She Qualified in Damascus Through Dua | Shaykhah Ruqayyah Samsodien | Rooted Ep 9

Shaykhah Ruqayyah Samsodien flew to Damascus at eighteen and hung a sign around her neck in the dormitory that read, in bubble letters, "I don't speak English" — so that nobody would speak to her in it, and she would be forced into Arabic.

She came home an alimah.

In this episode of ROOTED, Shaykh Irshaad Sedick sits with one of the very few fully qualified female scholars in South Africa: a hafizah at thirteen, the only girl in a full-time class at a time when that was not done; a graduate of Abu al-Nur and of al-Fath University in Damascus, where she sat before Shaykh Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti (Allah have mercy on him) and Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi; a student of Shaykh Abu al-Hasan Muhy al-Din al-Kurdi, from whom she took her ijazah in the Quran directly; and today the director of Baseerah Institute in Cape Town.

We trace the whole road: her mother's dua in 1984 for a child who would carry the Quran; the afternoon in 1996 when Shaykh Muhammad Yusuf Booley called her parents in; fifteen juz in the first year; Damascus, the dormitory, the matrons, and a wish made as a child at the grave of Abu al-Darda (Allah be pleased with him) that was answered on a cobblestone road; being called in to the Muslim Judicial Council before coming home and told not to try to change Cape Town in one go; and the Mauritanian mahdarah that now sits with her students in Arabic.

Her chain, from Al-Tanzil's Database of Sanad Holders, is drawn on screen: from Ibrahim al-Ubaydi down through the Hulwanis and Shaykhah Anisah Mayyas to her.

And the line the episode closes on, to every girl who never thought this was open to her: "But now the road is open. We have paved the way. It's now only for you to take it, in sha Allah."

ROOTED is Isnad Academy's interview series on how authentic Islamic knowledge is transmitted — teacher to student, in an unbroken chain back to the Prophet ﷺ — and why that matters in an age of unvetted online content.

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CHAPTERS

0:00 Cold open — "I don't speak English"

0:26 Salam, and who she is

3:18 Shaykhah or Muallimah? The title question

5:18 Her mother's dua, 1984

5:54 The afternoon Shaykh Booley called her parents in

8:32 The only girl in a full-time class

12:25 Shaykh Muhammad Yusuf Booley

17:30 Fifteen juz, and the simplicity of that time

21:12 Damascus at eighteen — and the sign around her neck

22:52 Fusha, ammiyyah, and learning to speak

24:32 al-Fath University, and Shaykh al-Buti

31:56 Abu al-Darda and the cobblestone road

34:16 Damascus now, and what the people need

43:16 The dorm, the matrons, the discipline

45:27 "You're the only one who knows who they are"

47:30 Called in to the MJC before coming home

49:20 The ijazah, from Shaykh Muhy al-Din al-Kurdi

50:30 Jamiyyat al-Qurra and Dar al-Naim

51:20 Shaykh al-Mishri and the Mauritanian mahdarah

53:00 Baseerah Institute

56:50 What the women are studying now

59:10 Islamia, the imtihan, and the overseas option

1:02:30 What is being lost

1:07:30 Her ijazat and her shuyukh

1:09:10 The Damascus teachers

1:10:30 Sayyid Ahmad al-Kaf and the Yemeni line

1:11:30 Shaykh Hasan al-Khadim

1:14:26 Taking directly from the scholars

1:16:12 The noor that comes with it

1:20:15 To the girl who never thought she could

1:21:20 Imam Shafi'i: "he narrated to us"

1:22:30 "Now the road is open"

Terms explained on screen: hifz, huffaz, juz, ijazah, isnad, sanad, qurra, tajwid, fusha, ammiyyah, nahw, sarf, muallimah, shaykhah, alimah, mahdarah, talaqqi, takhrij, amanah ilmiyyah, and more.

Sources shown on screen: Al-Tanzil Institute, Database of Sanad Holders: Cape Town (10th print, 2021), p.62 and p.216; Imam Shafi'i's verse as given by Ibn Kathir in al-Bidaya wa al-Nihaya.

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