Sincerely, Yours
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Sincerely, Farah Islam
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Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. JazakumAllah khair for joining us for another episode of Sincerely Yours. This is your host Ibrahim Hindi with my co-host Shaykh Abdullah Aduru. And he's back from vacation. Was it vacation or a work trip? What was it Shaykh? Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. I'm going to be going soon again. Again? Oh man, next week? About two weeks, yeah. Two weeks? Inshallah. Actually, I think next week is going to be our last session for a bit. We're going to take a break and then come back, bismillah. Right on time. Inshallah. But Dr. Tasneem was here last week to cover for you. And she had technical problems as well. So, she was doing her best to fill in the shoes. Alhamdulillah. JazakumAllah khair. For everyone out there, we want to hear from all of you. Give us your salam. Let us know where you're coming to us from. We want to hear from all of you. We love to give salam to each and every one of you. From all around the world, salamualaikum. And, you know, these sessions are really an opportunity for you to connect, inshallah, with our guest. So, any questions that you have now or throughout the entire episode, please put them in the chat. I have my eye, one of my eyes on the chat, inshallah. And I try to flag all the good questions so we can ask our guest at the end. I see Umm Mohsin from Toronto. Salamualaikum. Munazza Alam. Salamualaikum. Let us know where you're coming to us from. We always love knowing and hearing about all of our brothers and sisters around the world. Sister Fatima from Trinidad. Salamualaikum. Alhamdulillah. It's, wallahi, a pleasure and an honor to be connected with Muslims from around the world. Brother Kenneth. Salamualaikum from Albuquerque, New Mexico. MashaAllah. And Salamualaikum Gold from Netherlands. Everywhere, Alhamdulillah, we have people tuning in from the UK, mashaAllah.
From Bangladesh, mashaAllah. From the Gambia, mashaAllah. All over the world, Alhamdulillah. It's great to have so many people with us. So, let's introduce our guest for today, inshallah. I guess you all know because her name's in the title. But in case you didn't, we have Dr. Farah Islam is with us. She is the Director of Psychospirituality Studies at Yaqeen Institute. And a board member and an associate editor also at Yaqeen. She is a PhD and a mental health advocate, educator, and researcher. She explores mental health and service access in Canada's racialized and immigrant populations using mixed methods research and orients her research and community work around breaking down the barriers of mental health stigma. Dr. Farah joined Yaqeen as a senior fellow and is now a Director of Psychospiritual Studies. She is a student in the Scholar of Islamic Studies Alimiyyah Program at the Thaba Institute. Dr. Islam has taught courses in Muslim mental health at the University of Toronto, Islamic Online University, and the Islamic Institute of Toronto. And currently serves as the expert advisory committee for the Muslim women's shelter, Misa Homes. With that, I will join me inshallah in welcoming Dr. Farah to the program. Assalamu alaikum. Wa alaikum assalam. Rahmatullahi barakatuh. So excited to be here. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. We're really excited to have you. I think a lot of people we have a link in the description of the video for people to give us feedback. Alhamdulillah. Your name came up many, many times. We're happy Alhamdulillah that you're finally able to join us. Jazakumullah khairan. Alhamdulillah. So this is an opportunity for us to get to know our guests more, to let our audience inshallah connect more with our guests. They read your papers on Yaqeen Institute. They don't know who you are. They just see your name in the title.
So this is an opportunity for them to get to know you better. So we like to start off at the beginning. What was Farah like when she was a young teenager before she became a doctor and is writing all these articles? How did your journey start off? Oh my gosh, SubhanAllah. What a fantastic question. Bismillah. Alhamdulillah. Wasalamatulahi wabarakatuh. I feel like to kind of answer that question, I think we have to share my hijab story. I got to share that inshallah. So, you know, I grew up in Canada. I was living in Markham. I went to public school. And so in my brain, I always thought that I'm going to start wearing hijab inshallah when I start grade seven. That was kind of what I had in my brain. But then I went to grade six, the first day of grade six, and I saw two other girls in my class actually started wearing hijab that year. I thought, OK, Hamza, this is my time. I got to start inshallah right now. This is the best time. You know, in the matter of an afternoon and have jumped into this decision. Alhamdulillah. And I got to say, you know, there was a lot of room for growth. There are obviously a lot of room for learning on my part. And maybe I started going down not the best kind of road. You know what I mean? Not the best kind of not making the best decisions. And I think often we blame external factors. We blame friends. We blame the environment. But I take full responsibility for the important choices that I make. And I'm not going to let me up with that. Forgive me. And so, you know, then it's like I've moved around a lot. So I was born in Australia, but my parents moved to Canada when I was four years old. Moved around a lot. And so then when grade seven came around, my parents made this huge announcement. They said, ding, ding, ding, we're moving to Qatar. And, you know, up to that point, the only thing I knew about Qatar was that it was the only country I knew that started with the letter Q. That was literally my knowledge about Qatar.
And so we moved. And for me, because I was seeing myself going down a road that I was not proud of, that I didn't want anymore for me in my life, I thought, OK, I'm moving to a new country. I'm moving to a new school. It's a whole new beginning, inshallah. And I really do consider it sort of a hijrah in my life, right? Something that I I fleed from that which was not serving, was not good for me. And I moved and I thought I'm going to be a better version of myself on how I'm doing that. And so that was my intention going in. And so I moved to Qatar. And I start grade seven and I go from being one of three other girls in my class who was wearing hijab in my public school in Canada to being the only girl in my class, never mind in my entire grade and one of the very, very few in my whole school. I went to the American school of Doha. Let me also say that as well. And so, you know, I felt like, did I not get a memo? Did I like did I miss something? Is this not a Muslim school? What's going on? Right. So it was a lot of I felt like it was culture shock for me. Right. So alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. For me, I feel like that was that pivotal time for me where I kind of made this conscious choice of this is the road I want to take. This is the path I want. This is where I consciously made that decision of this is where I want to be Muslim. And this is I want better for myself and I'm going to be better, inshallah. So that was a big, big, pivotal time. That's how teenage years were for me, I think, through all that. Hmm. Wow. So, so. What age were you when you moved, when you got the ding ding announcement, like when you got the notification? I was 11. I'm 10 now. 11.
Wow. So you said 11, 11 years old. Got it. So at 11 years old, mashallah, you made the conscious decision to try to be, you know, to to be going to a different environment to make a modification or alteration. I mean, each and every single one of us, you know, had that in my life. You know, all of our guests have had their moments. Right. And I think that's why we we have this this particularly called sincerely, because, you know, it's sincerely touching those moments that we've had and sharing it with the world. It requires a lot of, you know, you know, confidence and level of vulnerability. And we really appreciate that, you know, hearing that people making the change at 11 years old. You mentioned in your mind it was. Yeah, that's great. Mashallah. May Allah reward you and going to Qatar and then into Islam. Can you just talk briefly about, you know, you said you didn't get the memo. Was it? Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm thinking, OK, it's much more. And then you said the only. Oh, subhanallah. Did you did you face any backlash from wearing the hijab in the school like that? Subhanallah. You know, I feel like it was a really necessary training for me to constantly have to go against the grain, constantly have to be the person who was the odd one out to be different. I think that was necessary to break down my ego. Did I think that? So I lived in a place where I went to the American school at the time, of course, 9-11. And I know for a lot of us as being the Muslim students in the school, it was it was a tense time. Right. All of our teachers were American. That's majority or maybe 50 percent of our school was American. It was hard. It was very hard. Subhanallah. But in terms of wearing my hijab, no, alhamdulillah. I don't I don't feel like necessarily when I entered grade seven, did I feel that sort of backlash? But yeah, there were there was a lot of confluence of factors, you know, and that, you know,
I wanted to start with a new beginning, a fresh start. Also, I got to start taking it as my foreign language in school. And I've learned French all these years in Canada and then getting to to start with Arabic. I mean, it really is the best thing that came out of Qatar for me. And what that did for my comprehension of the Qur'an leaps and bounds, just improved it. And the other part that I think all came into play then was that, you know, alhamdulillah, my parents have a million books in their house. And they call it their geniuses. So, you know, they always have so much for us to read. And I remember, you know, going to their bookshop and picking Imam al-Ghazali's, his Ihyya wa-Nu'muddin, and his revival of the religious sciences. And for me, you know, grade seven, I'm talking about grade seven. I'm a kid. But reading that for me was a revival of my deen for me. I mean, it really was. Subhanallah. So alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. And what that did for me, yeah, I could never, you know, I only have Allah subhana wa ta'ala to thank for that. So, you know, and I think we all we face those kinds of crossroads in our life over and over again as well. So that's one of those pivotal moments for me, for sure, was that grade seven time. Wow. So grade seven was a pivotal moment for you. So how long were you in Qatar? Six years. So middle school, high school, and then graduated from there. Then came back to Toronto. Wow, wow, wow. So I guess seventh grade, eighth grade on, it was just, is that what you, is it safe to say that's when you continued, you started your path of learning the deen voluntarily as in seventh, eighth grader and then moving up on onwards? Wow. In a way, yeah, we would go for classes at the masjid. It was really lovely doing hajj or tajweed with the imam's wife. And when we come there, there were so many opportunities that were there. But at the same time, that feeling of Muslim community was something I missed from Canada.
So go to the masjid and one at least was over 80 years old. I mean, there was no way around it, at least on the women's side. And, you know, I was wondering where were all the young people. Right. So subhanAllah, something I really missed about Canada. So I was really excited to come back and to again, rejoin and be part of a Muslim community that I could connect with. Alhamdulillah. Did you did you find that in general, like subhanAllah, the difference between living here and living there is, you know, they have more resources, more scholars, more Qur'an classes. But at the same time, you get this feeling that Muslims in the West are afraid of losing their Islam. So they hold on to it, some of them a lot tighter, whereas people overseas maybe take it a little bit for granted. And they just kind of like expect it always be there and they don't hold on to it as tight. It's true, it's kind of you get when we have like a cultural Islam that surrounds us and makes us perhaps feel safe that our Islam is never going to leave us. But I agree with you that it has to be this very deliberate, intentional holding on and in continuously seeking knowledge that really allows our faith to be something that stays with us through all of life's hardships and continues. And yes, subhanAllah, there was such a difference between those two environments in that regard, for sure. After you, you know, start wearing hijab and start reading Qur'an and going through this high school phase and all that, did you ever get moments of doubt and you're like, am I really, do I really want to do this? Was I just like, you know, emotional at some point when I was younger? When you come back to Canada, is there like also a thought of like, maybe I can, you know, leave this behind now? Did you ever get any doubts, they ever like creep into your heart during that time period? So I love that question.
I think it's so beautiful for us to, I think, appreciate that everyone faces doubt. You know, that doubt is really integral to faith. And when we talk about faith wavering, going, amen, down, what we're seeing is that every doubt, and I love that. I love the show, I told Sheikha Bikim when he invited me that I think Sincerely Yours is so beautiful and that we are kind of normalizing this conversation around, hey, everybody faces spiritual struggles and we all have this imperfect faith journey. You know, research shows that sharing that imperfect faith journey, particularly with our kids, it's so critical, you know what I mean? Because our kids oftentimes see us, you know, in an evolved, perfect, not perfect, but you know what I mean? In a different form, maybe we're praying all our Salah, we're doing voluntary fast, whatever. They're seeing you in an evolved form, and they don't know the farah you used to be back then, where you struggled and you fell. And so having those conversations, you know, around the dinner table, having conversations about, you know, I have those questions too, and being vulnerable, being open, exactly what Sheikha Abdullah was talking about, is so critical, and that's really what allows for that kind of faith that, you know, stays with you throughout your life. So alhamdulillah, again, I just really love this show, just a public, you know, just a plug for this show and how much I really appreciate that mandate in it. So yes, absolutely, I faced moments of doubt. And, you know, I think, you know, analyzing this, what this kind of show has allowed me to do is kind of look back on all those moments. I feel like those moments of doubt and spiritual struggle were totally coupled with moments in my life where I was facing emotional turmoil. So moments where I was being angry really was the blanket emotion, but that meaning, of course, underneath that was feeling sad, hurt, betrayed, lonely, not feeling like I had a place to belong. And so that's why I think psychical studies is so important at Hampton and what we're doing at Yakhreen,
because there is such an interplay of mental health and emotions and spiritual well-being, right? They're so intimately interwoven, and I think we need to appreciate that span of love. And absolutely, I'm sure I'm going to shake up Ibrahim, like, hit the nail on the head. And when I entered university or college in Toronto, I think that was a difficult time for me, and I think it is for many of us, right? You enter this space where you have professors who don't even try to hide their disdain for religion, right? It's part of line of deem, which is insane for me when, you know, they're putting themselves up on a pedestal and saying, you know, I am so tolerant, I'm so open, and yet they're being so exceptionally intolerant of faith, which I think is disgusting, truthfully. And so, you know, and so the general atmosphere is one of questioning. You know, you're questioning what are you going to do with your life, if you're going to get married, who you're going to marry. I mean, everything is just a time of questioning. And so I think to get through that, partly what I did was try to read a lot. And I feel like that just increased my confusion, I have to say. So while my bachelor's was in neuroscience, I was one credit shy of a minor in religion. So I took a lot of religions courses, you know, reading five books of Moses, reading a lot of texts of Buddhism, Daoism, and a lot. And so that was kind of my intellectual headspace. There was a lot going on. And then I also just in my emotional space was one of again entering that moment of feeling angry, feeling misunderstood again. So I started reading books that, you know, honestly, I really shouldn't have been reading. And I'm not going to because, you know, notoriety of these people, they, you know, honestly, it's kind of love. And my parents, you know, saw those books on my bookshelf. And they said, you know, don't read these books, they're going to take you away from your Islam. And I recognized the wisdom in what they were trying to tell me at that time. But of course, I didn't heed their warning.
And, you know, may Allah forgive me for that. And truthfully, I have to say that that period of doubt and that questioning and that anger didn't really dissipate until I found myself in a place of love and safety, to be honest. And, you know, a place where I felt like I could belong and be accepted. And truthfully, I'm going to be I'm going to be super cheesy. Forgive me for being cheesy. But, you know, I didn't find that until my husband's love. Like I'm going to be vulnerable and saying that. And I feel like that was so critical for me to find that place of safety and find that place of love. And through it, I could feel Allah's love again, where I felt very distant from for many years. So Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah, Alhamdulillah for that. SubhanAllah, JazakAllah Khair. Wow. Wow. Wow. I mean, you know, it's kind of like. It's interesting, you know, because the first thing that comes to mind is Salman al-Farisi when he was looking for Allah, you know, and then he found him. SubhanAllah. And then it seems like the journey from Qatar to Canada, that's probably a title, a title of a title of your next book from Qatar to Canada. Autobiography. Autobiography. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From Qatar to Canada, you're going on this journey. And I mean, you know, you kind of answered at the very you answer the question at the very end. It kind of like, mashallah, is like people are thinking, OK, it was over once you got to Canada or once you put those books down from reading that, you know, you shouldn't have read. And that's when the yateen was there or, you know, the doubt stopped and the certainty and love and strength started. But, you know, you ending it right there by saying by finding your soul mate. I mean, there's so many other words that are synonymous with wife and husband. Right. You know that we want, you know, best friend, soul mate, you know. So when you found him, when Allah brought him to you, that's when it was kind of solidified, for lack of better words. Right.
So subhanAllah, I mean, you know, it's it's. I want to kind of. Not rewind, but, you know, from when you came to back to Canada from Qatar. Where did it take place to where you said to yourself, you know, I want to I want to voluntarily intentionally study mental health? OK, that's a very good question to add Hampton. So my masters of my masters are in neuroscience, and, you know, I feel like at what you said, you know, I feel like I'm at a point where I'm not. And I think that's what really started to motivate me in that period of my life was trying to do the hardest thing that seemed like, I don't know, the highest achievement. That success came from doing very hard, difficult things basically. Where everybody would just always talk about the brain, you know, they would eat, talk, sleep, breathe. And I just I just didn't feel like this was my people anymore, that it didn't feel like it added or it gave anything to this world, essentially. So I kind of swished, I pivoted from what was neuroscience to be of mental health and study mental health, mental illness runs in my family. And I really wanted to dedicate my work and my life to try to dismantle. All these questions and all these have about with people who live with serious mental illness and to dispel all those myths, essentially, and so, yeah, that's that's that's where that pivoting. I wanted to do something with my life that actually could be meaningful, could be actionable, could actually impact change in this world. When taking that step. So this was, I guess, I guess after you finish your bachelor's in neuroscience and you you look back and you said, you know, you didn't feel fulfilled. Right.
So did someone guide you to that and say, look, you probably want to try this? Or was it that you just said, you know what, I'm going to try mental health because I see a psycho spiritual connection. Were you looking for a spiritual connection with what you were studying and you saw it in mental health? That's a good question to take up. I'm not sure if I if I necessarily saw the spiritual connection then. And no, I didn't have anyone to guide me. I think this is something I really kind of had to walk out on my own on this road and try to find, you know, pivoted after my master's. And generally people would say, you know, why are you switching something totally different or a somewhat different PhD? And I think it was really important for me to find that meaning the spiritual side. No, it's absolutely there. I just felt like in the university or the academic space, I didn't have the opportunity or the space to be able to explore that part, which I had always wanted to, of course. But it wasn't there. Yeah. There are people that you knew that had it when you were on this journey of studying mental health and then you go into the Muslim community at that time. Was there still a stigma to where people would say that there's a clear separation between mental health and spirituality? You know, just have a man. Did you ever hear like, you know, you don't have a mental problem, just be patient with the law. You have a man or the other one that I've heard before is if you go to see a psychiatrist or psychologist, that's a weakness of faith. That's a lack in faith. Did you see that in your in your journey of study? Yes. I mean, I don't know if necessary in my journey of study, but definitely just as being a community member out and about in the masjid and hearing that in the community.
Yes, that idea of it being a weakness of faith, the weakness of Iman, when someone just has an illness, Panola, that they were given and they're trying their best to survive through and live through and still worship Allah. I thought that's so unconscionable that we literally kick someone down when all they're doing is just struggling to survive and to live through an illness that is exceptionally difficult. So, you know, I really just wanted to dismantle all of those, essentially dismantle mental health stigma in whatever little way that I can, inshallah. Tell us about the Nisaat Homes. So Nisaat Homes in Hampton is a Muslim women's shelter or transitional home that we have here in Toronto and in many other cities actually across Canada. You know, providing a space for women and children who are in difficult, violent situations in their home. So I'm just very proud to be a part of that at Hampton. I mean, one would obviously ask what's the inspiration behind it? I mean, there's obviously a disenfranchised demographic. What do you see a good amount of the problems that are from domestic problems, particularly the role of mental health in the spouse, primarily, I would say, you know, the husband. Do you see that as something that is prevalent? I mean, yes, I mean, I feel mental health is absolutely always part of these difficult situations. You know, oftentimes I feel, you know, we're, let's see, we're very encouraged to get married and to have kids.
And we're often not given the tools necessarily on what it means to build a strong marriage and what healthy communication looks like, what it means to be a parent who teaches emotional regulation and impart these types of emotional tools to our children. We're not given any kind of thrust into this situation. And oftentimes I think that does lead to the family and we almost want to protect this from all of that. Yeah, let's do more of this community education. Let's talk more about mental health so we can allow for the thriving of our homes, Inshallah. Absolutely. Do you see in your research, like a lot of overlap between like mental health and religious doubt? I know there's some things you guys have written in the psychology department here at Yaqeen about this topic, but do you see like overlap between them? Does one feed the other? Is there a relationship or is there not a relationship? And like, how do you think, because mental health is so pervasive now, like basically every family probably has people who are suffering from mental health. And not just every family, every person to some extent or another is probably suffering mental health to some degree. So how do we understand the influence of that, you know, our mental health state, with our emotional state, with our spirituality state? And what's the connection between those and how do we make sure that it doesn't spill over into our religious doubt, make us start doubting Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala? Yes, absolutely. There is that interplay between religious doubt and mental health issues. So, for example, so we looked at, for example, uncertainty intolerance, which is a really interesting variable, but it is very related to this idea of doubt as well.
So, you know, if you're looking at it at a spiritual level, right, how intolerant we are to this idea of change, how intolerant we are to this idea that, you know, that we live with uncertainty, right? I don't control much of anything, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala who is in charge. The increase in uncertainty, the more intolerant a person is towards uncertainty, the greater the levels of anxiety and depression that that person will face. It's just it's intimately intertwined or linked. Can we say which one is causal, which causes which? No, we can't say that, but they are both, you know, playing into each other. We also found that religiosity, for example, really has a role in sort of those positive measures of psychological health, like our sense of life satisfaction or sense of well-being, our sense of purpose. The more religious or the higher we we score on religiosity, and this is a kind of a holistic religiosity that includes personal worship, includes being a part of community, includes all these factors. But the higher we score that holistic religiosity, the greater our sense of those positive measures of psychological well-being and life satisfaction, et cetera. And so and doubt comes into play as well as being the more a person struggles with doubt and has those spiritual struggles, the higher their levels of depression, anxiety as well. So, yeah, it's all interlinked and it's so important to understand. I think, you know, I don't know, just personally in my life had been all those moments that I've been so angry, you know, I'd feel I felt so lost and so disenfranchised or outside of everything. It intimately leads to you thinking that of Allah subhana wa ta'ala as well. I think that's sadly the way everything becomes so interlinked.
Right. So to change that lens and to come back to a place of safety, to come back to a place of safety and Allah subhana wa ta'ala's love, that needs to happen. We can't appreciate that until we appreciate that interplay between mental health and spiritual well-being. Absolutely, subhanAllah. And like we know there are statistics that people who suffer from mental health actually tend to be more religious and that religion tends to help them. And we have like also studies that religious doubt, like you mentioned, actually can make like depression worse and mental health impacts even worse. So subhanAllah, like Islam and Iman is something that really can save people and can help them, you know, through difficult moments in their life. And it's such a powerful coping mechanism that all of us should appreciate and hold on to. SubhanAllah. I have a question regarding the process. Because you know, I've dealt with it, all of us have dealt with a number of youth and you know, that coming back to Allah subhanAllah. I think it's important that I want you, if you could touch on the fact of coming back, it's not just over one night or one Salat and the light shines and, you know, you wake up for Fajr and khalas, not even Fajr, you wake up for Tahajjud, it's just changed like that. It's not real. It's a process. So it's really a two part question. Just if you could touch on the fact that it is a process and that there may be an element of struggle, number one. And number two, it's kind of related, but it deals with people probably not even knowing that they have a quote unquote, I don't want to say mental health issue, but there may be a certain challenge that needs to be uncovered by other than them by a professional.
So the first part of the first question again is, if you could touch on the fact that it's a process and do they need to stick to, you know, they may not feel it in the beginning, you know, they may have been turned down in the beginning when they try their best to do something. And then secondly, you know, people reaching out to a professional because you may not even know that there's something there. Deep question, Sheikh Abdullah. No, I agree with you. I you know, we all walk around with brokenness and we are not always necessarily aware of what hurts us and what is what is causing us to be triggered, et cetera, et cetera. But I think I think one sort of test that we can ask ourselves is, you know, when you're faced with a certain hardship in life, it can be minor, it can be major. Let's say you forgot to you forgot to wake up for Fajr. Where does your mind automatically go? Do you say Allah doesn't want my prayers anymore. I'm being punished. I did this, this and Allah made me forget or maybe maybe maybe get lost in my heedlessness. Or does your mind go to, OK, you know, I miss Fajr. I got to set my alarm better, inshallah. And inshallah, I can make it up and I will maybe do something. But Allah's mercy is always there for me, always waiting for me. You have to kind of analyze for yourself, where is your mind? I know whenever any kind of setback happens in your life and throughout the day. And we have many throughout the day. Right. So that idea of, you know, you know, I know that Allah tells us I am as my servant thinks I am. Right. That has no done of Allah. It is something we do need to analyze for us. So it is a process. I have to say, you know, that idea of my anger being what got in the way, oftentimes of me connecting with my creator. You know, my anger doesn't dissipate overnight. Right.
It is something that actually requires this deep self-work, this deep self-archaeology. And I'll be real. I don't think most of us are really equipped to be able to shine that light or have that mirror to ourselves so that we can see all that brokenness. We have no idea oftentimes. Right. It can. And so, you know, I, for example, I go to an Islamic psychotherapist. I think it's been like it's been transformative. Alhamdulillah, what it's done for my connection with with my Lord. And I have to say, too, that I couldn't be brave enough to face my demons. I couldn't I didn't have the courage to do that until I was in the safe haven or the place of love with my husband. It really I needed to come to that. Alhamdulillah. But once I did, you know, you can run from your demons all your life, but they're going to catch up to you. You're going to make the same mistakes. Obviously, I kept making the same mistakes, kept coming back to that place of anger over and over again. And until I was willing to stop, stop running and to face them, I couldn't stop that cycle. I forgot that I forgot. And you're 30 for 30. Your public speaking skills is like through the roof. No, no, no, no. No, Sheikh Abdullah. Ma'sha'Allah. You know, this is a visual I just had. And just pardon me. May Allah bless you and your husband. I was picturing you running and your husband just catching you right there. And the demons are running after you and he caught you. And he said, don't worry. And you found safe haven right there. And then you just told him everything that happened. He's like, don't worry about it. And the demons just scattered away. So, Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. It feels like that. It feels like that. Alhamdulillah. That's great. That's great. May Allah bless you and your union. Ma'sha'Allah.
Yeah, Dr. Farah, we had a conference here in Canada, in Toronto just a few weeks ago, and she brought down the house there as well. So, no, Ma'sha'Allah. Our Sheikh here are incredible speakers. Ma'sha'Allah. JazakAllah khairan. So, what signs, if you will, and Abdullah, just correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know the appropriate word. What signs are there that the Muslim should say, OK, I need to go see a therapist? You know, because some people may be emotionally intelligent. Right. Some may not. Some may be told. Do you advise, for example, do you advise within premarital counseling there being a psycho-spiritual element within the premarital counseling session? How important is premarital counseling? I just asked you about six thousand questions right now. Yes, I do think so. Well, it's ultimately, you know, what are some of the signs that a person, you know, realizes they're fine, they're living fine, they're happy, they, you know, they smile. They do have times of sorrow. But when is it, you know, times where someone says, OK, I need to go in and check in, you know, or, you know, see somebody? Yeah, no, no. Excellent question. I feel like there's no hard fast kind of way to answer that question, but I do think, for example, you know, oftentimes, you know what spills out of us in those moments of, let's say, when we're at the edge or what we do, I guess, to those most vulnerable in our lives.
And often that's our children, how we react to them. It's a good litmus test, something to appreciate and to think about if you are finding yourself sort of flying into a rage at times or, you know, in the way that you react to your children. I think I think that is a moment to think, hey, wait a minute, maybe there are some attachment wounds. Maybe there are some brokenness that I need to face and to understand why I'm relating to my child this way. Another being that, yes, I do agree that premarital premarital counseling is fantastic. And to have a psychospiritual component just to understand if you and your prospective spouse to be are actually on the same page when it comes to that. Do you communicate well? Do you deal with conflict? Well, do you know all of that is so critical. And we are often not given those tools. Maybe that's not within our homes of what communication is actually supposed to look like. So I totally, 100 percent agree. But, yeah, I think I think analyzing yourself when you are in moments of crises, if you have that negative mental filter, are you thinking well of Allah in these situations? Are you not thinking well of Allah? Where does your mind go? And in how you treat those who are in a vulnerable situation? Maybe it's the person, the cashier or your child or whoever it may be. But does your anger just kind of go off or some other emotion? And if that's the case, yeah. Hey, I mean, we all need help sometimes. So not to feel. No. Take that. Take that inshallah. Take that step. So, Dr. Farah, we usually like to play a game of rapid fire questions before we take some questions inshallah from the audience. I hope you're up for it. Insha'Allah. OK. Insha'Allah. OK. Easy questions.
Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate. Oh, my gosh. Dark chocolate. I don't even know I ask this question anymore. Everybody goes for the chocolate. No, my husband likes vanilla. No, no, no. That's cool. Me too. I get along with it. There you go. Would you choose spring or fall? Spring. I love spring flowers. I love everything suddenly coming out again. And I'm saying we were chair coffee. All right. So I'm a non caffeine person. I'm so sorry. I'm so bad. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wait, actually, no, no. You're going to me. Masha'Allah. Yeah. Yes. What? Look, I refuse to ingest. That's not cool. I'm not going to do that. That's exactly how I think about it. There's a dependency. Right. I don't I don't want that. What do you drink? Are you into coffee? Black coffee in the morning. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. I know it's two Canadians to one. Hold on. Just relax. Now, I fast from it on purpose because when I find myself like I have to assume I see myself, I have to have my coffee. I'll turn my car around and I go to my other addiction, the gym or something, you know, but it's OK. That's an excellent addiction. The coffee. Yeah, you're right. You're right. I have to fast from it. No, no, no. No judging. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. All right. Mountains or oceans? Mountains. Alhamdulillah. Yeah, yeah. I love I love hiking. So, yeah, for sure. What would be your favorite city? But you can't choose Mecca or Medina or Al-Quds. Oh, my goodness. OK. Honeymoon with Istanbul.
So I have to ask to ask to Istanbul, inshallah. That's a popular one. Yeah. So kind of kind of similar, but not quite similar. What's the most beautiful place you've seen? And not Mecca and Medina and Al-Quds. Oh, my goodness. Mashallah. There's so many. Oh, it's kind of like you've been well, well traveled and. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. And seen somewhere. Oh, my goodness. I don't know. I don't know. What does anybody what does everybody else say? I got to cheat on this test. I don't know. I don't know. I think I've told me you guys went to B.C. or Alberta recently. I have not been to the. No, you have not been. OK, sorry. I misunderstood that. That's OK. I think I was telling you to go there. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. OK. What languages do you know? So that could be my first question. I speak Bengali, I speak English. I learned, you know, other things. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe a little bit. OK. What language do you wish you knew? Oh, my gosh. I mean, Arabic for sure. I mean, I wish I knew it at a fantastic level. I would love that. Yeah. Shalala. What was your first job? First job. OK, OK. I don't know why, but I really love hotels, which probably is bizarre, but I always wanted to work in a hotel. So I was actually hotel housekeeping for a summer in undergrad. And I know it was it was it was exactly what I wanted just to be in a hotel. It was really fun. I lost a lot of weight. It was a very, very strenuous and physically demanding work. So it's like, all right, I don't have to go to the gym. I'm getting paid to lose weight. All right. That's great.
All right. I asked the kids this question at the message, but I like asking the guests to ask, well, what superpower do you wish you had? Oh, wow. Seriously, flying. I would like to fly. Yeah, it's a good one. Mind reading. I don't know. OK, a lot of people say mind reading, but then I'm like, I don't know if I want to know that. Yeah, I know. I know it's complicated. I know. Well, what would you pick? What would you pick? My mistake? You know, I would love to. I would love to hear from you. What would you pick? I don't know. Flying is a solid choice, I think. What do you think? Flying is good. I like flying. Yeah. Yeah. OK, we got we had some questions sent in online. This one says, how do I navigate taking care of kids and my mental health? Yes. Big question. Big question. I mean, taking care of your mental health will allow you, inshallah, to be a better mother, a better father. Alhamdulillah, I mean, 100 percent. And in doing so with the intention of I want to get closer to Allah subhana wa ta'ala because I want to understand what all this brokenness is, all this noise that is often getting in the way is a beautiful intention. Now, if your children go to school and you're able to schedule Islamic psychotherapy or whatever therapy option, inshallah, that you do try to go for within their school time, I mean, that's that's great. And so on the weekends, I mean, there are there are ways to, I guess, find your way around it. But there are there are a lot of other mental health resources as well, whether it's calling into a mental health helpline when you do have a quiet moment to yourself, whether it's trying to take your take time out to take,
you know, walks or take time out to check in with yourself. To understand what it is that you're going through, what it is that you're facing, having those regular check ins and having those regular moments of of kind of refilling your cup, what actually revives you, what rejuvenates you. And so you're able to, again, be that mother, that great father for your child again is so critical. But I but I agree with you that when our emotions get messy, it's hard when we're we have a little child in front of us who maybe doesn't understand what you're going through. But it's so critical. It's so critical to get that help and child if you can. Yeah, let me see. I mean, the second question is not as serious as what is your favorite hobby as a child? Great. This is like part of the rapid fire again. I mean, I love certain sports like badminton and hockey for sure, like floor hockey. I'm not I'm not good at skating, but yes, I did love those. But I love reading. I love painting. I was I was kind of, you know, a nerd with that kind of, you know, artsy stuff as well. But yeah, please share your hobbies, too. I'd love I'd love to hear anybody in the chat. I mean, that's that's awesome. OK, this is a question from Brother Shafak says, how does one stop feeling sad, lonely after separation or divorce? No, may Allah make it easy, may Allah grant healing to your heart, brother. I think that's beautiful that you would ask and you would be vulnerable and share that. And absolutely, it is a grief process when we lose the person that we thought we would spend the rest of our lives with. So to deal with that loneliness and that sadness, you know, I think what's beautiful is that we're having, for example, within the Muslim community, within our masjid, we're having divorce grief support groups now coming up, which I think is a beautiful opportunity if you can find one,
if it's in your local masjid or even if that's a community online. But just being able to have kind of a tribe, have people that are going through what you're going through, brother, and feeling that loneliness, feeling that that difficulty, because it is a grief process. And we also have talked to people who, you know, preemptively when they knew that they were going to be facing this difficulty of this grief after divorce, they've actually gone to seek a therapist and gone to seek help just because of how difficult that that time period is. So I love that. You're kind of has space and that a more ease of understanding that it is a time of grief and oftentimes we maybe block that out or we don't want to face that those demons we don't want to face. But I really appreciate your courage and your bravery in voicing that because it is a difficult time for sure. OK, this question from Sister Sara says the spiritual struggle of abused and emotionally abandoned wives are real in male dominated families. Would you share your approach in counseling such wives? I know you have experience, of course, with these homes and women who are victims of domestic abuse. And so maybe you can speak to this as well. I was fine. So I think I think Sister Sara is asking, I guess, about spiritual abuse, perhaps, or spiritual struggle with being abused and emotionally. OK, I guess this, too, is when one feels abandoned or one feels upset at what has happened to them in their life. It is difficult not to get into sort of that spiritual space from that headspace of am I being punished by Allah or having a feeling separation from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so it can absolutely put us into a very difficult place where we struggle spiritually. SubhanAllah.
So I'm not a mental health practitioner myself. I don't offer counseling myself. I'm just, you know, on the academic, the research side. But coming to it, I think, with an approach of of compassion, I think narrative therapy, I think, is really helpful in this, in this, in this kind of situation as well, where a person has a chance to share their whole story and to have it unfiltered and to let it out and to to understand, I think, all the pieces there that are causing them pain and causing sorrow, I think is very helpful to have that sort of resonance in that kind of rapport, inshallah, if you can build with your therapist or with your mental health professional is something that can be healing, inshallah. And I pray that it can offer also spiritually, a spiritual path for you as well. So Islamic psychotherapy, I think, or talking to a Muslim chaplain or et cetera, these kinds of options that we have that do integrate with the mental health component, I think is so important because it's often not just a moral or mental health that, just like you're saying, sister Sarah, mashallah, that it does become a spiritual struggle as well. We do face periods of doubt. So may Allah make it easy and heal your heart as well. SubhanAllah, ameen. It's very hard. Ameen. JazakAllah khair. Let me ask you a question we like to ask all of our speakers, all of our guests. If you can go back in time and you could ask a question to your younger self, what question would that be? Sorry, if you can give advice to your younger self, what advice would that be? I think that's a question. I don't know. We ask the question so often, I kind of slipped there. Mashallah, mashallah. All right. What would I say to the younger Farah? All right. I would say something along the lines of,
don't look for love, don't look for understanding or resonance in all the wrong places. That you might feel misunderstood, you might feel that nobody gets you, but understand that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala knows the innermost secrets of your heart. You know, وَاللَّهُ عَنِ مُن بِذَاتِ سُدُورِ He knows all your brokenness. He knows all your heartaches. He knows all your pain. He knows all your brokenness. He knows all your tears. And whatever you lost, whatever was taken from you, Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala will replace it with that which is better in this life and in the next. You know, trust in His plan, trust in His love. That's what I would say. Mashallah. That's really beautiful. JazakAllah khair. JazakAllah khair. Is Ibrahim's face getting a little red there? Is that the light? MashaAllah. It's emotional. These are like Oprah level questions. I'm trying not to cry. I already got teary. I already got teary. I got tissues in my pocket. I think that's something everybody needs to hear. We don't even need a time machine for that. All of us can hear from that. Yes, I agree. JazakAllah khair for coming on and giving us so much of your time. Really appreciate it. And I think everybody, alhamdulillah, benefited a lot. I see a lot of activity, alhamdulillah, in the chat box. That tells me lots of people are very, very engaged, alhamdulillah, with this session. I hope, inshaAllah, we can have you back on in the future, biidhnillah. JazakAllah khair for being with us. BarakAllahu feekum. It's a pleasure. Always lovely to see you, Shaykh Abdullah.
And thank you to everybody who chatted. It's lovely to engage and to talk with all of you. Doctor, where can they find you? Or where can they find some of your work? Alhamdulillah. We got our papers out there. Alhamdulillah. Otherwise, I guess on social media. I don't know if I exactly exist out there. But yes, of course, please, you can always reach out to me there as well. InshaAllah. JazakAllah khair. Pleasure. JazakAllah khair. InshaAllah. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh. Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullah wa barakatuh. Alhamdulillah.
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