Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Great Muslim Women Fatima alFihriyya Founder of the First University in the World (Qarawiyyin)
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Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen wa
salatu salam ala Sayidina more saline while earlier he was asked
me about a cosa limiter Sleeman Cathedral in Iommi, Dean Amma bad.
Several years ago I had the opportunity to go and visit
Morocco and in particular the city of Fez which in Arabic is called
PFASs. And it's a beautiful old city with a beautiful old Medina
that still exist small small alleyways, old buildings and
mashallah there around the center of the city you have this great
huge masjid and University which is called Kirrawee in Jamia al
Kirrawee. And so, I'd heard from before some of its history so
today I thought that I will just recount some of its history
because I think it's very relevant to our program today. Mashallah,
this is a program for sisters. So I thought that we would discuss
some of the outstanding contributions provided by our
female Muslim members of the past. Maybe it'd be inshallah an
inspiration, at least we give a shout out to these individuals who
have accomplished so much and who have left these kinds of signs for
us to take heat from. So this Jeremy alcara ween, which is in
Fez, Fez is a very interesting city because it's one of the it
was one of the more popular cities of North Africa of the time, after
Cairo, one by one, which is in Tunisia, that is probably an older
city. However, there was a mass migration that took place from
Pedro, Juan Pedro, one is in Tunisia. And there was a mass
migration that took place from Cairo one and many of its members,
even some of the founding, even even some of the family of the
founding members of Pedro, Juan, they had actually come over and
move too fast, because there was a new leader, a new ruler of the
area, which is known as Morocco today. And the Idris, the idrisi.
Empire. And they were known to be very good. So they were family of
Rasulullah, sallAllahu, alayhi wasallam, as well, so many people
had had moved there. So that's why this particular these two cities
called FASS affairs, and Pedro wine are very, very popular and
very historical, old cities. The reason why Fez is called fast is
because in Arabic, fast, fast means an axe and while they were
digging the foundations of the city to establish its walls and
everything else that one of the first things that they found,
which was very notable was was an axe, and thus, for some reason,
the city became known as fast, which means an axe or FERS in
English.
There is a a historian whose name is Allah ma Mohamed El Mundo
Sybilla. Al Qahtani, again, a Moroccan The Captain is from
Morocco. He says that first was the capital of the Idris in
Empire. And the German oil Kirrawee in this famous university
that sits there until today, is considered to be the oldest
university in the world.
It may have not had a proper University charter as is you can
say, the Volgen in As is the tradition in the West to give a
particular place of learning a charter. But it is the oldest
surviving Institute which is acted as a university though it may not
be formally, you know, the way you see other universities today,
because it became officially recognized as a university in the
1900s. But it was a madrasa in the traditional sense of the
university, right from the early days is considered to be the
oldest in the world. In fact, according to many historians, it's
even earlier than zaytuna zaytuna, which is the university in which
was the University in, in in Tunisia at the time of the early
period. And it's also I'll give you the dates, but it's also
earlier than the Azhar University of Ulster, which is considered to
be the most famous today. So he's considered but the one in Tunisia,
the Jeremy Tunis, the zaytuna zetonna, rather, that had ended
and then it was it's there's a new university in that place that is
in memory of the old one, it seems today, other is continuous until
today. And so it's called a win is continuous until today, of course,
it doesn't have the same maybe the former glory that he used to have,
but it's still existing until today, and it's still in function.
Many students from all around Africa come and study there. So
when we visited, we got a good tour of the place and the director
of the director of the curriculum. We were
We he took us around and we spent some good time with him. So
anyway,
it's it's older than any of the European universities. And the
reason I mentioned this is because the Kirrawee just to give you an
idea of dates, it was established around 245 245 HD which is
approximately 855 59 Gregorian 859 Gregorian that makes it over 1100
years. That makes it over 1100. Year. So 900,000 2016 we're in
right now. It's over 1100 years old. That's 859 That was
established in zetonna came sometime after that, as her was
founded in 970. So you got 859, and you got 970. That's over 100
years afterwards. So over 100 years afterwards, 90 970 972 is
when other is established by the fall team. It's right. In Cairo.
Then in Europe donor, the first university is documented
universities is considered to be the University of Bologna, which
is in Italy, that was established in 1088. So that's about 90 years
or so. That's actually you know, that's over now, another 100 years
after us 110 years or so after us. So that's 202 130 years or so
after the carabin. Right, that's the first university in Europe.
And then you have the University of Salamanca, which is in Spain,
where actually Oxford came before that. So Oxford is established
around in some form, there was some teaching going on in Oxford
around 1096, though, it's got it, it's official, it's official
status in 1167. So you're gonna say 1096, that is after the
University of Bologna 1088. Right. So and still 250 or 60 years after
Halloween, then the University of Salamanca, which is in 1134,
charter was granted in 1218. So Cambridge was then in 1209. So
it's much, much later, right? Cambridge is much later than then
then Oxford, about one and a half centuries after,
or just over a century after, after Oxford, and Harvard was only
in 1636. So much, much, much later. So only about 400 years
ago. That's Harvard University. So that's why we have this Korean
university being the oldest university in the world that
continues until today. And it's played some very, very important
role in the great important roles in the past, it's had the likes of
ignore Khaldoon Al was zani numerous other numerous other
people that have either taught there or that have either studied
that it produced some really, really notable figures from our
history, especially from the North African region, because that's
where it's, that's where it's located. Now, this great, great
institution, which has remained for so long as a beacon of light
within the Muslim world. The most interesting thing about it that
gives it another mark of distinction makes it very, very
unique. Right, and very relevant to our today discussion today in
this gathering here is that it was a woman that established this
university. So it's a sister, it's a woman that establishes a
university, which is the first of a kind, the first university in
the world in this kind of shape. You know, this is not to say that
there wasn't any teaching going on before this. What we mean by
university is a place where students can come this organize
lectures, right? There's maybe dorms or residents attached to it.
So when all of this is together, that's what we're talking about
university otherwise, of course, teaching because of the whole
hokum of Ikara Bismillah. Because the Halacha, as Allah subhanaw
taala says, In the Quran, that has been going on since our earliest
days, were the first madrasa in Islam. Our first teaching
institution in Islam, on some level was the Muslim mother, a set
of sofa, which is the prophets, Allah Larson's mother dosa, and
Abu Huraira, the Allahu anhu, and others, and all the other Sahaba
were its students, they would come and go, as as they could come and
as they could attend. So although teaching has been going on, this
is the first kind of you know, you can say network of classes, and a
kind of a structured organization that makes up this institution.
And that was established by a woman what's the most interesting
thing I found find here is that
it's not even something she saw happening elsewhere. And she
thought, Okay, let me do this. Let me replicate this here. Right.
It's actually that this is an original idea to establish
something of this nature that is attached to a masjid so the masjid
was established the Caribbean that it's got a beautiful Masjid with
it, and then the university that's associated with it. So it was a
brand new idea, unique vision, and that's what makes this so
wonderful. So inshallah we'll look at some of the lessons that we can
from this later on, but
Her name is Fatima. I've been to Mohammed. This university has been
established by Fatima bin to Mohammed her father was a sheikh.
I'll talk about him in a bit. Fatima been to Mohammed Al fevrier
and Cora Shia. She is from the Qureshi tribe originally. And she,
she is from the family of raka IGNOU Nafi aucuba iblue nerfed al
Fairey al Qureshi, who was the conqueror, who was the conqueror
of Tunisia, the conqueror of Tunisia, and he is the one who had
established and laid the foundations founded the city of
Pharaoh one in Cairo one, as I mentioned, is in Tunisia, and when
the people had migrated from there to the city of Fez, the reason
this university became known as Cara Wien, is because it's
associated to the people that come from the migrators from Cairo one
that's why it's called Kirrawee Yean.
initiated to get confused about this Caribbean clear one because
they all sound the same in the beginning, but it's just that that
is where it originates from. And what she's done for the city of
Fez is that she's actually put it into history. She is number one
she's put into history. The fact that you know, this goes back to
Cairo one in Tunisia. So there's a memory for that. Then the city of
Fez in Morocco itself that it makes that very special because of
that because of that, and then the whole history that's associated
with that
this was established during the rule in Morocco of Amelia ignore
Mohammed Idris. So here's the second here's the second Hadith
you can say or the second rule or other right of this is the famous
Idris said Kelly. Idris said the rule in Morocco and which is
mashallah quite quite wonderful because they will has any seeds,
they will have any seeds from the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam. This was established in Ramadan, they finished in this
establishing Ramadan in 245 Hijiri, which as I mentioned, is
about 859.
So, her father, her father was a he was a jurist. He was a jurist,
Abu Abdullah Mohammed Abdullah Abdullah Al Theorie, Abu Abdullah
Mohammed Abdullah Abdullah, so his name is Mohammed his father's name
is Abdullah and he is named himself Abu Abdullah though he had
no sons. He didn't have any sons.
Alpha hurry, okay. Rouhani. He was considered to be one of the
integrators the MaHA Julian from Cairo one that came to fez in the
earliest days of Imam Idris, Idris, the first who was one of
the the rulers of mercury. So she was brought up under the in the
tarbiyah. And she was nurtured by her father, the shakin fuckable
Abdullah right Mohamed Ibni Abdullah theory and mashallah, one
thing about him which was different from probably other
shakes that we generally, you know, hear about is that he Masha
Allah was very well positioned, he had lots of money is a very, very
wealthy individual, the Marlon katharyn Ouattara, right, very,
very wealthy individual in that sense, and he only had two
children, and that was two daughters. So it was this Fatima,
one daughter and his and her sister, Miriam. So Fatima and
Miriam. And he, mashallah he did the tarbiyah. He really nurtured
them. Well, he brought them up very well taught them very well
until when they became older. After that she got married and
mashallah her husband also after a lot of
after a lot of hard work, he was also very wealthy. However, both
her father and her husband died shortly afterwards. And she was
left alone, right, she was left alone. And she she and her sister,
her husband's brother also eventually passed away. So all of
the wealth of her father and her husband, all of that came to her
and her sister. Now the thing, it begins here, you've got these two
women, you've got this woman who suddenly loses a husband loses her
father has seems to have no other male figure in the family as well,
you know, in the traditional kind of sense, we were looking at this,
what would you do with that money? Unfortunately, in this case, what
you would have is that many women would be taken, taken advantage of
the people, many people coming to them asking for their hand in
marriage or whatever trying to take this enormous amount of money
that they have. However, both of them you know, her and her sister,
her sister is muddy and bint Mohammed, Al Fahey, her title was
Amal Qasim, her title titled become Omar Qasim, while the title
of Fatima, our Fatima the one we're discussing is Amal baleen,
the mother of many many children.
So anyway, they both try to decide where they're going to use their
money. So the whole folk
This became how do we use this money to get the most out of it?
Now think what you would do with a lot of wealth, what we do buy a
few houses, maybe put them on rent in London, that's the thing to do
these days, right? And then just basically insure yourself in that
sense from, you know, having any problems in the future, maybe give
it out to your children. But look at their thought process, they
wondering how to get some sadaqa jariya out of this because they
must have heard speculating here. They must have heard the hadith of
Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam it says that either matter
ignore them, When the Son of them when any child of Adam passes away
in kata, or Emmylou, his deeds stop, they, your deeds stop in the
you don't get the rewards from them in law into love, unless it's
of three sources, three types of deeds. One is
sadhaka to Nigeria, which is very important, a perpetual sadaqa
something that you begin, you start, you initiate, and you
establish, which then continues to run, and it postdates you, it
continues to run after your death as well. So as long as that stays
where they stays for 10 years after your death, or 100, or 1000
years after your death, you will continue to get the reward
accordingly. That's what you call a perpetual sadaqa. And then
there's an element you interfer OBE knowledge through which
benefit is derived after you leave a book, you leave a wonderful
website, you leave I mean, I'm talking modern terms, right? You
you leave a madrasah you leave you you educate several good teachers,
right, you pay for their education, these are all ideas,
right? You pay for several smart students, you get them, you pay
for their good sacred education. And then after that everybody that
they teach, and then everybody that's inspired by them, and then
from them, and them and them and it will just magnify, and there is
no risk to this business, you have to remember, there's no risk to
this business, there is no possibility of this commodity of
knowledge. I mean, if we say it's a commodity of knowledge that or
inspiration or tarbiyah, or spirituality that's going to be
spread from these individuals or from the madrasa you establish, or
whatever it is, that is never, never going to disappear, because
Sacred Knowledge will always be needed. And it's a lifeline for
us. So you have to remember that this is a massive investment. So
that's Elmo new interface, it will be a wallet on salejaw near the
ruler, who are you live a beautiful child that will pray for
you, that will pray for you that has the understanding to pray for
you. We may leave any beautiful children, we may leave them very
successful, we may leave them to be mashallah, you know, wonderful
doctors making lots of money or engineers or whatever the case is.
But will they pray for us is the question, will they pray for us.
If we can leave our children to pray for us, that is the most
wonderful thing that we can do. And in that regard, I'm going to
take a bit of a digression here, I just want to mention one very,
very interesting thing that we've just put into action. What
happened is when I was in South Africa in Ramadan, recently, I met
one of the brothers that were there helping out with the
organization of the ethical program and so on. I was speaking
to one then he is not an alum, but it's a very mashallah concerned
individual organizing these things. And he said that what we
do within our family, he's got a few brothers. And then he's got,
you know, brother in laws and so on. He says, what we do is that I
believe he said once a week, right, maybe every two weeks, but
I think it was once a week, once a week, or once every two weeks,
what we do is we finish the Quran off. So what we do is on WhatsApp
or whatever, we just say, you know, we want to do a hum, so all
the members of the family that are on this, okay, I'll take first,
the first Jews, second, Jews third Sebata, for Sebata. And that way,
it gets shared out very difficult for one person maybe to finish a
Quran every week, not everybody can do that some people do, but
this is they share it out in maybe 3040 members of the family, right,
so a Quran gets finished. And then what they do with the reward of
that, right, which is, you know, agreed upon contract majority of
Scholars is that they send this to all of their families deceased,
which means their mother and father who's passed away or the
grandparents have passed away. wonderful way to remember your
deceased and loved ones. So I just started that, you know, we just
started that in our family. And I hope it continues. And I would
recommend for all of you to this, you guys all all have these
WhatsApp groups, family, WhatsApp groups and other groups. Well use
it for this stuff, okay, we do a lot of chatting, we do a lot of
maybe, you know, we may organize a family get togethers and all the
rest of family outings and family restaurant, outings and all the
rest of it. Well, let's do one of these things as well, because
everybody's got people who've died. And we're always going to
have people who will die and we're going to die one day. So if we
start this tradition, right, if we start this tradition, then
inshallah somebody after we die is also going to be including us in
that reward that they sent. And it's just one I believe this is
southern Nigeria, in that sense, and it's very easy to do because
it's not burden any single person. It encourages people to read a bit
of Quran, right? So insha Allah You know, I pray that Allah
subhanaw taala accept
From all of us, and allow us all to put this if this is one lesson
from today, then you know, this is a very practical lesson, get on
your whatsapp and use them for something useful, right get on
your whatsapp and use it for something useful because Insha
Allah, this will, you know, they say they'll come back to bite you,
this will come back to benefit you, you will bask in his glory
Inshallah, in the hereafter because of what you did, because
you will also get the very first person to do this, you will
actually get the reward of everybody who does this in your
family, and then eventually you will also get the benefit of
people praying and sending you the reward as well. So may Allah
subhanaw taala accept that from us.
So then, she's thinking, what should we do? So, they, they, if
you look at this hadith, it talks about sadaqa, jariya, continuous
charity, and then the knowledge from which benefit is always
derived, and then well done sila, right, which is a pious child.
Now, if I take, if we take sadaqa here as something you spend,
right, then that would be different from knowledge, because
knowledge and spending is different. However, if it takes
other cause any act, which is to benefit somebody, as the profit or
loss, I mentioned that every morning, when we get we get up our
bodies, oh, a sadaqa. And then he said A smile is also a sadaqa. So
in that extended sense of just being charitable, not just with
wealth, but also with your behavior, your conduct, and
everything else, then I believe that this L Manjunatha. Will be he
is also what she managed to achieve. She's started a
charitable institution that is perpetual. So she gets a sadaqa
jariya. And she also gets Elmo new interfer. OB he she leaves behind
knowledge from which were from the children, from which many, many
people will continue to benefit. And then I would say that her
title that she had an argument on Melbournian is a very apt title,
because all of these people who will study here are like her
children. Right? Because she is you can say the matron of this
institute. So Amal bunny is the mother of many, many children to
come everybody who is a graduate who has benefited from the
indirectly benefited from their from anybody who's graduated from
the then it's a word unsightly, who knows if they're going to have
if they're going to be thankful and pray for the people who have
established this university for them, then they will get the
benefit of this. I think she's hit a jackpot, right in that regard.
How does she plan for the building. So what she does is
she's, they they are living in the section of Fez, fez has a river
going in between. And there are two sections of Fez you can
actually see today there's a river going in between. And there's two
sections, the section she was living in was the marine section,
which means the section of the people who had come from Pharaoh
one. On the other hand, over the bank of the river, you had the
undiluted people, that's called the undiluted section, because
when the people of Spain of southern Spain and de Lucia had to
escape from there, after the persecutions, they, they came and
established themselves under the EU, but on the other hand, on the
other part of the bank, so you had these two, these two sections,
they're supposed to be a very, very thriving city of some of the
you know, greatest people with all of the great civilization from
under Lucia that couldn't have come and established themselves
there. So she started herself in this section of the Cairo one is
that had come along, right.
And what she did was she purchased a piece of land which was being
used as a quarry of lime, so it was a limestone land right all the
white limestone in there and she used her money to bring in the
laborers. Everybody to come in and to start building this Masjid the
German because generally the universities were so like even as
her you got a big masjid and then he's had a big sprawl afterwards
you know with other buildings and so on. They started this in
Ramadan 245 He right. So this started in the beginning of
Ramadan turn 45 Hijiri. And this, this work continued for 18 years,
it was finished in 263 Hijiri. So 245 to 263 Hijiri. And she was so
particular that only Halal wealth be used. You see the more
ceremony, the more ritual the more particular you are with any
action, the more you will get out of it. That's why Imam Buhari his
book, his collection is so valuable because for every Hadith
among the 7000, something Hadith in it, he would do is the Hara.
They say he would do a hospital he would you know, there was a
special ceremony attached to inclusion of each Hadith calling
Unto Allah invoking Allah subhanaw taala for each of that, one is you
do one thing and you make a dua afterwards. But the other one is
that you actually do offer every part of it, and you're particular
about everything. So she was very particular about making sure every
the source of the wealth that's being used here is all halal. And
that's why what she
She did not want to use anything from outside. So initially what
she did was she managed to get them to excavate some of the
better stone from the bottom that that could be used for the
building. So she had, you know, all the special limestone etc, dug
out of that same land.
And she stood and supervise, a supervise this herself, what what
she, what she does, the first thing that they did was they dug a
well, so that the water could be used for the the workers to drink
from, and also to use in their building process. So that was one
of the first thing that she did. And for all of those 18 years, she
stood there, and she directed the work.
Another thing that she did, as I told you a part of this ceremony,
right part of this, you know, particular
attention given to the work is that from the start of the
building process, she started fasting. And it says that we're
not allowed to fester. And she made a vow that she will not stop
fasting until the work is finished. So she remained like
that, for the entire duration. It says, of the building and
construction of this, of this building. And of this institution,
she kept fasting until until the end. And as soon as it was built,
the first thing that she did was she went and performed two records
of solid inside. So she performed two records of solid sugar on
dilla for the ingratitude, Allah subhanho wa taala. Now her sister,
you know, she doesn't want to be left behind, she's got money as
well, she went across the river to the other side, the andalusite.
And she established the great Jami Al Andalus down there.
Unfortunately, Jameel Andalus is not, doesn't remain the same as
Kirrawee in today. In fact, they say that it's probably under the
same old golf system now obviously. But that was supposed
to be a separate university or madrasa on the other side. Right
now we visited, it was just, it was just a masjid, there wasn't
much of a madrasa or university in there at all. Whereas this one is
a university of Caribbean is still a university. And then it was
after about 20 years or so after the building of this Masjid that
she passed away. She finally passed away, and she went to meet
her Lord. Now the main thing is that
what are the lessons that we can derive from this one is speaking
about this wonderful story, which truly is wonderful. But what are
the lessons that we learned from this? The first lesson we learned
from here is that if last sincerity always pays off. And you
can tell this from what she did fasting for the sake of Allah, and
making sure it's pure wealth. And the other thing that you will find
is that once when they were doing some excavation, to renovate parts
of the masjid, they discovered because obviously over time, it's
gone. You know, there's there's been, you know, a lot of
renovation that's happened to it and so on. At that time, it was,
you know, it had become eventually after some of the subsequent
rulers added to it made it one of the biggest Masjid in Africa. It
had become one of the biggest mustards in Africa at the time.
I'm not sure if it's still one of the biggest mustards in Africa,
but it is still very impressive and quite a quite a looming and
impressive structure. So,
at one time, when they did some excavation, they found a pluck a
very, very old plug which had been written in this old African Coffee
Script, right old African config scripts, right and what was
written is booni and hudl. Masjid Fishersville Canada means sanity
fella 13 was Salah Athena, when we attain the Mima Mr. Ravi Al Imam
as the hula Tao Idris UPCA hula.
This Masjid was built in the month of DeLuca in 63 Hijiri in 263 263
Hijiri. It is among those which was commanded among those
structures or messages which were commanded to be built by the Imam
May Allah grant him might die would Idris aapke hula?
May Allah subhanho wa Taala keep him keep him forever, right and
preserve him. It was built by him. Now what's interesting is that
everybody knows that it was actually built by Fatima omal
benim. And not by him, though he may have added something to it or
whatever the case is. But what we know from that time is that in
those days, you instill Now in some cases, somebody would do
something, they would produce a book, they would produce a
building, they would, you know, construct something and they would
dedicate it to the king. They were dedicated to the ruler. So maybe
this is something that happened during that time, and that's why
her name is there, not not on there. But what is
Has that plug to do with anything today nobody even knows this
individual this ruler of the time. But everybody knows about Fatima
because of her class and her sincerity. Number two,
the halal halal, which means that she was looking for Halal she was
very particular. Right, she was very particular about making sure
that it's all constructed with Halal only. Because Halal is
something which is pure, and anything which is pure, it means
it is of the highest class, and it will remain forever. That's why
when you buy something, and it has some very good parts to it and
components to it last forever, when it is part of the planned
obsolescence manufacturing of today where it's supposed to break
in a year or two years, or when the guarantee finishing, they've
got it down, you know, very,
very accurately in that regard, then it's not very pure. So this
was purity, to get make sure that all the material that's used there
is absolutely pure and taking it from the depths of the land that
she had. They say that she brought some land around it as well, there
was a farm or something like this, or whatever the case is. And she
added that and took the best of the material from there. Number
three is
true faith doing this for the sake of Allah true faith and piety, a
pious approach to these things, right, so did for the whole
duration of building that Masjid from 245, to 60 263, she remains
fasting. Now fasting is a very, very beloved state to Allah
subhanaw taala. And Allah subhanho wa Taala season, as mentioned in
the Hadith and could see, right al Hadith could see is that fasting
is going to be for me, and hence, I will directly reward for that.
So if somebody wants something accomplished, then if they fast in
the process of that as well, then you are essentially asking Allah
that I want you to reward me directly, and I'm fasting for this
sake for this cause, And subhanAllah look at the benefit
they get from that, right, there will be huge benefit. Fasting
provides a huge amount of benefit for that. So if we have something
major that we want to accomplish, it'd be a great idea to to fast
during that time.
Another thing that we get from here that we benefit and
understand from here, another lesson to draw is the status of
Muslim women. Right, the status of a woman in Islam. That's another
thing that
it's not just her, you had many people before and after her many
women like Haruna, Rashid's wife and numerous others who have
established these endowments who have established places like this,
right. And this shows that a woman has the right to do this in her
name, you know, you have the canal of Zuleika of Zubaydah, right,
which is supposed to be mucker. Right? In, you know, the hedge
areas, right? So you have a number of these things that they can have
their names to these things, they this is from their wealth, they
have the right to this, right, all of these things are very important
for us to understand that women in Islam have always had the right to
have their own wealth. And we know this from Khadija, the Allahu anha
is not something which Europe gets recently, in the last 100 years or
so. And then after they go overboard with it, because they
haven't had it for several centuries, you know, for
centuries, you know, as far back as you can remember, right. And
then suddenly they get it and then they just go crazy with it. It's
like giving a child a toy. Right? When they when they've been
deprived for such a long time you're given time they go crazy
with the sweets, right with the candy or whatever it is. So in
this case, you've got something similar that's happening in the
West have just gone crazy with this whole idea. There's no
moderation and disregard. And they've gone so overboard and
exaggerated in this regard, exaggerated in this regard, that
they now criticizing Islam for something that Islam has always
had. Right, and they think that they've surpassed Islam in this
regard. Now, I know we have some bad egg, you know, bad apples
within us who unfortunately do things that are an Islamic in that
regard. But in general, this is a very good example that you have of
a woman who has her own money and who makes those decisions. That's
where Allah subhanaw taala says in the Quran in surah nisa in Surah
Nisa, the chapter on women, verse 32. Literally god no Cebu, Mactan,
Cebu, while in Nisa de Nasi, Mata Sabina. Now, it's not always in
the Quran that Allah subhanaw taala mentioned something
separately for women, because men and women are supposed to be alike
in everything that's mentioned in the Quran in general, but here
Allah says, that for men is a portion of what they earn and for
women is a portion of what they earn. So they have it completely.
In fact, what ignoble duel one of the one of you can say maybe the
alumni is one of the alumnus of the this university, but
definitely one of the greatest scholars that North Africa has
produced and the founder of sociology, right the sounds
science of sociology, if not alone says in his study for Annamma
fucka anima nub but as email Mu kimberleigh mentioned this faulty
ml failure, he mentioned that it is as though she has
aroused the the aspirations she has aroused the inspirations of
the rulers after her, that when they saw what she had done and
what benefit that it had, it basically gave them room to also
do something, and really encourage them. So this is a woman who is
encouraged and in impressed, you can say, and influence so many
people after her to do this.
Now, in this regard, I just want to make one comment before I add
some other lessons. And some other benefits from this is that
if we, this is a bit of a personal comment, an observation that.
So while this is a major accomplishment, and it's not
something that even any man can do, right, you know, to establish
a massive university, you know, big, big place like that. It's not
what even every man can do. While not all men, right, perform such
extraordinary accomplishments, right? They don't have them. They
are generally if you look in history, and even look around us
today, they're generally more men who are able to do this than men.
So while not all men are able to do this, those who do do these big
projects that generally men, generally speaking, right.
So the reason for this, is that initially, I used to also think
that all of these women who study in madrasahs, and become audio
ones, and so on, they should, you know, really take the helm of
these things. And they should sort out the community affairs of the
women, and you know, they should do a lot of these things. But
eventually, over time, what I've learned from, you know, the
reality of the matter is that the function of a women that Allah
subhanaw taala has provided one of the primary functions, so one of
the primary functions of women, which they should be very proud
of, and one thing that it's only them who can do this is child
bringing up the next generation. Right, it's only women who can do
this, and they do it. And that takes a lot lot from them.
Every second, every moment spent behind their children, bringing
them up, gives them reward. So for them, it's almost like they're put
into a situation where as long as the intention is, right, right,
they are just going to get reward for everything that they have to
do anyway, right? In that sense.
But because of this occupation, of feeding the children, bringing
them up and bearing the child and all the rest of it, they are
unable to do many of these external aspects. That's generally
why you get more men, because men their work is outside, right, and
they're generally more enterprising. And then you can
look at the emotional states of both genders, the women is a lot
more soft, they're not as competitive as men are, you know,
evolutionists will have theories of why this is the case, and all
the rest of it, because we've been millions of years we've been, you
know, this is what we've been doing. So even if you agree with
this evolutionary theory thesis, you know, this idea that, you
know, men have to be outside a lot more competitive, you know, and
they want to spread this seed and they're going and they're going to
do the work and everything else like that, then we generally see
that women condors, so for somebody, for a woman to do
something like this, she's obviously going to have to come
out of all of that, in the sense that she's gonna have to rise
above this, in a sense, she's gonna have to focus on this, but
also to do this, because there's no point in women going behind
their careers to such a degree that they don't produce the next
generation. That's not the way of this world, whatever you somebody
may think, however, if a woman is going to do this, where she's got
a family, but she's also able to use her aspiration, or him or her,
you know, good wisdom to also accomplish something else on top
of that, then Subhanallah that is, but there's gonna be fewer
obviously, compared to men in general, as history has shown us
and as today, it shows us as well, that's just generally going to be
so you're gonna have to be really somebody with a lot of
enterprising ability to be able to do this beyond this, to do your,
your one of your most primary functions of being a mother,
right? Hi, Jerilyn salaam as your role model, and also do all of
these things are women have been given some amazing ability, I
mean, think about it.
Women bear children, the pain of bearing children carrying
something another soul in your body that gets larger and larger
body has to adjust our, you know, the female body has to adjust to
the child, the stomach, everything about she has to eat for to be
careful of what she eats, taking the rest, all the rest of it,
having the child the pain that they have to go through, you know,
the pangs of childbirth. They're not easy they are you know, they
are basically anecdotal in a sense that they are tough, they are
painful. She doesn't want she does it again. A man if you have to go
through this pain, what do you do it again? Right? Women they go
through this they do it again. And then they do it three times. They
do it five times. And mashallah Some do it.
even more than that, they go through this for the sake, that is
this, their selflessness to go through all of this pain, right?
They are able to endure huge, huge amounts of difficulty, right,
that's women for you, they're able to endure hugely, right because of
what Allah subhanaw taala has given them.
So
the one thing that she has to understand that what generally we
all have to understand is that, while a woman does probably more
than what a man does, because of the 24 hour system, you know, man,
he goes to work from eight, or nine to five, and then he's
finished, generally, right, some, they bring their work home, and so
on some, some work and all the time from their phones. But
generally speaking, they can come out of their work, they can leave
the office, whereas when it comes to women, it's a whole different
story, their office is their home, throughout the traditional mother
I'm talking about right, which the majority of the world is still
full of, and which are praised in Islam in general.
And if she's doing a job on the side as well, then you can imagine
she never gets a free day from these things. So she is probably
doing more than men
in a career that she cannot change, right. But she may not do
what a man does,
though her rewards are going to be greater in the form of the sadaqa
jariya, for all the beautiful children that she will have
produced, I believe that the woman has an ability to get more from
her children than even the husband has, because she her investment in
it is direct, the husband's investment is generally indirect,
he's bringing the money, maybe he provides the discipline, maybe he
provides them going to mothers and so on all the rest of it, and the
school and all that. But the woman is a hands on direct connection
with the with the baby, with with the with the child with the
feeding with the carrying with the childbirth with everything. So I
believe they have a more direct relationship with the and that's
where Allah subhanaw taala has made them in the disposition that
they have with the softness that they have, and with with this
emotional connection, and with a lot of women who are out there
working, because that is what their society and pushing our
society as well demands from them, maybe because of the difficulties
of living in certain places, maybe because of our way of spending our
spending habits, but they are unhappy, many of them are unhappy,
because they will, despite everything, they still get paid
less generally speaking, right than men do. Right. And above all,
they want to have a home in which they have children, because that
is something that has been instilled into them. And it's just
sad that they, they struggle in this regard.
Just a few more few more things that the story tells us, it
teaches us a few a few more things.
The other thing it teaches us, especially our women, and men as
well, in general, it teaches us how
we can disassociate our love of this world. And for a greater for
a greater objective, because that's exactly what she did,
rather than take all of that money and go around, you know, on a, on
a trip of the world, right on on some kind of holiday around the
world or do something else. So whatever the case was, she spent
it to help others in a charitable cause. Right? That's number one.
Number two,
her
focus, her endurance in making sure she took this to the end, it
took 18 years to build this. But she stood there she was there all
along fasting, and look at that endurance, don't give up. That is
the lesson that she teaches us. Don't give up. Even though nothing
may be with you, you may be alone. And that takes us
to
another point, which is that.
Remember, she is a woman who had lost her father, and she had lost
her husband. She did not go into this prolonged depression. She did
not go and become a recluse. She did not give up all hope. She did
not become depressed. But no she went and she produced something
that gave her the great recognition that she was
definitely do. So this is another lesson that we learned from this.
It tells us she The story also teaches us of how you can
plant a seed. And then you let Allah subhanaw taala take care of
the rest of it.
And the university obviously became even better and went from
strength to strength to the peak of its glory. In the centuries
that followed her. She just had to start it off. Starting something
is the most difficult. Continuing something is generally
Easy because the processes are in place, you've got a place you've
got a location, starting something is difficult.
So what we can learn from this is that we can bring this story as a
memory for us. Every time we feel depressed, every fee every time we
feel a bit dejected. Every time we feel forsaken, maybe every time we
feel a state of loss, and we feel that the world isn't going
according isn't very favorable to us. We're not in a very favorable
state. So then we remember this story that this is the story of a
woman who lost her brother, who lost her father, who didn't have a
brother, who lost her father who lost her husband, but then still
managed to go against all odds, and to be able to make this
extraordinary contribution that has illuminated millions
throughout our history. So may Allah subhanahu wa taala grant a
great reward that she is due for this. And may Allah subhanaw taala
make her a true inspiration for all of us. And Allah give us all
the Tofik to do something that is also great in this world before
our death, and may Allah remove any kind of state of loss or
depression from our hearts. And may Allah subhanaw taala accept us
for the service of his Deen working with that runner annual
Hamdu lillahi rabbil aalameen