Copyright © 2024, Raidah Shah Idil. All rights reserved.
I hope that those of you who are celebrating have had a wonderful, safe and blessed time with your loved ones. I pray that one day soon, every oppressed family will be able to celebrate in safety and happiness.
Exposing the Passover – With the Red Heifer and Day of Ashura – Episode 1
Podcast: Gaza’s Strength, Our Weakness | Shaykha Zaynab Ansari
I’m so excited to share something incredible from Rabata Malaysia! Please share widely amongst your contacts.
Here is the original message from Anse Kartina: Rabata Malaysia is very proud to share the hard work & effort from one of our dear sisters @khadijahmonica who took the time, and effort to develop a Malaysian version of the She Is Me campaign by introducing strong contemporary Muslim Malaysian women who are leaders in their own fields.
The She is Me (Malaysia) is an uplifting effort highlighting the works of these inspiring ladies. They will hopefully be catalysts and role models for our younger generation to emulate InshaAllah.
In the original She Is Me series – Anse Tamara Gray and Rabata USA had compiled the story of 15 strong Muslim women who were leaders in their area and time.
It is a strong reminder that women of scholarship and leadership have always been part of our tradition and culture.
We hope that Muslim women today are cognizant & acknowledge the contributions of these amazing women and move forward to continue the legacy of ihsaan within our own lives be it our private or professional spaces.
Indeed Rabata Malaysia is very very happy to introduce She Is Me (Malaysia) for your reading and perusal.
May Allah SWT bless and increase @Khadijahmonica and her team for this wonderful endeavor .
I’m thrilled to share the article Muslim ‘milk mums’ are not common. But for Raidah, it’s created a special bond with her nephew written by Siobhan Marin. Thank you, Siobhan, for such a lovely and thoughtful piece!
Please click here to donate to Shaykha Zaynab Ansari’s father’s LaunchGood fund. Shaykha Zaynab Ansari was such a lifeline of support for me in my turbulent twenties, and I pray that Allah helps her father and her entire family through this heartbreaking time.
Selamat Hari Raya/Eid Mubarak! My kids are all asleep after an exciting and exhausting first day of Eid. We made it, alhamdulilah, to the end of Ramadan. And what a Ramadan this has been. May we meet many, many more. May there be an end to global oppression.
We’re back to MCO 3.0 in Malaysia. Inconvenient but necessary because Covid19 numbers shot up once again. This is my second Raya/Eid in lockdown…I miss my family and friends back in Sydney. I don’t think we’ll be able to fly back to visit anytime soon, so in the meantime, we have our family Whatsapp groups, video calls, messages….this is our new normal. What a test of patience.
In writing news, my latest article on SBS voices is up: I loved reading fantasy growing up but there were never any characters like me. Stay tuned for more!
I cannot sleep.
I think of my sleeping daughters, my husband, and my family living in the West. I think of the families in Christchurch who quickly kissed/hugged/salaamed goodbye before attending Friday prayer, and then wept goodbye when they buried their loved ones. I think of gunfire and screams shattering Friday prayer, and the blood of men, women and children splattering over walls and soaking into carpets.
My heart breaks and rages over this tragic culmination of the rising tide of anti-immigration and anti-Muslim sentiment. For those who ask for proof of the harm of Islamaphobia, I give you today’s bloody carnage.
Murder is what happens when people choose hate over love, and forget what it means to be human.
Please support the survivors of the Christchurch mosque shootings, and share it with your loved ones.
Pray for the families who have buried their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, wives, daughters and sons. Pray for humanity. God help us all.
I’m so excited to share that my podcast series, Dear Ustadha Raidah, is live! Please tune in, and share it with your friends and family.
I’ve been quietly recording my podcast episodes at night, while my daughters are asleep. Alhamdulilah, for the most part, they haven’t been waking up much! This is also why a 60 min podcast is a bit beyond me, at this stage of my life :p Please make dua for me, my family, SeekersGuidance, and remember to donate to support this podcast series. Please rest assured that what you donate, in part, does reach me ❤ And woo, thank you for funding my life!
Alhamdulilah, my letter won second place in the Letters To The Beloved competition! I am so surprised, so grateful and a little embarrassed. You can read it here, alongside the incredible winning entry and my friend Lina Abdul Wahab’s heartbreaking third place entry.
My deepest gratitude goes to Letters to the Beloved ﷺ team, Rabata, Sanad Collective, and especially to Anse Tamara Gray bringing my letter to life with her warm, heartfelt recitation ❤ I hope to read it to my daughters when they’re older some day. You can listen to the recording here (scroll to 26 min). I loved hearing from Anse Tamara, as always, and was really moved by Brother Ali’s talk (48 min). He acknowledges the role of women in understanding Prophetic love.
I would love to say that I wrote this letter with a warm cup of tea at a quiet cafe – but I didn’t. I wrote it in my bedroom, in quiet snatches while my daughters were asleep, over several nights. (I try not to have tea close by because I could spill it on my MacBook Air in my chronic tiredness – as I have done previously!!!) I edited it a couple of times, and then sent it just in time for the deadline lol. This is my modus operandi, these days :p
If you’re an exhausted mama, I hope my letter brings you some comfort. If you’re an exhausted mama writer, then I hope my letter shows you that what we lack in time, we make up for in other innumerable ways – and God, in His Mercy, fills in the rest.
If you haven’t already, please read the different letters from past competitions. I’m blown away by what the children have written, especially! And maybe, just maybe, you can set the intention to write your own to the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). His blessed heart and soul is connected to ours, even when we forget.
And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to the worlds [Al-Anbiyaa’ 21:107]
Keen to explore a writing exercise that is also spiritually elevating? Please sign up for the wonderful annual opportunity – Letters to The Beloved ﷺ
I love how this competition is open even to children, up to age 8. That’s how we can grow a more resilient, more compassionate and more forgiving generation of Muslims. By tying their hearts to the Beloved.
This reminds me of the stories I tell my daughter about Prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings be upon him). I hope to tie her heart to him, so that he will come alive to her, from this young, and for the rest of her life.
I’m so thrilled to share this exciting workshop. It’s so timely, and so necessary. I absolutely love the majority of female scholars teaching this course ❤ Let’s empower ourselves and our communities with knowledge on how to spot spiritual predators, so we can protect ourselves and perhaps even stop them from causing so much harm. Click here for the registration link.
Raidah Shah Idil, MG Author 