Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Okay. Assalamu alaikum and welcome back to Invent a Mana. Today I'm speaking with Siroleh. We're having a conversation that so many, so many, so many of us hold quietly in our hearts, which is love, love across cultures, love shaped by faith, love in the west, and love after heartbreak. For many of us in the Somali and Muslim diaspora, navigating relationships comes with layers, which is culture, religion, expectations, identity, healing, and the desire to be truly loved. And for those of us who have experienced divorce, the journey becomes even more tender and complex.
In this episode, we're creating space for honesty and we'll be talking about dating between cultures, understanding the Western Islamic, the Western identities about relationship, and also how to stay rooted within Islamic values and what it means to open your heart again after separation.
This is a conversation about courage, clarity, and trusting Allah with whatever he has written for you.
I'm doing good. How are you?
So I had you meet here. No problem. I had you on back in 2019 and that time we. You were also on a panel with other women and we were discussing divorce at the time.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: But at the time, you're speaking from a married person's per perspective.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: How have things changed now?
[00:02:03] Speaker A: 2019, you say, right?
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Oh, my God. That's like a year after I came back from high school.
Well, do you want me to talk about after divorce?
Cuz that was embarrassed, right?
[00:02:17] Speaker B: We can talk about how things been since then. And then what brought you to this podcast episode?
[00:02:24] Speaker A: Well, things been great, I should say. And a journey of a lot of changes.
Relationship, career, motherhood, deep friendship and friendship.
So which one you want to tackle?
Because a lot has changed.
[00:02:53] Speaker B: We can talk about relationships.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Okay, I'm ready.
Relationships. So in what way?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: How would you define.
Well, I'm just give the viewers like a background.
I knew you for a, like, long time now, since I was a kid.
And a couple of months ago, my mom and I, we were talking about all the marriages that took place in the early 2000s and then how things happened now within the future, you know, so then it was me, my mom, and my cousin.
And then we started talking about the conversation of divorce. And I asked her a question of if. If things like, it's already predestined for you, right? Like, Khadr, it's written down for you to get married. It was written down for you to have three kids. It was. It was written down for you also for your marriage to end.
Is there anything that could have stopped it back in the 2000s or do things happen because they're meant to happen?
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Okay, so Qadar, it's very tricky.
Yes. All of these things are predestined and they are working for you and established a book.
But in the same time Allah gave us a free will. And the free will is what can change Al Qatar.
So for instance, let's say you are in a relationship and this relationship is your dream relationship.
Everything's so perfect and one day something happens.
You never thought about it. You are going to get divorced, you're going to get separated from this person.
So there are two things can happen.
One is death.
Death can come. It can take away from his house, that is one thing.
Or divorce. Can we stop death? No, that's natural, right? Can we say that was written for us and then we can't stop from. No, we cannot stop from that. That was absolutely. That was written and it cannot be changed because your time when it ends, we can't change that.
But can divorce or relationship ending, can it be changed?
How?
Well, within relationship there is challenges and the challenges are many.
Let's say infidelity for instance.
As we know there is shaitan, which is Satan.
They say one of the greatest accomplishments for Shaitan is when he separates men and women from being husband life.
And for us human beings, our biggest challenge, jihad is what they call jihad al Nafs is ourselves and our desires. Most of the time when you look into these relationships, it's either three things that they fell apart.
Number one is any infidelity.
Number two is money. Number three is not having the love that you had when you, when you got married. You see when marriage is new or when relationship is new, everything is so perfect.
Everything is so incredible, intense.
But then time passes by, people forget each other.
Sometimes you see couples, they don't go out anymore.
They don't even stop having sex.
They even some of the. Sometimes you see couples scheduled to have sex where it used to be, let's see together, let's hook up. You know, anywhere in the bedroom, the bathroom, the living room, God knows where in the house or even in the cinema.
Yep, I hurt my mom and my dad.
Yes.
You know, but then it stops.
It's going to be like, oh, habibi is calling. Oh my God. Hi babe, what's up? Those text messages fade away because we blame on the world thing like kids, work, career, family.
And it's true relationship.
It's need constant and replenishment.
But it has to come from both people.
If it doesn't then it goes away. That's Number one.
Number two, money.
Money is.
It's like.
What is it called?
Yes, yes. Like, I mean, for instance, let's say you marry a guy and he was rich, and then one day this guy, he lost his legs and all the money went away.
Marriage supposed to be for good, healthy sickness and all those things, right?
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:46] Speaker A: Things may change.
I'm just using analogy. Yes. Someone might say, well, you know, I'm gonna stick by him or I'm gonna stick by her because, you know, I want to know. Yeah, but that's when reality hits.
We saw a lot of different marriages that fall apart because of our money. Or it could be simply somebody else start, you know, stop working or, or the money goes away or someone is misusing the money. Money is always huge part when it comes to a relationship.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: I didn't know that.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
And some people almost mishandling the money, by the way. Also, finally, we come to my favorite infidelity. And when I say my favorite is because I hear it often in power and over and over again.
I never knew, coming from a culture where also man can have a full wife, why there's infidelity in marriage.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: Good question.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like Allah subhana wa ta' ala said, you know, it's okay man to have a full wife. But then when we look at the Quran, Allah didn't just stop there.
He said, if, number one, there is conditions that come with it.
Those conditions are he has to be physically ready for second wife or third wife or fourth wife.
Mental.
Number two, financially. Number three.
Oh, wow.
So a guy who works in a Starbucks.
Or Amazon, can he afford a second wife?
No. But then also we know human beings are about their shah means that they, their desires are high.
And some, you know, men and women, their desires are more than, you know, what it's at home.
And that's what kills the relationship.
They go find a comfort from outside the house because they cannot fulfill or it's not good enough what they have. But then they cannot fulfill the ayah in the water where Allah says, you can have a 1, 2, 3, 4. Because they can't, they don't have that means to take second wife.
So instead, that's where the infidelity shows up.
And that's what kills the relationship, the marriage.
And on top of that, most of the time is when I'm one heights from that relationship, the other and the, the other person finds out.
And then even though there's a forgiveness, because sometimes you see the other person forgives.
But believe me, it's not easy because especially as women, when you forgive.
Yeah, but you're not going to forget. For instance, if a guy cheats his wife, even though she forgives him and she's trying to move on with that relationship every single day when she wakes up or when she goes to sleep.
Believe me, as a woman, we don't forget, especially as women. Guys are worse than us too. He will always remember somebody else. Billy, my bed.
You know, and a woman. It's the same thing too. Like that trust is being broken because there is third party in the marriage.
Those three will put marriage.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: I read somewhere online that cheating, it like affects the brain just as much as brain damage. Like physical brain damage.
So I. I think when people cheat, it's not even for their desires. I think it's to cause actual harm on the other person because if they didn't want the person anymore, they would just leave them. Right. Because divorce is not haram. Divorce is not haram.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Send it as well.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: Having another partner is not haram. But you choose to deliberately cheat, you know, and it's. That's not something that's an accident.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: No, it's not. No, it's not accident. No. It's not like you're driving an i5 in Goblin.
It's not accident. It's. It's act of. I would say evil.
Act of evil. Because you deliberately went out of your way. And then knowingly.
Because it doesn't just happen overnight.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:13:49] Speaker A: It has to build from somewhere and then it builds up. It builds up and then it gets to that point.
I remember one time I met a brother and he said he was in a business, he used to work a lot. He had a business outside the city and he had four children.
And then he came back from a business and then one day his daughter told him that, you know, there is a guy, he comes to our house every afternoon and he fixes our house. Okay. And he said there was nothing wrong.
Now this is single file.
And this is a Muslim household too, by the way.
You say basically that guy was sleeping with my wife while I was away in business.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: And on top of that she got pregnant by him.
Yes. And on top of that, he said I couldn't walk away the divorce because I guess the law says if you. And this is here in the U.S. by the way, if she gets pregnant while you marry, you still have to continue to take care of her, I guess.
And pregnancy until that pregnancy, because it was conceived during the marriage.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: So it's like his. Legally his.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: Exactly.
Yeah. Believe Me, I. I hear a lot of horror stories in our community that I never thought I would hear it.
[00:15:26] Speaker B: There's this article going around, it's a Vogue article, I don't know if you saw it, called Is having a Boyfriend Embarrassing?
And a lot of people, like, nowadays, they're saying marriage is a humiliation ritual.
And.
[00:15:48] Speaker A: I'm going to read it tonight.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: And Bas and I, I saw this. There's a lady I follow on tik Tok called the Unpunishable Woman. And she talks a lot about how like the have the way people try to demonize being a single woman and because they're trying to make it seem as if your life can't. You can't have a good life unless you're associated with the man, you know?
So I just want to ask you, like all these conversations going around with your own personal experience with all the stories you hear, how do you define love?
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Find love. Yeah. After divorce.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: So let me answer the question of why is it so hard women to be single? And why is it like a curse around women who's single, whether she's a divorced or whether she never got married. And just being a single and living her life, first of all, single life, it's incredibly, amazingly, blessedly.
I don't know what the other word. All I can say is I've enjoyed it, really.
Because you have to love your own company.
You have to enjoy your own company.
You have to be able to enjoy your own self. When you, when you yourself go to Buy place market in. Just buy flowers. I love flowers, okay? My ex husband used to buy me flowers every Friday. When I get divorced, I didn't stop buying flowers for myself, period. I stopped by, I started buying flower for myself because I want to see that big old vase sitting on top of my front of, you know, in the middle of my kitchen table when I come in from work, work day, the fragrance, the smell still there because that reminds me, that's mine.
It doesn't have. I don't need a man to go buy me for flowers.
Yes, I appreciate it because I told him when I met him I love flowers.
But now he's not here. Yes.
But yet I still continue my tradition, which is mine.
And sometimes when I forget, guess who buys it for me and puts it in the bus. It is my daughter.
And that is priceless because she remembers it.
And I'm sure one day when she finds the person, she takes her mom's footsteps.
And that's another thing I want to talk about.
It's how you value yourself, your children, see your friends, see your colleagues, your family.
So being single after marriage, it's not a curse. It's a beautiful thing.
At first it's scary. I'm not going to lie to you.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: Because having to live with a person for two decades and raise children or whatever. How many years someone live or how many years that you have a relationship with someone, it's not just something you can just shut it and just stop and leave. No, but it takes time to heal.
And healing is a thesis.
We come from a culture that we don't believe in seeing cancer because divorce is a trauma.
Many of cultures, they don't believe that, you know, they believe in, okay, divorce happened, move on, marry next guy. No, you have, That's a trauma. The guy has trauma. You have a trauma. You, both of you have a trauma.
And you must look for support, family number one, friends, even colleagues. But the main thing is that you have to look for your own support system and your own mental health support, which I always encourage. You know, women, even a man, before you even think about another relationship, heal yourself.
Go see counselors, talk about it.
So that's the one piece I wanted to talk about it, you know, and guess what? You get to go.
You get to. You get to have your own fun.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: It's like an opportunity to experience yourself.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Exactly. Just like, who are you? Who are you after all of these years? Before you were a mother, you were a wife, daughter. I mean, you were all of this title, but now you, these titles, Somehow I've been stripped from you.
Which is not bad. You still have them, but in a. In a cliche way, you're just like, I'm single. Yeah, yeah. You know, like, who are you? And it's beautiful thing just to be out and about and feeling like I can take a deep breath and I can enjoy life. And before I enter another relationship, let me work on me first.
Let me find what I like, who I am, what I wanted, the next chapter of my life.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Yes.
I feel like sometimes when people don't heal after they divorce, they end up attracting the same person as before because they're still the same person. Like, they didn't do any work since the last relationship.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Absolutely. Or they think that having to have a next relationship will heal it.
Like, oh, I got divorce.
I'm gonna get married to the next guy. So I can him, I can make him feel like I can find another guy. No, this is not about him.
That chapter is closed. That door is closed. This is all about you. It has nothing has to do with him. What you do after here. I mean, if you want to go back to him, fine. But for me, the door I left is closed and shut. And I'm not going back. I'm not opening it. I'm out, I'm moving.
And I'm gonna find something beautiful, something better, something, you know, extremely happy and whatever happiness is. Actually, as a matter of fact, that.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: So what does love mean to you?
[00:21:56] Speaker A: Love means that waking up in the morning next to my cat.
Well, I do have two cats. You don't divorce. Will have a cat. Right.
Love means, you know, it has to start with you first.
You know, like loving yourself, being kind to yourself, accepting yourself. Like when you have a day that is messed up, it's okay to be just not okay.
It's okay when you're sitting in the traffic and you're late from work, like half an hour and you say, you know, guess what? I'm gonna play my favorite music and I'm gonna be okay.
That's just loving yourself. Love is just calling your girlfriend and saying, hey, I'm gonna go to our Ethiopian favorite restaurant in Goni.
Stand with yourself first.
And my favorite love is loving Allah Subhanahu wa ta' ala at its core. Putting him at your core. You see, when you love Allah subhanahu wa ta', ala, the world becomes like you oyster.
You attract the right people. Whether it's a friendship, whether it's a new love, whether it's even a job, a career, even your children, your dynamic, your relationships. You attract people differently. Even you feel or even you face, you be. I remember running to one of my closest friends the other day. We haven't seen each other for a while and we were together eating dinner. And she keeps saying, so, ah, you changed. I mean, what's wrong with your face? And I, you know, I'm not a makeup person. I don't wear makeup. I'm a natural. She's like, your face is beaming. And I was keep laughing like we were having dinner. We're just laughing. Two people just seen each other a long time ago laughing. And she even talked about it in. In one of her segment. She does.
What is it called?
But you know her, she's one of my closest friend. She does YouTube. She's a YouTuber. Talked about YouTuber. She didn't mention my name, but she was. I can't believe I don't.
But she just glowing.
That glow comes from loving our creator, Allah. Subhanahu wa ta'. Ala. Getting up in the morning, praying Fajr Even if it's cold, even when it's hot, somewhat sticky.
Even just waking up, praying, reading your afghan, reading one page of the Quran even if you don't know, like not knowing it, trying to find a way to figure it out. How am I going to learn the word of Allah subhanahu wa ta' ala Finding class online, spending at least one or two hours on the weekend to get. Because right now it's easy for us to learn the Quran and that connecting Allah.
You see, once you connect that relationship with Allah subhana wa ta' ala and it becomes stronger.
Love will find you.
You don't have to find love because your love with Allah subhana wa ta' ala is more important than finding love from someone else who's just a human, another human being like you.
[00:25:10] Speaker B: And when you love anything more than Allah, he takes it right back. He snatches it right back.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Yep, that's temporary. And the other thing I love about loving Allah subhana wa ta' ala is that even when you love, you find a love. Let's say you find some, some guy who's handsome and you say oh my God, this is it. And one day he, something happens to him. Either he dies, God forbid, I mean we all die of course, but something happens to him or he leaves you or he rejects you. Your heart is not going to break as it is when you don't have this relationship built with Allah because Allah will help you, will hold you.
But this guy, of course he comes and go, same thing as the kids.
You see a mother, you know, she loses her child. And I've seen it this in our community because I do janaza.
I see our mothers who lose their children.
Some mom they lose totally like literally they will become maniac. They lost their children to cancer, sudden death, accident. Or they give birth and the child knows that they will lose. They will cry day and night. They will sometimes even check into, you know, mental health.
And I see some mothers who are like and collective.
They're like, you almost will think like when she gonna not because she's hard headed or maybe she's tough or no, because she knows this here the children are not hers, she's been given to her.
But Allah subhanahu wa ta' ala, it's his children, he can come and take it away from her. Anything she prepared herself, she knows that.
And if Allah, when Allah takes it away from her, he's testing her, is she going to crack? Because remember, the more you have iman believe in your faith, the more Allah Will test you.
And those who Allah loves are being tested the most.
Why do Prophet Ayum? Allah tested him. What did he do wrong? Nothing.
There was example for us. Even our own prophet, he was tested. You know that when you read the s. When you. When you understand the s. So who are you? Who am I?
Who are we?
People die for famine. This. This in our religion was very rich women.
You had it all. But yet people speculate that, you know the reason she dies because of hunger. He promised Allah she was alive. Allah sent the salam to Jibril. Who would do that?
So would you give up this life to live in genital freedoms? Absolutely. I would have been. I'll give all my kids.
I don't care.
Because this life is an illusion. It's a temporary.
If you accept it, you're going to be okay. But if you hold on to it, then you have to lose your life.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: I feel like what I got from that is the pain that Allah sends you. It brings you back to him.
But the pain that people inflict on you, it never draws you closer to them. So that's why you should always put Allah first before any love for anyone.
[00:28:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
Even your own self.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Okay, let's go to the next question.
What cultural clashes do you see most often between Somali or Muslim values and then Western dating norms?
[00:29:11] Speaker A: Cultural clashes.
Well, I grew up here. Right.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: How old were you when you came?
[00:29:21] Speaker A: 14, 15.
When. When. When you're young and you grow up here, you kind of understand the culture because it's easier for you to grasp both culture and it's easier for you to observe the culture because you go to school as young, you know, you go many, many years in school, you're immersed in it, immersed with the culture. Even though when you come home, the family speaks to you. Somali, you know, but you still six hours out there with your, you know, American children, Western, you know, too, and then you kind of get it. And then when you grow and then it becomes to you like a second home, let's just call it. Because you hear, you're not going to know her.
The clash is the parent.
That's the number one.
The clash is between the parent and the child. The parent never let go of that.
Never let go of that culture.
They always had this idea of, even if I'm here in the west, I am going to leave us. Somali, I'm going to leave us.
Let's call it Middle Eastern, I'm going to leave us.
Name it any other country beside west, and they expect this child, even either the child is born here and grew up here, or the child was brought up here when they were young to accept what they have already accepted in their head, that no matter how long they're here, they will never change. And then they accept this kid, this kid, whatever age this child is, who is struggling internally.
Should I? Should I not?
Because every day when he comes home, he has to have this brave face.
I'm going to read the Quran. I'm going to go to Duksy, the madrasa. I'm going to dress properly. I'm going to speak to my parent, manners. Because there is a lot of expectations, you know, our culture.
[00:31:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: But when I go to school, oh, hell is going to break down. I'm going to use Islam language. I'm going to take off the hijab. Oh, I was one of those.
Yeah.
I'm going to pick them. I'm going to grab my hijab. Oh, and I used to work Seattle district as well. When I used to see the girls, you know, taking their job, you know, wearing different heels, wearing different dress at school, and when they going home, taking the abaya out of the back and putting in them and then putting the hijab. Yeah. I didn't say nothing because guess what?
I was one of them many, many, many years ago.
I couldn't say nothing because I know what they're doing.
They're confused.
They're trying to match or mush together these two identity.
Because that's two different identity. One identity is outside the school, outside the house. And one identity is the one they live their parents expect there to be.
And the cultural clash actually is not from outside. It's within the family.
And then here comes the parents bringing their own tribalism that we left back home, that kids have no clue what that is. And then they teach them.
Yeah. And then they say, by the way, when you're about to get married, do not bring me anyone except our clan.
And this kid's like, what? But I love Tyrone, though. Tyrone is fine as hell. No, I want you to be Ali. Ali is your cousin. There is the virtual clash.
Or she meets Saeed, who's also a Muslim, but it's not from back home.
Let's say it comes from a good family, too. He's not from her child, so it's totally from different culture. Or maybe he reported, but he wants to marry Halima, but Halima, her parents don't want to, you know, say it because it is not. Let's say he's not Somali, or even let's say Saeed comes from, you know, from Somalia, but different family.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Within our community, we're creating our own clashes.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: We are creating our own clashes because our own community.
We don't even marry each other unless you're from the same clan. We don't even marry each other.
And if we do, it's going to be catastrophe until those two are divorced.
Those two tribe or clan, they're not going to stop fighting even if those two love each other. Oh, I've seen it personally over and over, over and over again, which is really bad. Is that Islam? No, no, it has nothing to do Islam. Islam says let Araf.
Like, yes, there is a, you know, in Khan know one another, but don't use against each other.
That's what we do. We always, we always do what we were told not to do. But we stay with Muslims. Oh God.
Thank God we don't need pork.
The only one thing right agree is a poor thing.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: That's it with all cultures too.
I feel like people don't realize how creating these like problems for ourselves pushes the kids to go outside.
[00:35:11] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:35:12] Speaker B: You know, and they do.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: Kids rebel anyway. And when a kids rebel and that's what's happening in our community, within our community, these children, they rebel. They become. They become rebellious in what they do. The thing that you say no to them, that's what they go after. Yeah, because they're curious. They're like, okay, mom says no to Tyrone. What's up with that? Because Tyrone is fine as hell. So I'm going to go with Tyrone. I don't care about mom and dad. Khadiji is going to go after Tyrone.
She's going to dump her cousin Ali.
And Ali be like, what happened? Oh, by the way, Ali, he's after Melissa because Melissa, he never seen blonde, blue eyes, beautiful.
And his dad tells him, you are never going to marry a Caucasian woman or any African American woman or any Asian woman or any Indian woman besides Somalia.
But he meets Melissa one day in school and he falls in love with her and he says, hello, dad, or no, I'm gonna marry Melissa.
Ditch that. That's the photo of. Gosh.
[00:36:24] Speaker B: And then you know how you were saying earlier, like we grew up in America, so we're. And every day like that, we leave our house, we're immersed in the American culture.
These American people, they're not being raised like how we're being raised.
They like, for the most part, they can marry whoever they want. They can have sex before marriage.
Religion doesn't really run their idea of dating, you know, and then your kid is.
They're intrigued by this culture. So why would they not?
Why would that. Why would the other person not make that road easier for them? And they just go to what's easy compared to their parents who have all these rules and restrictions.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: And the other thing is that so sad is that even I've seen a lot of parents, we don't even tell them like how you're supposed to tell them Islam. Instead, we scare them.
We say, oh, you need to fear Allah. But we teach them the part where almost if as like they become they. They leave the religion. And I have seen it. Youth believe the religion.
[00:37:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:36] Speaker A: And when you ask them and they say the things they say, you're like, oh, my God. This child was told totally different from what the religion is.
They will hate Islam because everything not taught, taught, taught. They were never taught. Allah is mercy, Allah is loving, Allah is kind.
They were never told that. They were told, if you do this, you're going to go hellfire. They were never told that. Allah is merciful, Allah loves you, Allah is kind. They were never told that.
That's it. I saw last night one of the online. I forgot. He said. He said when a child finished the Quran, you see the parents celebrate and they bring gifts to the teacher and they take a picture with the teacher. But he said there's one person who's sitting there that was lost.
Who's that?
[00:38:32] Speaker B: The child.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: The child.
What did he just complete it? He doesn't even know one surah or even one ayah. What is the meaning of it? It's tafsir. The meaning or why is it sent, where does it send and why that is sinned at that time and why is it now and how can he use it? Look at that. Wow. The kid is confused.
Yeah. Everybody's happy. He has to be happy or she has to be happy.
She accomplished something. He accomplished something.
But it's empty.
Just like prophet Muhammad Ali Sallallahu alaihi wasallam said. He said, you guys are going to be a lot, a lot like inside. It's like a shell, like a sea of the form of the sea.
Look at us today. We're everywhere, but are we together?
It's just like that empty shell.
I used to work at prison women Network, but volunteer prison women in prison in here in Washington state.
I never thought I would see a Muslim woman in prison.
We used to go there and eat, take some hijab, sit with them. They will cook food for us. And we sit with them all day long. They will decorate in a cafeteria and they will cook food and they will sit there and talk to them.
The things that these women talk about it.
And these are young women, some of them are not even Tories yet.
And they know Islam, but they were not taught Islam in prison.
Youth, juvenile, full of our children.
So yeah, sadly, unfortunately.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: How do cultural expectations like family involvement, gender roles, or modestly shape the way we approach relationships?
[00:40:51] Speaker A: Oh God.
[00:40:56] Speaker B: It's a loaded, frustrating.
[00:40:58] Speaker A: Yeah. First of all, in our culture, the gender role part is women are supposed to be taken care of in the household.
And believe me, when the gender role, I kind of like that in a way.
Even though when you look back our grandmothers and our mothers, even though they took care of the household, but they were also in the decision making tables, the men, somehow it seemed like those men, they were different.
They include the women in the decision making in the family because that generation, it seems like they were stronger than our generation.
But it never changed the gender role. It's always been women.
Even though she's educated, we were always told, your education is nothing.
Your job is to be a mother, to bring an ummah to the world. Of course, we're very proud to do that, by the way, because that is a job that Allah gave us and we're happy to do it.
And without us, they want to be da uma.
Yeah, we're happy to do it.
But the problem is when women are looked as second class citizen, you see, having to have a role as a woman, being adult, being at home, being a mother, being a nurturer, that's okay, that's fine.
I mean, when I had my children, I choose to be stay home mom with the career side for a minute and raise my children.
That's my choice.
[00:42:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:57] Speaker A: And we say men are hunters, you know, they go out and they do their thing and they bring.
But also that doesn't mean that they can't do anything inside the house as well. For instance, if he comes home, his wife is sick, he should help. You should get in the kitchen, help put the kids to sleep, do the dishes, do the things that he can do around the house.
Because motherhood in working from outside the house eight hours, it's not comparison, it's hard work, it's a job. There's the reason why a lot give us that. We can only do it because remember, men cannot multitask. I'm sorry to say guys, but they cannot. I have seen it before and I've talked about my friends and they all say the same thing.
You guys can, but just that's our job.
But I've seen it where man comes home and he's helping his wife and he was told, oh, he's sissy.
Oh, he's weak.
She did something to him. Black magic in our culture, by the way, that she got him in the kitchen. No, our prophet Muhammad Ali salatu salam.
He was a lion in the battlefield and he was an incredible husband.
Front of his wives. The point where one time, I remember one incident that happened in the Syria where Hafsa his wife send a dish, this is a very famous one too, to Aisha. While he was in Aisha's house and Aisha took the dish and she basically dropped on the floor.
Basically dropped it.
Muhammad was sitting with the sahaba, this hab. Their eyes just came out. They're like, oh my God, what he's about to do. He's about to slap her.
Why he didn't do that. He didn't yell, he didn't scream, he didn't throw fit.
He got up. He got up.
Not the lady who was supporting Aisha, the maid or whoever was it. He got up and he grabbed the dishes. While he was cleaning up, he said he made a comment that men need to listen all the time. He said, oh, look at your mother, Aisha, she's upset simply because just like that and he clean it up. That is on Prophet.
They will tell us to follow the Sunnah, but when it comes to them, the Sunnah itself, if they follow, there wouldn't be no gender ball to me because Prophet Muhammad was outside doing, taking Kenneth, being at work, being a general, being a conductor, being a judge, everything that men can be on top of that fighter battles but still come home. Even did his own clothing.
Can you believe that?
Now tell me today, in 2020, a man who came home from eight hours a day, I mean there are few, but not Allah will do that for their wife and come home if their wife is sitting there and then help them out and because they think, oh, it's not my job, I just came back from eight hour job, I'm coming home and even if she's sick, I'm not doing it, I'm going to stop to go get or I'm going to call Uber, eat that as a good guy. If not, he's going to call his mom and say, mom, she didn't cook food, can I come over? And she'd be like, yeah, son, come over, cook your sister Khalid made it extra, come get it.
[00:46:47] Speaker B: Weaponize religion and then like pip it out at the same time.
[00:46:51] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. They use it when it's convenience for them.
[00:46:55] Speaker B: What advice would you give to someone trying to. Trying to balance honoring their culture while still exploring love authentically?
[00:47:04] Speaker A: I repeat that. So we have to differentiate between culture and religion.
[00:47:09] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:47:10] Speaker A: Okay.
Islam is not a culture. Islam is a religion culture.
This is why I always tell people, even my own self, islam itself is enough for you. Yes, there is a culture, but I'm going to take what I can handle and what I think is reasonable from my culture and leave the rest there. Let's say we're living in a Western right now. They have their own culture.
Listen, I grew a time where pop music was mv, you know, all that stuff.
Did I listen to music? Yeah.
Did I still go from time to time?
Hell yeah.
But do I go all the way in every day?
[00:47:59] Speaker B: No.
[00:48:01] Speaker A: I like to listen to my Quran. I like to read my Quran. Do I like to read some articles sometimes, like the one you just mentioned to me. I'm gonna read that tonight.
That's not my culture. But I'm taking from the American culture, like Western culture.
So I'm taking that and I'm taking some from mine.
I like to eat, drink tea. That's a Somali culture, certain tea. That's my culture. I'm taking some from him.
[00:48:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:26] Speaker A: Some morning breakfast, like this morning, Algeria, which is Somali, Somali dish in the morning.
And some morning I go to Geraldinios, I have an American complete breakfast.
That's the Western culture.
So I'm taking some from here, some over there. But one thing that I will never dilute or never give to anything is my religion.
That will never. That's. That's a norm. That's not negotiable.
But the culture, take whatever you can and whatever you cannot when it comes to tribalism. For, for instance, I don't do that. I don't like it.
Yes.
[00:49:14] Speaker C: Holding.
Holding on to longing.
Holding on to nostalgia.
Holding on to home.
Holding on to grief.
Holding on to the memories.
Holding on.
Holding, holding on for your life.
Holding on to root.
Holding on to culture.
Holding your breath.
Holding on to faith.
Holding on to God.
Holding, holding for the future.
Holding, holding on to the Ummah one story at a time.
