By Cii Radio | Sabeelul Hayaat with Mas-oodah Jappie
When Qaanitah Hunter speaks, her words carry the rhythm of someone who has seen both
the world’s noise and its silence.
She has covered wars, witnessed injustice, edited political exposes, and stared down the
chaos of power. But when she sat down to write her latest book, Why Am I Like This?, she
didn’t write about presidents or revolutions. She wrote about pain. And in doing so, she
began to heal.
“I’d been through years of loss,” she says quietly. “My mother, my father, my mentors… And
I never gave myself time to grieve. It all caught up to me. I was made up of this throbbing
grief that I didn’t know where to place.”
From Dyslexia to Destiny
Few know that behind the award-winning journalist and founder of The Debrief Network is
a woman who once couldn’t even hold a pen properly.
“I suffer from extreme dyslexia,” she reveals. “I couldn’t write with a pen very well. Only
when I began typing did I flourish.”
That small adaptation changed her life — and unlocked a voice that would one day reach
millions. It also created a paradox: a storyteller who had to fight to tell her own story.
Writing Her Way Back
Her writing began as private notes, stories typed out for her mother, emailed back and
forth, full of imaginary worlds and emotional truth. “She used to call me and say, ‘How could
you kill that character? You’re so cruel!’” Qaanitah laughs.
But behind that laughter was training — not for fiction, but for faith. Every story she wrote
was an exercise in shukr (gratitude) and sabr (patience). Years later, when burnout and
grief collided, those early stories became the doorway she walked through again,not to
escape, but to return to herself.
The Science of Healing
Psychologists call it narrative repair: the act of rewriting your pain into meaning. Qaanitah
calls it writing her way through grief.
“Fiction feels like extending a piece of your heart,” she says. “It’s not your story, but it’s filled
with your vulnerabilities — your fears, your worldview, the things you wrestle with.”
Science confirms what the soul already knows ,storytelling activates the same regions of
the brain as lived experience. When we read or write emotionally rich narratives, our
mirror neurons fire, making us feel, heal, and grow through empathy. In Islamic tradition,
that’s called tafakkur — reflection. It’s how the heart makes sense of qadr (divine decree).
The Book That Bled and Bloomed
Why Am I Like This? is not an autobiography, yet every page feels like a confession. It tells
the story of Farah — a woman navigating love, loss, loneliness, and faith. Her journey is
messy, layered, unfinished — just like ours.
“When I was writing, I wanted to show that healing isn’t linear,” Qaanitah says. “Life isn’t
clean and clinical. It’s messy, it’s complicated, and that’s okay.”
Readers have echoed the same feeling. Some say they saw their own mothers, daughters, or
buried grief between the lines. Others said they cried, then smiled, then cried again.
It’s what neuroscientists call emotional sequencing — alternating tension and relief, sorrow
and hope, so the brain stays deeply engaged. It’s also prophetic wisdom: “Indeed, with
hardship comes ease.” (Surah Ash-Sharh, 94:6)
Grief, Gratitude, and Growth
Ironically, Why Am I Like This? was written during what should have been her ‘best’ year —
career success, international recognition, and a thriving new media company. Yet, inwardly,
she was breaking.
“It was the years I achieved the most,” she admits. “And yet, I was completely undone inside.
I didn’t want to indulge in sadness because I was so grateful for Allah’s blessings. But grief
doesn’t go away because you’re grateful. It sits quietly, waiting for you to notice it.”
So she noticed it. And she wrote. For four weeks, in Kenya — between coffee shops and
silence — she poured her heart onto a page. By the time she finished, she had turned
heartbreak into art, and grief into ibadah (worship)
Faith in the Fragments
In an age of speed and noise, Why Am I Like This? invites stillness. It’s not just a book — it’s
an emotional mirror. It asks: What happens when women stop pretending to be ‘fine’?
When they finally sit with the ache they’ve been avoiding? When they choose softness over
survival?
“Death is the most predictable thing in life,” she reflects. “Yet when it happens, it feels like
the ground disappears. Losing a parent feels like walking without one leg. That wound
never fully closes — but you can learn to walk with it.”
The Heart Behind the Pen
When she speaks about the characters in her book, Qaanitah lights up like a mother talking
about her children. Her favorite? “Comrade Z,” she smiles — “a mash-up of so many people
I’ve known. Some real, some imagined, all deeply human.”
“I’ve realized,” she says, “that the most personal stories are the most universal. The heart
recognizes truth.”
That’s why Why Am I Like This? feels less like a novel, and more like a conversation with
your own heart.
Closing Words
When the interview ended, Mas-oodah Jappie asked her for her final words to listeners.
Qaanitah paused, then said:
“I’m immensely grateful to Cii Radio — to the people who believed in me when I was just a
teenager figuring out who I was. I just hope, in some small way, I can pay it forward — and
that we can all leave this world even marginally better than we found it.”
Her story isn’t about fame or fiction or even healing. It’s about what happens when a
woman faces her grief — and finds God waiting there.
Reflection
In a world that glorifies constant motion, Qaanitah’s journey reminds us that slowing down
is sometimes the most courageous thing we can do.
Healing isn’t running away from pain. It’s walking through it — with remembrance, with
honesty, with Allah in your heart and a story in your hand.
May every tear turned into ink become a dua written in light.
READ: Qaanitah Hunter: The Woman Who’s Fixing the News — Not Chasing It
Cii Radio is a ‘Waqf’ and a registered Non-Profit Organization that aims to broadcast Islamic news and programs throughout the world.
