Reporter Rowaida Abdelaziz was 21 the first time she watched a body lowered into a grave. Her cousin, a young mother, died just days before her 33rd birthday. No one knew what to do in that moment of unthinkable grief. All they knew was that someone had to make the arrangements. That's when a woman named Howaida stepped in.

This week on the show, reporter Rowaida Abdelaziz travels across New Jersey and Cairo looking for the women who carry out one of the most intimate obligations in Islam: washing the bodies of our dead. What does it take to intertwine your life with death and grief, and run to the aid of people on the worst day of their lives?

This is the last episode of Season One of the show! We hope you've enjoyed what you've heard so far and we're already hard at work on Season Two. In the meantime, if you haven't heard the rest of the season yet, go back and start from the beginning.

If you liked our show, please share it with a friend, or rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. More about our show at moremuslim.org.

Thank you for listening!

Credits:

Reported by Rowaida Abdelaziz.

Produced by Heba Afify.

Editing by Salman Ahad Khan.

Fact Checking by Heba Elorbany.

Original Music and Sound Design by Salman Ahad Khan.

Engineering by Joe Plourde.

Illustration by Lina Jaradat.

Suggested Reading

Abdelaziz, Rowaida. "Most Funeral Homes Don't Know How To Bury Muslims. These Women Want To Change That." HuffPost, December 10, 2023.

Bakar, Faima. "Why Young Muslim Women Are Learning How To Wash The Dead." HuffPost UK, June 2022.

Halevi, Leor. Muhammad’s Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society . New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

The number of Muslims in Japan has almost quadrupled in the last two decades. Migrants are coming in ever greater numbers to work there from countries like Indonesia. And yet, Islam is still seen as this... foreign, elusive thing.

This week on the show, reporter Tanita Rahmani follows two Muslim women who try to change things. And begin the long journey towards normalizing their faith and the slow making of a more Muslim Japan.

All through a unique—and universal—lens: food.

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Credits:

Reported and produced by Tanita Rahmani, with help from Nadeen Shaker.

Story editing and original music by Salman Ahad Khan.

Additional music by Alexander Overington.

Sound design and engineering by Joe Plourde.

Fact-checking by Heba Elorbany.

This season of More Muslim is powered by Al Mujadilah, a center and mosque for women in Qatar. If you liked our show, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. A transcript of this episode will be available shortly on our website.

More about our show at moremuslim.org.

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Guests:

Hitomi Remon, founder of the Japan Halal Association, the first body certifying halal for domestic Japanese products

Esma Esra, founder of Tulu Tours, a halal travel guide to Japan

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Further reading:

To see some of the deep Japan spots where Esma and her groups prayed, check out @placesyoullpray on Instagram.

As millions of Muslims complete Hajj this week, we revisit a question scholars have debated for centuries: can a Muslim woman make a journey like that without a mahram?

This week on the show, host Sohaira Siddiqui recalls the first time she ran headfirst into that debate, when she decided to tell her parents she wanted to move to Jordan to study Arabic. And how that initial conversation at her parents' kitchen table led her to dive deep into centuries of scholarly debate on the topic, from the Mughal princess Gulbadan Begum's seven-year pilgrimage to Mecca, to the 2023 Saudi ruling that let women perform Hajj without a male guardian.

Years later, in post-Arab Spring Egypt, a young woman in the middle of a spiritual crisis feels the same pull to leave, and signs up for a women's retreat in Morocco, hoping a group of new Muslims might help her find her way back to a faith she's losing her grip on.

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Hosted by Sohaira Siddiqui.

Reported by Nadeen Shaker, with help from Tanita Rahmani.

Produced by Tanita Rahmani.

Editing by Salman Ahad Khan.

Fact-checking by Heba Elorbany.

Special thanks to Sadia Ramzan from The Muslim Women Travel Group, Parvez Siddiqui, and Suzanne Gaber.

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Suggested Reading:

• Begum, Gulbadan. The History of Humāyūn (Humāyūn-Nāma). Translated by Annette S. Beveridge. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1902.
• Lal, Ruby. Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024.