Yaqeen Podcast

"Does Islam permit a man to hit his wife?" Islam condemns domestic violence, and a woman is never required to stay silent in the face of abuse. So how do we make sense of Quran 4:34, the verse Muslim women often wrestle with? Yaqeen scholar Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and host Cadar Mohamud start with a key principle in the Islamic legal tradition: marriage never erased a woman’s independent legal identity. She owns property, enters contracts, and can take her husband to court when she is harmed. Dr...

Most people believe what the people around them believe, and Muslim children are no exception. A child who watches a parent jump up from the dinner table because a prayer is about to pass learns that Allah is real in that house. A child who watches prayer times come and go learns something too, and eventually concludes that their parents never really believed it either. Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy talks about how the need to belong is human nature, and that a Muslim community should put it...

Sudden death is a sign of the Hour, and nearly everyone says they would choose it: to go peacefully in their sleep. The pious predecessors wanted an illness first, with time to repent, make their will, and seek forgiveness. When Aisha (ra) asked the Prophet ﷺ about sudden death, his answer depended on who was dying. Find out what he said in the full episode. Dr. Omar Suleiman’s answer to a world where death arrives without warning is urgency without panic: hurry to good deeds, visit t...

For over 1,400 years, one clan has guarded the most important key in history. And ironically, it reached them through a man who once rudely denied the Prophet ﷺ entry into the Ka’bah. But even as his own parents vehemently opposed the Prophet ﷺ, Uthman ibn Talha (ra) inched closer to Islam. His excellent character in escorting a Muslim woman (ra) to safety, and his joining two other great Companions as they finally headed to Medina to accept Islam, became turning points in his life.&nb...

You were still in your mother’s womb when all of this was already written for you by an angel: your rizq (provision), your lifespan, your deeds, and whether you will be among the blessed or wretched. So does it matter what you do with your life? Can you still change your destiny? What kind of plot twists might still happen at the end of an apparently good or evil life? And how deep are the risks of getting involved in bid’ah (innovations) in the religion? “Anchored: 40 Hadith fo...

Hosting guests at home has become rare. Most of us have friends we’ve known for years and never had over. We meet at cafés and restaurants, keep up in the group chat, and save our homes for some day when the house is clean and there’s time to cook. That day rarely comes. Sh. Mohammad Elshinawy argues in this khutbah that the feast is part of the problem. When hosting means a week of cooking and a table nobody can finish, the guest feels the weight of it, the host dreads doing it again, and t...

"The angels curse her until morning." Yaqeen scholar Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and host Cadar Mohamud discuss a hadith that has been used to make Muslim women feel that intimacy is a debt they owe rather than something mutually built. Dr. Alkiek reads the narration alongside the tradition's own record of a wife's sexual rights, including the case of Abu al-Darda (ra) and the men called home from campaign for their wives' sake, and explains the classical legal principle of ta'assuf fi istiʿmal al-ha...

NOTE: This lecture discusses Islamic teachings about the trials of the end times, including the prophecy that people will wish for death. It is a discussion of Islamic eschatology. Nothing in it is encouragement toward self-harm. If you are struggling with despair, hopelessness, or thoughts of harming yourself, please contact Naseeha Mental Health for free, confidential, faith-sensitive support. Call or text 1-866-627-3342 or visit https://naseeha.org. — A narration says that b...

Abdullah ibn Sa'd ibn Abi Sarh (ra) was honored with writing the revelation down as it came to the Prophet ﷺ. Then he left Islam. He returned to Mecca and claimed he could tamper with or forge the Qur’an himself. It was the worst lie one could tell, and Allah (awj) responded in Surah al-An’am, ayah 93. The punishment set for him was severe, even amidst the general amnesty in the conquest of Mecca. Dr. Omar Suleiman traces how a man whose apostasy was answered by revelation came ...

Manners are not the polish on top of a religion. In the framework Abdullah ibn Mubarak used, faith sits inside five concentric walls. Certainty at the centre, then sincerity, then the obligations, then the prophetic practices, and manners as the outermost wall of all. The order matters, because the outermost wall is the one that gets breached first. Lose your adab and the sunnah starts looking optional; lose the sunnah and the obligations start slipping; lose those and whatever ...

A narration says that before the Hour a year will pass like a month, a month like a week, a week like a day, and an hour like a burning leaf. Ibn Hajar (rh) gave three reasons for it, and the first was that the barakah of time had been removed. Dr. Omar Suleiman on what disappears first when time stops being blessed. Find out what he says the first casualty actually is, and the one thing he guarantees will give time back. 0:00 - When time starts losing barakah 2:43 - A year like a mon...

Six months after 9/11, 25% of Americans said Islam encourages violence more than other religions. 25 years later, that number is 51%. The hostility did not fade with time. It grew. And it grew in a country where Muslims buried their own dead from that day, where Muslim first responders ran toward the towers, and where a generation has now spent its entire life answering for a crime committed by 19 strangers. On the 25th anniversary of September 11th, Sh. Omar Suleiman takes the question Ame...

Should you seek Islamic knowledge? Work for Big Tech? Get involved in politics? Make hijrah? Use AI? These are some of the complicated questions that shape the decisions Muslims have to make every day, as students, professionals, parents, community members, and even in their personal worship. And answering them starts with reflecting on the foundation of everything we do in life: intention (niyyah). After introducing us to the great scholar Imam an-Nawawi (rh), Sh. Mohamm...

What does it take to really fix a broken heart, relationship, and community? Are we making du’a to Allah to fix our lives, while neglecting the actions He wants us to take because they are uncomfortable? It’s easy to skip to the conclusion that your situation isn’t fixable. It’s more difficult, but honest, to remember that nothing fixes itself. Dr. Omar Suleiman explains the power Allah has given us to work to fix our problems, while always trusting Him with the best outc...

He mocked the Prophet ﷺ publicly for years, shouted him down at his dying uncle's bedside, and died a martyr fighting for him. Abdullah ibn Abi Umayyah (ra) believed long before he ever came forward, certain he was beyond forgiving. He was turned away once. Find out what his sister said that changed it. Watch a previous episode of The Firsts to learn more about Abu Sufyan ibn al-Harith (ra): https://yqn.io/52wq 00:00 - Why the redemption stories get harder from here 02:10 - Who Abdullah ibn...

The Prophet ﷺ said he did not fear poverty for this ummah. He feared wealth, and he feared what abundance without barakah does to a community. A man would be handed a hundred dinars and still not be satisfied. People would stop asking where their money came from. One companion walked away from wealth that was even 10% doubtful. Find out why. Dr. Omar Suleiman traces the hadith of the end times about wealth in Signs of the Hour Ep. 15: greed placed in the hearts, the collapse of the question ...

Imam Ahmad (rh)’s best mornings, he said, were when they told him there was no flour left in the house. An empty shelf reminded him Who had been filling it every other day of his life. Most of us run that instinct in reverse. The bank balance drops and we quietly conclude that Allah is withholding out of displeasure. What must we remember about our rizq when it seems to stop flowing? How can Muslims reframe financial anxiety, job loss, and deepening debt as opportunities? And what doe...

You may still be alive tomorrow, but this version of your life won’t be. Your body will change. Your circumstances will change. Your children will grow older. Your parents may not always be here. The person waiting for your apology may eventually stop waiting. So what happens to all the good we keep telling ourselves we’ll do later? The call we keep meaning to make. The apology we keep putting off. The time we assume we’ll have with our parents and children. The charity we tell ourselves w...

Shaytan never told Adam and Hawwa (as) to disobey Allah. He told them the forbidden tree was something else: shajarat al-khuld, the tree of eternal life. A good tree. The command never changed. Only the name did. The Prophet ﷺ warned that this technique would come back at the end of time as one of the signs of the Hour, and it's stranger than it first sounds. It isn't about a generation that stops believing in halal and haram. It's about a generation that keeps both categories perfectly inta...

Our attention has become one of the world's most valuable commodities—and we're paying for it in ways we rarely notice. In this Focal Point, Imam Tom Facchine explores how the attention economy grew from a simple business model into an industry built to capture our focus, shape our habits, and keep us distracted. More importantly, he asks what all of this means for Muslims trying to live with presence, purpose, and khushoo'. This episode looks beyond social media addiction to the deeper spi...