The following is an excerpt from the book And Then I Gave Up: Essays About Faith and Spiritual Crisis in Islam by Umm Zakiyyah: Some years ago, I was sitting with a friend of mine and she started telling me about her struggles with hijab after becoming Muslim. She had grown up Christian and accepted Islam while she was in college. “For me, hijab was …
The following is an excerpt from the book And Then I Gave Up: Essays About Faith and Spiritual Crisis in Islam by Umm Zakiyyah: Author’s Note: This was written when I lived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and taught English at an international school. It was one of those moments when you feel the tugging at your heart and the moisture behind your …
The following is an excerpt from the book And Then I Gave Up: Essays About Faith and Spiritual Crisis in Islam by Umm Zakiyyah: My little brother loved strawberries. Whenever my father would come home with a cardboard box full of fruit, the sweet scent would seep through the slots on the side, and my little brother would come running. His chubby …
“Sometimes getting lost is the only way to find your way back home. Because before then, you didn’t even realize what was home.” —from the journal of Umm Zakiyyah So often when we are recovering from a difficult trial, we focus on what we lost. In this, we are like survivors of a severe storm returning to our home to …
“Jannah (Paradise) is not for perfect people. It is for the sinful who, in the end, didn’t give up on themselves or their Lord.” —from the journal of Umm Zakiyyah Ramadan is coming and I’m scared. I know many speak of Ramadan as a month they look forward to and are welcoming with eagerness and excitement. It’s not like that …
“Abusers often operate by manipulating you with what they’ve done for you. Someone’s good deeds to you NEVER gives them the excuse to abuse you. So do not allow them to make you feel bad for removing yourself from their presence due to what they’ve done for you. All good ultimately is from God and people are simply the vector. …
“Emotional abusers are masters at turning their sins into your wrongs. Your every complaint, disagreement, or expression of concern is now about you not showing them enough love, compassion, or respect. And as soon as they fear that others will see their wrongdoing for what it is, they play victim and accuse you of hurting them in some way. These …
prayer. my lord, forgive me my lord, forgive me my heart sometimes goes numb from the pain of the little girl who lost her home because she took refuge in you —even if. The following is an excerpt of I Almost Left Islam: How I Reclaimed My Faith by Umm Zakiyyah: It takes only one shot to kill a person. …
sore throat. I’m losing my voice to laryngitis of the heart. —from the journal of Umm Zakiyyah Dear daughter and young sister in faith, I wish I could wrap the words I say to you in the language of love, in the power of experience, and in the calm solemnness of pain, then release them directly into your heart. Because …
Who’s going to listen to you? When I was asked this question for the first time, it wasn’t really a question. It was a taunt. And I didn’t really have an answer. The man taunting me was a community leader, a respected imam, who was bragging about how he was going to drag my name through the dirt. He listed …
