Mommying While Muslim

Our 9/11 special was featured by Fireside this month as one of the most compelling episodes of the year. For those who don’t know yet, Zaiba & Uzma host Breakfast Byelines weekly and WOC Book Club once a month on this innovative app that can best be described as “Clubhouse married Facebook Live.” Don't miss out on Fireside, but if you don't want to check out another app, get the recordings by joining our Patreon!

This recording was our inaugural episode on Fireside, when amazing panelists and audience members shared their collective experiences and heartaches about the historic date that made or broke a lot of us. Find them all using the links below.

if you haven't left a review of the podcast yet, do it and help others find Mommying While Muslim. Better yet, share the episode link with 3 friends today. 

Warning: expletives on this episode, so you might not want to listen with the kids.

Links:

1. Join Mommying While Muslim on Breakfast Byelines every Friday at 11am EST: https://f.chat/4zXJ. If you can’t attend live, no worries! The recordings are posted on our Patreon every week for members for as little as $5/month so you’ll never miss an episode! https://www.patreon.com/mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast 
2. Find King of the World Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/king-of-the-world/id1581471980 
3. Find Shahjehan Khan: https://www.shahjehankhan.com/ 
4. Find The Free to Be Show by Cordelia Gaffar: https://www.cordeliagaffar.com/free-to-be-show-podcast 
5. Follow and find Stephanie Mcgann-Jantzen on Fireside: www.firesidechat.com/stephaniemcgannjantzen 
6. Follow and find Victoria Medina on Fireside: www.firesidechat.com/victoriamedina 
7. Follow and find Kris Kosach on Fireside: www.firesidechat.com/kriskosach 
8. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com
9. Email: [email protected]
10. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group
11. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast
12. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w 

Did you know you can send us a text? Feedback, questions, or recommendations welcomed!

Support the show

1. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com

2. Email: [email protected]

3. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group

4. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

5. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w

Aisha Mshood joins us today as a mom who fostered to adopt and continues to foster children in America in hopes of building the family of her dreams. Her commitment to her children is awe-inspiring, as is her COMPLETE reliance on and in Allah SWT during a process that is not easy. From catfishing to fostering, to all the blocks falling into place just when they needed to be to be called “mom,” Aisha is a resource for anyone who has considered all the reasons not to foster or adopt…..we only need one reason to do something good, y’all. 

Please remember to pray for ease for Aisha and her family so that all the kids in her care get the best possible in this world and the next. Ameen.

Links:

1. Omicron updates: https://www.newsweek.com/lack-booster-uptake-risk-us-surpasses-100000-cases-omicron-1656789 
2. Muslim Foster Care Association: https://muslimfostercare.org/
3. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com
4. Email: [email protected]
5. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group
6. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast
7. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w 

Did you know you can send us a text? Feedback, questions, or recommendations welcomed!

Support the show

1. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com

2. Email: [email protected]

3. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group

4. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

5. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w

Cultivating Families out of Texas has this core belief: when all faith communities care for foster and adopted children, NO CHILD WILL BE LEFT TO NAVIGATE LIFE ALONE. This really resonated with us and Executive Director and Rev. Amy Becezny and Board member Sarah Haider Alam of CF are on today to share their journeys of adoption, but more importantly, a lot of the challenges that come with building a family through adoption. These challenges can break a mom in the making before she even lifts off, unless she has faith, and to that end, CF brings together families of faith to fulfill their dreams of closeness to God as well as to serve His creation as he commands. The spiritual development of our children is as important as their physical and emotional safety, and this is why we mom every day. 

Listen to some of the domestic and international requirements for adoptio, common questions that come up specifically for Muslim considering either path, and get inspired.

Links:

1. Find out how Project Nimbus in Israel is a violation of human rights and civil liberties: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-google-and-amazon-workers-demand-to-cut-ties-with-israel-s-project-nimbus-1.10290462 
2. Sign the petition so we don’t have to boycott Amazon and Google! No Tech for Apartheid: https://www.notechforapartheid.com/ 
3. Cultivating Families: https://www.cultivatingfamilies.org/ 
4. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com
5. Email: [email protected]
6. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group
7. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast
8. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w 

Did you know you can send us a text? Feedback, questions, or recommendations welcomed!

Support the show

1. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com

2. Email: [email protected]

3. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group

4. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

5. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w

As co-founder of @muslimfostercare, Ranya Shbeib knows how to address deficiencies in the community. Namely, Muslim families licensed for foster care to take care of the 405K American children in need of fostering. There are only just over 13K licensed foster homes in America as of 2020. Do the math!

​

​With the current discussion about Afghanistan and states gearing up to receive hundreds of unaccompanied refugee minors, Americans of all faiths are stepping forward to help and "adopt." Slow your roll, folks. There are laws, protocols and people's lives at stake, not to mention so many children in America who are also in the system right under our noses.

​

​It's not just about feeling good about ourselves for doing the right thing; it's also about what needs to be done for the children at the center of it all, regardless of where they're from. Ranya clarifies all that today and tells us what the Muslim Foster Care Association in particular is doing to advocate, assist and support families embarking on this critical sunnah.

Links:

1. Muslim Foster Care Association: https://muslimfostercare.org/ 
2. Repercussions of Rittenhouse verdict:
    
   1. https://time.com/6122142/kyle-rittenhouse-verdict/ 
3. 
   
   1. https://www.npr.org/2021/11/19/1057422329/why-legal-experts-were-not-surprised-by-the-rittenhouse-jurys-decision-to-acquit 
4. 
   
5. The Hague Convention on Refugee Minor Adoption: https://www.unhcr.org/3bd035d14.pdf 
6. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com
7. Email: [email protected]
8. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group
9. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w 

Did you know you can send us a text? Feedback, questions, or recommendations welcomed!

Support the show

1. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com

2. Email: [email protected]

3. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group

4. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

5. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w

Dr. Alia Irshad, pediatrician and adoptive mom, joins us today to talk about some of the hindrances to domestic adoption for Muslim parents, and the process of going international as she did. The process is demystified for us today, and her personal experience is the happy ending we want for every child of every faith and background. Let’s address some of the problematic beliefs the Muslim community has about adoption, and reveal the religious stipulations of adoption for our non Muslim audiences. 

Dr. Irshad is a wealth of knowledge and expertise on her experience as well as on the rights of orphans in Islam, the mandate by Allah SWT Himself and the sunnah we are SO SLOW to fulfill, but ask about 4 wives and everyone wants to fulfill that sunnah! Check out the resources she’s collected for us and you won’t be sorry.

Tune in at 6pm EST on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts OR visit our website. Link in bio.

Links:

1. Contact Superintendent Pantoliano to say ‘thank you’: [email protected]
    
   1. Sample text available
2.  
   1. Or call at 201-945-7747 to leave a message.
3.  
4. Adoption Agencies providing services for Moroccan adoptions
    
   1. New Beginnings: https://www.new-beginnings.org/adopting-a-child-from-morocco-faqs/
5.  
   1. Hopscotch: https://hopscotchadoptions.org/pages/morocco.html
6.  
7. Religious recommendations at 
   1. Yaqeen Institute:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0BidbbUScc
   2. Wise Muslim Women: https://www.wisemuslimwomen.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/WISE-UP-Adoption.pdf 
8. Muslim Adoption Network: https://www.muslimadoptionnetwork.org/
9. Muslim Foster Care Assocation: https://muslimfostercare.org/
10. Want to help but can’t foster or adopt:
     
    1. Bloom Charity: https://bloomcharity.org/
11.  
    1. Islamic Relief Sponsor an Orphan: https://irusa.org/orphans-and-children/ 
12. 
    
13. Adoption reading: https://adoptuskids.org/?r=u
14. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com
15. Email: [email protected]
16. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group
17. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast
18. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w 

Did you know you can send us a text? Feedback, questions, or recommendations welcomed!

Support the show

1. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com

2. Email: [email protected]

3. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group

4. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

5. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w

Monica Traverzo talks to us about being a Puerto Rican Muslimah, and how her intersectional kids are being raised in their PaliRico (@mon.del.tra is trademarking it) Arab Latino household. Her points on ethnic, cultural and religious pride should be listened to on repeat because they’re so simple, yet so many Muslim Americans miss the mark on these. What is the point of parenting Muslim children in America anyway? Let’s revisit that, too. Common interactions with Muslims, though, is what breaks our hearts more when we hear it from a convert’s POV. We can do SO MUCH BETTER!

Take aways include “convertible names” (@zaibathasan is trademarking that one), the secret ingredient to mommying all the kids while doing all the things, and how NOT to act or what NOT to say when someone looks visibly Muslim and has a “non-Muslim sounding name.” Spoiler alert: There’s no such thing as a non-Muslim sounding name! C’mon y’all!

Tune in at 6pm EST on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon Music, ask Alexa, or click the link in our bio to land on our website directly onto our “Listen” button. Tell your friends!

Links:

1. For more information about the Salam Girl! Podcast: https://www.salamgirl.com/
2. Find Monica on IG: @mon.del.tra
3. Find Salam Girl on IG: @salamgirlpodcast
4. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com
5. Email: [email protected]
6. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group
7. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast
8. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w 

Did you know you can send us a text? Feedback, questions, or recommendations welcomed!

Support the show

1. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com

2. Email: [email protected]

3. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group

4. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

5. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w

Hazel Gomez of Muslim Power Building Project joins us today to talk about Latinos at the forefront of social justice in America. As leaders in the movement for change, Latina Muslims especially are culturally endowed with assets and experiences that lend them towards success. She’s a great reminder of history and how Muslims have always been a part of social and political change in America, such that no movement is for any one people; we are all touched by the othering of any community. Her anecdotes are sure to tear your hearts out and make you want to fight the good fight. 

Find out how to get active and effective, the necessity of allyship for and by Muslims from all backgrounds, as well as current projects Hazel is organizing both locally and nationally, WITH a bun in the oven masha’Allah. The work doesn’t stop, y’all. We aren’t a complacent people per our faith tradition, and the time to get educated and involved is always. Si se puede habeebti (yes we can [Spanish] my love [Arabic]).

Tune in at 6pm EST on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, your smart TV or ask Alexa. Subscribe and share the link with 3 friends!

Links: 

1. Blue Wolf mass surveillance of Palestinians and civilian databasing in Israel: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20211116-from-pegasus-to-blue-wolf-how-israels-security-experiment-in-palestine-went-global/ 
2. For more information about the Muslim Power Building Project: https://www.lavoice.org/muslim-power-building-project/
3. Dream of Detroit: https://dreamofdetroit.org/ 
4. Believers Bail Out: https://believersbailout.org/ 
5. 21 Faith Leaders to Watch in 2021: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/21-faith-leaders-watch-2021/ 
6. History of the Prophets Volume I Suzanne Haneef: https://kitaabun.com/shopping3/history-prophets-islam-suzanne-haneef-p-1081.html 
7. Email Hazel: [email protected]
8. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com
9. Email: [email protected]
10. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group
11. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast
12. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w 

Did you know you can send us a text? Feedback, questions, or recommendations welcomed!

Support the show

1. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com

2. Email: [email protected]

3. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group

4. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

5. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w

Sakinah Gutierrez, co-founder of IslaminSpanish @islaminspanish discusses her journey to provide Islamic resources in Spanish besides just a translation of the Quran. Her media vision for the community is leaps and bounds ahead of what masjid boards consider mashaAllah, and we want her knowledge shared with the WORLD. Learn about her conversion story, her calling, raising her intersectional kids, support systems, and the work of el Centro.

​

​There are all kinds of herstory lessons here: past, present, and future. Tune in at 6pm on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, ask Alexa, or go to our website and share with 3 friends who’ve never heard about a masjid and cultural center like this one.

Links:

1. IslaminSpanish: https://www.islaminspanish.org/
2. Contact your Representative for Uyghur human rights. Click “Contact your member.”
3. ISPU study on Latinos and Islamophobia: https://www.ispu.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/ISPU-Infographics_1_WEB.pdf?x46312 
4. Read Everything is Figureoutable by Marie Forleo from Sakinah’s favorites list.
5. Sancocho recipe: https://antojandoando.com/recetas/sancocho/. Cook it and send us pics! 
6. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com
7. Email: [email protected]
8. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group
9. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast
10. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w 

Did you know you can send us a text? Feedback, questions, or recommendations welcomed!

Support the show

1. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com

2. Email: [email protected]

3. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group

4. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

5. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w

Eva Martineau, Afro Latina of Mexican and Haitian lineage and nurse midwife, discusses persistent racial disparities in birth care that traumatize primarily minority populations in America. Find out why this researcher didn't stop at stats, but collected degrees as she decided to set the stirrups straight and serve her community to prevent further harm to future generations. She's taking names and kicking false stories we tell about birth in the...well, take a guess.

​​​We've touched on birth work as a social justice movement in the past, but never like this! Hear how poor healthcare affects Latina Muslimahs and their children, get mad and get busy fixing it.

​Tune in at 6pm EST on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon Music, ask Alexa, or head over to our website landing page. Link in bio. Share the episode with childbearing Latinas that you know, Muslim or not.

Links:

1. Follow Eva on IG: @reclaiming_luz
2. Who are the Inape?: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-native-new-yorkers-can-never-truly-reclaim-their-homeland-180970472/ 
3. Learn more about the Papa Doc regime in Haiti: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210420-50-years-after-papa-doc-haiti-democracy-still-work-in-progress 
4. Immigration is a Birth Justice Issue: Considerations of Health in the Haitian Refugee Crisis: https://pretermbirthca.ucsf.edu/news/immigration-birth-justice-issue-considerations-health-haitian-refugee-crisis
5. Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Pregnancy-Related Deaths — United States, 2007–2016: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6835a3.htm
6. Pregnant Hispanic women's views and knowledge of prenatal genetic testing: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jgc4.1383
7. Maternal Mortality in the United States: A Primer: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-brief-report/2020/dec/maternal-mortality-united-states-primer
8. Analysis of State-Level Immigrant Policies and Preterm Births by Race/Ethnicity Among Women Born in the US and Women Born Outside the US: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2778205 

Did you know you can send us a text? Feedback, questions, or recommendations welcomed!

Support the show

1. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com

2. Email: [email protected]

3. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group

4. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

5. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w

Shownotes:

There have been a lot of new listeners recently, and we thought, what better way to give them an intro to the podcast than to provide a montage of our top 5 most downloaded episodes? If you’ve already heard these, you’re ahead of the game, but take a listen to this production to see what the common theme is. Lucky guesses what your fellow listeners prefer to tune into every week?

Tune in every Thursday 6pm EST on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music or ask Alexa. You can always just go to our website listed below and take a listen, but don’t forget to share the khair with 3 friends. And if you’re new to the podcast, catch up on past episodes!

Links: 

1. Read the PATRIOT Act if you have a lot of time or just really want to get mad: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-107publ56/pdf/PLAW-107publ56.pdf
2. Read the Countering Islamophobia bill proposed by Reps. Omar & Schakowsky: https://omar.house.gov/sites/omar.house.gov/files/OMARMN_042_xml.pdf
3. Find your Representative’s contact info to send an email/letter of thanks: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
4. Representatives co-sponsoring the Countering Islamophobia bill:

Omar, Schakowsky, Bass, Bowman, Carson, Correa, Dean, Dingell, Eshoo, García (IL), Green (TX), Grijalva (AZ), Jacobs (CA), Jackson Lee, H. Johnson (GA), Jones, Kim (NJ), Lowenthal, C. Maloney, McGovern, Newman, Norton, Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Pascrell, Payne, Phillips, Pocan, Pressley, Rush, Sires, Tlaib, Watson Coleman, and Williams

1. #5 favorite episode: FEB 18, 2021 SEASON 2 EPISODE 52 “Exploring Sex & Intimacy with Islamic Spiritual Perspectives”
2. #4 favorite episode: SEP 09, 2021 SEASON 2 EPISODE 28 “Queer Muslim Moms”
3. #3 favorite episode: SEP 16, 2021 SEASON 2 EPISODE 29 “Queer Muslim Kids”
4. #2 favorite episode: FEB 13, 2020 SEASON 1 EPISODE 49 “Islamic Perspectives on Sexual Intimacy”
5. #1 favorite episode: SEP 10, 2020 SEASON 2 EPISODE 30 “Spiritual Sustenance with Secrets of Divine Love”
6. Our Website: https://mommyingwhilemuslim.com/
7. Facebook: Mommying While Muslim
8. Instagram: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

Did you know you can send us a text? Feedback, questions, or recommendations welcomed!

Support the show

1. Web: www.mommyingwhilemuslim.com

2. Email: [email protected]

3. FB: Mommying While Muslim page and Mommyingwhilemuslim group

4. IG: @mommyingwhilemuslimpodcast

5. YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrrdKxpBdBO4ZLwB1kTmz1w