 Where does one start when it comes to the journey of the Qur'an? When I think about my journey through the Qur'an, I think about my mom. She provided for me or paved the way for me something that she herself did not have. She would drive me to all the different Qur'an classes in Michigan. I grew up in Michigan and her du'a and her sleepless nights, hoping I make it through my teenage years in a non-rebellious fashion, that didn't work, not because of her, but because of me. And I think it was really the moment that I was able to go to Syria at the age of 13 and be around people that their hearts are connected to Allah. And they gave the Qur'an with all their souls, and I felt that. And I didn't even know what Dejweed was. I had never heard that word until I was 15. And they said, you're going to learn Dejweed. And I said, Dej what? I actually didn't even know what it was. And I said, okay, so they paired me up with the teacher and I don't even remember how it happened, but I fell in love with it. And I felt like, this is how the Qur'an is supposed to sound. This is how it was given to us in the dunya. And if you think about it, the Qur'an is the only speech on this earth that's not from here. And it's Allah's words. And what I learned about the Qur'an is that it's a journey that carries you through your life. It's something that you don't just start and leave, but it's something that you start. And hopefully, inshallah, we take with us to our graves. And I truly, truly believe from my heart that without the Qur'an, there's zero happiness. And that's just from my own personal experience in life. And any trials or tribulations that anybody is going through, if you have the Qur'an with you, it will carry you through that. It's like being in a ship and the Qur'an is just riding you through that storm. And the dunya is a storm. It's not supposed to be a place of comfort or ease. So we're just passing through it. And if we have the Qur'an with us as that guide and companion, then inshallah, we'll never feel sadness. It's impossible, especially if we try to internalize the Qur'an and hopefully live by it, inshallah. So it's a lifelong journey. And I would just say three things that my teachers instilled in me and that I try to practice myself. And hopefully, inshallah, if I can possibly give that as advice, the first is to make the intention. Make the intention with the Qur'an, no matter how lofty it is. And start small. Don't assume that you can't do it. The Qur'an is not for Arab. It's for everybody. The Qur'an is not for young people. It's for everybody. And I've seen countless stories where people of all ages have been able to memorize the Qur'an, live by it and take it as their companion throughout their lives. So intention. The second thing is to always come with a clean heart. So a lot of the different talks that you've heard tonight, as well as in other nights, have emphasized the importance of purification of the heart. And I know that here, masha'Allah, in this community, there are many talks that are given about that. It's that important. If we don't refine our hearts and work on our hearts constantly, the Qur'an will have no space in our heart. We can't have both. We can't have sinning and the Qur'an together in our hearts. We have to make room for the Qur'an and for Allah. And then the third thing is du'a. Ask Allah for ease. The Qur'an is a roller coaster ride. It's not going to all be easy. There are going to be times where it's going to be challenging and you're going to want to throw in the towel. But don't. And just keep making du'a to Allah that He grants you openings and dofiq. And insha'Allah, we can all take the Qur'an as our companion for our entire lives so that insha'Allah, it can be our companion in our graves and it can be a light for us. And so that we can insha'Allah pass that down generationally in our families and in our communities. Insha'Allah. Thank you. I'm going to start crying. I know I am. It's really hard to get through this. Like Suzanne said, masha'Allah, where do you start in the conversation of Qur'an and as our dear Anne said? So since shared, she asked me to talk a little bit about the journey, the journey of getting to this point. And for me, it starts far ago, long ago, but we'll start from where you started from too. Where I met you. Insha'Allah. I had grown up on the East Coast and when I was about 13 or so, I moved to Michigan to the same community where half of the Suzanne had grown up. And it was in that community. I want to share with you, you'll hear from me a series of different women who they're... their dedication to the Qur'an and to Islam and to the Dawah is actually what allowed for the door and the path for so many of us girls to be able to study the Qur'an. When I got to Michigan, I had some foundation in Arabic and in the Qur'an. But I wasn't quite at the level of the girls that had been in this community, masha'Allah, that had been studying Arabic and Qur'an for some time with women. Masha'Allah, who had been really dedicated to teaching the girls of the community. And so the first summer I arrived there was about, I guess, 13, I imagine. And I attended a summer camp and I thought, oh, this is nice. And at the end of the summer, all these girls came back from Syria and they were talking about there was this buzz and excitement that they all had received in Ijazah and I thought, what's just kind of like you? What's in Ijazah? What's that word even mean? And there was all this excitement and they said, oh, they finished reading the Qur'an or they finished memorizing the Qur'an and they had a ceremony for them. And in this beautiful ceremony, they crowned them and they caped them and they honored them with the Qur'an and I remember being this little girl going, wow, I want to do that. And that's why I wanted your daughters here tonight because you don't know, subhanAllah, when you see something like that and you feel like it could be possible, you don't know when that's going to enter your heart subhanAllah. But it seemed really far because I wasn't Syrian and I didn't know how to get to Syria like the rest of the girls and I didn't have the kind of very strong foundation they did and I'm going to share these things with you because for anyone who says the Qur'an isn't for me or for my daughter or I don't know and I'm not a native Arabic speaker and I'm not sure I can do this, the Qur'an is a miracle and the ability to read Qur'an and to memorize the Qur'an even by non-native Arabic speakers and sometimes not even fully understanding it is a miracle of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so the story goes and there's many women as I mentioned and I have to feel indebted to really share their names tonight subhanAllah. So in brief, the first one I want to share is when I was in that first year in Michigan there was a sheikh who had come to Michigan to visit. We didn't know at the time subhanAllah that she was actually there for medical treatment, that she was ill. All we knew was there was all this excitement that there was the sheikh from Syria who was visiting Michigan and all the women were attending classes with her for the period of time that she was there and her name was Ansa Dalal. Allah ir-Rahman. And then one day she said call the girls of the community over. I want to meet them and so all of these girls went into this house and we all kind of sat there in a halaqa and I can't even tell you exactly what she was talking about. All I know is that I was in tears the entire class and I went home that night and I said to my parents wherever she's from, please send me there. I thought what happened is I told my parents that night I want to go to Syria and they said the Muslim parent thing inshaAllah. SubhanAllah. The backstory where the features of our community Ansa Wa Fah Ansa Jamana Khada Zaynab and I'm naming them SubhanAllah because there's so many women who are part of the story in the background who apparently for that entire year went to my parents and kept knocking on their door and saying we want Rania to go to Syria and my parents are like inshaAllah and they couldn't fathom sending me as a young girl to a country they're not from and by myself and how. Long story short Allah willed that I would get there that summer of my 14th year and I was ecstatic I was so excited to be there and I wanted to do the quran thing that all the girls were doing that I shared with you that when I got there I was still kind of I want to be very honest and somewhat vulnerable in these discussions because it's very true the story of how SubhanAllah it doesn't matter and I'll tell you and I don't know where did Osada Fadwa go but anyhow she had a picture she was going to show you but there was a we went that first summer and it was one summer and all the girls were studying and the very first thing their teachers did to us as they handed us the musaf and they said if you want to unlock Islam and you want to work in Dawah and you want to understand Islam the key is the quran without it you can't do anything and the first thing they would hand us is the quran and say start here and we'll fill in all the other classes short but the quran first and so in all the breaks and all the classes the quran is going on in the background all the girls are studying that summer many of the girls finished their Ijazah we all came back from the summer break I hadn't and I share this with you because sometimes you pray for something deeply and you want something intensely forgive me but Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows the time and the place and when it's meant to be and sometimes when the Dawah doesn't seem like it's being answered it's because you're not ready yet Allah either wants you to have a more sincere intention than the one you've had or you need more purification or you simply need more time and he knows you need to bake a little bit longer thank you insha'Allah a libatic fiki and so insha'Allah if we come back and the picture that I have for you is my 14 year old self standing with the other girls and their crowns and I'm hugging them so excited for them just beaming insha'Allah and in Arabic Subhanallah Arabic such a beautiful language because we have words which is positive good jealousy not bad jealousy the kind where you're so happy for everyone else you want what they have but you don't want it to be taken away from them this is good jealousy that's what you would see in that picture Subhanallah and I kept praying to Allah and I kept saying to my parents please send me back and they said one summer is enough you're not serious what are you doing there one's enough I tried my 15th year that summer they said no I tried my 16th year they said no I tried my 17th year and they said to me they had this deal they said here's what you have to do you graduate at the top of your class with a 4.0 with scholarships to college and we'll send you back to Syria they thought all these barriers and so for the longest time my joke had been when people would say how did you get into Barakah school I would say trying to get to Syria that's a Barakah Allah my 17th year I came to them and I said I've done everything you've asked please send me back and they finally did and on that trip Alhamdulillah I received my first Ijazah in the Quran in the Qura'ah of Hafs Alhamdulillah now you all sisters are part of the next part of the story because it was soon after that I would actually come to my first trip to California now we knew Shafi'is like myself and Hanafis I had never met a Maliki sister and so when I got to California I said Malikis what's this all about masha'Allah and the sisters knew that I was teaching Quran Tajweed and they would say come teach us but the Maliki sisters would say but we want to learn Qira'at Warsh and I said Warsh and so on the next trip back to Syria I told another see more women much more part of the story Ansa'a Faf this time another teacher and I said to her the Maliki sisters are asking for Qira'at Warsh and she said well we don't we only give Ijazah and Hafs and then the next one after that you got to do all 10 and I said all 10 it took me so many years to do the one masha'Allah they all 10 she said well we'll ask the sheikh this is not customary and they went ahead and asked the sheikh and they said there's this girl from America who's going to California and over there they need Qira'at Warsh and the sheikh said yes can you imagine Subhanallah he hadn't issued like a single Ijazah of Warsh like that had done before and so I worked on that Ijazah and masha'Allah came here and I didn't know this at the time that I ended up moving here getting married here marrying somebody who was a Maliki sheikh masha'Allah masha'Allah and my children were probably one day be Maliki Subhanallah and yeah Alhamdulillah long story short when I got here the day I received my Ijazah and my teacher and one of the she gave me this is one volume of six right and it was hot off the press and she handed me it's a big big thing and she said I want you to have this and I said what's this and she said this is called al-Bast al-Qiraat al-Ashar it's a book published by a sheikh called Samar al-Asha that you hide just a moment I have to tell you about her masha'Allah to know that people like this walk today to our here in our existence amongst the scholars today a woman Subhanallah she had written a book where she took all ten canonical recitations of the Quran and put them side by side the entire Mus'af now Ansah Samar when Syria was before the war she was also the head of the Hadith school for women and she had also written a book she's also a muhaditha as in to say all the hadith books she had memorized and she had written a book and how do you memorize those hadith with their narrations that's a lot of Allah you can't find books like this even in classical tradition long story short this is the book her most recent book was this one and Ansah Faf handed it to me like the whole six volumes and she said here and I said what am I going to do with this and she said one day one day you'll study it now the story takes place I was in medical school and if you know anything about medical school it's medical school and residency and fellowship and then faculty and in the meantime I was married and I said this book stayed on the shelf for years every year I would look at it and I would feel the sense of like really wanting it like show like really wanting it and a sense of guilt at the same time and then this is where if Allah doesn't give you something immediately and you keep praying for it you can't stop making du'a for it and I would say Allah I'm so I feel so honored and blessed for what you've given me family, career, etc but I really want this where is the time for this where will it come and our teachers would say that if you really want something but you're not willing to get up for it to hedge it to pray for it then do you really want it at all and so we would pray and pray and pray and you won't believe how the du'a was answered you won't believe how this du'a was answered I heard of a group of people who are going to be working on the ashar qiraat remotely and I thought SubhanAllah this might work with the schedule and they said send in a recording and I'm going to be very honest and transparent and if it was the other Salaam As-Salam she said I couldn't wonder why I'm even sharing the story but just so you know she said send in a recording so I sent in a recording they said it's for people who already have Ijaz and tajweed to work on the ashar qiraat when I sent in my recording she said you need a little bit of work and I knew that because it had been years since I had had the opportunity to really sit and study and teach tajweed and so I thought maybe it's not really quite the time but that's not the answer the answer is keep making du'a weeks passed and out of the blue literally out of the blue she messages me and she says so did you finish your brushing up of tajweed and I thought wait is that an option and so she said come on we're going to start in just three weeks I said three weeks I'm going to do all of them inshallah and so Ustada Nawar one of our locals and beautiful souls mashallah said I said to her can I read to you and like Ustada Simon said if somebody says can I read to you she just made the time she said you're ready send in your recording and I did Ustada Simon said you're ready to join the cohort let me tell you something my family looked at me and I looked at them I said I got accepted to do the asher qiraat and they just looked at me like inshallah we don't know how and where you're going to do this and when someone takes on qiraat I just want to tell you it's a family affair the whole family sacrifices the whole family works because there's time and energy and effort and studying you take time you borrow literally time family time you know how the da'aq got answered the story that I'm telling you is taking place in in January and February of 2020 at this point in my life I met Stanford I'm driving to Zaitunah, Berkeley I'm driving to San Jose for a clinic I'm driving another day to mountain you to another clinic I'm driving to Pleasanton for Holocaust I'm driving to Union City for another clinic this is my week commute commute commute commute commute commute commute you know how the da'aq was answered COVID all of those commutes like that went away and suddenly the hours of commutes went to Qura'at I can't even explain it it's been three years and that was how the da'aq was answered so I'm sorry I took a lot of time I just wanted to share in closing this upon Allah the lesson learned here like your three lessons thank you so much they're so beautiful physical health emotional health spiritual health just like we say to people you need to stay physically healthy sisters you and I know the gym isn't going to come to us even the bicycle or the treadmill you have in your home it's not going to come to you you have to carve out the time for it Subhan Allah mental health you see the banner from Madistan here Wa-Lahi if we need the help it's not going to just land in our laps we have to make the effort to actually ask the people of knowledge of our time to help us Subhan Allah spiritual health dedicating ourselves to Islam and to the deen and the Qura'at doesn't happen on its own time is carved out and Allah Subhan Allah says take the first step right tie your camel tie your camel and I will do the rest and that is the story of the Qura'at Alhamdulillah Lord of the worlds please keep me in your du'ahs please give us I feel like this is just the first step of a long, long continuous journey Subhan Allah we have a long road ahead of us but like Asa Sousa said once one person starts the whole community falls into and I pray that insha'Allah we will find from here a whole community of women who do this Subhan Allah I pray that you raise my hands to him that you pray one to him Asa Mirduah