Real Talk with Dr. Tesneem Alkiek

Did the Prophet ﷺ describe women as "deficient in intelligence and religion"? Real Talk weighs in with Yaqeen scholar Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and host Cadar Mohamud, who examine one of the most circulated and least understood hadiths about women: the narration in which the Prophet ﷺ addresses a gathering of women, warns that they will be the most numerous of the inhabitants of Hellfire, and describes them as lacking in ʿaql and deen. Dr. Alkiek walks through the narration and the setting in which...

"Does Islam permit a man to hit his wife?" Islam condemns domestic violence, and a woman is never required to stay silent in the face of abuse. So how do we make sense of Quran 4:34, the verse Muslim women often wrestle with? Yaqeen scholar Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and host Cadar Mohamud start with a key principle in the Islamic legal tradition: marriage never erased a woman’s independent legal identity. She owns property, enters contracts, and can take her husband to court when she is harmed. Dr...

"The angels curse her until morning." Yaqeen scholar Dr. Tesneem Alkiek and host Cadar Mohamud discuss a hadith that has been used to make Muslim women feel that intimacy is a debt they owe rather than something mutually built. Dr. Alkiek reads the narration alongside the tradition's own record of a wife's sexual rights, including the case of Abu al-Darda (ra) and the men called home from campaign for their wives' sake, and explains the classical legal principle of ta'assuf fi istiʿmal al-ha...

“It’s a fact: the Qur’an will make you a better person, spiritually and mentally. Understanding the words of Allah will bring you closer to Him and inspire good within you. Memorizing ayat will improve your memory and make you a sharp student. Reading every day will build good habits into your routine. In this episode, Dr. Tesneem highlights how—and why—to build the Qur’an into your life, no matter how busy you are.

The Prophet ﷺ communicated with compassion, and that alone should be enough to know that his words were never meant to belittle or degrade others. So how do we react to statements attributed to the Prophet ﷺ that appear to do just that—especially when they seem to target women? In this episode of Real Talk, Dr. Tesneem Alkiek unpacks that tension, offering case studies from the Qur’an and Sunnah that have been misunderstood or misused, and shares how we can all feel more confident and e...