For Girls & Women Ages 12+: Join our panel of distinguished speakers and guests for a gathering of hearts in remembrance of our Beloved Prophet (peace and blessings upon him): Shaykha lesha Prime, Ustadha Hosai Mojaddidi, Ustadha Shamira Ahmad, Anse Nihad Hammoudeh, Ustadha Mona Elzankaly & Ustadha Dr. Rania Awaad.

Saturday, Sept. 16 | 5 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. PST | MCC Prayer Hall & Conference Room | Women & girls only, ages 12+ | In-person only (no live stream/recording) | Free, RSVP Required | Register at https://mcceastbay.org/celebrate

No children under 12. No babysitting is provided. 

Event Schedule:

• – 5 p.m. – Opening remarks by Dr. Rania Awaad (Prayer Hall)
• – 5:10 p.m. – Quran recitation with Anse Nihad Hemmoudeh (Prayer Hall)
• – 5:20 p.m. to 5:40 p.m. – Ustadha Hosai Mojaddidi (Prayer Hall)
• – 5:45 p.m. – Asr prayer and tea break (Prayer Hall & Banquet Hall)
• – 6 p.m. to 6:20 p.m. – Anse Nihad Hemmoudeh (Prayer Hall)
• – 6:20 p.m. to 6:40 p.m. – Ustadha Shamira Ahmad (Prayer Hall)
• – 6:40 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. – Shaykha lesha Prime (Prayer Hall)
• – 7:30 p.m. Maghrib (Prayer Hall)
• – 7:45 to 8:30 p.m. – Mawlid program moves into the Conference Room (not in the Prayer Hall)

Sponsored by The Rahmah Foundation & MCC East Bay.

• – More talks in partnership with The Rahmah Foundation: https://mcceastbay.org/rahmah-foundation
• – More Dr. Rania: https://mcceastbay.org/rania
• – More Ustadha lesha Prime: https://mcceastbay.org/prime
• – More Ustadha Hosai: https://mcceastbay.org/hosai
• – More sessions for Muslimahs: https://mcceastbay.org/women

Questions? events@mcceastbay.org

About our speakers:

Ieasha Prime is the Director of Women’s Programming at Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center in Virginia and the DC Muslim Women’s Conference founder. She converted to Islam more than 20 years ago after being a Youth Ambassador to Morrocco and Senegal. There she developed a thirst for knowledge that would cause her to sit at the feet and learn from some of the top Islamic Scholars of our time. After participating in several circles of knowledge in the US, Ieasha pursued religious studies abroad. She studied Arabic and Quran at the Fajr Institute in Cairo, Egypt. Later, she moved to Hadramaut, Yemen, and enrolled in Dar al Zahra, an Islamic University for Women. There she studied Aqeedah, Quran, Hadith, Arabic, Jurisprudence (Fiqh), Islamic law, Purification of the Heart, and other religious-related learning. She has received several scholarly licenses (ijaza). The work that she is most committed to and enjoys has been the development of Islamic programming, Islamic Studies curriculum, and Rites of Passage programs for youth and adults. The majority of her life has been spent as an educator and activist. She is most passionate about combining Islamic studies, cultural art, activism, and service to train leaders to rise above whatever challenges stand in their way and that of the community they serve. In addition to her full-time work, she is the co-founder and Executive Director of Barakah INC, an organization committed to training Muslim women in traditional Islamic sciences with a focus on modern application. Sister Ieasha is recently known for participating in the National Women’s March and the courses she teaches on traditional knowledge, the challenges of race and gender in the Muslim community, and Spirituality. Ieasha Prime is a proud wife and mother of three children.

Ustadha Dr. Rania Awaad, M.D., is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She is the Director of the Muslim Mental Health Lab and Wellness Program and the Director of the Diversity Clinic. She pursued her psychiatric residency training at Stanford and 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 study 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), Islamic Psychology (Routledge, 2020), and an upcoming text on Muslim Mental Health. She has also produced a toolkit, fact sheet, and 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. Before studying medicine, she pursued classical Islamic studies in Damascus, Syria, and holds certifications (ijaza) in the 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 the Islamic and medical sciences. Follow her on I/T: Dr.RaniaAwaad

Ustadha Hosai Mojaddidi is the co-founder of MH4M (www.mentalhealth4muslims.com), a site dedicated to providing mental health-related content tailored to the Muslim community. She has served the American-Muslim community for over 20 years as a spiritual advisor, mental health advocate, writer/editor, mediator, interfaith organizer, and public speaker, covering a variety of topics, including women’s issues, marriage/family, youth/teen issues, education, self-development, interfaith bridge building, spirituality, etc. She currently offers monthly self-development and spiritual wellness classes with MCC East Bay Masjid and regular educational workshops for students and teachers at local Islamic schools. She also provides periodic talks throughout California and nationally for the Muslim community on various topics. She enjoys reading, writing, blogging via social media, doing arts and crafts, visiting gourmet coffee shops, and exploring the countless beautiful beaches and state parks throughout California, where she lives with her husband and two sons. Learn more about her at http://hosaimojaddidi.co

Ustadha Shamira Chothia Ahmed: Born and raised in California’s Central Valley, Shamira Chothia Ahmed is passionate about educating and empowering Muslim women to reach their highest spiritual potential through acquiring sacred knowledge.

Having graduated as valedictorian from a large public high school, her studies led her — following a brief soul-searching stint at Georgetown University — to seek sacred knowledge from scholars on three continents — Africa, Europe, and Asia.

Ustadha Shamira began her journey in seeking sacred knowledge at the women’s Dar-ul-Uloom Mu’eenal Islam seminary in South Africa and completed the five-year intensive ‘alima programs at Ja’mia Al-Imam Muhammad Zakariyya, one of Britain’s first and most renowned Islamic universities for women. Thereafter, she continued her Arabic and Qur’anic studies in Damascus, Syria where she obtained an ijāzah in Tajwīd of the Ḥafṣ recitation from the late eminent Syrian scholar, Shaykh Ḥasan al-Kurdī.

In 2005, Ustadha Shamira taught Hanafi fiqh for women at the Zaytuna Institute in California and since then has taught various Islamic sciences in venues across North America. In 2008, she earned a Master’s Degree in Demographics and Social Analysis from the University of California at Irvine, focusing on the identity formation of the Muslim-American population.

In 2013, Ustadha Shamira specialized in the detailed rulings of menstruation, lochia, and abnormal discharge under the direction of Mufti Abdur Rahman Ibn Yusuf Mangera and assisted in compiling Imam Abu Hanifa’s Al-Fiqh al-Akbar Explained.

As a wife and mother of five children, Shamira has a passion for empowering women in their childbearing years to gain closeness to their Lord through her spiritual birth consultations and virtual doula services.

Ustadha Shamira is a co-founder of the Rahmah Foundation and currently teaches for Nur al-Iman, a full-time girls shariah program with Ustadha Mona Elzankaly based in the Bay Area.