Self-Help – The Islamic Library Association

Dream Du’a Do

Khalisa — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 17:11:18 +0000

A faith-based self-help guide for millennial Muslim women that combines humor, honesty, and heartfelt advice to help you live a bigger, more purposeful life. Through personal stories, inspiring examples, and practical exercises rooted in Islamic teachings, Ruzina shows readers how to DREAM boldly, deepen their reliance on DU’A (supplication), and DO the work to turn aspirations into reality.

Bigger Than Divorce

Khalisa — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 16:52:25 +0000

Offers faith-centered guidance for Muslim women healing after divorce. Through personal experience and practical steps rooted in Quran and Sunnah, the book helps readers release pain, rebuild confidence, and rediscover purpose beyond marriage. It shows that divorce isn’t an ending, but the beginning of a more empowered, spiritually grounded life.

Living with the Qur’an: A 52 week guide

Khalisa — Wed, 26 Nov 2025 17:25:23 +0000

A practical and inspiring year-long journey designed to help readers build a deeper, more consistent relationship with the Qur’an. Each week offers focused themes, reflections, and actionable steps that encourage mindfulness, spiritual growth, and meaningful application of Qur’anic teachings in daily life. Whether you’re new to Qur’an study or seeking to strengthen your existing routine, this guide provides a structured, accessible path to living with the Qur’an all year round.

L.E.A.D with L.O.V.E©: A Journey of Faith in Parenting Teens

Khalisa — Wed, 22 Oct 2025 15:17:22 +0000

The book L.E.A.D with L.O.V.E©: A Journey of Faith in Parenting Teens is a faith-based parenting guide that provides a spiritual framework for raising teenagers. The genre is parenting self-help/religious, offering a summary of strategies to build character, tackle problematic behaviors, and strengthen relationships with a focus on spiritual values, anti-bullying techniques, and managing media. Spiritual Foundation: The book aims to help parents establish a spiritual foundation for building character and resilience in their teens. Behavioral Guidance: It focuses on identifying and addressing common problematic teen behaviors, offering practical ways to soothe angry or troubled hearts and minds. Parental Support: The book provides emotional and spiritual support for parents as they navigate the challenges of raising teens, helping them to impart strength to their families.

What Did You Expect?: Lessons on Spiritual Honesty

Khalisa — Tue, 14 Oct 2025 23:35:40 +0000

A reflective and insightful guide on cultivating authenticity in faith and life. Through personal stories and practical wisdom, the book challenges readers to confront spiritual complacency, embrace self-awareness, and strengthen their relationship with God through honesty, humility, and sincere intention.

But Do You Feel Safe with Him? 10 Reasons Why Performing Femininity Never Works in Love

Khalisa — Mon, 13 Oct 2025 23:09:36 +0000

"From my earliest memories of childhood, anxious people-pleasing defined my existence," Umm Zakiyyah says. "It wasn't until my late thirties that I began to even process the meaning of self-care. After that, it took several more years for me to understand the meaning and necessity of self-love. But it wasn't until after my second divorce, when I was in my forties, that the concept of feeling emotionally safe held any meaning or significance for me at all." In this personal testimony, which is part memoir, part self-help, Umm Zakiyyah, internationally acclaimed author of If I Should Speak, His Other Wife, and Before You Become His Garment in Marriage, shares ten reasons why prioritizing being "feminine" as defined by the male gaze not only causes long-term harm to the woman herself, but also makes the experience of true, deeply felt love impossible. When this performative womanhood comes at the price of a woman's authenticity, it is a sign that the woman does not feel emotionally safe in her relationship. She says, "So often as women, we spend so much of our lives auditioning and performing for a man's heart, wondering if he'll be the one to finally choose us. It is only after years of this exhaustive tap dancing that we come to realize we should have focused on winning our own hearts and choosing our own selves."

Muslimah Mukallaf: The Muslimahs Guide to Puberty, Faith, and Personal Care

Khalisa — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 19:45:38 +0000

Muslimah Mukallaf: The Muslimahs Guide to Puberty, Faith, and Personal Care is an Islamic guide for young Muslim girls covering puberty, faith, and personal care, with genres including Islamic non-fiction, personal development, and health/hygiene. It provides comprehensive advice on managing physical and emotional changes, explains Islamic obligations for those who have reached puberty (mukallaf), and offers practical guidance on topics like hygiene, skincare, and dressing in hijab, all supported by Quranic verses and hadith

The Abuse Of Forgiveness

sanaazmeh — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 04:40:24 +0000

“You should forgive,” survivors of abuse and wrongdoing are constantly told. “Otherwise you’ll live with angry, bitter hearts for the rest of your lives.”

In this eye-opening book about forgiveness and emotional trauma, Umm Zakiyyah, internationally acclaimed author of Reverencing the Wombs That Broke You, shares the painful lessons she learned about forced forgiveness during her own healing journey. As she sought answers to how to deal with depression, suicidality, and emotional triggers, she was consistently told that forgiveness was the only path to healing. Eventually, the topic of forgiveness itself incited anxiety and emotional triggers. This painful experience inspired a spiritual journey that revealed to her the difference between true forgiveness and forced forgiveness. She also learned that pushing forgiveness as the price of emotional healing can be a form of manipulation, harm, and abuse itself.

What Did You Expect?

sanaazmeh — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 18:54:44 +0000

Our hearts are filled with so much hope as we walk our personal paths in this world. At times we are enjoying tremendous blessings that fill us with happiness and contentment. Other times we are facing difficult trials that leave us feeling disappointed, emotionally broken, and on the brink of despair.

In this timely book, internationally acclaimed author Umm Zakiyyah, asks her own struggling soul this provocative question, “What did you expect?” as she seeks to make sense of some of the most painful and confusing trials that we face in this world. Sometimes we respond with patience, other times with frustration, and still other times with seeking to change our spiritual reality itself. This, in hopes of getting what our hearts so ardently desire in this world. But is this what is healthiest for our lives and souls?

In this collection of reflective prose, Umm Zakiyyah gives us a glimpse into her own personal journey as she shares seven life lessons that continue to inspire within her spiritual honesty, particularly when life isn’t going as expected.

The New Muslim’s Field Guide

sanaazmeh — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 17:33:36 +0000

Winner of the 2019 Daybreak Press Book Award for Best Non-fiction Islamic Book, The New Muslim’s Field Guide is “like a welcoming hug in print. With heart and humor, Theresa and Kaighla lead converts through the thickets and around the quicksand, sharing tips and loving advice. From name changes and marriage proposals to deeper subjects such as humility and the seeking of knowledge, these ladies who have been there offer real talk.”

This is not your average “Welcome to Islam!” book. The New Muslim’s Field Guide offers a fresh approach to guiding Muslim converts, focused on helping them grow as Muslims while maintaining their identity and love for God.

Drawing on their shared decades of experience, Theresa and Kaighla walk the new Muslim through the hills and the valleys they’ll encounter on their journey, helping the newcomer navigate the sometimes slippery cliffs of culture, politics, and interpersonal relationships.

Injected with a healthy dose of humor and candor, The New Muslim’s Field Guide discusses some of the deeper meanings behind belief and ritual, clarifies common sticky issues, and tells stories of triumph and failure on the journey of Islam.