“A woman’s life is not linear. There is a season for everything,” said Aalimah Sarah Ahmed at the Sept. 17 Rawdah event where she introduced her newly published book to the DMV. “A Light of Her Own” was published on Aug 1., 2026, addressing “the questions women carry, grounded in Islamic knowledge and a real understanding of how faith is lived through every season.”
The book is broken into four sections, each approaching a different aspect of a Muslim woman’s life. The first is the relationship with both the self and Allah, including discussion of spirituality and menstruation. The second explores relationships with immediate family, followed by the third section, which focuses on marriage. The fourth and final section of “A Light of Her Own” centers around the concept of legacy in Islam, motherhood, and daughterhood.
The event with Rawdah was hosted in UMD’s WeWork office space and connected young women to her book through a range of activities.
In the first activity, Ahmed split the more than 70 women into groups of nine, each covering one of the four major topics of the book. In her words, this grouping allowed them to “witness the book through the lens of their sisters and have them bond over subject matter.”
Groups were given a food-for-thought question to answer, with her instructions to “voice to your sisters and your group the heaviest thing you are carrying related to the optic that is in your circle,” creating a moment of vulnerability between the women in the groups, many of which had women of varying ages.
Many of the group’s discussions contained common themes of guilt and shame, along with the desire to strengthen their relationship with Allah. Nima Hired, whose group discussed the section on marriage, reflected on the Quranic verse which says “there are some who take others as Allah’s equal — they love them as they should love Allah.” (Quran 2:165) In this, she spoke about grappling with the desire to give and receive love, and the question “am I giving Allah his due love too?”
Ahmed responded to the sentiments expressed by the groups who discussed marriage, sharing advice and a new perspective on the pursuit of partnership.
“When you come into a marriage, you are going to start discovering pieces of you that were under deep layers. We are an entire world, in and of ourselves,” she said. “It is very hard to look in front of a mirror that your spouse is holding up to you.”
Another young woman at the event who requested to go by her first name, Esra, discussed her relationship with immediate family. She brought forth the perspective of “viewing everything as an act of worship,” even as daughters work to navigate the responsibilities to themselves and to their families.
Ahmed spoke in response to this topic as well, discussing the overlap in the relationships with oneself and with parents, and how such relationships consume much of our time and mental space.
“The moment you come into this world, you are already in a relationship. You are someone’s daughter. You have grandparents, maybe siblings. You get older and start to form friendships. All of these relationships fit together to complete the puzzle that is an individual,” she said.
Beyond just our relationships with those in this world, Aalimah Sarah focused on the first and most consistent relationship humans have, she said: the relationship with Allah.
“Before we even came into this world, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta’ala stood before all mankind and took a covenant from us. He asked, ‘Am I not your Lord? and all of us responded ‘es, of course, indeed.’” Ahmed said. “Oh sisters in Islam, as you get lost down the valleys of knowledge, don’t forget the purpose of the knowledge. It is supposed to help you get close to your Creator. Every relationship is supposed to be a door that when you get close to it and go through it, you get close to Allah.”
Where motherhood is concerned, the author of “A Light of Her Own” discusses the guilt-motivated thought: “Am I never doing enough?” To ease this intensity, she told the attendees of Rawdah that “the fact that you are concerned means you are a good mother. Be easy on yourself. It’s your first time being a mom.” She went further, discussing miscarriages in Islam and saying “Allah never takes, he only gives. The miscarriage is waiting for you on the Day of Judgement, and by the umbilical cord, will pull the mother to Jannah.”
This first activity was “wonderful,” Hired told Al-Hikmah. “I like how she explained what was in each group, and afterwards, added her own insight into each topic. I thought it was very beautiful.”
Raida Alvi, a mother of four and an attendee of the Rawdah event, found the sentiments shared in the discussion to be interesting, especially given that one of the most common themes she noticed was guilt.
“I feel women in general always live with a lot of guilt. Parents, especially mothers, just give, without expecting anything in return. I think this book talks about that, and I’m looking forward to reading it,” Alvi said.
In the second activity, Ahmed asked the sisters to turn to someone next to them and, without speaking, hold direct eye contact. After holding eye contact, they were asked to think of a moment where they felt deeply loved, seen, and appreciated, still in silence. They were then asked to think of a moment where they were hurt, and “with your eyes, convey to your sister that she is loved.”
“You could see the empathy in the eyes,” Alvi said.
The activity extended beyond the eyes; women hugged, held hands, or turned their bodies and leaned in to their sisters in Islam.
For Nima, this activity was the most emotional and thought provoking, bringing questions surrounding how to be present in relationships with other women. She made eye contact with her childhood friend, Faduma Aden, who said she had never looked at Nima with such depth and for so long despite being friends since they were five years old.
The Rawdah event ended with a book signing for “A Light of Her Own,” with many women taking pictures with, hugging, or stopping to speak to Aalimah Sarah and those around them.
Faduma said that while she initially didn’t know what the event was about, she found it “captivating, making you feel like you can be seen in whatever stage you are in.”
She was initially worried the event would be solely about marriage and children, she said, but the event and book felt different.
“[It felt like] no matter what stage you’re in, you have a space to talk about it and those hardships,” Faduma said.
Image credits: Cover photo by Khadija Sattar for Al-Hikmah.
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