Jawaid Iqbal
Mother is a gift from Allah almighty. Even the Holy Qura’n says,The Quran states: “O Mary! God has chosen you and purified you and again he has chosen you above all women of all nations of the worlds”. Sa’imah: She who fasts. And We have enjoined upon man, to his parents, good treatment. His mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship, and his gestation and weaning [period] is thirty months. [He grows] until, when he reaches maturity and reaches [the age of] forty years, he says, “My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to work righteousness of which You will approve and make righteous for me my offspring. Indeed, I have repented to you, and indeed, I am of the Muslims. Many people may not know that mothers specifically and parents in general are held in very high esteem in the faith. There are verses in the Qur’an and hadith that emphasize the burdens that a mother carries and the respect that should be accorded to her. In this post, I will focus on the importance of mothers in Islam. All the verses and hadith on mothers demonstrate the importance of this figure in Islam. They also show that the mother is accorded a higher honour than even the father because of all the responsibilities she has towards her child. The Prophet never saw his father because he died before his birth and he lost his mother when he was six years old. Yet many hadith show that he understood the importance of one’s parents, especially the mother. Many Muslims will say that Islam emphasizes the importance of the mother so much that Mother’s Day is not one day a year but should be every day. Here I have quoted some hadith,through which we can understand well the importance of mother though our mothers are not getting that honour and respect from us.
All the verses and hadith on mothers demonstrate the importance of this figure in Islam. They also show that the mother is accorded a higher honour than even the father because of all the responsibilities she has towards her child.
The Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said, may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him: Your Heaven lies under the feet of your mother (Ahmad, Nasai). A man came to the Prophet and said, ‘O Messenger of God! Who among the people is the most worthy of my good companionship? The Prophet said: Your mother. The man said, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said: Then your mother. The man further asked, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said: Then your mother. The man asked again, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said: Then your father. (Bukhari, Muslim).Abu Usaid Saidi said: We were once sitting with Rasulullah when a man from the tribe of Salmah came and said to him: O Messenger of Allah! do my parents have rights over me even after they have died? And Rasulullah said: Yes. You must pray to Allah to bless them with His Forgiveness and Mercy, fulfill the promises they made to anyone, and respect their relations and their friends (Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah).Abdullah ibn Amr related that the Messenger of Allah said: The major sins are to believe that Allah has partners, to disobey one’s parents, to commit murder, and to bear false witness (Bukhari, Muslim). It is narrated by Asma bint Abu Bakr that during the treaty of Hudaibiyah, her mother, who was then pagan, came to see her from Makkah. Asma informed the Messenger of Allah of her arrival and also that she needed help. He said: Be good to your mother (Bukhari, Muslim).Some one has rightly said : A mother was telling her son that oh my son when you were a baby I was wishing when you will speak and talk like me but now when you speak, I get frightened. Respect mothers
(Author is a school teacher in School Education Department and writes frequently for “ Kashmir Horizon” . Views are his own) [email protected]
