Dear future hubby, 

As-salaamu-alaikum and hello! I hope this finds you well and well.. really I just hope that this letter finds you, period. I just wanted to let you know a few things about myself before you come to know all these things about me yourself. 

My little family is made up of my mom, my dad, and my younger brother. My family means everything to me. I understand that all that I am today, all my success, I owe to الله (swt) and my parents, in that order. Both of my parents have literally sacrificed everything in their own way to be able to give me and my brother the lives we are so so so blessed to be able to able have today, الحمد لله. They have worked so hard and I just want to be able to give them them everything they have given me, ten-fold back, and the entire world on top of that. I also have a younger brother who means the world to me. He and I are very close, ما شاء الله. He is 4 years and 4 months younger than me, which has translated to 4 academic years younger than me. Our relationship is unique and is one of the most important and defining relationships of my life, that of an older sister to a younger brother who acts as if he is the older sibling. And it is one that I hope you come to learn the nuances of and come to understand and cherish just as much as I do. My nuclear family is small. It is just the four of us but I have lots and lots of extended family strewn all across the US and the rest of the world. My mom is one of 12 siblings total and my dad one of 4 total so that means lots and lots of cousins who are like extended siblings in a sense! Family gatherings can get crazy to say the least but are always super fun! And I cannot wait to introduce you to my chaotic extended family and start bringing you to all the family events. My family is… let’s just say that they are definitely a bunch of characters to say the least. ? I think that is enough about my family for now… 

How about a little more about me? Yeah? I was really very blessed to have very supportive parents growing up who always told me that I could achieve whatever it was that my heart desired and I feel like this is something very important that I also hope to impart to my future children one day, ان شاء الله. I am a product of public schooling up until college. I was lucky enough to graduate high school with having enough AP credit so that I could openly explore and pursue a second major once I got into college. I was never one of those kids whose parents pushed her into medicine or engineering or IT or some other typical “brown” or “desi” field. In fact, my father, who is a physician himself, tried with all his might, to actively push me away from medicine! Imagine that! He has his reasons and we can discuss this later but the end result of all of this was my double major. I ended up having my biological sciences major, because, despite all his efforts, I was just naturally drawn to medicine, for reasons hopefully you will learn about yourself! But, I also had my second major! Which due to the immense amount of credits I had accumulated from high school, was initially poli sci… then theology… then philosophy… (btw I am a Kant girl myself, how about you?), then anthropology… and then FINALLY… Arabic language, where I discovered my love of Nizar Qabbani! I have found that I am passionate about learning foreign languages and about language itself. I love writing, hence this super long love letter to my future hubby. I have studied Urdu, Arabic, and Spanish formally and on the side, just for fun have been dabbling in random languages, such as French and Swahili. Anyway, I digress. I think I mentioned earlier that I ended up pursuing my passion for medicine as my career aspirations. I did the whole med school thing and am now almost done with the whole residency thing, الحمد لله الحد لله الحمد لله, cannot say that enough to save my life. ? And I am so blessed to say that I am less than a year away from going into practice as a full-fledged radiation oncologist  الحمد لله! 

Shifting gears a little, I would like to talk about Islam. I would like to think that Islam is not just my religion but that it is my way of life and that I strive my best for it to be self-evident in everything that I do. I feel that everything that I do from how I carry myself, to how I present myself to others, to how I treat other beings, from creatures to foliage to other human beings is an exemplification of Islam. I feel like in order to be a “good Muslim,” one needs to be good person, but that in order to be a good person, one does not necessarily need to be a “good Muslim.” I can elaborate on that further if you would like. I would like to raise my children within the teachings of Islam but I would also like to expose them to other teachings of other religions, especially those that I believe are done especially well. For example, I do especially admire the Buddhist teaching of leaving the material world behind in order to attain enlightenment. I feel like there is merit to that teaching and that there is something to be learned there by people of all walks of life. I am much more interested in raising good human beings rather than “good Muslims,” whatever that means, as I feel that to be a very subjective term. My belief for myself is to try to think about a practice in Islam and try to distill it down to its purest, most essential core essence and think about the purpose and intention behind الله (swt)’s will and how that applies to me and my life. Having said that, I find that most of what has been decreed by الله (swt) makes logical sense to me. I believe with all my being that there is no God but الله (swt) and that Prophet Muhammad (saw) is His messenger. I try my best to pray my 5 prayers on time. When I miss prayers, I pray Qaza. I fulfill my obligations of Zakat and am a firm believer of donating to charities beyond that. I believe that the more you give, no matter how little you have, the more barakaat there is in what الله (swt) gives you. I love fasting during the month of Ramadan. I love the sense of solidarity and community and I love how I feel this strength that can be only given to you by الله (swt) to accomplish such incredible things and not feel tired or hungry or thirsty or sick or get headaches/migraines. It truly is incredible سبحان الله. I have actually also been blessed to be able to go to Hajj already as well, fulfilling that duty of mine as a Muslim too, الحمد لله الحمد لله. I only eat Zabiha Halal. I dress relatively modestly, although this is subjective I suppose. I try to eat healthy for the most part. I do not smoke or drink or do anything else that is crazy unhealthy or is harmful to my body. I try to live by that whole “my body is a temple” motto. I am far from perfect though. I make mistakes just like everyone else. I try to ask for forgiveness and not to repeat my mistakes. I am actively trying to learn more about and grow in my deen. I would really like someone who is open to that. I have a tattoo. I do not view my tattoo as a mistake though - we can discuss this further. I do not believe that I or anybody other than الله (swt) can truly judge anyone. I try my absolute best not to judge people and have a working policy where people automatically start out with 100% of my respect until they do something to lose it or do something that is just so black and white blatantly wrong that I feel justified in judging them, for example - a serial child murderer who openly states and self-promotes that he takes pleasure in killing children just for shiggles… أستغفر الله !!! But like a thief who steals an apple… who am I to judge? I don’t know that theif’s background? For all I know, he just rescued a child from a child murderer but got his ass kicked and wallet stolen and wanted that apple for the kid, right? So, I really do try my best not to judge. This world is not as black and white as we would like it to be and there is a lot of grey area that is hard to determine.  ??‍♀️

Now that I have told you a little about my deen, myself, and a little about my family, I thought maybe I could talk about the kind of life I imagine for us and some of the principles that are important to me and the kind of person I am looking for. I am looking for someone ambitious and career-oriented. Someone who is passionate about what he does and has career aspirations and goals. Someone who wants to do good in this world and do his part in contributing towards making this world a better place. Someone who wants to live BIG and live an extraordinary life, not just your mundane cookie-cutter suburbia lifestyle. Someone who wants to travel and is on-board with spontaneous trips aboard even with the kids, just grabbing them and go. Someone who prioritizes financial independence, not for material things, but rather for priceless experiences and to make life as easy and convenient and efficient as possible for people who work really really hard so that the time they do have off from work, they are able to enjoy and maximize that time with their loved ones as much as possible. I do not care about having the fanciest car, or biggest house, or largest jewels, etc. But the things I do care about are hiring help and paying them fair wages to keep the home clean and organized so that my spouse and I do not have to; a chef to cook healthy, delicious, well-balanced creative meals of various cuisines; a nanny to help with child-care (not for being the primary care-taker for children but to help assist), etc. These kinds of luxuries, yes, I do wish to be able to afford so that I can continue working and helping people and living out my passions and career. For example, if we are only able to take one week off at a time and we want to travel half way across the world for our vacation during that time, then maybe we consider flying business class so that we are not utterly exhausted by the time we get back and can hit the ground running upon our return? Things like that. And of course not all the time, but bringing our parents and families with us, who again, we owe so much, if not everything to, and want to make sure we give back to. I am looking for someone who is not afraid to move around and try living in new places, maybe even try new places around the world if the opportunity presents itself. I feel like the world is at our fingertips, سبحان الله; we can do whatever it is our heart desires. And for those who think otherwise, why not? What is stopping us? As long as we have each other, and our families, the world is ours. 

I know… I know… I know what you’re thinking. This girl… This girl… She is a dreamer. Head in the clouds. Sure. I will concede that. But I have laid out a beautiful dream for you. All you have to do, is ask yourself if you have it in you to take this leap of faith with me. Because at the end of the day, I would say that I am like most people. I would love to be able to tell my kids that I was lucky enough to be able to marry my best friend. I feel like I just have so much love to give. As a wife, as a mother, as a daughter-in-law, as a sister-in-law, as a human being. And I am just looking for someone to give all of that love to and shower that adoration upon. And along with that all that love and adoration, more importantly, comes honesty, respect, loyalty, understanding, a complete lack of judgment, complete benefit of the doubt, and an ability to see the best in people الحمد لله. I expect a mutual and equal reciprocity in all of the above from my hubby and nothing less. I see us as equals in this partnership in marriage. 

Well, I feel like I have talked your ear off at this point! ? Thank you and جزاك الله خيرا for taking all of this time and attention to read through all of this. I look forward to our getting to know each other better and hopefully something beautiful will blossom from all of this ان شاء الله. 

Sincerely yours, 
Future wifey ♥️ 

P.S. If you do not happen to become future hubby… please erase this letter and my entire existence from your memory, please and thank you! Okthankyoubyeeeee!