A Life Fashioned by His Hand
This is the story of how Leslie Ann became Akanke Tiamoyo Rasheed — a journey through corporate success, radical faith, the discovery of Islam, and the quiet unfolding of a divine assignment.
"And He fashioned you, and perfected your forms."
The Life I Had
Before there was Akanke, there was Leslie Ann — a girl with steady eyes and a quiet inner world, already aware that life was asking something of her she could not yet name.
By 1989 I had arrived where the world told me to aim. Atlanta. A software company. A career that was rising. I drove a Mazda RX7, a small joyful indulgence that made every commute feel like freedom. I had an apartment I loved, full of the kind of soft afternoon light that quiets the mind.
From the outside, everything looked complete. From the inside, something subtle but persistent kept whispering — this is not all.
The Seminar That Changed Everything
A friend invited me to a Sondra Ray seminar called "Create a Life You Love." I did not know it then, but I was walking into a threshold.
Somewhere in that room, something shifted. Not loud, not theatrical — just a quiet inner knowing that the life I had built was not the life I had been created for. There was something more, and it was already calling my name.
The Radical Faith
I followed the call to a six-month program in Connecticut, immersing myself in A Course in Miracles and a community of spiritual seekers. I borrowed from my 401K to do it. I left the corporate life I had worked for. I trusted the pull.
My mother worried. She was certain I had joined a cult. I understood her fear — but I also knew that what was happening in me was not loss. It was return. A return to a self I had not yet met, but somehow remembered.
The Epiphany
Back in Atlanta, the seeking deepened. I read voraciously — The Book of African Names, Know Thyself, texts on African consciousness and the spiritual inheritance of my ancestors. I was searching for something whole — a faith that honored my mind, my body, my lineage, and my soul all at once.
And then I met Islam. Not as a foreign thing, but as a homecoming. A faith that called me to remember my Creator, to know myself in order to know my Lord, and to walk through the world as a witness to His mercy. Everything I had been gathering — every book, every teacher, every quiet ache — had been preparing me to recognize Him.
The Becoming
I shed the name I had been given and accepted the name He had been writing for me all along.
The path of becoming was not gentle. There was bankruptcy. There was the humility of moving back in with my mother. There were seasons where everything I thought I had built dissolved in my hands.
But Allah was teaching me something I could not have learned any other way: that I was never the builder. He was. And what He fashions does not break — it ripens.
My Divine Assignment
Out of all of it — the corporate years, the seeking, the conversion, the unraveling, the rebuilding — a calling emerged. Clear and quiet and unmistakable.
I was made to be a beacon. To stand at the threshold and witness women as they cross into their becoming. To hold sacred space for the questions, the grief, the longing, and the slow, holy work of returning to oneself and to Allah.
This is the work of Sacred Ascension. This is why I am here.
Will you walk with me?
If something in my story stirred something in yours, I would be honored to gather with you. Come sit in the circle of He Fashioned You — a sacred masterclass for Muslim women ready to cross into their own becoming.