Amar Razali

Assalamu'alaykum Warahmatullah Wabarakatuh,

Today I went to Tennessee Technical University (TTU) in Cookeville, TN which is about an hour and a half drive from Nashville with Dr. Awadh Binhazim, his wife and also Sister Maha Elgenaidi, President and Founder, Islamic Network Group (ING) that based in San Jose, CA. Olive Tree Education and Islamic Network Group were organizing a joint event for Center Stage Presentation at TTU with the topic "Role of Women in Islam: Myths and Realities."

We left Nashville around 4:20pm and Alhamdulillah, arrived safely at Roaden University Center where the event was held around 5:45pm. I gave a hand to help set up the place, and this time I made sure that we have enough copies of the Qur'an translation for our audience who might be interested to read the Qur'an. May Allah open the hearts of those who read His Glorious Book to accept Islam. The event started around 6:00pm.

Dr. Awadh Binhazim gave introduction of Sister Maha, who is the founder and President of the Board of Directors, of the Islamic Networks Group (ING); a commissioner on Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante's "Commission for One California"; Commissioner on Santa Clara County Human Relations Commission, appointed by Supervisor Jim Beall; Advisor to California's Commission on Police Officers Standards & Training (POST) for hate crimes and cultural diversity training; and former Co-chair and Vice-chair of the Bay Area Hate Crimes Investigators Association (BAHCIA).


From there, Sister Maha continued the presentation. First she gave a brief introduction about Islam, the basics of this religion, the pillars, Muslims in America, and etc. Then, she continued with the topic of Role of Women in Islam. Wallahil'azim, although I have attended some lectures about Women in Islam, I think this time was so far the best. Sister Maha is very knowledgeable, and she understand and delivered the materials very well. She is very eloquent and has full of confidence. Masha Allah, I think she did a very excellent job! I wish Olive Tree Education has a sister who can speak and gives presentation like her.

The lecture took around 50 minutes, then we have questions and answers session. We received a lot of questions and responds from the audience, and I noticed that they were amazed with Sister Maha. Maybe they did not expected a Muslim woman like Sister Maha could give such a great presentation, knew a lot of things and has a lot of knowledge on what she was talking about. After around 30 minutes of questions and answers session, we have a dinner and around 9:00pm, we left TTU campus with a feeling of great accomplishment. Alhamdulillah rabbil 'alameen!


Sorry, this time I couldn't record the lecture, because ING has a strict policy on recording the lecture. I am not even sure whether I can have the slides presentation to share with you guys. But anyway, certainly, if we would like to organize any event on Islam, we should try to consider speakers from ING group. They have been established since 1993, and have a lot of experienced and good speakers within their group. I enjoyed this presentation, and hopefully people who attended the presentation will have better understandings about women in Islam, how we honor our women, and how they have played such a great role in the world that we are living in.

By the way, all 30+ copy of Qur'ans that I brought, were all sold out!

Oh, want to see more photos of tonight's event? See at the photo gallery.

Wallahu ta'ala a'lam.