Ustadha Shamira Chothia Ahmed

Experience & Activities

Ustadha Shamira Chothia Ahmed Bio
Ustadha Shamira Chothia Ahmed

Born and raised in California’s Central Valley, Ustadha Shamira is passionate about educating and empowering Muslim women to draw closer to Allah through sacred knowledge and its practical application in everyday life.

After graduating as valedictorian from a large public high school and briefly studying at Georgetown University, she pursued sacred knowledge under scholars in Africa, Europe, and Asia. She began her studies at the women’s Dar-ul-Uloom Mu’eenal Islam seminary in South Africa before completing the intensive five-year ‘Alimah program at Ja’mia Al-Imam Muhammad Zakariyya in Britain. She later studied Arabic and Qur’anic recitation in Damascus, Syria, receiving an ijazah in Tajwid of the Hafs recitation from the late Shaykh Hasan al-Kurdi.

Ustadha Shamira began teaching Hanafi fiqh for women at Zaytuna Institute in 2005 and has since taught various Islamic sciences to women across North America. In 2008, she earned a Master’s degree in Demographics and Social Analysis from the University of California, Irvine, where her research focused on Muslim American identity formation. In 2013, she undertook specialized study in the fiqh of menstruation, lochia, and abnormal discharge under Mufti Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera and assisted in compiling Imam Abu Hanifa’s Al-Fiqh al-Akbar Explained.

Alongside her scholarship, Ustadha Shamira is a certified birth doula and lactation educator. Drawing on both her professional training and her experience as a mother of five, she helps Muslim women approach pregnancy, birth, and motherhood through the lens of faith and sacred knowledge, offering birth consultations, virtual doula support, and educational programs rooted in authentic Islamic guidance and evidence-based care.

She is the founder of Her Sacred Path, co-founder of the Rahmah Foundation, and currently teaches at Nur al Iman, a full-time girls’ and women’s shariah program in the San Francisco Bay Area. Through her teaching and mentorship, she seeks to help women develop a sound understanding of their faith and a deeper connection with Allah.