‘Wardah Bangladesh’ presented an international webinar by Muslim professional women from different parts of the world on the 10th & 11th April. Moderators were from Bangladesh Rokhsana Akhter Rupee & Nahila Hedayet. Speaker from Malaysia was Fathiha Johan; from South Africa Roshan Isaacs; from UK Saeeda Ahmed , Safya Khan, Fahmida Ashiq, Marta Maryam Rozsa, Nadia Leona Yunis & Hajra Khan; from USA Nusrath Mohammed and Aydha Mehnaz from Paris were participated in the two days dialog. They talked on the topic ‘Inspiration to be fit, confident and go’ from the Islamic perspective, which basically came out as a halal-modest practising lifestyle for them.
The first day session went over women empowerment highlighting the importance of understanding and practicing true Islam. The panel discussed how much proper Islamic knowledge is important for Muslim women to identify their true worth/potentials, gain self-confidence, build resilience becoming the part of solution but not of problem, and develop themselves as positive role models to help their children grow as proper human beings. One of the guests stated that if a woman can manage home finance and daily household chores, the same skills can be directly transferable to manage her profession at the same time.
The session also discussed the necessity of self-development, time management, research, learning of and from others with a positive mind as only institutional degrees or education is not enough for success in life. The session identified confidence that derives from practical experience, willpower, intellect as well as from the belief that Almighty Allah always has our back. The session ended up with highlighting Al-Quran as the complete manual of living for all humans.
In the 2nd day session, the panels were keen on this unique & holy lifestyle that it did not mean losing personality, talent, skills and individuality, which are all important to retain. A couple of moral values came out of the two days discussion, as every woman should begin by self-coaching themselves and asking, ‘how can I inspire and motivate myself to be fit, confident, and go achieve success in all areas of my life?’
It starts by knowing why you were created – your ultimate purpose – which is to worship God alone – and then each of us are gifted with unique talents and abilities which form our unique purpose and it must align with our ultimate purpose. We nurture our skills, talents, and abilities, and master them and by repeating them we gain confidence that we can achieve and do something. We grant our self-care time to really get to know ourselves and what our identity is because as women we are given many roles in life – daughter, wife, mother, career woman – and we lose our self in each role and forget our trueness. Women surround ourselves with like minded sisters so we have a community for accountability and to help coach us. We allow ourselves to learn from our failures and mistakes as life is a journey and not the destination. All this applies in all areas of our life including work life.
Don’t compare self-success to the level of someone else’s, women are growing and developing at a different pace with different goals. This may lead you to chasing someone else’s idea of success and losing sight of your own goals and definition of what success is to you. Don’t be despondent when you aren’t able to or by the means to obtain a heavy weighted degree to get you ahead in a career or life; education can be obtained everywhere, you only need to rely on the Almighty to guide you. Have patience. Trust your journey.
We all should focus on our worship and give its due rights. A significant message pointed there which is ‘Allah’s Laws are Divine! It says, “A woman’s wealth is hers alone, no one has the right over it until she voluntarily gives it”. Therefore be careful on what we Muslim women are signing up for ourselves’.
The event by HalaCosmetics.Co was powered by Daraz and in association with The Daily Star. Media Partners were respectively CANVAS, Channel-i, Dhaka FM 90.4, Halal Focus & ICE TODAY. Symon Imran Hyder, the official business partner of ‘Wardah Cosmetics’ in Bangladesh thanked all speakers and partners for their enormous support and hoped for the next one with a bigger phenomenon in near future.
