Riada Talks to Madinah Javed on Female Reciters of the Qur'an - Part 1

Dignified Resilience with Riada Akyol

It was such a great pleasure to welcome Madinah Javed in this episode! Madinah Javed is a law graduate, writer and peace activist living in Glasgow, Scotland, with a particular interest in human rights. She is also a qariah – reciter of the Quran – and is working towards reviving the sacred tradition of female Qur’an recitation. She set up the #femalereciters campaign on the social media – raising awareness of Muslim women’s voices – in this tradition of recitation but also more broadly. I was truly excited to have her on the podcast, and we have been planning this since the month of July – but with scheduling, prep, research and some obligations we both had, we just got together now. In the meantime, we deepened our connection, friendship and sisterhood in this bonding process around something we both care about. I so much admire the resilience with which Madinah promotes the dignity of fellow Muslim women – towards greater – and more just - spiritual fulfillment that women deserve and which actually belongs to them. We started the conversation with Madinah's short but beautiful recitation of the Qur'an, and then dived into such a candid conversation on her personal background and how the campaign started, followed by an enriching conversation on theology and similar obstacles that women of other religion often face as well. We addressed many issues related to culture, spiritual fulfillment, even healing and health, as well as different reactions of Muslim and non-Muslim people to Madinah's efforts from around the world. I hope you enjoy both this first and then the second part of the conversation I had with Madinah. This podcast episode, like all else, was envisaged as a space in which valuable knowledge and beneficial information is shared, in an environment that is intimate, genuine and authentic. I think that you'll feel all of it yourself while listening, and don't forget to check out the part two of this conversation as well!