modest and fabulous
UNICA JANUARY 2015 £
STYLE
RAMADAN AROUND THE WORLD
THE
RAMADAN ISSUE QAWWALI: THE ESSENCE OF MY HEART
AN UNDERCOVER MUSLIM IN AMERICA
YASMIN MOGAHED: HOW TO FROM THE HEART CALIBRATE WITH YOUR IMAN
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Editor’s Page Double Page Spread highlights The Ramadan Issue Finding A Hijab Style that flatters your face shape is easy Basma K shows you how 10 things to do before you die
Interview feautring Yasmin Mogahed An Undercover Muslim in America
Tips on how to focus on your prayer QAWALLI: The essence of my heart
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Editor’s Letter
BEAUTIFUL. YOUNG. FREE.
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In our persistent efforts towards attainting a self-actualised presence, we may sometimes confuse material good to be of sustance to our soul
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t wasn't a long time ago that we ushered 0in the 1,434th Islamic new year. And now here we are,already looking forward for Ramadan. Time sure flies when you are having an amusing time – we hope that you are having that kind of year. In our persistent efforts towards attainting a self actualised presence, we may sometimes confuse material goods to be of substance to our souls; they say shopping can be salutary for this very reason. But that kind of frivolity is not going to reverberate with our spirit in this long term. That is why we love Yasmin Mogahed who shows us a way towards life of real, timeless meaning using the message of islam, delicately. Hodan Hasna chats with the author and speaker in from the heart. A truly blessed part of Ramadan is Sahur, the pre-fasting meal. In this time of reflection, we feel incredibly blessed to be able to spread the world of Islam and share the lifestyles of Muslims thesedays, for practising and non- practising Muslims likewise, as well as our non-Muslim friends and family.It is worth remembering that we will always have way to do better. With that heartening thought in mind, I would like to take this moment to say 'thank you very much' for believing in us. Wishing every one of you a blessed and peaceful ramadan!
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AVON
RAMADAN 2015
GLOBAL SNAPSHOTS
2015
Ramadan AN AURA OF SPIRITUAL TRANQUILITY ENVELOPS US THIS MONTH, REMINDING US OF OUR BONDS AND HELPING US TO RENEW OUR FAITH Busy families find the time to savour two meals together each day, Staple Ramadan dishes make their appearance on the table, for years afterwards a bite of these foods will bring back fond memories of childhood fasting.
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Ramadan gives us the opportunity to be able to renew the bonds we share with other human beings and our creator. We put our social life on hold while we seekto reconnect with God, spending our nights and dawns amindst a special calm of melodies from the Qu’ran.
The fourth pillars of Islam offers a chance for us to be as good as we can be. As Muslims everywhere seek to heighten our spiritually during Ramadan, our hands and hearts extend to those around us, whether friends or friends-to-be, inviting them to share elements of our roots, experience the flavours of our heritage, and join in our family traditions.
In our 8th annual spotlight on how Muslims commemorate the holy month around the world, Unica Style readers across 5 continents share their favourite of, and hopes for Ramadan.
In our 8th annual feature of this sacred moment in time. Our readers share their cherished ramadan memories, showcasing the diversity of islam’s global congregation.
RAMADAN KAREEM! Page 4
FIND YOUR FACE SHAPE!
The square Face
Now, if you have a square face with a strong, heavy jawline, checckbones and forehead (ie similair-looking to an ‘action-man’, then again you are going to want to keep your scarf loose under the chin to create those feminine folds and flows in your scarf. By pinning the scarf ) tightly underneath your chin, you are just going to accentuate that jaw even more framing the scarf around your forhead in a rounder shape (but still keeping the forehead is view) will ‘ovarise’.
Finding a hiJab style that flatters your face shape is easy! Basma K shows you
The Heart-shaped Face
how...
you have a lovely wide forehead and a teeny thing chin that gives off a ‘tweety bird’ face. In my own personal opinion, this is a beautiful shape to have. However, you many sometimes have the problem of a ‘disappearing’ chin at times! Not to worry – for your hijab styles, try not to add too much volume with folds and layering at the back and sides of your head; you already have that width naturally. By pinning your hijab under the chin, framing it right at the edges of your jaws, you’ll probably give off a bigger jawline/chin look. This will even out your face proportions. Another trip that will look extra good on you is to make a point with your scarf at the top of your forehead – trust me, it will really suit you. But then again, so will showing your whole forehead – so feel free to enjoy the choice you have!
Decide which style is your most favourite and you are most inclined towards, be it modernistic and contemporary, casual/normal , traditional, hippie, edgy, etc. Then try to find some examples of that style, be it in magazines, TV shows, fashion shows or photo galleries, to really get to grips with it, to really understand it.
Face Shape Quiz So, we will start of with naming the most common face shape: oval, square, round, rectangle and heart-shaped. I know that all these face shapes may sound ‘weird’, and you most likely would never have considered them before. If so you’ll need to do a mirror analysis to determine your face shape. The Oval Face
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Is the widest part of your face... - Cheeckbones - Forehead - Jawline
Does the length of your face look... - Longer than it is wider ( even if its only slightly)
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So, we wil start of with naming the most common face shape: oval, square, round, rectangle and heart-shaped. I know that a l these face shapes may sound ‘weird’, and you most likely would never have considered them before. If so you’ll need to do a mirror analysis to determine your face shape.
Is the width of your
face... - Average - Narrow - Wide
The Rectangle Face
So, we wil start of with naming the most common face shape: oval, square, round, rectangle and heartshaped. I know that all these face shapes may sound ‘weird’, and you most likely would never have considered them before. If so you’ll need to do a mirror analysis to determine your face shape. Page 5
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Is your chin... - Pointed - Rounded - Square/Flat
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10 Things To Do Before You Die
Donate part of your savings to charity All the blessing and wealth we have in this world are temporary and merely on loan from our Creator. How we use and SHARE our blessings to those in need illustrates our devoution.
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he list is endless, but here are some things especially important for a Muslim to take care of before you go.
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Read the entire Qur’an Try to read the whole Qur’an at least once. It’s not about how quickly you do it, but the quality and consistency of your recitation, and how deeply you internalise its meaning.
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Perform the pilgrimage
If you have the means, opportunity and GOOD HEALTH, go for Hajj at least once in your life – it’s one of the five pillars!
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Engage i n volunteer work Connect with a non-governmental organisation in your community, such as a soup kitchen, and give of your physical energy and time to help a cause.
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Travel to the three most sacred mosques For Prophet Muhammad reportedly said: “Set out deliberately on a journey only to three mosques: this mosque of mine [in Medina], the Sacred Mosque [in Mecca], and al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem].”
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Perform Tahajjud
These OPTIONAL night prayers are much lauded because it’s a time when no one sees you. Make it a weekly or monthly activity and let yourself sink into the humility of a servant connecting with her Creator.
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Help out at a funeral
In times of loss, help out a close friend or family. Try to learn how to wash the deceased or perform the funeral prayers – you’ll gain a feeling of closeness to Allah (swt) as death reminds you of the short time you have in this world.
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Set out deliberately on a journey only to three mosques; this mosque of mine (in Medina), the Sacred Mosque (in Mecca), and al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem)
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Travel the world
Seeing the world helps you broaden your worldview and perspectives. It makes you feel grateful for every blessing, test and calamity that might have come your way.
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“Set out deliberately on a journey only to three mosques: this mosque of mine [in Medina], the Sacred Mosque [in Mecca], and al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem].”
7 Sponsor an orphan
Join a reputable relief agency and sponsor an orphan for just £30 to £50 a month. It’s not much to you, but it means so much more for the child’s development
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Smile and give salaam Make it a habit of spreading kindess and greetings from one sister to another - even though you may be complete strangers. The world needs more warmth and friendliness, and this can be a good START.
YASMIN
MOGAHED
FROM THE HEART
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he speaks of Islam, sympathetically, spreading its message of love and heartening Muslims to better themselves from the inside out. Hodan Omer caught up with the author and speaker during her recent lecture tour of Stockholm, Sweden. Her name makes a frequence appearance on social media. Her words are often sincere and inspiring. She has speaking engagements around the world and only just published her first book, Reclaim Your Heart. She shares her thoughts on faith, belief and connection to Allah with Unica Style.
Q: Hodan Omer: There seems to be synchronicity between your approach and the way new-age thinkers talk about life. Is that a pathway you envisaged for yourself?. Yasmin Mogahed: I think that, as soon as I started getting more invested in my Islamic identity, I always focused on that aspect. I always focused on the spiritual aspect – that was always the fascination. And, to me, that was the path that I wanted to take, which is, to clarify, the path of seeking Allah SWT through internal purification. That internal purification affects how you act externally.
I have been interested in the soul and in the heart and in the connection with
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God
I think that the desire for seeking God is in all of us. That is something we call fiqra. Fiqra means the human nature. Allah SWT created all human beings with a particular nature, and one glimpse at that is from the Qur’an, where Allah SWT says that, even before the souls were put on this Earth, He gathered all the souls together, of all people, including the atheists and the agnostics, Christians and the Jews, and He said ‘Am I not your Lord?’ And all the souls took a covenant: ‘Indeed we bear witness’.
Someone wants to believe but they don’t – have you ever experienced someone telling you that? I have actually. Shortly after graduating from college, I started a class for nonMuslims about Islam, and there was actually one person in that class who, that’s precisely what his issue was. He called himself agnostic but he was seeking, and inside of him he actually wanted to believe, but he didn’t.
So there is a part of every human being that has taken that covenant with God and acknowledged that He is the one and only God. So it’s something I think is already in us, but a lot of us have it covered up with other things we ran after in life. You have completed a psychology degree.
I always focused on that aspect. I always focused on the spiritual aspect – that was always the fascination
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Did you go in with the desire to understand how people think and what moves us?
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Did it come to you as a revelation or was it something that was always in you and came to you in another form?
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Photo by Hodan Omer
don’t connect with our Creator through anything else. It’s through the heart and so the heart needs to be connected to the Creator in order for everything else to become rectified. In order for our actions to become rectified, our hearts need to be connected to the Creator.
I think I’ve always been fascinated with that. When I started to become more practising, I would say, it was around the time I was 13, and since then, I have been interested in the soul and in the heart and in the connection with God. The reason that we need to focus on these things is because it is by the heart that we connect with our Creator. We
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Isn’t that already a form of belief, though? Well it isn’t exactly, he still had the doubts. So my advice to him was actually based on what Allah tells us in the Qur’an. I told him to actually pray. So even though he wanted guidance and he wasn’t sure, but I told him to pray for guidance. And Allah tells us in the Qur’an that whoever strives towards him, God will guide him. And eventually he actually became Muslim.
Do you ever feel a connection to other ideas, such as reiki, and seek synchronicity between them and Islamic ideas? Yes, and I actually met a sister recently who studied reiki, and essentially it is, and I don’t know enough about it, but there’s something called ruqqiyah, and ruqqiyah is based on the sunnah. So I would say to that question – and it’s really the answer to the broader question of what do I accept from other ideologies, what do I accept from other cultures and what do I reject – and the answer to that, across the board, is that I always measure it based on the criteria that I have, which is the Qur’an and the sunnah.
And so if anything comes, and I measure it based on that criteria, and if I find that it does not contradict, then I can accept it. But if I find that it contradicts, then I reject it. And that’s the way we interact with any ideology, with any concept, with any culture.
How much of Yasmin Mogahed the public figure is you, and do you compartmentalise aspects of your life? That’s a really good question and I think, for me, it really is all of who I am. Even in my writing, even in my Facebook posts, even in what I talk about – when I’m sitting with my family and even if I’m talking in a lecture, it’s pretty much all the same. It isn’t like I have a certain persona at home and a different one on the stage. But the same things that I’m concerned about when I’m talking one-on-one with a friend are the same as what I’m talking about in an audience of 10,000. Because for me there’s this holistic journey that I feel like we’re all on, and I don’t see it’s compartmentalised at all. For me, my focus on a personal level, on a public level, on a societal level, is all the same, and that is my individual, and all of our individual, relationships with God.
Do you find non-Muslims respond to you and your work? I think that there has been a very good response to the book, even from nonMuslims. I’ve had actually some people contact me who are not Muslim. One woman contacted me and she was saying how the book really helped break a lot of the false images of Islam and Muslims that she had from the media, and it showed that inner softer side of what’s the core of our faith, which is the relationship with the Creator. So there was a very good response in some of the reviews; there are people who are not Muslim who were still able to benefit. And I think the reason for that is it is a universal message. At the end of the day, every prophet brought the same message, which is ‘Oh, my people, worship the one true God. You have nothing else worthy of your worship but Him’. And they all said this to their peoples. It’s very simple but at the same time profound in that it completely changes the way you live and the way you see the world, and it is something that will appeal to all people because, as I said, it’s already in each individual.