Sisters Book Club
The Sisters Book Club meets on Monday evenings every two weeks to discuss 10-15 pages of the book, “When Hearing Becomes Listening” by Sheikh Mikaeel Smith. Read summaries of the our biweekly meetings below. If you’re interested in attending, join the Sisters WhatsApp group for more up to date information.
When Hearing Becomes Listening
Dec 08, 2025
At the first meeting of the new book, we started with an icebreaker where we shared qualities of ‘good‘ listeners in our lives. A sister shared that she thinks her cousin is a good listener because she always validates how the sister is feeling, and asks insightful questions to probe how the sister really feels about a situation. Another sister shared that she thinks her husband is a good listener because he doesn’t speak, give advice, or interrupt until prompted; he allows her to say all she has to say before reacting to her words. Another sister shared that she feels a good listener doesn’t bring themselves up when she’s sharing her feelings and experiences; it’s as if the listener doesn’t exist and instead focuses completely on the speaker.
We then started discussing pages 1-16 of the book. The author starts the book motivating the importance of listening in the Quran and Sunnah. Al-Samī, the One who hears all, is an attribute of Allah SWT mentioned 45 times in the Quran; but it is also mentioned in every prayer. Reading these words, some sisters felt it was a much needed reminder that Allah SWT is always listening, even if no one else is. They were moved and comforted by the fact that this attribute of Allah SWT is emphasized multiple times in our day, as long as we pay attention to the words we whisper in our daily prayers; it is one thing to know the meaning of the words spoken in our prayers, but completely different to reflect and act on what those words mean. Many sisters were moved by the following words in the book:
Knowing that we are heard is what creates connection. Connection creates trust, and trust gives us the courage and strength to move forward in life.
The author further motivates the importance of listening by suggesting that if we want Allah SWT to listen to us, then we must practice that same quality with His creation. For instance, there is a well known narration that states, “the one who doesn’t show mercy shall not receive mercy“. Similarly, “those who don’t thank people have not thanked Allah”, and finally “whoever covers the faults of others Allah will cover his faults“. In the same way, if we want Allah SWT to listen to us, then we must practice listening with other people. Multiple sisters felt this paragraph was insightful, and a motivation for why we should try to be good listeners.
Interestingly, some scholars believe that hearing is the first faculty that we are born with and the last to leave us when we die. A sister made a good point that even though it’s the first faculty that we have access to, it’s the least developed in our lives; we don’t learn how to use our hearing properly, that is we don’t learn how to be good listeners even though it’s a blessing that’s bestowed upon us from early on.
Finally, we discussed reasons why people do not want to listen sometimes. Page 15 briefly mentions qualities of a good listener, one of which is the “willingness to listen despite the pain the words may bring.“ During our discussion of this paragraph, we discussed how being defensive is an innate behaviour, and a default mode that we enter because we feel attacked or criticized. Other times, ego gets in the way making us shut ourselves off from listening. Many of the sisters mentioned that we’ve found ourselves being defensive without our knowledge, and realized later when someone told us that we were being defensive. We then discussed how we can practice not being defensive, given how easy and common it is to enter this state. A sister mentioned that introspection is key. Another sister mentioned reading books like this one helps us recognize our faults and make corrections as needed. While another sister mentioned that it starts with being grateful to Allah SWT for giving us the ability to listen in the first place.
We ended the meeting discussing what we hope to learn from this book. The sisters in attendance mentioned that they hope to learn:
how to differentiate between “hearing“ and “listening“
how to practice empathy when listening
how to be a good listener
how to recognize qualities of a bad listener
how to be a good listener for different demographics
Despite reading only 16 pages, this book has already made us reflect on the importance of listening in our daily lives. While the content was dense, it made us pause and think about al-Samī, while being grateful to have the ability to listen and reflect.
Builders of a Nation
Our first book in the sisters Book Club was “Builders of a Nation“ by Dr. Haifaa Younis. Over the course of four months, we learned about the lives and experiences of notable Muslim women, and how we can implement their great qualities in our everyday lives. Along with meaningful conversation, we also shared baked goods with each other.
