You Can Be the Happiest Woman in the World.

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We do have some good longitudinal data following the same people over time, but I am going to do a massive disservice to that science and just say: if you’re a man, you should probably get married; if you’re a woman, don’t bother.”

The first heroic old woman was told that al-Hajjaj would kill her son. To that, pat came her reply “If you do not kill him, he will die anyway.” WOW lady, way to be a sociopath. This does not sound like heroism to me, it sounds like terrible parenting. Maybe the author mistranslated the message or something because my first unadulterated impression is of a woman who doesn’t care if her son dies. Because he will die someday anyway. Happily, the author highlights what the important heroic bit was- “putting her trust in her Lord.” By telling al-Hajjaj that he could murder her son. WHERE does the trust in god part come in here??? Although this book is technically written for women, I think men could DEFINITELY benefit from the text as well since the majority of the concepts involve life perspectives and motivational stories, quotes, and passages from the Qur'an. Many of the stories of the sahaba and others were quite new to me, so it was refreshing reading about inspiring life events/moments of others that hold high significance and examples of how to approach different circumstances in one's life.

Number *7 is my favourite. Idle talk is not only a waste of time, it corrupts your mind. Its better to stay quiet unless you can improve the silence. Do you want to be happy? We are all looking for an escape from worry, and depression, and for ways to find happiness. This book presents the route to happiness in a nutshell, drawing on Islamic teachings and the voices of 'experts' both western

There were a couple of different things wrong with this story. Firstly, it is describing how these words in the Bible gave her strong faith and somehow healed her. Secondly, she went on to create another religion. In defense of the author, the translator did mention that the point was not to praise the creation of this new religion. However, there are better examples to praise women who “rose above diversity and made a difference in the life of others”. Mentioning this story could cause doubts in the hearts of the reader and may even inspire them to research this new religion. Thirdly, the statement that questions the Muslim woman by saying: “And you, O’ Muslim woman, what have you done?” seems to have implications that don’t sit right with me. Living a righteous life in the environment we live in today is already a huge achievement if you really think about it. I don’t believe that this is a motivating statement as the author intended, Subhan’Allah.

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One of my favorite anecdotes because of its sheer insanity is titled “Old Women make heroes.” Such an eye-catching title. It brings to mind legendary warrior women or the likes of mother Teresa. Except you can kill your expectations right there, because this author’s prattling meandering idiocy doesn’t expose anything remotely heroic. These are quite literally a bunch of stories about women who are old. Yes, their sole collective defining trait is that they are old. They don’t even have names.

Yes well okay. In the introduction alone we can see this man’s disdain for those silly foolish Nobel laureates, and his presumable conviction that the entire lot of innocent women who read Agatha Christie are now out there, probably committing murder. Chapter 2 for example, has a section titled “You have a huge wealth of blessings” but then doesn’t actually say what they are- instead it rants poetically about how “the clouds of worry will be blown away, the darkness of distress will be dispelled, and calamities will come to an end.” and ends by rhetorically demanding how often a woman gets talked about because of her good attitude, obedience to husband, and her modesty when she moves into a new neighborhood. The final point is the fact that Dale Carnegie was continuously mentioned in this book. The first half of the book went well and then these stories and quotes started to appear after the halfway point. Dale Carnegie wrote books like ‘How to Win Friends & Influence People’. He wrote about how to find happiness, yet many people believe that Dale Carnegie committed suicide (or opted for assisted suicide). After all the work he did, his own advice wasn’t able to save him in the end. Some people say that he died of a disease and the institute decided to write his cause of death as that, because they were afraid book sales on “personal growth” would drop. Allah knows best, but we can see why quoting such personalities can be problematic. Our Prophet Muhammad SAW and the rightly guided men and women of this Ummah have left volumes and volumes of work to quote from, so I was not happy with the fact that non-Muslims were given such a high regard. It should be noted that the point here is not to praise or condone that “new religion”, for there is to be no new revelation or Prophet after Muhammad (Blessings and Peace be upon him) brought the Qur’an and the message of Islam. Rather the author’s point here is to praise a woman who rose above adversity and made a difference in the life of others.” (Translator)It also mentions fairly often that a woman should rush to make her husband feel better. If he comes home stressed or tired she must wait on him hand and foot, and then try to solve his problem. Many women seem to have a problem with this notion, although I don’t understand why. If you remove the wife/husband and replace it with human/human it says one human sees that the other human is stressed, and tries to make that human feel better. This is GOOD. This should be encouraged. I don’t understand why PLEASING the husband is being confused with servility these days. Unfortunately, I think he said something nice by mistake and not by intention. Because the rest of the book is just super weird about the concept of being a wife- basically the guy you marry owns you. Some men brought to him [to ‘isa (Peace be upon him)] a paralytic, lying on a mat… Then he said to the paralytic: ‘Get up, take your mat and go home.’ And the man got up and went home.” (Matthew 9:2, 6-7) I wish I can share more things with you about the book, but I think the best is that you read the book yourself and allow it to speak to you. I took so long to finish reading this book, mainly because life was too hectic and it was only in my recent holiday in Thailand that I was able to finish reading this book. I had the wonderful experience of reading this book in front of the seas, with the light breeze brushing my face and the clouds shading me from the sun. It was the peaceful setting that I needed to clear my mind and absorb the words from the book. The way to happiness is to be found in clarity of knowledge and soundness of education. This cannot be achieved by romantic fiction which leads to frustration and depression. Indeed, the matter is more serious than that, such as the stories of Agatha Christie, which teach about deceit, crime and robbery. I have read the series entitled The Best of World Fiction, a selection of exciting, Nobel-prize winning stories, and I found that these stories contained many serious mistakes and a great deal of foolishness. How many people have fallen victim to articles or stories they have read.”

Whoever works righteousness, man or woman, and has Faith, verily, to him will We give a new Life, a life that is good and pure and We will bestow on such their reward according to the best of their actions' Men benefited from marriage because they “calmed down”, he said. “You take less risks, you earn more money at work, and you live a little longer. She, on the other hand, has to put up with that, and dies sooner than if she never married. The healthiest and happiest population subgroup are women who never married or had children,” he said. I was not happy with this as the points that were made about these individuals could have easily been left out and replaced with far better Ayah and Ahadith. For example, when mentioning Napoleon, the book says that he “was very fortunate to marry the Empress Josephine”. The book says that because of Josephine’s radiating happiness, that helped keep everyone around her happy. There are far better examples of women in Islam with better qualities. When the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) first received revelation, who was there to comfort him? Who was the one that helped him throughout some of the hardest years of his life? Who was it that not only cared for him, but all of the Muslims of that time like a mother? Khadijah (RA). She would have been a perfect example here, Subhan’Allah. However, Dolan said men showed more health benefits from tying the knot, as they took fewer risks. Women’s health was mostly unaffected by marriage, with middle-aged married women even being at higher risk of physical and mental conditions than their single counterparts. This book suffers from a disjointed and chaotic structure. The author can be condescending and simplistic in his core messages, one of which encourages the reader to think of those who are less happy (and surely not be glad about it, for that would be Schadenfreude) and to be grateful that their own life isn't worse. There are many old-fashioned views with regards to the role of women; stay at home, obey your husband, avoid typical female vices like gossiping. The book takes a condemnatory tone when discussing Western women's clothes and their frivolous pursuits - basically anything that doesn't involve praying or serving your husband and family.Dr. shaykh Aaidh ibn Abdullah al-Qarni (also spelt al-Qarnee) , born in Saudi Arabia. He is an Islamic Scholar and respected author and activist. He is most well known for his self-help book ' Don't Be Sad' which is seen as the number one in its field within Islamic literature and although written by a Muslim for Muslims it is praised as being ideal for non-Muslims alike. IIPH’s Urdu translation of You Can Be the Happiest Woman in the World: A Treasure Chest of Reminders.