How to leave this Earth

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1:00Is it the same for your business? Avoid it by having all your business on one platform. Try Odo for free at odu.com. That's odu.com. For documentary, home of the best documentaries from the BBC World Service. I'm in Electritheer to one of London's universities watching an unassuming woman in the headscarf it take to the stage. How do we live when we cannot guarantee that what we love on last? This is Dalia Mogahead, the American researcher author and public speaker. She's here a long way from her home in Virginia in the USA to speak to Muslim women about finding peace in an anxious world. It's learning how to be fully human while surrendering to a law, so panel with that. But as I'm going to discuss with her, she is carrying an almost unimaginable anxiety

2:00herself that she's about to reveal in public for the first time. This year, Dalia was diagnosed with cancer. Discover and go at know your Lord and call upon him. Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service. I'm John Offord and in this episode of Heart and Soul where we bring you stories of faith and spirituality, I'm spending the day with Dalia Mogahead in London. I'm hearing about this campaigner who spent her life offering support to other Muslim women who's now turning her thoughts to what her diagnosis means for her life and her faith. It's morning in London and I'm meeting Dalia Mogahead for the first time in a hotel. Despite the long journey and everything she's been through, there's a big smile on her face. So we take a seat.

3:05What does it feel like to be traveling and speaking at this particular point in your life? It's an incredible, incredible blessing. It's exhausting to travel like anyone who's ever traveled and tours are especially exhausting because you're doing one after the other in different cities. But I see myself as having the best job in the world. I literally get paid to talk about spirituality, to brag about God, to help people find hope when things look dark. I mean, I can't imagine more meaningful work. I feel very, very blessed. I want to ask Dalia about her diagnosis, but it's a difficult question, so I ask her about her life. So what is life like for you when you're not Dalia Mogahead, the public figure? I have two adult children who live with me, so I spend a lot of time with them,

4:07two boys, two men now. And they are the most important human beings in my life. I spend a lot of time in nature. It's where I am nourished. I feel like when I'm in nature, when I go for long hikes, I'm among a chorus of beings in praise of God. And so it gives me incredible peace to be among the trees and the birds and the rivers. And I spend a lot of time on projects I care about. I'm just getting to do work that excites me and feeds my soul. And this is especially important to me because about eight months ago, shortly after I turned 50, I was diagnosed with cancer.

5:11If you can, can you take me back to the moment you were told you had cancer? What do you remember? I was in the car and we were heading to the Halele store. I think I needed human. And I get a phone notification, my phone buzzes. And I pick it up, it says new lab results. And I think, oh, good. I just had a biopsy after a mammogram. So many of my friends have had that happen. And it's benign and it's nothing. But it's a hassle when you're going through it and you just kind of want to put it behind you and file it away. So I was relieved. You know, the fact that the lab results were ready. You know, I'm in good shape. I work out regularly. I'm obsessive about my nutrition. My blood work's always really healthy. So I didn't worry about it. It was just something to get past and move on. And so I open the lab

6:15result and I'm looking for where benign is. And I see invasive carcinoma. And I'm like, what? What is that? And I was so in disbelief that I put the lab result, which is like pages long into chat GPT. I'm like, what does this mean? And chat GPT told me I had cancer. But that's how I had to find out. It was the before and after of my life. And I just started crying, sobbing, that this was going to be what I'd be dealing with.

7:22It's hard to hear about Dali's experience of learning about her cancer, although obviously not as hard as it was for her. The cancer isn't terminal, but the diagnosis has confronted her own mortality, making her feel differently about death in her own Muslim faith. So how has that changed the way she sees things? I do think about death. I think about God. And with all honesty, I absolutely can't wait to meet him. I love God so deeply. I am so drenched in his grace. Every single day, I see it in the small things and in the big things of my life. And that's why this diagnosis

8:24was both very difficult to get. But eventually, I knew that it was a blessing. And I knew because I knew who gave it to me. And he wants good for me. That is my point of departure. That is my fundamental assumption. He wants good for me. And so he willed this for me. And I am already seeing how it's been a protection, a wake up call, a pivot back to my true purpose. So I am very at peace with the idea

9:34of going back to God to eternal life to back home. We're all just on a journey back home to God. Union with God where we started. So this is a temporary rest stop. That's what this world is. That's what life is. Oh my God. This trip to London is more than just about work for Dahlia. 11 that morning an old friend arrives at the hotel. I miss you so much. I miss you so much. I'm the ee. This is Ena Soardy. They haven't seen each other for almost a decade. Dahlia met her about 25 years ago when she came to the United States for medical treatment for her child. They became

10:36incredibly close friends. I lived in the Emirates for almost two years doing research in the region. And got in trouble with the Emirati government at one point because of the research I had done on the Arab Spring. So I was no longer welcomed in the Emirates. My friend lives in Dubai. So I can't see her. I can't go visit her there. It's very hard to get a visa to the US. So we just couldn't see each other. For years and years and years. And then this opportunity came up where she had a visa to the UK. And I was coming to the UK for my talks. So we decided to meet here. Look at you. I came all over the way from Dubai to here to meet her after those old years. We haven't met for 10

11:41years. And I'm so proud of her. Dahlia is a soul sister. I consider myself so lucky and grateful to the creator that he gives me this chance to be part of her life. Although Dahlia is away from home, I can see how important her fate is and practicing it needs to happen wherever she is. Okay, this is us. This is us. In the early afternoon Dahlia, Ina and I head to the East London Mosque. The afternoon prayer is at 1.30 pm. Yeah, you can see the mosque. Can you see the mosque?

12:41It's really good to see the entire prayer space for the women completely full. And you can't help but feel a part of a community. I'm from America and I'm just visiting for few days. But when you enter the prayer space, you feel like you belong wherever you go. So you've just been to afternoon prayer at this East London Mosque. How do you feel now? I feel refreshed. I think the five daily prayers are a source of solace for me. And especially when you get to do them in congregation in the mosque. Today, after the afternoon prayer, we also had Ejaneza prayer, which is the funeral prayer. And it's a reminder of the reality of all of us passing away that this life is temporary and therefore very precious.

13:46You've spent much of your life explaining and defending Muslim identity to other people. What does it feel like to simply be a Muslim without having to explain anything? It feels liberating and like such a weight off to get to be an individual human being rather than a mascot. And it is exhausting to have to represent all the time or explain all the time. But when you get to be anonymous and just a person, it's a huge weight off. What does your faith give you personally that nothing else does? A way to make sense of life's twists and turns. It gives me a framework to put these events into that make them have meaning that that gives

14:55purpose to the pain. And I cannot imagine going through this experience, this human experience that we're all navigating without that, without that compass. I would be so lost. I would be so empty. So my faith gives me meaning and it gives me purpose and it gives me a way to connect with other human beings. I do truly believe that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Knowing my relationship to my creator makes me more fully human. I can't imagine life without it. He describes your life, your body and your mind as being alone from God. What does that mean to you? After someone passes away, what we say to them, it's a verse in the Quran,

15:58in Nalillahi wa inna ilahi r-raj-e-un. We belong to God and to Him we return. And it's this idea we're all on loan. All of us belong to Him and He calls us back to Him. So my, my, my, my body, my soul are not my property. It's evening now and Dali is preparing to speak to a packed audience at Queen Mary University in London. What are you hoping to give people through these talks? Hope. Coping mechanisms. And an understanding of God that helps them make meaning of the challenges in their lives. What I was being sureified from, what I was being prepared for, maybe cancer wasn't just loss.

17:07Maybe it was damaging a boat to liberate it. After the talk, I asked some of the people in the audience what they made of Dali's message. I find Dali a person of substance and death. And also because she uses her faith in a way that benefits not just Muslims, but I feel like humanity as a whole. She's someone that I am inspired by. I feel like she's pushed past the status quo and she's gotten to a place of liberation. The biggest thing is kind of the fact that we want to control our lives and that is difficult. And this topic kind of resonates with me because we can't control the outcome. It actually gives you a job in your brain that actually we're all fragile beings and this kind of problem is like cancer could happen to anyone of us at any time in our lives. It gives you a reminder

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19:08caussemtics.com slash shine 26. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day, but what policy changes should investors be watching? Washington-wise is an original podcast from Charles Schwab that unpacks the stories making news in Washington right now and how they may affect your finances and portfolio. Listen at www.swab.com slash washington-wise. That's www.swab.com slash washington-wise. Support comes from wise, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe. Fed up with losing out to hidden fees when you send money abroad with your everyday bank, choose the smart way. Wise, you can count on the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google, no one welcomes surprises. Plus, ditch that where's my money feeling? Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart, get wise,

20:11download the wise app today. Teasing sees apply. This is the documentary from the BBC World Service. For heart and soul, I'm spending a day in London with Muslim speaker and author, Dali Amogahead, who was diagnosed with cancer shortly after turning 50. She's been thinking about what the diagnosis has taught her, about faith, loss and how she wants to spend the life she has left. Dali's cancer diagnosis has come at a very difficult time when she was already experiencing profound loss. Her father died four years ago. Her best friend died three years ago. Her mother died three months ago and she has also experienced the end of her marriage.

21:16How have those losses changed you? I'll put it this way. Grief is a power wash for self-dolusion. What those losses have done is they've forced just a reckoning. Of what is important and what isn't. They've led to very difficult decisions around ending my marriage, for example. My mother's passing, I'd want to comment on that because I think even that was a release for her because she was suffering for years with Parkinson's. Anyone who's seen advanced stages of Parkinson's will understand what I mean. And her passing was very peaceful among her family. And while I was

22:25sad to lose my mother, I was also happy for her because she was reunited with my father and she was no longer suffering. What Dalia has been through would break many people. But after spending time with her, it's so clear to me that what's protected her is her faith. I love flowers. So I have all these flowers in my back porch and this is true story. The Dalia, the flower I'm named after, was wilting. I mean, it wasn't doing well. I was like, I wonder what's going on with my plant. I took a picture of it, put it in an app. It tells you what's wrong. It said, it can recover. It's not completely dead. It's just requires

23:26pruning to get more light in and it needs more space to breathe. And I truly felt in that moment that God was responding to that thought by letting me know in my heart that I wasn't being punished. I was being pruned to let more light in to make more space so I could grow so I could flourish. He's given me meaning that people chase. People pay thousands of dollars and go to yoga retreats and chase spiritual gurus because we're all so thirsty for meaning.

24:30And I got it. He gave me this meaning, this incredible surge of passion and purpose. But I thought I already had and it's like nothing even compared to what I have now. So much focus, so much clarity. I was gifted that. As I listened to Dalia and witnessed how strong her faith is, I wonder what she'd like a legacy to be. So when you talk about legacy, what are you actually thinking about? When I talk about legacy, I'm thinking about leaving something behind that outlasts me that is beneficial to the world. Maybe that's a book. Maybe that's a series of podcasts. Maybe that's a lecture that impacted someone's life and they did something differently that they wouldn't

25:34have had they not heard it. Leaving a difference that outlives outlasts my time on this earth. In Islam, we call it a Sadlakha Jairia, a charity that is enduring, a running charity. I hope it's conveying knowledge and leaving behind beneficial knowledge that will help people find their own purpose and connect with God. What would you like to leave behind that isn't your professional work? I'd like to leave behind relationships that are meaningful and authentic to men, my sons, who are healthy and thriving and go on to be men of integrity and good husbands

26:38and fathers. That is probably my, if I were to do that, that would be my greatest achievement. All day, Dali has been talking about time, what we do with it, what we waste, what happens when we realize it isn't guaranteed. It's really thought-provoking. I know when we chat in before we've met in person today, you use the phrase, how do I want to leave this earth? I wondered what do you mean by that? What I mean by that is how do I want to leave the world a little bit different because I was here. What footprint do I want to leave? How do I want to make a difference? What impact do I want to have on the people around me, the people I love, my community, wider society,

27:40the world? That's the question that matters to me right now. And I really want to align my time, my energy, my talent toward that question and not wasting a moment distracted. And one final question for now at least, if you could leave this earth having done one thing well, what would you want that thing to be? If it's only one thing, it would be to leave my children happy, healthy and thriving. At the end of the day, nothing to me is more important than that at all. It's not even close.

28:42I consider it such a privilege to have one of the most precious things you have, which is your attention. The someone who has spent much of her life speaking to people in positions of power, Dali has idea of legacy surprisingly personal. It comes back to her children, her friends, her parents and the people she has helped through her work. Cancer has made her more conscious of the fact that none of us know how much time we have. But for Daliya, that uncertainty isn't a reason to retreat from life. It's a reason to pay close attention to it, to make the call, reconnect with a friend and write the book and spend time with the people who matter. You've been listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. The programme was presented and produced by me, John Offord, the series editor is Rejiv Gupta.

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