Surah Ale Imran (Family of Imran 3:6) هُوَ ٱلَّذِى يُصَوِّرُكُمْ فِى ٱلْأَرْحَامِ كَيْفَ يَشَآءُ لَآ إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ٱلْعَزِيزُ ٱلْحَكِيمُ ٦ He is the One Who shapes you in the wombs of your mothers as He wills. There is no god ˹worthy of worship˺ except Him—the Almighty, All-Wise.  Surah Ale Imran (Family of Imran 3:7) هُوَ ٱلَّذِىٓ أَنزَلَ عَلَيْكَ ٱلْكِتَـٰبَ مِنْهُ ءَايَـٰتٌۭ مُّحْكَمَـٰتٌ هُنَّ أُمُّ ٱلْكِتَـٰبِ وَأُخَرُ مُتَشَـٰبِهَـٰتٌۭ فَأَمَّا ٱلَّذِينَ فِى قُ

Surah al Baqarah (The Cow 2:147) ٱلْحَقُّ مِن رَّبِّكَ فَلَا تَكُونَنَّ مِنَ ٱلْمُمْتَرِينَ ١٤٧ ˹This is˺ the truth from your Lord, so do not ever be one of those who doubt. Surah al Baqarah (The Cow 2:163) وَإِلَـٰهُكُمْ إِلَـٰهٌۭ وَٰحِدٌۭ لَّآ إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ ٱلرَّحْمَـٰنُ ٱلرَّحِيمُ ١٦٣ Your God is ˹only˺ One God. There is no god ˹worthy of worship˺ except Him—the Most Compassionate, Most Merciful. Surah al Baqarah (The Cow 2:255) ٱللَّهُ لَآ إِلَـٰهَ إِلَّا هُوَ

By: Raya Shokatfard A person who has made his/her declaration of faith in Islam has entered a blessed and honored stage unlike any other in this world. A bright white path, free of past sins and delusions has just emerged in the new life and a world of wonder and much unknown at the horizon. How does one move forward in faith and maintain a strong relationship with God and face challenges that new Muslims may encounter? With certainty, the new revert has willingly chosen this

By: Raya Shokatfard I would like to remind you about the importance of Fajr prayer, the dawn prayer. This is the time that a person gets closer to the Creator. Praying in this time is a blessed time; and after praying reading the Quran and pondering upon the Book of Allah (SWT). This blessed time is so important, not only we have to read the Quran, but also we have to understand it. To understand it, we have to seek knowledge from other books, the books of Tafsir or concordan

By: Raya Shokatfard Part 1 We talked in the last episode about the creation, how it happened, and how Adam and Eve erred and disobeyed God’s commandments, and how they basically had to leave Paradise, but it was not something that just happened by accident. We understood the role of Satan and how he from his jealousy, he disobeyed God to bow down to Adam when God created him; he was expelled, and he also caused Adam and Eve to be expelled by tempting them to disobey God and e

By: Raya Shokatfard Part 2 Today I feel honored to talk with you. I feel like I want to talk about something very important, some very sensitive issues when it comes to new Muslims who have embraced Islam, whether just recently or within the past few years. I know that there are many challenges ahead, or you already have faced some challenges, and I know I faced some of it myself while I was living in the United States, whether it was from the close circle of friends and fami

By: Raya Shokatfard Today I would like to talk about traps of Satan (shaitan) for new Muslims. What are the traps of Satan for new Muslims? First of all, to begin with, in the majority of the cases a person comes to Islam because they have investigated, they have researched, maybe they come from another religion after they realized that the other religion may not have all the truth, it may have some of the truth, but not all the truth. They come to Islam, they research, they

By Raya Shokatfard Driving through the streets of Ashland, Oregon in 2010 and just days before Christmas, with all lights and decorations as far as I could see and visit stores, I had an incredible sensation that words cannot express. I was there on a visit after five years. It was only a few years ago that my kids and I looked forward to these colorful days to buy gifts, decorate our Christmas tree and wait for the magic moment to open our presents. It seemed as if this time

By Raya Shokatfard Born and raised as a Muslim in Iran until the age of 22, I finally had my unimaginable dream come true. I was about to travel to California to study and complete the process of family migration to the US that took us about 15 years to complete — a dream that I never thought would come true; living in my dreamland with my family and having all the freedom I did not have in my homeland: Iran. When we left Iran in 1969, it was still somewhat secular under the

By: Raya Shokatfard When I see the creations of Allah, it reminds me how great Allah is. We see the sky… the sky is up there without any pillars, and in the sea the ships can sail without any help just with the wind, following the direction of the wind. The bird flies on its own just with the wings, and plants are all green providing us oxygen. Everything is so organized and Allah knows what is best for us; that’s the beauty of Allah, because He loves us so much; He provides