Women's Weekly Halaqa: Navigating Contemporary Issues

Ustadha Dr. Rania Awaad holds a weekly women’s gathering on Friday evenings to discuss navigating contemporary issues. This program runs in parallel to the Friday night girls' halaqa. 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. | Every Friday from September 11, 2026, to May 27, 2026 (calendar TBA) |  MCC Conference Room | Free; no registration or RSVP required to attend in person | To join virtually, register at https://mcceastbay.org/zoom – More Dr. Rania: https://mcceastbay.org/rania – Watch past Dr. Rania’s Friday Night Halaqa (FNH) recordings: https://mcceastbay.org/womens-halaqa – Join Dr. Rania’s WhatsApp group: https://chat.whatsapp.com/HlHmFFnGbwvCvLl6uGD1C4 – The Rahmah Foundation's Holiday Calendar: https://mcceastbay.org/rahmah-calendar The FNH Fall session runs from Friday, September 19, 2025, to May 22, 2026, with no halaqas on the following dates: Friday, November 28, December 19, December 26, January 2, February 20 through March 27, April 3, and April 10. See calendar. Free weekly babysitting is provided in Room 23. Facility map: https://mcceastbay.org/facility-map Questions? [email protected] This women's halaqa is hosted at MCC and runs parallel to the girls & teens program in partnership with The Rahmah Foundation. Ustadha Rania Awaad was raised in the U.S. and began her formal study of the traditional Islamic sciences when her parents permitted her to travel to Damascus, Syria, at 14. Her desire to continue studying the Deen resulted in multiple trips back to Damascus, interspersed between her high school, college, and medical studies. She was honored to receive Ijazah (authorization to teach) several branches of the Shari’ah sciences at the hands of many renowned scholars, including many female scholars. She has received Ijazah to teach Tajwid in the Hafs and Warsh recitations from the late eminent Syrian scholar Shaykh Abu Hassan al-Kurdi. In addition to completing several advanced texts of the Shafi’i madhhab, she is licensed to teach texts of Maliki fiqh, Adab, and Ihsan. Currently, Ustadha Rania teaches online and local classes for The Rahmah Foundation, Rabata. She is on the faculty of Zaytuna College, where she teaches courses in Shafi’i fiqh and women’s issues in fiqh and has helped develop and co-direct the Tajweed and Hifz program. Ustadha Rania is also a medical doctor with a specialty in Psychiatry. She completed her Psychiatric residency and fellowship training at Stanford University, where she is currently on the faculty as a Clinical Instructor in the Stanford Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences department. Her medical interests include addressing mental health care concerns in the Muslim community- particularly that of Muslim women and girls. She has been awarded grants from the NIMH (National Institute of Mental Health) to research this topic and has presented her findings at several medical conferences. Other ongoing endeavors include compiling manuscripts addressing female-related mental health and medical issues from a fiqh-oriented perspective. She is the Director of the Rahmah Foundation, a non-profit organization that teaches traditional Islamic knowledge to Muslim women and girls. In this capacity, she also heads the Murbbiyah Mentoring Program, which trains young women to teach and mentor Muslim girls and teens. Ustadha Rania is both a wife and a mother; she has been counseling and teaching women classes on Tajwid, Shafi’i Fiqh, Ihsan, marriage, and raising children since 1999. Learn more about Dr. Rania and her work at http://med.stanford.edu/psychiatry/research/MuslimMHLab.html Every Friday evening, the MCC bustles with activity. MCC hosts four halaqas to increase God-consciousness for youth, women, and men. Join Dr. Rania Awaad‘s women’s gathering on navigating contemporary issues from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. This wide-ranging Muslimah halaqa is in the MCC Conference Room, and the first hour is live-streamed here (watch past sessions at https://mcceastbay.org/halaqa). This halaqa is organized in partnership with The Rahmah Foundation. Questions? [email protected] ⚠️ This is a recurring event (Every Friday from September 11, 2026, to May 27, 2026). Please check with Muslim Community Center of East Bay to confirm the schedule, as classes may be paused during holidays or special occasions.