you makes it easy for us all to reach a level of taqwa that he's pleased with sure just quickly excellent advice and I just wanted to echo everything you just said as far as support systems Alhamdulillah we are so blessed in this community to have Masha'Allah Dr. Ghania in Maristan in this organization that provides professional services but here at MCC too we're also headed in that direction trying to really create support systems that are more just for those who don't really are not ready maybe perhaps to seek out or maybe they are and they're doing it in conjunction with but they want actual sohbah so we just recently it's been a couple of months but here the last Saturday of every month at MCC from 9 to 11am in that room myself and a few other sisters in this community come together we read Quran we do dhikr we do salawat and then at the end we do something that is exactly everything that Osada Fasina was talking about which is seeking support but in a very non-intrusive way it's just a whatever whoever wants to share and it's really just healing and holding space with one another listening to one another and Alhamdulillah I've been doing this for a pretty long time and I feel like every single time we do those dua circles where everybody kind of just shares whatever is burning them I always get a lot of feedback that I really needed this today I needed to feel held by my sisters heard and then I feel like most of us Alhamdulillah Allah you know has I think women generally we tend to know the solutions to our problems right which is why one of the biggest complaints women have of their spouses is they're always trying to solve their problems and you're like I don't want you to solve my problem I just want you to listen to me complain about my problems and I think validation and really just having a comforting voice I mean just even being up on this panel I feel so reassured when I can see Mashallah Fasina she's been awesome nodding her head letting me know yes what you're saying is resonating and all of my co-panelists it's very comforting to the human heart to be seen and to be heard and we're missing that we are so disconnected as a community and the problem is is we come into a lot of these spaces because of the pressures of what being perfect at everything being the superwoman I have to have it handled that we are leading with the facade and the persona that we want people to think of us and to find spaces where we can just be real and raw without judgment and you share at your own discretion so there's no expectation to share but there's permission to share so I all of you if you would like it's open there's no commitment required but we created this program specifically for this to create places of Sahbah so may Allah give us all support and let us all come together this is beautiful sisterhood and that's why we love Rahmah Foundation and we love Jannah Institute and we love all of our female led organizations because this is what they're doing I love the Qadi app yes thank you a couple of questions regarding can women follow the Janaza and watch the burial of their loved ones and can pregnant women go to the cemetery and also going for Hajj or Umrah what are some resources about figuring out how to do that and I know you have a book coming out in six months inshallah inshallah so with regards to just because we're not giving a whole class I won't give you all the different opinions and the reasonings why I'll just give you the base answer yes it is permissible to follow the Janaza and to attend the burial pregnancy mencess none of those have weight on whether or not you do that that includes washing the body you don't need to not be on your period to do so however let me just say you are going to see a difference of opinions sometimes from scholars and I'm not going into all the details of that right now just because of the reality but the point is that there are going to be some of the same exact texts are understood differently by different scholars and different midahib so yes there are going to be scholars who say that it is impermissible and then there are other scholars who refute that and they provide their proofs on why it is permissible amongst which the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam passed a woman who was upset emotionally at the grave of her son and she didn't realize there was a Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and he reminded her to be patient and she spoke disrespectfully just in the moment of her grief and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam didn't tell her you're not allowed to be here he's a legislator of law he is incumbent upon him to make that clarification Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam if someone is in the middle of doing something that's not correct and he sees it Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam Aisha Rodi Allahu Anha she went and visited the grave of her brother Rodi Allahu Anhu and then a companion saw her and asked about specifically aren't women not supposed to be going and I'm just super summarizing this but she responded she asked the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam in another narration what should she say when she goes to visit the grave the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam taught her what to say so these are all evidences on women going visiting the grave there are a number of them from the Sahabi'at that exist and that came after the initial prohibition and then the order to go with the recommendation to go other scholars who would disagree with this and give reasonings Aisha Rodi Allahu Anha only visited her brother because she couldn't attend the jinn as a for example they're going to give their reasonings on why no actually this is not meant for all women this is a specific circumstance do you see where I'm coming with like how the scholars look at it differently sorry I can't go into it more here but the point is there is ample evidence to allow for it to be done with regards to the menses question the only part you absolutely need to be and will do in you can get into your haram on your period you can do the other rites on your period but you cannot make thawaf however if you're in hajj or amra and you're only going to be there a few days and you don't live an hour or two hours away that you can just be in a haram for a certain amount excuse me never mind I won't say that part ignore what I just said the point is not everyone's group can just stay longer until a woman's period is done and so if you are not able to make amra without being pure from your period then ibn Taymiah and a number of other scholars mention that yes you can make the thawaf on your period because you don't have another choice there's a discussion on whether or not a woman needs to give a sacrifice for that ibn Taymiah's opinion is not but there's other discussions on whether or not it should be done so if you are going to go for hajj or amra I would recommend reaching out to your hajj or amra group although now you can go on your own so maybe that doesn't exist I can't tell you a source that I know of in English if anyone knows please share it that's why part of the book that Hamd Allah I finished writing the manuscript on has a whole section on this just because I couldn't find it in English inshallah I pray it'll be beneficial in a year inshallah but if anyone has resources Peace be upon you I pray that the book comes out and it's pleasing to Allah a couple of points for the ladies when there is a different opinion what you need to do is you need to respect both it doesn't matter which one you follow and now I say this to myself who I am to argue there is two things about janaza there's following the janaza and then being in the graveyard site during the barrier and then there is visiting the graveyard afterwards there's three things you have to separate now it all depends upon the scholars who tells you you are allowed to what you are going to be doing there I don't know if you have been there I have been there it's one of the hardest things you'll see is when you put your loved one in a grave if you don't think you can obey Allah swt in that moment then don't go if you can and it's a reminder this is actually why he allowed it later on he said it he said it I prevented you from visiting the graveyard now go because it reminds you of the after so if the woman is going to go composed dressed pleasing to Allah swt I attended one and I said to myself now I know why some scholar says don't go and I am a woman so if you are going to go pleasing Allah swt dress code, actions what are you doing then yes you can follow that opinion if you cannot obey Allah in whatever the way it is then don't go because you are starting something others may follow you and then you need to answer to Allah swt so you need to know there's two opinions both are valid as ustad mariam said the discussion is this is valid this is valid but you as a person when you are there what are you going to be doing I attended one young woman they were putting her in the grave and people were doing selfie I attended it's not I heard I didn't see it and then I said now I know when some scholar says don't do it Dr. Amina can you share a bit about how women who convert even hiding their faith from their husbands manifested their day-to-day practice of Islam so how do they take care of their obligations do we know? so subhanAllah at the time of actually a lot of the pillars of Islam that we have now were mandated the second year of hijrah so she had been Muslim for a long time and what we don't like again subhanAllah I think we all kind of talked about this the first 13 years in Mecca was who is Allah swt like when you look at the Meccan Quran there's the overwhelming majority of the Quran it's about good character and it's about good ethics and the reason I think this is so important is like there's the Hadith of the Prophet's life where he says do you know who's broke and they said it doesn't have any dollars or cents and he said no he's a person that prays and fasted and then comes the day of judgment they insulted so and so and they hit so and so they did like subhanAllah they're good deeds that way so part of first and foremost grounding ourselves in ethics subhanAllah at the time they used to pray once in the morning and once in the evening and it was only two rakahs and they would only the fasting that they would do because if you're trying to hide your iman those are the two major things and they had to fast the day of Arafa then Ramadan was not mandatory yet I've had a lot of friends that would tell me stories of praying in the closet and I know other people of like who can't pray in the bathroom that was the only place that it was private enough for them to be able to pray they just closed the toilet seat like if you can worship freely thank Allah for that because you don't realize how incredible an opportunity that is subhanAllah if someone can may Allah protect us if someone leaves Islam where someone actually becomes Muslim they usually do it during their college years and there's so many people I talk to and they're like we can't tell our parents we can't go to college anymore so there's a lot of very real implications in people's lives and especially like subhanAllah if you don't know how your family is going to react you try it a bit by bit and you take your time with it and you see council and you do your best subhanAllah I mean especially like there's I mean right now the stakes are do I get to graduate from college or not do I have financial support or not there are people may Allah protect us if you become Muslim Allah protect us from that can I add something about the Hajj no one has their period for the whole two weeks of Hajj like fiqhun that you can't and unfortunately the most popular opinion out there is like just take the pills for you to take the pills where it regulates your period enough you have to take them for three months which means that before Ramadan you started taking them the overwhelming majority of women don't do that you take this one and then you start spotting and then people get confused and now they're frustrated and they're like am I not praying am I not praying it frustrates me because the way it's told is like oh just go take care of that go be less woman at Hajj you don't have to be any less woman at Hajj like it just it's so like how did thank you when I went like I was in a really large group and I'm telling the male scholars I'm like oh so the women that are still on their periods because I was also still I'll just I was still on my period I was waiting till I was done and then I took the group we did our umrah and then if you get like there's a medium and I were working on scenarios hopefully if we can have it published before next Hajj that would be great insha'Allah but really in hamdulillah like there's ways to talk about it and there's ways to figure it out and in the extreme case that you got your period the morning of Eid and you just missed the time of when the waf became mandatory and you can't you're not going to finish before you leave because you're bleeding more than seven days then okay now then you can take the exception but for the overwhelming it's like a statistical anomaly that that would actually happen not to get too nerdy alright so Dr. Haifa um can I call the event in my home when no one else is home maybe the medium would love to demonstrate an event for us can I call the event in my home when the teenage son is home but doesn't want to do it why do you want to do it you always have to ask yourself why do you want to invent the wheel and you know Sahabi at the time of Rasul Allah SAW had a beautiful voice and say that Aisha couldn't stand up and do her adhan why do you want to do it I think this is something we women really need to so one of the speakers said don't fall in that trap if they didn't do it don't do it you know what I would worry about worry about your quality of Salah worry about your khushua worry about what you are reading in the Salah why do you want to do the adhan and if your son doesn't want to do it guess what how many apps that do the adhan these days I attended recently a home the whole house had adhan honestly and I was like where is this coming from and they just showed me the phone and there was connected to all their speakers don't waste your energy my beautiful sisters in things that may not get me to Jannah and I said may not focus on things for sure guaranteed I don't have a lot of life to live or thousands of hours there's different opinion about in general the woman is not supposed to call for adhan so why do I want to do that period you want to practice your voice memorize the Quran a lot of times in conferences and lectures we get the push to make a change in the Oma and make a difference I really admire all the people starting institutions and leading organizations but I feel spread thin just from focusing on raising a righteous family being a good wife dealing with family issues and keeping up with my own Dean how can I do it all like you all Dr. Rania is going to answer this we could tell the Dr. Rania we could tell the story of Dr. Rania tell the story of early first women's Dean Intensive so I'll start the story but then she can talk about how she juggles a lot of it has to do with support but I mean you guys see the pretty side of us coming to the conference like we had the planned dinner our spouses are supportive in that they're taking on responsibilities that we would otherwise do we don't say they're babysitting because we are both parents to our children all of the things that you had to do and I talked about this starting at 2 o'clock we gave sisters a chance to make a good breakfast or brunch you know finish your laundry do the grocery shopping and then come rest at MCC while you listen to your program the same thing happens on the other side of the stage sisters have to travel make plans come from different areas so all of the logistical things but I think for a lot of our teachers the intention wanting to do and serve the community whatever a law facilitates for us is what we do you know we can't always be at every program, at every talk fill every request but just trying to be open to everything that we can do and I know a lot of amazing sisters who are doing work in the community that nobody knows about whether it's feeding people providing them groceries watching children so just to facilitate somebody else being able to do what they want it's happening everywhere a lot of the silent soldiers nobody hears about all of that is happening so don't minimize what you are doing as long as you're doing something and you have to ask yourself what is like Dr. Haifa says not what I want to do but what is Allah SWT opening up for me to do what is that path that Allah SWT has made easy for me and do that just go with it because there's a lot of things that you may think are better than other things but you don't know Allah SWT how he's created your path to Jannah and so just walk whenever path Allah opens for you and inshallah we'll get you to where we all want to be which is inshallah with Allah SWT and our beloved Prophet Muhammad SAW chilling in the Jannah drinking milk and eating honey and inshallah that's what we want to be together anyhow Dr. Rania no no that was perfect wasn't it Allah SWT instead of Sina how do you suggest finding balance between sacrificing time in this dunya and making time to build your ahira balancing their career and seeking knowledge oh that's an interesting one so how much time do we have yeah actually we only have seven minutes okay so I'm gonna give you a three minute inshallah or try here's the thing right it's a very broad question because there's this idea that they're kind of mutually exclusive there's also this idea a lot of the times I think when we see speakers on the stage and we hear so much about what they've done we don't realize that this is years years of work um the other thing is everybody's situation is different right so what one person is able to do with the resources Allah has blessed them with another person may not be able to do they've got other talents that Allah has given them also even as an individual right I'm gonna ask you all a question raise your hand if your entire life has always been the same nothing's ever ever changed in your life nothing it's been just permanently the same most people are not like that right you might be single then you're married you might have kids you might be working then you're staying at home people's situations change and so we have to allow our actions to kind of mold and to kind of go with the flow if you will I'll give you a personal example for example when I started the Qalam Seminary 2015 it was a one year program they didn't have it at the time so I did a year of Arabic then I did a year of Seminary these were all full time I wasn't working then I realized I have to pay bills so I should probably get myself a job and get back to work then Qalam started their five year Al-Mia program I'd really like to be able to do this but honestly I can't afford to take five years off of work and study full time I just can't it's not something I can afford to do so what I did is I joined different institutions that do part time classes that I can do online that's around the time when I did my Hev I did my Jazat and the Qiraat and so forth you have to allow yourself to find a way based on your situation you have to be practical I'm not going to race around like I did a master's degree in Islamic studies during COVID and the only reason I was able to do it is because of COVID where the university is in London and they decided to offer their classes online because of COVID it's been my dream to go to this university and study there I was like I can't afford to quit my job and move to London and then Allah swt made it easy for me oh from University of London department called SOAS so I did my master's degree from there but it was easy because all I had to do was 7am to 9am I would take a class and then I'd get to work and I did that for a year so Allah swt will open doors for you your job is to never lose touch do whatever you can that's practical that fits your schedule don't say okay I have to memorize Quran in 6 months I have to master the Arabic language in 3 months I have to quit my job and leave my family and move abroad what works for one person doesn't work for the other person what works for you won't work for other people so I think that's what it is you have to prioritize you have to be balanced but don't lose touch we have so many organizations and such now that offer different courses and stuff that works for you Allah swt will make it easy and you will find things that you can do also keep knocking at the door sometimes like if you want to study the door doesn't open and then you get frustrated I remember I was taking Maliki Fiqh with Sheikh Hamza and it was like tahdah prayer, tahdah prayer, tahdah prayer I think I took the same book like 4 or 5 times because it was the only one that was being offered at the time in the area and I wasn't able to go abroad to study so I did the worst thing ever I went to Sheikh Hamza and complained and I said Sheikh Hamza it's kind of like I'm doing the same book over and over again and I feel like I was complaining because I couldn't go anywhere to study and he said there are people who want to study and there are people who want to want to study and he said check your intention maybe you want to want to study which means like you want to be part of that group that wants to study but you don't actually firmly have an intention to study and then I was like okay and then we got a resident scholar from the country I wanted to study in and then we got another one and then we got another one and so Alhamdulillah he brought that to my attention and sent me straight this one's for you Dr. Rania so you can have the mic you mentioned blended families do step-children become mahram do you need to wear a veil around step-children or adopt the children to husbands, siblings, parents and children become your mahram those are all the fifth questions inshallah well kind of I'm going to take the approach that Rosada Maryam took and say that there actually are some differing opinions related to the nuance questions because these are multiple I don't even think I caught them all but all the different questions I think I want to go back to the more important piece of this and then tell you references and resources where you can learn more about the specific case the reason for that is it has a lot to do with the agents of when these children come into the family it has to do with whether they were nursed or not there's so many different pieces to this particular question and so it's probably not going to make a whole lot of sense to do a whole thick lesson right at this very moment but the broader question that I think is maybe some of this is the concept of blended families and I was talking about the household of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and how there were multiple different people in that household particularly I mean the one where he after he's married with the sitna khadija and of course there's her children there are at the time like we said adopted son and then Allah swt clarified that adoption is different than biological children there is sitna baraka that we talked about today also and then her children that come into the picture and then there is of course the sitna ali so his own cousin who is brought into the household as well and then his own children so what I meant by the blended families that you have so many different today this is what we call this term we call it a blended family in which you have different people from different families that are not necessarily all related to each other who are living in one household and I think the bigger part of the question is the peaceful atmosphere with so many different types of people when sometimes even with biological people all related to you it's hard to keep any peace at all subhanAllah and I think what I'll end on since I said the earlier part of references is really has to do with learning the thick of the rules the actual rules related to the nuance of your particular family if you are in a blended family or hope to one day be you're considering that for yourself the filq teacher of your community the person who can answer those nuance questions for you as one important place secondly to learn for yourself too because this comes down to our own faradayin knowledge about it really comes down to understanding lineage and understanding who's related to who and who is a mahram to who which is really important because then it comes into the rules of do you cover in front of the person do you not cover your sister or not can I marry them, can my children marry these people and so on and so forth so it's actually pretty important rules here and they're all taught in the science of filq or Islamic law so I hope inshallah you'll if it's inspired you to take some of these classes they are offered as we were saying find the opening inshallah and the place to learn them for yourself so seek out a teacher who can answer the question for your nuance learn for yourself and take some of the and thirdly if you are in a blended family or a part of it or have those extended to you that are part of that do seek out the kind of support and help and this is my plug up with the plug and again of kind of getting that therapy and support and help when needed because this is not an easy situation we said the Prophet's household was the most peaceful and happy household of the entire region they had the Prophet's the one who the perfect of all creation who taught us how to be have the kind of adab and with the kind of wisdom and treatment of each other that today you would call interpersonal relations if we can learn that prophetic model from the Sunnah of the Prophet's all of us would do better and until that's the case we all need some help and if you are not able to figure this out on your own this is where the Quran tells us ask the people of knowledge if you do not know the form of our teachers our counselors but potentially also those who have professionally studied marriage and family counseling that can be in the form of professional therapist or a Muslim hopefully drawing from the Sunnah as well so that's my plug and Maristan is in the corner so seek out that kind of support and help we did get a number of questions about just big questions about like you know the baby's female and things like that there's a lot of big questions again I would just reiterate and say take a good class it'll walk you through all of those scenarios and then you'll feel confident when you're worshiping Al-Asfand Sa'ala I think that's one of the best things about taking time to study the basics especially Tahada because it's everyday stuff is that you just worship with confidence and then you don't have that in the background wondering am I doing this right it's just clarity Alhamdulillah before I ask the speakers to give us ways to contact them we have two more questions I used to wear hijab I don't anymore due to past trauma I've been contemplating wearing it again but I have dealt with past sexual assaults and other trauma it's difficult to reconcile the trauma with my deen and hijab things within the deen can be triggering while I try to work past it your advice Subhanallah this is something I always say to myself and we all have to do this may Allah SWT make us always keys for khayr and not keys for the opposite obviously I mean I think Allahu Alam is that this person the trauma came from a religious person or quote and quote practicing person Allah knows and this is where the trauma is this is very difficult situation there's no answer will be given in a one minute for this we need to talk this person needs definitely counseling professional counseling to get over the trauma and of course Rania is way more professional than me and knowledgeable in this case but you need to have counseling to get over the trauma itself first yes the trauma is related to religion but also that you have the trauma in there so this needs to be taken care of and then the second thing is the hijab related to that and we need to dig into it why is that but if I want to just give a general answer it's probably not going to be enough for that person but for everybody this is what I will say always when you have a hard time forgiving someone which we all have I always remind myself of this how many times I have disobeyed Allah how many major sins I have committed major I'm not talking about minor myself and everybody say the same question but he still feed me and he still give me a roof and he still waiting for me to say Astaghfirullah and he still wants me to go to Jannah why I can't do it if you think this way the road for forgiveness will be much easier and there is a dua in the Quran actually which happened as a Sayyidina Omar used it later on in his Khilafah Allah don't put in our hearts any ill-feeling grudges, hate to any of the believers any time you look at someone and that someone she or he have hurted you Allah knows what they did say that dua it works wonder because who is going to clear your heart it's only Allah swt but that person definitely needs way more than what I just said may Allah swt make a lot of dua to everybody and you make dua for yourself Allah swt heal you healing is not easy Allah swt you really connected with Allah swt you really at that level but you don't see anything but you see Allah swt may Allah make it easy for them so I just it's in Surah Al-Hashr it's a half of a ayah it's from what they said Allah don't put in our hearts grudges, hate don't put in our hearts ill-feeling is hatred with anger both towards the believers so that tells you a believer can hurt you can lead to a hatred in your heart and then you say you are all merciful and so I want him to forgive me then I need to do it with other people I will check the number I will check the number I'm sorry ayatan dua is in the middle of the verse it's not the beginning of the verse so we're actually dealing with the case where it's not from a Muslim person at all so there's a different there's two points in the Quran where Allah swt talks about Hijab one of it where it's talking about modesty and in Surah Al-Hazab it actually talks about identity and I think it's important to distinguish the two because if I'm just going to actually Delia Mulya had did research about this the spikes in Islamophobia are actually during presidential elections it's not actually related to terrorist attacks or anything like this because it is more about the rhetoric and my sister at the time when the election was going on back in 2015-2016 she lived in Kansas, she has four kids the answer to her I think is different from an answer to me it's, this is my job I live on a college campus you do have to use some judgment if the idea is fear and if that is the case you do have responsibility to protect your own life like this is this is part of our Sharia but even within that because I feel like there's a fear because Hijab affects our identity make sure that if like you can tie it backwards, you can wear a cap you can do so many different things and in the end of the day I need to face Allah and say I did my best and because this affects our identity may Allah protect us, a lot of the times I see someone that would take off their hijab and feel like that was what was holding them and then it feels like everything kind of just let go so how do I then maintain things and collect them because modesty in and of itself is a part of our faith and it sometimes is embodied and hijab is embodied in so many different other ways as well and I think that's important to just to know that I had another it's past my bedtime guys I'm sorry this was the other thing it really really frustrates me in the Muslim community when women are told you wear hijab so you don't attract the men this is our act of worship how they make it about them like I just I don't hijab is our act of worship to remember we're more important spiritually than we are physically your intention in it is important because people in society tell us this is based on your value and we're like no no I'm more valuable because Allah said I'm valuable and this is our act of worship so your intention in it is important there's a there's a lot of victim blaming that really makes me mad that any time there is these unfortunate incidents like what was she wearing who freaking cares the one that perpetrated a crime really makes me mad when people try to associate those two things we really have to work hard to disassociate those two things because they're idiots online that are seeing these things and is we have to make sure that we are actually correcting those narratives and that we do actually have healthy relationships with our bodies and healthy relationships with our hijab and we feel spiritually uplifted wearing our hijab and when someone is struggling with their Muslim identity and you have grace with them of like tell me what's going on with you spiritually I remember I had a student that came to me and she said I haven't prayed in three months do I take off my hijab? I feel like a hypocrite and I was like really I think you should start praying I don't think you should take off your hijab they're two separate acts of worship you don't know what brings you back to Allah and can you imagine someone be like well if you didn't pray well you might as well not pray honestly that doesn't make sense I believe the prophet says just really fill as many other gaps as you can get as close as you can none of us are making it to Jannah because they did it all nobody we make it to Jannah because Allah is merciful including the prophet like really can anyone worship like him except that Allah envelops me in his mercy subhan Allah you know nobody is deserving of this sorry I know I went on a rant but I just mail up protect us all we're going to just do tell us how you can be contacted so just how can we contact you after today on our on the Stanford website my email is on there I'm so sorry are you on social media? I'm not really so the easiest way to contact me is Instagram or Facebook although the money said who's on Facebook anymore no I'm kidding I'm still there but I'm much more active on Instagram and then my email events.hosai my first name at gmail.com it's always open as well I'm notoriously difficult to contact I really don't do social media if you send me a message on Facebook I'll never read it because it goes into that other inbox you know like if you're not friends with someone everyone's like what the heck is Facebook? I don't do Instagram or Tik Tok or any of that stuff so if you really want to get in contact with me send me an email it's my first name .mylastname at gmail.com make sure you spell Fasena and Muhammad the way I spell Fasena and Muhammad otherwise I don't know who it's going to so it's f-u-s-e-i-n-a .f-o-h-a-m-a-d .at gmail.com if you spell either of those wrong .inshallah inshallah inshallah you can get hold of me through the different organizations that I'm part of so whether it's or whether through the Rahmah Foundation or just come see me on Friday nights inshallah once we start our holocaz back next month inshallah to Allah also like the others that have the social media accounts that I was very much dragged into there are messages that are checked not often by myself but are checked there that you can send to inshallah we'll try to get back to you but no just know that it is a team of people that are getting back to those so everything's kept confidential but you are able to reach there I know some people have asked about trying to find emails I'm notoriously bad with emails but if you do send through the DMs the direct messages or send through the organizations that then forward hopefully you'll be able to reach me but it's much better to just find me in person but I look forward to seeing you all on Friday nights inshallah you can send me a message at the Miriam Amir T.H.E. M-A-R-Y-A-M-A-M-I-R that's on Instagram or TikTok but more importantly you can also simply connect with my app it's a it's a QR code here anyone who hasn't downloaded it can simply take a screenshot and you can download it right now so go ahead and do that inshallah let me know if you want to have one of these take them to your communities take them to your local shop anywhere you'd like it's free inshallah next year it's going to be interactive where you can recite with the Qariahs inshallah can I also say that I spent like my entire Ramadan listening to the Qariah app like it was literally so beautiful to recite along with other women who are reciting it reminded me so much of my days spent in Syria with women who are hafada the Quran and hafidahs of the Quran and women who are leading in prayer like that was our that was our reality all the time and I was telling myself that many of them I didn't realize how many women have never actually experienced that because they haven't met women who have memorized the Quran and lead prayer with women that is or just even like Qiam and ladies we do them with the Rahma Foundation hopefully all of you have enjoyed them but also here right in this very room over here we've spent so many nights all night long in Qiam all with women reciters but what do you do when you're home alone Qariah app I'm today at night so please do download that I think it's so worth your time insha'Allah Assalamu alaikum you can find me I'm sure you can you can reach me through email it's draheefa at jannahinstitute.org you can find me on instagram that's you will find there you can send me a message I'll do my best to answer I don't promise it's going to be right away so please forgive me if you call me good luck if you text me another good luck right may Allah make it easy I mean you all have to know that we have so many things to do go and visit our website jannahinstitute.com let's wrap up because it's getting way too late let's make a dua insha'Allah swt Allahumma we ask you to. send him to your holy Quran Allahumma we ask you to. send him to. send him to. send him I pray for the people of this masjid. This is a really woman-friendly masjid. May Allah reward them, and please honestly give them personally. In my gratitude to everybody here, Rahma Foundation for sure and all the organizers and all the volunteers.