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"...no less powerful than the first, no less moving." From the author of the internationally acclaimed novel If I Should Speak comes the anxiously awaited sequel. In this deft second book, Umm Zakiyyah again takes us through the lives of Tamika and those who brush her life. Now Muslim, Tamika must face her Christian mother who instilled in her a love for Christ and made church the heartbeat of the family. Torn between her dedication to Islam, the longing of her soul, and her mother, the longing of her heart - her "lifeline," Tamika struggles to find peace somewhere in-between. But she finds that something must give. A story of faith, determination, and love, A Voice penetrates the heart and moves the reader like no other, as the reader is transported from fiction to a reality so profound that one feels part of it.

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The journey began in If I Should Speak with Tamika Douglass's path of spiritual growth and direction, treaded at the hands of her college roommates, Aminah and Dee, two Muslims on opposite ends of their strength in Islam. Footsteps, the third in a trilogy to follow Umm Zakiyyah's A Voice, is a story that stands on its own in both impact and inspiration.At the heart of the novel is the story of Ismael, a forty-seven-year-old biracial son of a white mother and black father, and Sarah, a forty-nine-year-old white daughter of the racist South. Married for twenty-six years and having accepted Islam on a journey they took together, the Ali pair has what every partnership hopes to achieve: Stability, dedication, and a comfortable life.As the story unfolds, the hairline fractures in their marriage become visible, and the fractures become splintering cracks as Sarah discovers a detrimental secret her husband has kept from her for four months. In the face of his wife's discovery, Ismael is torn between the love and security of his marriage, and the natural inclinations any man must temper in a world full of choices, and devastating consequences. Forming the thread that weaves the characters' lives together is Alika Mitchell, a strikingly beautiful daughter of a Mulatto mother and half-Nigerian father, who is conducting a multicultural research for her master's, and who inspires in the reader questions that one is left to ponder long after the book is closed.

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In this novel that spans the Atlantic, from Saudi Arabia to America, internationally acclaimed author of the If I Should Speak trilogy and the novel Realities of Submission shares with readers a heart-moving tale of faith, betrayal, and affection.Sharif, the main character of this novel, after completing his undergraduate studies, is asked by family and friends to leave the comfort of the land he has known since childhood to study at a prestigious Islamic university in Riyadh. Haunted by the sudden death of his father who would have wanted this opportunity for his son, Sharif reluctantly agrees to the proposition and to assuming the position as imam over the small suburban Maryland Masjid where his father once held the same post. After his six-year study abroad, Sharif returns to America changed in ways he cannot fully comprehend. Now doubting his engagement to his childhood friend, Sharif is confounded by questions of marriage and how he should practice the Islamic faith. As he searches for answers to spiritual perplexities and the deeper affairs of the heart, he finds guidance in a vision he sees while asleep, a vision that is made all the more perplexing when it manifests itself in real life.Navigating the enigmatic world of dreams and the mystery of the human soul, Hearts We Lost is by far the author’s most powerful novel to date, and the most unforgettable.

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The internationally acclaimed author of If I Should Speak, A Voice, and Footsteps introduces her first novel written independent of the If I Should Speak trilogy. In Realities of Submission, the reader witnesses the heart, mind, and life of Renee Morris, the narrator of this reflective tale. Told in three parts, Renee's first person narrative tells of a stringent childhood in her father's church and her ultimate submission to the religion of her nature in young adulthood. As Renee embraces Islam, the spiritual tranquility of her initial conversion begins to wane as she faces the painful realities of navigating the Muslim experience itself. At times humorous and at times painful, the story touches the reader's deepest thoughts and incites the familiar questioning of the human soul. “Phenomenally powerful . . . moving.” —Yasmin bint Ismail, author of A Hand Through the Door for My New Sister

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