 Today has been a very somber day. Actually past few days have been quite somber as news of these tragedies that have come out of Chicago and Milwaukee, Sister Sanya and Sister Alouia, Muhammad who in a very short window of time, both of their lives were taken. Allah ar-Rahman ar-Rahman ar-Rahman ar-Rahman ar-Rahman both Janatul Thurdawas al-A'la and anyone out there who knows these sisters or is related to them, may Allah give all of you, Sobron Jamil, the impact of their passing has had, by now I'm sure global reach, we've seen an outpouring on social media. I actually first came to hear of Sister Sanya passing on Twitter and was just completely devastated when I heard about what happened to her and then ended up finding her TikTok page and scrolling through some of her previous posts and it pained my heart so much to read what she had for over a year documented in terms of the hardship that she suffered first in the marriage, but then the backlash that she endured from community, from friends and in some of her TikToks, she actually had written content as well that where she explained what she was feeling and she clearly stated that the backlash was just so difficult for her because she was judged so harshly for leaving the marriage and losing friendships and just the struggle of being judged and not really finding a support system, the lack of support system. And this is something in my work with women over 20 years and even in my own personal experience having been divorced, I know firsthand that the stigma around the topic of divorce is something that is so prevalent, unfortunately, and pretty much every sister I've ever known who has gone through a divorce or even considered divorce. And just the other day, for example, I did an anonymous Q and A on Instagram inviting people to share some of the challenges or questions that they may have. And I felt that this would be, I knew that it would open up a lot of things for people because anonymity, right? So many people struggle to come out and speak about their struggles is difficult. So when I put this questionnaire out there, I expected a lot of very heavy questions or topics, but I was pretty shocked at the amount of responses I got mostly from women who were struggling in their marriages. And this is a constant theme, as I said, for over 20 years, not able to speak to a lot of the issues because they're so taboo talking about all forms of abuse, physical, sexual, financial, certainly emotional, verbal, all of these types of issues came up in the questions. But these are things that for decades that we continue to see in our community and the lack of support systems for these sisters only contributes to the stigma, the fact that when a sister is even considering divorce, she doesn't have an outlet or somewhere to go with those feelings where she feels safe because oftentimes, and I know, because it happens to me as well, even the people closest to us, our family, our friends, they mean well, of course, and we always have to highlight that. Your intentions matter, they mean well, so they may minimize the sister's struggles. They may try to overemphasize other things and somehow make her even doubt some of her concerns without fully understanding the context of what she's going through. And because some sisters experience that, what happens oftentimes is they just further and further shut down and they don't reach out and they don't call out for help because they don't know where to turn. So this is all a product of the fact that our community has a really difficult time with divorce. And if we look at historically, even in the time of the companions, even the Prophet Sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, his own daughters, these things were not astigmatized in previous generations and in other cultures, they're not astigmatized, but in many of our cultures today and unfortunately, these are, even though we've come so far in many ways, for some reason, unfortunately, in this regard, a lot of sisters just feel like they have no place to go with these doubts and struggles that they're feeling. And so unfortunately, what often happens is they endure and they're told even from a spiritual perspective, they're told that it's better for them, right? That they should be patient. This is an often common thing that I hear from sisters is when they turn to the Imam or the sheikh or the sheikh or the elder and the family or anyone that should be in that position of authority, what they're often told is to just endure for the sake of, and then they'll list many things for the sake of the family, the sake of the children, the sake of your parents, the sake of your faith. And they'll say these things, but oftentimes what I hear, the feedback that I hear from sisters is that their context is not fully heard or understood. We were too quick to shut down the conversation and I think that really contributes to these unfortunate occurrences, which are, I mean, how many more do we need to hear of these horrible tragedies? I feel like just in the past few years alone, we've had far, I mean, one is too many, we have had far too many of these incidences of domestic violence that have led to the loss of innocent life happened. And we have to really take this opportunity to mourn the losses and to grieve and to give these victims of abuse, the honor with which they deserve to know their names, to talk about the highlights of their life. We can do that, but simultaneously as a community, we really have to address the core issue around why are women often, why are women often pushed into these positions of silence where their grievances are not taken as seriously or when they do have legitimate complaints, they're often made to feel as though they have the burden to carry those issues or to carry the weight of whatever they're enduring because that is what a woman does. And I know I've heard that, sometimes these are generational unfortunate things that we hear from different generations that, oh, our grandmothers are previous generations, they had to deal with so much more, but they kept the family intact and they kept their mouths quiet, they knew when to be quiet. And these are oftentimes, this is the way that we feel as though we are empowering women. And it's quite interesting to me and I find it's very, I mean, it's wrong on so many levels, but I find it interesting that we've accepted that, that we're empowering women by saying these types of things by comparing them to women of the past or other women who may have endured a lot of things. And if that's our yardstick for a successful model of womanhood, then I think a lot of women would naturally feel that they are deficient because they're not staying quiet, because they're not willing to martyr themselves for the sake of their family, for the sake of their children. And so all of these things we have to do is, I think a community really come together and these types of spaces have a dialogue and try to rectify this because we can't afford to lose more people, we can't afford to have entire families devastated for years. And the loss of one life is as we know from the hadith is that all of humanity has been lost. And this is a prime example because now you have imagined just the toll that these devastating losses have on the community itself on our concept of marriage and what marriage is. I know a lot of I've seen this already in some of the comments on threads, a lot of people becoming further disenchanted by marriage. So we're just seeing these reactions which are completely understandable but I think at the core of it is the fact that the stigma around divorce continues, it prevails and we have to really step back and say what can we do more? And I think conversations like this and making sure that we use language that is fair and is representative of our Dean because sometimes we infuse cultural ideas, cultural norms, cultural expectations into the conversation and that also contributes to a lot of the confusion. But if we very matter of faculty state that yes, divorce is something that is permissible and it should be a last straw but I think every single person in a marriage has the right to choose for themselves if they feel unsafe, that their rights are being abused and so many other things but I think every individual has to be given the language and the ability to make those decisions from the onset and that's why again, going back to how can we prevent these types of stigmas from continuing education is certainly important part of the conversation. Pre-marital counseling has to factor in divorce and I know that's painful. I mean, I've certainly as a parent, I can imagine the last thing that I would want to talk about with my children when they are inshallah looking to get married is divorce because it's such a negative word and it's so charged and so we wanna keep everything light and positive but I do think that's also a failing on our part as a community to not emphasize what an unhealthy marriage looks like and what we can do to know the distinction between a marriage that is intact and doing well, excuse me, and a marriage that's not and what resources individuals and couples can pursue to either try to salvage that marriage or find a way out but I think that has to be part of the conversation around marriage. I don't think we need to, no pun intended, divorce the two topics, right? Where you get a lot of marriage talks, meeting people and a lot of very, oftentimes these topics are separated, right? And then we talk about divorce as an afterthought to these types of unfortunate events or statistics as we see, unfortunately, more and more people headed towards divorce but I think we have to do better and bring them together as real realities and give people, especially those who are in situations where they don't have this access to this knowledge and if you look at the statistics I was reading earlier, I think just today they may have republished this article from previously but a lot of organizations are addressing the topic of domestic violence and other topics because of these unfortunate tragedies but SoundVision had a really interesting article that I was reading and they had statistics about domestic violence and divorce and so many of the people impacted are immigrants, people who are new to the country who don't know their basic rights and oftentimes don't know even their Islamic rights. So I think we have to, as a community, start taking the lead and really addressing these topics inshallah and giving all of our community members access to the knowledge that they have the right to have from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala which is to know what they should tolerate and what they shouldn't. I mean, just basic human decency I think every single person deserves and if you are in a situation where you are being verbally, emotionally and God forbid physically and otherwise abused, you have the right to speak up for yourself, to advocate for yourself and to, if there is no other recourse to leave that relationship and that type of language has to be shared over and over again so that we never or that we minimize the number of cases where sisters and we have to admit as well that domestic violence doesn't just affect women, it affects men, it affects children, it affects other extended family as well but that we minimize the numbers of these types of horrific, horrific tragedies to none. We shouldn't tolerate this anymore and we really I think have a lot to do with them. I'm just so grateful for all of the partner organizations for today's event. May Allah bless all of them. They really came together in a short amount of time and I know many other women on the ground in different parts of the world who are working right now as we speak to put programming together, to try to get ahead of these conversations and to provide the resources and the language and the information needed so that we'd never see these types of tragedies again. I'm actually really before Subhanallah these unfortunate past two days, I was working with Sister Sana Subhani of Wasila Connections who's based here in the Bay Area. May Allah bless her. We have a program coming up at the end of this month. We centered around women of the divorce because there are so many sisters again who in the aftermath of their divorce felt very alienated and isolated by their community, by their family, by even their friends. I'm working currently with friends of mine who are going through a divorce right now and the same applies and we need to create support groups. It's actually one of the biggest requests I would say over the years I've received from different sisters to please put together support groups for women who have experienced divorce. These are the types of programs we need. So please support these organizations and these causes and again, may Allah bless MWA, Maristan, Nisa and the Rahmah Foundation for always being the lead on these very, very important conversations. Shazakumul Al Khidr and I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of my panelists and also from the audience, inshallah. FadakAllah wa Fakum. Thank you, Asala Hussai. As always, you're really refreshing. I know that you spoke, I didn't know if I should speak on some of this. I think many of you who are on social media, the sister Sanya who had passed away, I think Asala Hussai had mentioned it. She actually did have quite a social, she was discussing her journey of getting divorced and to also be able to go through this process and some of the cultural taboos that have occurred for her in her life. And I'm glad you brought that up because that has actually been a recurring theme of just, in Urdu, the word is like, what are, look down, in English, it's like, what are people gonna say? And that seems to be something that's been hitting a lot of women who kind of come to us, come to all of us, I'm sure, just with like its perception of who are we pleasing? You know, who are we pleasing, who are we staying in this marriage for? So definitely something that we will come back to. I will now move on. Again, I know there's chat and that's great. I'm glad for having discussions for sure. Keep going with that. Again, if any questions, please post them in the Q&A box and at the end of all three, we'll go through some of these questions. But thank you. We will move on to our next panelist, Saha Jamshed. And I think, sorry, I'm talking in the video somewhere else, but Michelle, I will leave it to you now. Thank you. Ms. Sanikram, thank you so much. I wanna thank Sister Nua for initiating this program and all the organizations that are involved, of course, because this is a really important topic that definitely we don't talk about enough. So my portion of the presentation is basically focusing on domestic violence. I'll provide a summary of what it is and based on my work, I've been working with Nassafra about almost 16 years now, working with survivors of abuse. We have a shelter, transitional home, and so I'll provide an overview of my experience and as far as what domestic violence is and how it presents itself in our communities. So the definition of domestic violence is basically a pattern of abusive behavior used by a person to establish power and control over another person. And this relationship can be a spouse, it can be parents of adult children, siblings. Of course, adult children can sometimes abuse their parents and even in our communities we do see abuse by in-laws. And one factor to really keep in mind about domestic violence is the fact that there's a pattern. The incidents are not unique and it continues to recurrent also that there's usually a cycle of abuse that exists in these relationships. So the cycle can possibly start with an incident in which an abuse occurs, which is often followed by what's referred to as the honeymoon stage. And this is when the perpetrator may apologize, then gives promise to change. And after the stage we lead to the tension building stage in which of course goes right back to the incident. And again, the cycle continues to repeat itself in relationships, right? And one of the reasons why it's so difficult for a woman who are or men sometimes who are in abusive relationships to leave as really the honeymoon stage, right? Because the promises, the apologies, oftentimes the victim will become really hopeful and kind of hold on to that and allow the abuse to continue or remain in a relationship that's abusive. Some types of different types of abuse that can exist in relationships may be physical, verbal, emotional, financial, sexual, and oftentimes when we ask community members to define domestic violence, oftentimes the main definition will involve physical, right? But of course the verbal, emotional, financial, sexual does exist and oftentimes, this is indicated by research as well as very clear based on my own experience working with survivors is that the impact of the verbal, emotional abuse is a lot like deeper and it's invisible. So it's not really, we often don't seek help. It's usually dismissed because it's not like a bruise which would be caused by physicals. Of course I'm not in any way undermining the impact of physical abuse, but the verbal is basically silent, right? Invisible. And of course, as far as abusers go, victims go, there are both men and women that are abused. So on average, one in every four women will experience abuse in some time in their lifetime and one in eight for men and usually for men, it's more the abuse comes more in the form of verbal, emotional and the physical abuse often is towards females. And one thing to keep in mind regarding verbal and emotional abuses, oftentimes it doesn't even end when the relationship ends. So when working with survivors in the shelter, oftentimes, especially individuals who have children, the verbal, emotional abuse will continue for years because again, there's some type of contact, there's some relationship that continues because of the children. And sometimes even when there are no children, of course, there's the verbal and emotional abuse continues through texting, family members, threatening family members. So oftentimes it doesn't stop when the relationship ends. And what adds to the complexities of domestic violence is that oftentimes, as Sister Hosai put so beautifully, is that oftentimes they're abused by the perpetrator, but oftentimes there's also that backlash by family members or community members, right? Often the shaming, the labeling, the pressuring the victim to stay, to remain in the relationship, be patient. And that makes it often very difficult for a victim to actually leave the relationship and it also leaves the victims feeling very sometimes confused. That's often actually a very common word that comes up when we are assessing victims of abuse as far as how they're feeling, what they're thinking and the challenges that they face. And of course, feeling alone, hopeless, depressed, anxiety. In addition, oftentimes survivors of domestic violence continue to live in fear. So studies research indicate that the most dangerous time is when a victim immediately leaves the perpetrator and a few weeks after. That's supposed to be the most high-risk and oftentimes even when we have clients who come to the shelter for the immediate days following, we have the client stay in the shelter, we really have them, we provide them groceries, food, whatever they may need so that they're not going out and about because that's when usually the perpetrator will be enraged looking for her and also very a lot more risk of danger and harm. But in Sonia Khan's situation, we see that it doesn't always work that way. They had been separated for over a year and unfortunately he was able to get back to her and unfortunately the tragedy took place. So what's really important when we're supporting survivors of abuse or individuals who are still in relationships is not, there won't always be one approach in supporting, looking at each case as a unique case and a unique situation so that we're able to provide the best support. And also, and lastly, considering the, since COVID happened, right? So domestic violence is really considered or referred to as the shadow pandemic because during the pandemic, the cases of domestic violence have significantly increased and so that not only puts a lot of victims in situations where they're being abused, they're in harm but also because the perpetrators are home because of COVID, most people are working from home and that also really prevents these victims to seek support. And so oftentimes it's reported that they feel trapped in their own homes, right? Even in the past, I mean, generally it's very difficult to seek support services when you are in an abusive relationship because of the control, the monitoring, the isolation. Oftentimes these victims may not have access to phone, to computers or any means of really contacting with the outside world, but with the pandemic that's actually even gotten more difficult. And I think when I was actually preparing for this presentation, I asked myself, what are, and this is something of course we get asked oftentimes from community members and what do we do? What can be done to help the victims of abuse to really help the community become more educated and informed so that this to stop abuse in our communities. I would say, first and foremost is really talking about it, right? Oftentimes domestic violence in our community communities is considered a private issue. I would say since I first started with Nassada many years ago, I think there's been a lot of progress made in our communities. Many years ago, we wouldn't even really be invited to the masjids to talk about it. Alhamdulillah, there's been a lot of progress so really continuing to hold these forums, these conversations about domestic violence and addressing it specifically in the masjids because studies do show that majority of victims actually the first point of contact seek support services is usually an imam, right? So the masjid is really where a lot of these victims turn to, to imam. So having these programs and the masjids and educating our imams about domestic violence and how to respond, I think is really, really very important. I would also, you know, I will also add that I think it's really important for us to do more as far as engaging men in these conversations. And the last few months, I've had a few presentations where like honestly, I've been really disappointed to see that there may be, you know, 50, 70 attendees, participants and maybe like two or three men, right? And then I think that needs to really change in the community for us to really have a strong impact, right? Because again, since most of the perpetrators are men, of course, they are men who are being abused. As I said earlier, but I think it is really important for our brothers to get involved in this conversation. And also, you know, as Sister Hosai again explained or summarized so beautifully was really providing support to individuals that may come to us for help who may be in abusive relationships in a way that's non-judgmental, not shaming them, not pressuring them to stay in these abusive relationships, but really being familiar with the support services that are out there and empowering these victims by providing information, providing resources so that when they're ready to take these steps, right? Oftentimes we also tell community members not to tell the survivors or the victims what to do, but rather there's help, you know, providing them resources and really giving them that space to determine when they're ready to seek these supportive services. And lastly, you know, I would like to add that I think as a community, we really need to focus more on having programs, better invention programs and really investing into that. There are a lot of programs that provide services to the victims. And I'd say, you know, as far as what we do and what we're able to kind of direct the perpetrators towards is really very limited. So I think, you know, having these conversations about how can we improve those supportive services so someone who is in that situation who may abuse, you know, their wife or anyone whom with their relationship that they're able to seek services and change, right? And of course the conversation I think needs to continue as I said earlier, because the more we talk about domestic violence, you know, we hope that the stigma for victims as well as the perpetrators are removed, right? And yeah, thank you very much. Again, I think, you know, Alhamdulillah is great that we're having this conversation but as Hosei, sister Hosei said, you know, let's continue these conversations not only when these incidents happen but ongoing so that we can continue to create change. Thank you. Thank you for a very informative conversation. I learned a lot and it's unfortunate some of the statistics that are actually you were speaking on as well, you know, in our community and, you know, everywhere to be honest with you but I am looking at some of the questions and I think a lot of them we will try our best to get to but I would like to, you know, I think some of the general questions that are coming about, I hope, you know, we all have our handles and they're kind of putting that in there, please. I know that we have a foundation for your information I'm W.A. did, sister Hosei and sister Saha if you can put in the chat group if you can put your information, the website for your organizations, that would be helpful. I think we will try our best to get all the questions but some of the things that I'm kind of seeing on this is definitely your majez in Chicago. We Muslim Women's Alliance are already speaking to some of our organizers and our groups that are here. I don't know because I know this group is some of the ladies are from the Bay Area. Definitely something that we do need to hold our majez accountable for. So I think that is something that we need to have these conversations keep on going. We definitely, again, not just have it in October but have it throughout the year. Women, we are the ones who are gonna be standing for women. That's just plain and simple. So this is why organizations like ours exist and we do need help. So if you are in these different cities, you are involved in your majez, these are ways where women can show up is making sure that these topics are discussed and their local majez are discussed at your local level. So definitely, and there's ways that we can kind of help you through it as well. So everybody's gonna be posting their organizations, Facebook and their groups. And so we can help you throughout this. From now, I'm going to pass it along to Dr. Rania a lot and we will then go into questions and answers. Back to Rania. Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. Thank you so much, Noor. And my thanks to everybody who's come together to kind of put this program, this pop-up healing session. Insha'Allah, as you've heard, Sadaf al-Sajj al-Sahab al-Akhir al-Sahab, and then myself, each of us will be giving some remarks. But really after this, I hope that the many questions you have here and for all of us to really have this incredibly important discussion, we just felt that it could not wait any longer and that this healing space needed to be here for all of us. So I'm praying, insha'Allah, that you're finding some help and hopefully some healing. Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Wassalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu. Wa-na-Alihi wa-sahbi wa-sanaam ajma'een. My sisters and brothers, the part that I'll be bringing to the conversation and I was really particular about wanting this program to have multiple voices in it that spoke from different angles. Whether that be the spiritual conversation, whether it be a mental health conversation, whether it be about intimate person violence or whether it be related to your own whatever is causing you to come into the room tonight for healing. Now, the part that I want to specifically focus on and the angle that I'll be speaking on tonight has to do with some heavy things. And so I'm going to first issue my trigger warning by saying that I will be discussing some of the heavier things tonight and inviting you that if it feels heavy, feel free to take a step back and if and when you're ready to join us, inshallah, again. And we will definitely be putting resources for help for all of the things that have come up tonight. Now, we've talked about divorce, we've talked about domestic violence. There is a term that I just mentioned that I'll define what I mean by intimate partner violence which is similar to domestic violence but it's a bit of a broader category because it does not necessarily have to be domestic but it is a form of many forms of violence and then also the topic of suicide and homicide, murder. And in the context of that murder also somebody then taking their own life. In the cases that you've heard in these last many days, they have been the life of the abuser has then was taken in suicide. But sometimes it happens the other way too where a person who is being abused feels that there is no other way out except for ending their own life. And because of this, these are all very heavy conversations that I really wanted to bring to the table important discussions including statistics and definitions. And then we'll see very clearly, I hope how all of these are very intertwined and interconnected even though sometimes we think of them separately. And sometimes we don't think they really pertain to our communities, but they do. So this term that I use which is called intimate partner violence or IPV for short is not just physical violence. It's also potentially sexual violence and certainly can be psychological the violence or harm as well. Here in the United States, the statistics on women who die or by homicide who are murdered are often accompanied by IPV or intimate partner violence. In fact, that number is about a third of all women in the US who are murdered have had domestic violence or intimate partner violence that led up to that murder. Survivors who have actually survived who kind of were not murdered but definitely experienced abuse at the hands of intimate partner or domestic violence are twice as likely as others to attempt suicide. These are really big numbers and important numbers and then you start to see how much they're intertwined. And then the cases of murder, suicide like what we heard in the last week and SubhanAllah, I'm traveling at the moment and in the not too far from where I'm currently 15 minutes away at the neighboring Masjid just a few months ago, had a very similar case to the ones we were talking tonight in which there was domestic violence in the home, the husband murdered the wife and a child. And when we talk about these terrible, incredibly horrific tragedies, you realize that these homicide, suicide conditions or occurrences actually often happen in the context of abuse. And this is why it's so important to have all of the angles brought in. I saw in the comments people saying, are you going to reduce everything to mental health? No, but is mental health conditions sometimes a part of this? Yes, absolutely. Are we going to reduce everything to cultural shame and stigma? No, but is it often a part of many of these cases? Yes. Are we going to reduce everything to men versus woman or woman versus men or the imams don't understand or so on and so forth? No, all of those would be very reductionistic ways of thinking of this case, these cases. And this is why you have multiple voices up in the room tonight speaking from multiple angles. I want to make sure that all of us here tonight understand that even though sometimes the domestic violence field and the mental health field work separately, they're actually incredibly connected. And more recently, they've been working together more and more often. These are actually two separate fields that don't really, that kind of work in isolation from each other. And I'll tell you what I mean. When somebody who comes to a mental health professional and says, I have been having suicidal thoughts, it's not often that that person will get asked, are you also experiencing domestic violence or intimate partner violence in your life? It's not the first thing that always is asked or comes to mind. It turns out though, that if that is not asked, we might miss a very important red flag in that person's life now that I've shared the statistics with you. Also, the other opposite thing happens as well. Somebody might come to a social worker or to the shelter or to a friend or a family member and actually finally, finally have the courage to say that there is in fact abuse happening in their home or to them. And the first impulse that most people have is to try to help them solve the abuse. But it may not necessarily be to ask, are you also feeling suicidal? And so we miss these red flags sometimes, even though they're very much connected to each other. And there really is a genuine risk of harm to both the perpetrators and to the victims. Also, I've seen this happen like in the emergency room where somebody comes in for a suicide attempt and it may have been because of intimate partner violence, but it's often that they're not being asked, is that actually the case? And so they go right back into the situation that is actually dangerous to them. And so, I really wanted to say that when people have been asking in the chat and we'll get to this in Shaula QA, how do you respond? What do you say? How do you help? One of the first things that needs to happen is non-judgmental empathy. It is really important to not try to solve a case. So many of us immediately kind of want to roll up our sleeves and go into problem-solving mode, but I want to remind you something. Somebody who is in a domestic violence situation and seems like they're stuck there, there is usually a reason why that's the case because it's very easy for us on the other end to say, why don't they just get up and leave? But there's usually a very complex web of things that are happening. Sure, sometimes it's cultural, sometimes it's financial, and sometimes it's a person cannot figure this out on their own, but sometimes it's actually none of those things and it's in fact, it's like logical. There's a term that I want to introduce to us tonight and it's maybe some of you know it already, but it's called traumatic bonding. Traumatic bonding is this complex psychological connection that a person might make or develop kind of over time, steadily over time with the very person who is abusing them. And again, that abuse can be physical, it could be sexual, it could be psychological, it could be financial, it could be emotional. There's many different forms of abuse. And usually that abuser is highly, highly manipulative and controlling, so much so that a person that's in that trauma bonded relationship don't even realize that they've been trauma bonded in that way. And it becomes, until that connection becomes so strong that sometimes it's difficult to break, but not impossible. And sometimes it's really hard to recognize that or even admit it, and then when a person finally wants to leave, right, kind of gets to the point where they decide enough is enough, either I might get harmed or my children might get harmed or someone else might get harmed. Ending that trauma bonded relationship or any violent relationship can be very, very challenging, but it could also be dangerous. And I think that's what you've been hearing in these last many cases in fortunate horrific murders that we've heard. So when a person is considering leaving an unsafe relationship, those of you have been asking, what can I do to help? What do I say? A lot of it is support of the loved ones around that person that's going to help and certainly professional support. And I say that because unless you've been trained for the number of years of how to hear out or see the red flags or kind of discern that or even help in the most vulnerable moments of that person's life, you may inadvertently say or do something that's actually not very helpful. And not because you didn't, not because you meant it, but just because it's a complicated situation and that's why professionals are trained to do what they do. And so I want to remind us of that, inshallah. But I also want to remind us of a couple of other important things. And then I'd like to really give time for all of you to have discussion with us and questions, inshallah. I mentioned a little bit about suicide. And some of you are aware that for the last many years now I've been focusing heavily a lot of the research that I do in my lab, the Muslim mental health and Islamic psychology lab at Stanford University on the topic of suicide because clinically and anecdotally, we were seeing that the rates of suicide attempts amongst Muslims were going up pretty high and steadily. And we did a big study, published it recently. Some of you are aware of that as well. That show that that number is pretty high and that was all pre-pandemic data. We've repeated the study and I won't bore you with it. And we're not even yet ready to publish it, but when we are, all I can say is once the pandemic came in, those numbers don't look any better. And so is there a crisis in our community? Yes, there is. What are these crises? There are many. And it does not help to deny them. It doesn't help to put our head in the sand. And it does not help to say, that's not part of our community. And it certainly doesn't help to victim blame or to point fingers or to say they did, she did kind of like that, scare people like everyone's pointing the finger at the other person. Rather, I think what's going to really help are the trainings that are happening. It's the inviting conversations like these. It is inviting the trainings and the discussions right into the mess spaces. It's holding our leaders accountable and making sure that if you have a leader in your community, whether they be the email, the spiritual leader, or they be the board members or community leaders, or whether you are a leader, even the Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders need to be held accountable. That if you're going to have the label leader on you, then you have to take the courses that help you be that frontline responder in the community, whether it's domestic violence, or whether it's how to properly help our sisters and brothers who are going through difficult times, whatever it may be, or whether it be related to heavy topics like those about suicide and other issues. And so I encourage us, inshallah, to really, I hope, if anything, we're kind of have a renewed sense of intention, very being very intentional about wanting to learn about the red flags, wanting to figure out how to help. I do hope that a lot of the work that's going to come is what we call upstream, which basically is prevention work. That we are no longer, or not no longer, but just we don't spend so much time doing reactionary downstream work, which basically is every time a crisis happens, everybody goes, oh my God, it's upon a law, and we suddenly have to run around ourselves and kind of do programming that's right in a crisis moment. There is room for this, and it will always happen because tragedy is part of our human condition. But honestly, my sisters and my brothers, please hear this, that if we spent more time doing prevention work upstream, that if we did more education upstream, that if we brought these discussions and had these support groups and brought it into our very misadjid and community centers and spaces and our third spaces and so on, there would be a lot less of these cases in that there would be just more prevention work that would have happened. We would catch people earlier. I know this without a shadow of a doubt related to my own field, which is mental health and something that I focus on, like the topic of suicide, without a doubt, these interventions and prevention work is massively important and highly undervalued and underrepresented in our Muslim communities. And so I hope, Insha'Allah, this has been at least a somewhat of an enlightening conversation. I hope there are terms and concepts that were discussed here tonight that you feel like you can walk away with knowing that you've learned and that you can take back to your communities because I realize people here from all different communities, Insha'Allah, and you're here for different reasons. The tragedies have touched you in different ways. And so with that, I hope, Insha'Allah, we can open our Q&A and bring back Ustadhah Hussai and Sister Saha into the conversation. And I do want to say one more thing before I go in my part here. We have been recording this part in terms of the factual knowledge pieces around divorce, domestic violence, suicide, homicide, mental health, but we will be actually shutting the recording for the Q&A portion so that you can feel free to bring up whatever you want to bring up. And we can talk more openly together, Insha'Allah, so that, and this is what we do at Madison every month that just about, or whenever there is a community crisis and tragedy, we have these pop-up healing sessions or we have scheduled monthly healing or educational sessions. We call them healing circles and educational circles. And we invite you, they're free, they're open. And typically the first part will be like this in which there is an educational piece. And the second part is usually a healing space in which you can write your questions or if it's a small group, even on you and discuss with us directly. And you have the professionals or experts there to discuss with you. So if you're not yet subscribed to Madison's mailing list or to its social media, please do because I think that these conversations need to keep happening. And Alhamdulillah, there's a resource for you to continue this conversation. Baruk Allahu Feequm. Alhamdulillah, Ya Rabbi. Thank you, Dr. Aranya. It was, I think, and I'd like to invite Sadah Jumshed and Sadah Said also open up so we can start our Q&A because I know there's a lot of questions coming in. And the information that Dr. Aranya just presented to us very heavy. And she did warn us that it is. And it's hard to hear and it's also good for us to know too, I think some of these points of just how we receive information from people, from women who are going through these types of situations. It's very important for us to be listening, not always, I know I wanna solve, that's the nature of us, right? But sometimes, and what I'm hearing from other women who are going through this too, there's that loneliness. Loneliness that many women are feeling and that need to have support groups. I'm seeing this in a lot of the questions that are being asked as well. A lot of support groups. I'm gonna put in what MWA's page name is for Empower Network. And as Dr. Aranya said, that they are, you know, all the other organizations that are on this are as well are welcome. We're putting our information in there too. You can obviously learn from all of our groups. Let's get to the questions. I do have a reprinting that I'm seeing from a couple of the questions and I wanna kind of come out hard-hitting a little bit. Now we've talked a little bit about some of the stuff that's happening in our community, but let's ask one sister and I forgot who asked it or said it.