(RNS) — Physical fitness is often seen as a way of improving our health or appearance, or an effort to challenge oneself. But for Nada Mostafa, a 24-year-old Muslim fitness coach based in Toronto, it also serves a higher religious purpose.
“I help Muslim women understand that when it comes to their health, your body is a gift, what in Islam we call an ‘amanah’ – a blessing we have been entrusted with,” Mostafa said.
She has built a career in faith-based strength and endurance training. Many of her clients approached her after feeling frustrated with secular fitness environments or trainers who did not understand many religious Muslim women’s commitment to modesty or religious discipline.
Mostafa joins the likes of innovators such as Texas-based Sana Mahmood, co-founder of Jeem Fitness, an Islamic values-based wellness app and virtual training platform. It only employs female trainers, promotes modest attire and does not play music during virtual workouts.
Nada Mostafa, center, is a strength and endurance fitness coach in Toronto. (Photo courtesy of Nada Mostafa)
“Much of what we focus on is helping women feel that movement and spirituality are not competing priorities, but integrated parts of a regulated and intentional life,” Mahmood told RNS in an email.
The merging of faith and fitness has long engaged evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. However, the trend has become more visible and appears to be evolving as new ways of connecting fitness and religion have become accessible through social media. Around the world, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu and Buddhist coaches and influencers are creating their own faith-based platforms for fitness.
While most of the women Mostafa trains are in their 20s to 40s, she’s also coached older people, especially women with the goal of building stamina to complete the Hajj or Umrah, pilgrimages to Islam’s holiest sites in Saudi Arabia that require faithful to walk long distances, often amid heat or crowds. Additionally, Muslims who are physically able complete cycles of standing, bowing, sitting and prostrating for prayers five times daily. For those with physical disabilities or in the normal course of aging, it can present challenges, which Mostafa hopes to help with. “I emphasize the importance of functionality and how it relates to our ability to be able to pray,” Mostafa said.
Muslim women in t …