« WE CAN’T SPEAK OF RELIGION WITHOUT DISCUSSING MORAL VALUES” – Dima Droubi

By : Yasmine Ouchrif

Ramadan is as much a month of piety and worship as it is an opportunity to remember the traditions and stories that shape our faith and our lives.

First of all, I would like to wish us all Ramadan Mubarak Karim. Again, we celebrate this holy month of prayer and fast. Again, we gather at the mosques to pray together, we spend time with our families and loved ones and we share food, money, and our time to charities and the like… More than a month of heightened spiritual awareness and practice, Ramadan is a month to remember our core values as a Ummah and as individuals. This is why I decided today to share with you the Instagram page of Dima Droubi, awriter, entrepreneur, mother and social media personality with one mission this Ramadan: to share with us the stories of the 25 prophets that are mentioned in the Qur’an, with an emphasis on the values they embodied and the lessons we can learn from them in that regard. For values, as Dima so aptly affirms, are the backbone of our religion. The prophet Muhammad (pbuh) said in a hadith: “I was sent to perfect morals.” So, it is fundamental for us to always remember the morals and values preached in our holy book, to live by them and to incorporate them in our daily lives as much as we can.

Dima Droubi has a diverse  cultural background. Of French nationality, she was born in 1971 in Beirut, Lebanon. Her father’s family is from Syria and her mother’s from the city of Aleppo but also from Turkey. She grew up in Damascus, and then left Syria for Paris after graduating in pharmacy from the University of Damascus.

Dima enjoyed a rich and diverse education and career in pharmacy. She also obtained an MBA from the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et des Chaussées in 1994. This program was also the occasion for her to spend a long time in Cambridge in the United States, where she took courses in international negotiations and mediation at Harvard University. She has created several companies, including one in France specializing in the sale of handicrafts from Syria and another sports event company in Morocco. Currently, she devotes herself to her four children and her lifelong passions, history and writing.

Now an author of two historic novels revolving around female figures in the Arab and Islamic world, Dima explores an abandoned part of our history and reminds us of some of the roles women have taken on over the centuries, which are not nearly as celebrated or remembered as they should be.

Nevertheless, for this holy month of Ramadan, Dima Droubi is focusing on the prophets that have marked humanity. The stories of which are what makes up most of the Qur’an. Every day for 25 days (one for each prophet), Dima publishes a reel on Instagram, retelling the story of the prophets, and the values and morals they preached and practiced themselves. Dima noticed that young people are not familiar with most of the stories of the prophets, so this is an opportunity to spread some knowledge and potentially inspire people, especially the youth, to inquire more about them, and hopefully incorporate these values in their own lives. I hope this recommendation serves you well, and that Dima’s videos will be entertainment and valuable education for all of us.