Women surrounding the Messenger

Written By Omma Ahmed
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Women surrounding the Messenger by Muhammad Ali Qutb
Reviewed by Omma
📘📕📗📙

Learning about my religion will always be a lifelong process and this book definitely helped lend itself to that cause. Women are often misrepresented in the religion of Islam and this book is a starting point in explaining how important they actually were and all the different influences they had on the religion. Many showed strength, resilience and patience in some of the most difficult of times. It was also nice to learn more about the prophet Muhammad's (pbuh) wives with some even being described physically. I feel like it helped me identify and remember them more.

This book did take me a while to finish but that's due to the huge amount of content. It's something I'd recommend reading alongside something else as I only managed a handful of pages with each read. Another slight niggle might be the excessive use of punctuation at points. This didn't bother me so much since I was notoriously known for overusing the exclamation mark but it may put off other readers. Still a great read for both men and women to learn more about some of the inspiring women in Islam!

Omma Ahmed

I’ve always loved reading as a kid because it was one of the few Asian-mum approved hobbies although she would have preferred ‘less novels and more school books’! I also grew up in the Harry Potter era so that’s when I really remember falling in love with reading. (Big up my Y7 English teacher for reading a few pages of Philosophers stone at the end of every lesson! You were a real one Mr Williams!) I love being part of this book page (even though I slack massively due to lack of energy and concentration!) because sometimes it felt like a lifeline to help keep me sane. We started it during the time I was feeling really shitty about my Crohn’s disease. It’s been a tough 7 years and the last 3 have probably been the hardest especially mentally so when Linda suggested putting this page together, without hesitation I was down and I’m so proud of us! Writing reviews helped me to organise my thoughts and even resulted in me creating a second Instagram page (@AnOstomateForLife) about my Crohn’s journey. Yes that was a shameless plug and I’m not sorry! Along with reviews, I’ve also loved the creative side of things such as having input in our logo, creating our bookmark and taking book pictures even though it’s awkward af in public! So a few of my fave books: The Godfather by Mario Puzo (made me love the film even more! I’m a self-proclaimed movie buff too btw), Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Healy, The Harry Potter series (obviously), Jemima J by Jane Green, Moonlight over Manhattan by Sarah Morgan, Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple and We Should All Be Feminists Chimamanda Adichie.

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