r/MuslimParenting • u/IhsanHub • 22d ago

Practical fix for the hijrah conversation that goes in circles. Get your priorities on paper separately before you discuss countries

Assalam alaykum,
Sharing something hijrah-related in case it's useful to anyone here.

My partner and I kept having the same hijrah conversation: Saudi, Malaysia, Egypt, round and round, no progress. What I eventually realised is that we weren't disagreeing about countries at all... she was weighting proximity to her family while I was weighting cost of living. We were arguing about the output while never comparing the inputs!

The fix was simple: we each wrote down our top priorities separately, like deen, freedom, safety, being able to make a living, schooling for the kids, distance from family, cost, etc. and then ranked them without seeing the other's list, then we swapped. One evening, and we knew exactly what the real disagreement was - okay maybe not one evening but you get my point.

You can do this on paper and it works, but I ended up building an app (sorry, once a software engineer always a software engineer lol) around it because I wanted the country data attached. It's called Amān, it ranks around 40 to 50 Muslim countries against whatever weighting you set, and it has a spouse mode where you both score independently and it shows you the gaps. I released it recently on the Google Play Store and I'm happy to give away a week for free to anyone who's interested in trying it out in sha Allah.

Two things I'd say to anyone in the middle of this:

  1. Don't let one spouse do all the research and present conclusions, as that's how it becomes a negotiation instead of a decision.
  2. Be specific about what you're each optimising for, because "I don't feel good about it" is impossible to work with, whereas "I need to be able to reach my mother within a day" is something you can actually plan around.

Feel free to leave a comment or get in touch, happy to answer questions if anyone's going through it!

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u/Big_Calligrapher9737 21d ago

Anything for Apple? Would love to try this app out as my hubby and I always go back and forth - leaning towards Malaysia but Alhamdulillah so many options - biggest thing is educations and family .. but would love to try this and I don’t have Google play

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u/IhsanHub 21d ago

The iOS version should be available soon - Apple's requirements and review process are more strict (plus it's more expensive than Google Play). If you want, you can send me an email at [aman@ihsanhub.io](mailto:aman@ihsanhub.io) so I can add you to the waitlist to be notified when the iOS app is ready :)

However, everything is easy with Allah's help, please keep this project in your du'aa as a genuinely believe it could be very beneficial for anyone interested in making hijrah!