Our Teachers
Ustadha Shamira Chothia Ahmed
Born and raised in California’s Central Valley, Shamira Chothia Ahmed is passionate about educating and empowering Muslim women to reach their highest spiritual potential through acquiring sacred knowledge.
Having graduated as valedictorian from a large public high school, her studies led her — following a brief soul-searching stint at Georgetown University — to seek sacred knowledge from scholars on three continents — Africa, Europe, and Asia.
Ustadha Shamira began her journey in seeking sacred knowledge at the women’s Dar-ul-Uloom Mu’eenal Islam seminary in South Africa, and completed the five-year intensive ‘alima program at Ja’mia Al-Imam Muhammad Zakariyya, one of Britain’s first and most renowned Islamic universities for women. There she was granted ijāzah (authorization) in Sahīh al-Bukhārī, Sahīh al-Muslim, Sunan at-Tirmidhī, Sunan Abī Dāwūd, Sunan an-Nasā’ī, and Sunan Ibn Mājah. Thereafter, she continued her Arabic and Qur’anic studies in Damascus, Syria where she obtained an ijāzah in Tajwīd of the Ḥafṣ recitation from the late eminent Syrian scholar, Shaykh Ḥasan al-Kurdī.
In 2005, Ustadha Shamira taught Hanafi fiqh for women at the Zaytuna Institute in California and since then has taught various Islamic sciences in venues across North America. In 2008, she earned a Master’s Degree in Demographics and Social Analysis from the University of California at Irvine, focusing on the identity formation of the Muslim-American population.
In 2013, Ustadha Shamira specialized in the detailed rulings of menstruation, lochia, and abnormal discharge under the direction of Mufti Abdur Rahman Ibn Yusuf Mangera and assisted in compiling Imam Abu Hanifa’s Al-Fiqh al-Akbar Explained.
Ustadha Shamira is a co-founder of The Rahmah Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to disseminating traditional Islamic knowledge by qualified female teachers to Muslim women around the globe.
She is a passionate advocate for natural birth, infusing her natural birth classes with Islamic spirituality since 2009, and has been a qualified lactation counselor since 2011.
Her latest endeavor is her sisters-only YouTube channel catering to women’s educational and spiritual needs through short talks and reminders. Ustadha Shamira resides in sunny, Southern California with her husband and four children.
Ustadha Rania Awaad
Rania Awaad, M.D. is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine where she is the Director of the Muslim Mental Health Lab and Wellness Program and Director of the Diversity Clinic. She pursued her psychiatric residency training at Stanford where she also completed a postdoctoral clinical research fellowship with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Her research and clinical work are focused on the mental health needs of Muslims. Her courses at Stanford range from teaching a pioneering course on Islamic Psychology, instructing medical students and residents on implicit bias and integrating culture and religion into medical care to teaching undergraduate and graduate students the psychology of xenophobia. Her most recent academic publications include an edited volume on “Islamophobia and Psychiatry” (Springer, 2019) and upcoming texts on Islamic Psychology (Routledge, 2020) and Muslim Mental Health. She has also produced a toolkit, fact sheet, CME course, and is now editing a clinical textbook on Muslim mental health for the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Awaad is particularly passionate about uncovering the historical roots of mental health care in the Islamic intellectual heritage. Through her outreach work at Stanford, she is also the Clinical Director of the San Francisco Bay Area branches of the Khalil Center, a spiritual wellness center pioneering the application of traditional Islamic spiritual healing methods to modern clinical psychology. She has been the recipient of several awards and grants for her work. Prior to studying medicine, she pursued classical Islamic studies in Damascus, Syria and holds certifications (ijaza) in Qur’an, Islamic Law and other branches of the Islamic Sciences. Dr. Awaad has also served as the first female Professor of Islamic Law at Zaytuna College, a Muslim Liberal Arts College in Berkeley, CA where she taught courses on Shafi’i Fiqh and Women’s Fiqh and Qur’anic sciences for nearly a decade. In addition, she serves as the Director of The Rahmah Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating Muslim women and girls. At Rahmah, she oversees the Murbiyyah spiritual mentoring program for girls. Dr. Awaad is a nationally recognized speaker, award-winning teacher, researcher and author in both the Islamic and medical sciences.
Follow her on I/T: Dr.RaniaAwaad
Hafiza Suzane Derani
Raised in Michigan, Suzane began studying the Qur’an at a very young age, all throughout her regular schooling. In 1996, Suzane traveled to Damascus, Syria to pursue Islamic sciences, with studies in Arabic, Seerah, Aqeedah, Shafii Fiqh and Qur’an memorization. She also studied Seerah with the late esteemed Shaykha Samira al Zayid and other Syrian scholars. Suzane felt a deep passion and connection to the Qur’an and later returned to Syria in 1998 to further her Qur’an studies. She holds a degree in the Hafs recitation of the Qur’an from the late esteemed Syrian scholar and Qur’an expert, Shaykh Abul Hasan al-Kurdi. Following her ijaza, she worked toward completing the memorization of the Qur’an at the age of 18. A few years after returning from Syria, Suzane moved to the Bay Area, California and taught tajwid for a brief year at Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California. There, she also studied under Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Imam Zaid Shakir and other local scholars. Suzane also studied Hadith in numerous workshops in the East Bay with Shaykh Samer an-Nas. Suzane has over twenty years experience teaching the memorization of the Qur’an as well as its accompanying sciences, tajweed and tafseer, and continues to teach privately.
Suzane graduated with a B.A. in European and Middle Eastern history, with a focus on secondary education. She is an educator with extensive experience teaching history to high school students in private school. With her traditional training and classical teaching experience, Suzane has taught multi-level individualized and group classes for children, teens and adults. Additionally, she has held motivational workshops for teens and women on how to excel in their Qur’an studies. Suzane released her first Islamic children’s book, The Quran My Best Friend, in the month of Ramadan, 2020. She is currently living in the Bay Area with her family where she home schools her kids along with teaching the Qur’an. She serves as a board member for the Rahmah Foundation. Suzane continues to further her studies in the different sciences of the Qur’an with scholars around the world as well as write books for children and mentor youth throughout the Bay Area.
Ustadha Fadwa Silmi
Fadwa Silmi received her B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of California in Berkeley in 1997. After teaching in a private elementary school for five years, she returned to academia and received a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education as well as her teaching credential from San Francisco State University in 2004. Fadwa attended classes at the Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, California from 1997-2005, completing her fard ayn studies along with other various subjects focusing primarily on Maliki fiqh with both resident and visiting scholars. Fadwa has previously served as the Program Director for the Children’s Quran School at the Zaytuna Institute in Hayward, CA and is co-founder of The Rahmah Foundation, a non profit organization serving the Islamic educational needs of girls and women. She has taught students in both public and private schools as well as homeschoolers in small class settings and served as an educational consultant to parents and educators over the last twenty-five years. Her interests include cognitive development, nurturing a prophetic mindset in students and educators and developing programming for women and girls through her work at The Rahmah Foundation. Fadwa Silmi currently teaches seventh and eighth grade math and science at Northstar School and serves as the math lead and support provider for new teachers. She resides in Castro Valley, California with her husband and three children.