Sisters: Join our esteemed panel of speakers for a three-hour session to prepare for Ramadan.
Dr. Rania Awaad opens the session followed by three simultaneous sessions: Maliki Fiqh with Ustadha Mona Elzankaly, Hanafi Fiqh with Ustadha Shaista Maqbool, and Shafi Fiqh with Ustadha Dr. Rania Awaad.
After a short break, the program resume with a special session on nutrition and exercise in Ramadan with Holistic Health Coach and Prophetic Tibb Student Iman Salam, of Afiya Live Well.
10 a.m. to 1 p.m. | Sunday, April 11 | Free for Women Only | Register at mcceastbay.org/ramadan-ready
Sponsored by The Rahmah Foundation & MCC East Bay
Ustadha Mona Elzankaly
Born in Cairo, Egypt and raised in Southern California, Ustadha Mona Elzankaly graduated from the University of California, Riverside with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Mathematics in 1994.
In 1998 Ustadha Mona began seeking sacred knowledge at the Zaytuna Institute in Hayward CA. She later traveled internationally seeking sacred knowledge. She has studied under many eminent scholars such as Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Shaykh Khatri, Shaykh Abd Allah b. Bayyah, Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi, Shaykh Salik b. Siddina, Imam Zaid Shakir, Habib Umar b. Hafiz, Habib Ali al-Jifri and other scholars from Syria, Yemen and Egypt.
Ustadha Mona obtained different Ijaazahs in Tajwid, different books of hadith, Aqidah, and Maliki Fiqh. In 2008 She completed the four-year Zaytuna Seminary pilot program and received a baccalaureate degree in Islamic Studies. In 2014 she completed a four-year Islamic Shari’a program at al-Azhar University in Cairo Egypt.
Ustadha Mona began teaching in 2002 both privately and publicly. She has taught for Zaytuna Institute, Sisters Deen Intensive, Dar al-Zahra, The Rahmah Foundation and Meadows of al-Mustafa. She currently teaches at The Rahmah Foundation FOH program, and Nur al-Iman an Islamic studies program for ladies.
Ustadha Shaista Maqbool
Ustadha Shaista was born and raised in New York, America. She started her studies as a teenager in Queens, New York. She then travelled to Damascus, Syria where she spent ten years studying Arabic along with a range of other religious sciences such as Fiqh, Seerah, Tafseer, Hadith and ‘Aqeedah. Ustadha Shaista was blessed with the opportunity to study with some of the most illustrious scholars of our time such as Shaykh Samir Al-Nass, Shaykh Adib al-Kallas, Shaykh Muhammad al-Jum’uah, Shaykh Mazeen Bakeer and Shaykh Na’eem al-Arqsusi. She is licensed in tajweed from the late Shaykh Abul-Hassan al-Kurdi (may Allah have mercy on him).
She has studied the Shafi’i and Maliki schools, though her specialty is in the Hanafi school.
She is an expert in the Fiqh of menstruation in the Hanafi school (known to be one of the most difficult chapters in fiqh) which she would teach in Syria to other Arab students as well as the wives of her shuyukh.
Ustadha Dr. Rania Awaad
Rania Awaad, M.D. is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine where she is the Director of the Muslim Mental Health Lab and Wellness Program and Director of the Diversity Clinic. She pursued her psychiatric residency training at Stanford where she also completed a postdoctoral clinical research fellowship with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Her research and clinical work are focused on the mental health needs of Muslims. Her courses at Stanford range from teaching a pioneering course on Islamic Psychology, instructing medical students and residents on implicit bias and integrating culture and religion into medical care to teaching undergraduate and graduate students the psychology of xenophobia. Her most recent academic publications include an edited volume on “Islamophobia and Psychiatry” (Springer, 2019) and upcoming texts on Islamic Psychology (Routledge, 2020) and Muslim Mental Health. She has also produced a toolkit, fact sheet, CME course, and is now editing a clinical textbook on Muslim mental health for the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Awaad is particularly passionate about uncovering the historical roots of mental health care in the Islamic intellectual heritage. Through her outreach work at Stanford, she is also the Clinical Director of the San Francisco Bay Area branches of the Khalil Center, a spiritual wellness center pioneering the application of traditional Islamic spiritual healing methods to modern clinical psychology. She has been the recipient of several awards and grants for her work. Prior to studying medicine, she pursued classical Islamic studies in Damascus, Syria and holds certifications (ijaza) in Qur’an, Islamic Law and other branches of the Islamic Sciences. Dr. Awaad has also served as the first female Professor of Islamic Law at Zaytuna College, a Muslim Liberal Arts College in Berkeley, CA where she taught courses on Shafi’i Fiqh and Women’s Fiqh and Qur’anic sciences for nearly a decade. In addition, she serves as the Director of The Rahmah Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating Muslim women and girls. At Rahmah, she oversees the Murbiyyah spiritual mentoring program for girls. Dr. Awaad is a nationally recognized speaker, award-winning teacher, researcher and author in both the Islamic and medical sciences.
Follow her on Instagram at Dr.RaniaAwaad
More Dr. Rania: https://mcceastbay.org/rania
Iman Salam
Iman Salam is a practicing Nutrition Consultant, Holistic Health Coach, and a student in Eastern Medicine. She thrives on creating the ideal health plan to meet wellness goals. While living in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, she received a Diploma in Preventative Health & Nutrition, Executive Master’s in Preventive Health and Nutrition, and became a certified Health Coach as well as a certified Personal Trainer. Living abroad helped give her a broad outlook on the role wellbeing has on our lives.
Her philosophy embraces the sacred traditions of wellness, revolving around living well, being well, and eating well. She truly believes the key to success is being mindful of one’s wellbeing. Her aim is to help folks navigate between foods that heal and foods that harm. She loves teaching others the fun and ease in being able to understand how each individual body works. She has developed a wellness program that promotes insightful health and sustainable actions to achieve the best self. Learn more about her https://www.afiyalivewell.com
Questions? events@mcceastbay.org