Author of the Month: Waheeda Joosab
Waheeda Joosab wears many hats: teacher, mother, author, counsellor, and founder of AMWASA. Yet at the heart of all these roles lies one consistent thread — words used with intention.
By day, Waheeda teaches English to Grade 4 learners in Durban, nurturing young minds at a formative stage of their reading journey. Outside the classroom, she is raising two sons, managing a household, and quietly building AMWASA into a values-driven literary movement. Her weekends are often filled with admin, counselling work through her long-running blog What WayD Says, and the kind of unseen labour that sustains community work.
Creativity, she shares, is what grounds her. While she wishes for more time to crochet and write, she has learnt to fit creativity into the margins of a full life — a reality many readers will recognise.
Few know that before this season of her life, Waheeda spent over a decade teaching English to foreign learners, including corporate trainees and even the Japanese CEO of Toyota South Africa. Education, communication, and language have always been central to her work.
Her debut novel, Kismet – For Roses to Blossom, was born during a deeply personal transition. As she began wearing niqab, her worldview shifted, and so did her reading needs. Unable to find books that resonated with where she was evolving spiritually and emotionally, she decided to write the story herself.
Kismet is a gentle yet honest exploration of marriage, fate, and resilience. Waheeda describes it as a light read with weighty truths: marriage is never effortless, whether arranged or chosen, and love requires patience, growth, and a lot of dua. Through flawed characters and imperfect choices, the story reminds readers that roses do not bloom without thorns.
She hopes young women, especially those approaching marriage, will read the book with open hearts (even if the male protagonist’s red flags raise a few eyebrows!).
Beneath the humour lies an earnest message: relationships require work, wisdom, and sabr.
One of Waheeda’s most cherished characters is Uthman, the father figure whose quiet wisdom helps guide the story’s central relationship. Editing, she admits, was the hardest part of the journey, while writing the first draft, where she was free from pressure, remains her fondest memory.
Writing has not only introduced her to a new community but deepened her sense of responsibility. Her words, she says, will outlast her – a sobering and sacred amaanah.
When readers close Kismet, she hopes they are left with a soft, hopeful feeling. She hopes that they are reminded that even when life does not unfold as planned, Allah SWT’s decree is never without purpose.
Two new novels are already in the works, and Waheeda continues to write, teach, and build spaces where Muslim women’s voices are honoured.
