Answers to Frequently Asked Questions on Parenting (Part 1)

About the authors

Ekram Beshir: Ekram Beshir is a contemporary author and physician (M.D.) known for warm, accessible Islamic guides on marriage, parenting, and raising children in Western societies. Born in Egypt, she has lived in Canada since 1975 and is based in Ottawa, where she and her husband, Mohamed Rida Beshir, raised four children. She writes as part of a husband-and-wife team, pairing grounding in the Qurʾan and Sunna with practical insight drawn from family life and community work. Among their best-known titles are Blissful Marriage: A Practical Islamic Guide, Meeting the Challenge of Parenting in the West: An Islamic Perspective, Muslim Teens: Today's Worry, Tomorrow's Hope, and Parenting Skills Based on the Qurʾan and Sunnah. They have also produced a multi-part Answers to Frequently Asked Questions series covering both parenting and marriage. Several of their books have been published in Arabic and translated into French and German, and they have taught courses on parenting for Muslim audiences. Beyond writing, Beshir has been active in her local Muslim community, serving as director of a weekend Arabic and Islamic school in Ottawa and contributing to study circles, youth programs, and marriage counseling. Her work is valued by Muslim families seeking guidance rooted in tradition yet attentive to the realities of life in the West.

Mohamed Rida Beshir: Mohamed Rida Beshir is a Muslim family life educator and one of the best known voices on Islamic parenting and marriage in North America. An engineer by profession, he earned a bachelor's degree in telecommunications from Alexandria University in Egypt, and a master's in engineering and a PhD in telecommunications from Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Alongside that career he pursued independent study in tafsir, the science of Qur'anic interpretation, in fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence, and in tarbiya, human and spiritual development, which became the foundation for his later writing. With his wife, Dr. Ekram Beshir, he co-authored a series of widely read guides, among them Meeting the Challenge of Parenting in the West, Muslim Teens, Blissful Marriage, and Parenting Skills Based on the Qur'an and Sunnah. On his own he wrote When Muslim Teens Rebel and Family Leadership, a study of qawama as a responsibility to fulfill rather than a license to dominate. Several of these titles have been translated into Arabic, French, German, and Albanian. He has served Muslim communities for more than four decades, holding roles with the Muslim Students Association, the Islamic Society of North America, the Muslim American Society, and the Muslim Association of Canada, and is a founding member of Human Concern International. He continues to deliver workshops on parenting, marriage, and tarbiya across North America, Europe, and beyond.