Tackling Mental Health & Suicide in the Muslim Community | Ustadha Dr. Rania Awaad
Channel: Muslim Community Center - MCC East Bay
Date: 2023-03-06

Dr. Rania Awaad is a leading mental health expert on what roles the teachings of our Islamic faith play in the prevention of suicide, how a community should respond in postvention of suicide, how shedding a light on the importance of mental healthcare can uplift the community and provide critical resources to those who are struggling and their families.

- More from Dr. Rania: http://mcceastbay.org/rania
- More mental health talks at MCC: http://mcceastbay.org/mental-health

A recent study in the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) highlighted the fact that there are two times higher rates of suicide attempts among the Muslim population. 

This talk was delivered via Muslim Womens Alliance (MWA) on December 28, 2019. It was delivered at the Muslim Community Center - East Bay (MCC East Bay) in Pleasanton, California.

Ustadha Rania Awaad
Raised in the U.S., Ustadha Rania Awaad 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 Ijaazah (authorization to teach) several branches of the Shari’ah sciences at the hands of many renowned scholars, including many female scholars. She has received Ijaazah 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, and is on the faculty of Zaytuna College, where she teaches courses in Shafi’i fiqh, 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 conduct research on 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 currently serves as the Director of the Rahmah Foundation, a non-profit organization that teaches Muslim women and girls traditional Islamic knowledge. 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

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