Ebrahim Bham – The role Muslim Women in society
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AI: Transcript ©
My dear respected,
elders and brothers,
we are today, of course, is the day
of Jum'ah, the most blessed day in the
week.
And together with that,
today is also known as Women's Day,
in our country, and I suppose in many
other countries of the world.
So in this particular regard, I thought that
I will speak around the issue, and we
also have a nikka that is to be
performed.
So it is most, appropriate that we speak
about this issue today, keeping in mind
that there is no compulsion to speak on
this topic
because it is such a day in the
country. There's no compulsion. From a sherry point
of view, there is no compulsion.
There is no,
added merit also.
But, of course, there is a hype around
it, and because there is a hype around
it, you will see it in the media,
you will see it, and you will see
billboard with regard to it, and you will
see post that people will post. So it's
maybe appropriate
that we use it as a means to
empower ourself and state our
position on the matter.
Now when we speak about the rights of,
women in Islam,
the first thing that comes to mind is
the position of women prior to Islam.
Now that particular time before Islam
was known as
at the days of ignorance.
But if there is one thing that stood
out in their days of ignorance,
there are many things that they did wrong.
There was gambling, there was, you know, alcohol,
and there were many things that were wrong.
But if you have to have ask anyone,
what was
the feature that stands out with regard to
the days of ignorance,
there is one that stands out that they
used to bury their daughters alive.
They used to bury their daughters alive, and
that stands out
with regard to that particular period known as
the days of ignorance.
And therefore, you
find that there are many
very amazing incidents that I may mention with
regard to it in a book
that has been translated into English English,
the tears and smiles of our beloved.
A Sahabi came to.
He became a Sahabi That time he came
and he said, you Rasoolah, I want to
accept Islam,
but I'm very afraid whether Allah Ta'ala will
forgive my sons or not.
So Nabi al Karim
assured him and said,
Islam wipes away all the evils of the
past.
Why are you in doubt?
Said,
I
buried 7 daughters alive.
I
buried 7 daughters.
Even our beloved
after assuring him
that he would be forgiven,
Nabi
for a moment hesitated and started weeping.
He started weeping, and he said, let me
wait for revelation.
And Allah assured
Nabi
that when a person accepts Islam,
and Allah will forgive his kufar and shirk,
his disbelief,
why won't Allah
even forgive such a deed? But even that
deed
had an impact upon our beloved Nabiya Karim,
sallam.
Islam came to create a revolution with regard
to the rights of women.
So whereas previously before Islam, they were buried,
after Islam, when Hazrat Fatima
used to come in the home, Nabiya Karim
salallahu alaihi wasallam used to stand up in
respect for her. Nabiya Karim salallahu alaihi wasallam
used to stand up, kiss her on the
forehead, and then Nabiya Karim salallahu alaihi wasallam
used to shut. That was the revolution Islam
created.
And in this particular regard, Islam gave her
a role
according to her temperament, which was most appropriate,
which was most
right and most correct,
away from extremes.
The extremes of complete liberalism,
or the extremes of completely
suffocating her. There was away from these 2
extremes,
which even today we find these 2 extremes
in the various parts of the world. There's
a suffocation that happens in South, you know,
Asia, and there is a liberalism
that that has
placed and imposed upon her a burden, which
is not even fair and just.
What Islam did was grant her equality of
rights.
Islam has granted her equality in terms of
her dignity,
in terms of her accountability before mighty Allah,
in terms of her sacredness of her of
her life, in terms of the sacredness
of her her rights.
Her right and her life is as sacred,
if perhaps not more sacred than that of
a man. When Nabiya Karim
sent armies
in the in the guidance that they gave
was, you will not kill women and children.
You will not kill women and children. That's
why I say, perhaps it was even more
sacred than that of men.
So Allah
has given her in terms of she is
also required to do the same. Amal we
as we as men are, you know, required
to
do. Whoever does right here's deeds, be it
male or female, or who are Mormon, and
they are believers.
In this beautiful
verse, in this rhythmic verse, Allah
has also made mention of the same fact.
However, that does not mean that they are
completely equal in terms of their rights
and their responsibilities.
Allah
has given her responsibility
which is different. Allah has given her responsibility
which is according to her temperament.
You know, sometimes we we get carried away
by slogans,
you know. You know, we have to be
careful. What is the meaning of equality?
You take, for example, 2 different types of
flowers.
You take a rose or you take a
chulet
or you take a whatever type or you
take a daffodil.
I wondered lonely as a crowd.
High over the veils and hills.
When all of a sudden I saw a
a crowd, a host of golden daffodils.
If anyone could remember that particular poem that
we used to read when we were small
in in school.
Roses
and daffodils are different.
But does anyone ever say they are unequal?
The fact that they are different doesn't make
them unequal. They are different. Each and everyone
are beautiful in their own right.
So to say roses and daffodils or tulips
or whatever type of flowers they are, they
are different,
but they are not equal. It's not what
does it mean? They are different. Doesn't mean
that they are not equal because of them
being different. In a similar manner, I say
equality is a very slicky and catchy slogan.
What does equality mean?
In Metz,
equality means if you have 2 variables,
the 2 variables are equal.
1 can be substituted
for the other without making a difference in
the final equation.
That is equality. So if you say 2
+2 is 4, then you put 2 here
in one side and you put 2 another
side. Now you could change a 2.
It won't make any difference to the answer
of 4.
That is what in meds what that is
with regard to equality, what is meant. If
the 2 variables,
if you put them and you substitute them
with one another, there is no difference in
the equation and the final results.
Now if you mean equality in that particular
sense, with regard to male and female, it
is absurd.
Male and female, Allah has
treated them biologically,
psychologically, in every way different.
If they were completely equal,
then perhaps one day the male and female
will say, when last time it was my
chance to bear the pregnancy, now you take
over the responsibility.
You take over the next pregnancy.
And I can't sign it, sometimes it is
so inconsistent.
So all of a sudden you find equality
in everything
and now, you know, we all read this
type of things. So now there is no
Olympic Games, a person who is supposed to
be a female, taking part in a female,
you know, discipline, and all of a sudden
they say no, He came back from a
male background and he's got more strength than
the woman
and the female, and they can't bear the
punches of that particular person, whether male or
female, whatever it is. So it is completely
equality. Why are you making a noise with
regard to the matter?
So you understand the situation with regard to
the the fallacy and the myth of equality
in every particular sense. Islam has never ever
made
such a claim. Islam has given a role
suited to her temperament.
Islam does not impose a woman.
Islam does not impose upon a woman to
be like a man to gain respect.
She doesn't have to dress like a man
to gain respect. She doesn't have to fulfill
fulfill the roles of a woman, our man,
to gain respect.
Islam has never put upon her the burden
to even fulfill her own financial needs.
Even if she has financial needs, she could
use it upon herself. She is not obliged
to use it for the sake of the
family.
Islam has never put her upon such a
situation because if ever she has to be
in a position of looking after her own
financial needs, she can become vulnerable, and Islam
has protected her from vulnerability.
This is the beauty of Islam. And look
at the way Allah
has given her with regard to the various
roles that she has to play. One of
the greatest roles, I don't say it's the
only role.
I have to be sensitive with regard to
it. You know, sometimes, one day I gave
a talk and I spoke about this role,
and someone said,
you know, he came and he told me
and said, Morana, I am married,
and my wife cannot bear children. So now
whenever I make mention of this role, I
say, yes. It is one of the primary
roles, but it's not the only role of
a woman,
and that is the role of a mother.
And it's under this role
that Islam Islam has given her the ultimate
accolade.
Lies under the feet of your mother.
Under the feet of the father is already
the choke pole by you. Under the feet
of the mother is Jannah.
And in this particular role, what does it
mean by being the mother?
So beautifully writes.
He says
that it is no coincidence.
It is no coincidence
that pregnancy
and breastfeeding
and weeding the child off the breast and,
you know, parental role and the mother's role
at the time of a child's infancy
are purely feminine task. It is not the
role of a male.
It's not coincidence.
Because Allah has given her that sacrifice
that that she can be able to make
that sacrifice, men would not have been able
to make that sacrifice.
It is therefore no coincidence that that particular
aspect with regard to motherhood
has been
solely the prerogative
and the responsibility
of the female.
And I made mention of this, I think,
previously so many times. There was once, in
an argument between male and female, between the
mother and the father, who makes more sacrifice?
And the father gave all his sacrifices he
make. I have to get the bread. I
have to get the risk. I have to
get the sustenance. I have to pay the
rent, and I have to pay the water
and lights, all of that on its place.
But the mother closed the argument with these
beautiful words and this beautiful argument.
And what did she say? She said, you
bore.
You bore the responsibility
of the child when it was light. I
bore it when it was heavy.
You bore it
for a short period of time.
It
says in the Torah in the holy Quran.
The time it takes for the male sperm
to go from the back of the back.
No, from the back,
to the place of release.
You bore
for a short period of time, I bore
the child and the seed of my child
for 9 months.
You dropped the seed in the foot of
pleasure.
I dropped the seed in pain, close close
to death.
The closest pain to death,
doctors and others have made mention, is the
pain of of childbirth.
Who are you to compare your sacrifices to
my sacrifice?
Which Allah
also acknowledges
in in in the Quran.
And when we speak about the aspect of
motherhood, it's not only about the the aspect
of childbirth.
It is the aspect
of her granting, training to the child. The
first to start is that of the mother.
And we hear beautiful sayings in the English
language. We only find the implementation of it
in our sharia and in Islam. The hand
that rocks the cradle rules the world because
she is the first to start of the
child.
Many a times, many years back and many
moons back, I read one article of him.
It was such an amazing thing. He said,
one day, the king came to his wife
and said, we sent our son to be
the leader
of, of an army. Today, the news came
that our son
fled the battle.
So the mother said,
impossible.
It can never happen.
It can never happen.
So the king was amazed by the conviction
of his wife.
So the next day, he came and gave
Gadigal and said, no.
Initially, there was a setback of the Muslim
army,
but they gathered, and Allah Ta'ala granted them
victory at the hands of our son.
But tell me,
yesterday, when I relate to this incident,
why were you so firmly convinced that it
was a lie and you don't believe in
it?
She
said, when I fed my child
and I breastfed my child,
I always prayed wuzu.
And then I breastfed my child.
It was impossible for that child
whom I have brought up with such discipline
and such piety
that that child would have fled the battle.
If you would have told me
that the child had suffered a defeat, that
is not possible.
It's possible
because we gain sometimes victory and sometimes defeat.
But for you to say that my child,
whom I brought up with such respect and
such discipline,
had fled the battlefield
impossible for me to accept.
That is the role of a mother.
They are the guardians
of the next and future generation of the
ummah.
Then, of course, we have with regard to
the the role of a wife. Subhanallah.
Nabiya Karim has given special
emphasis with regard to the rights of the
female and with regard to the wife. One
day
while traveling, here, they used to have these
people who used to sing poetry
because they used to use that poetry to
make the camels go faster.
So this person was name of Anjasha, he
was a slave, a Visinian slave. And he
had a way with regard to his poetry,
because of which he used to make the
animals go faster. And Nabiya Karim saw a
song called him. What a beautiful
thing Nabiya Karim saw a song said.
Don't let the camels go so fast.
The, be kind and compassionate to the.
Is like a crystal vase,
And today, crystal vases are always regarded to
be very, very sensitive,
very, very valuable.
Normally, they say in today's time, I was
just doing a Google search and I said,
let me find out. They said, no. No.
A proper crystal glass
will fetch something like 1,000 to $4,000.
And in 2010, 2 2010,
in Salabiz, there was a crystal vase that
was auctioned for an amazing and whopping £51,000,000.
So Nabiya Karim SAW waslam said, be kind
and considerate and compassionate to these, you know,
valuable.
That is how referred to them.
And therefore,
Allah
Allah has made the wife and the husband
as garments unto one another. I don't have
the time to go on to make mention
with regard to the, you know, the the
the role of the the bus. I mean,
the the role of the garment. The garment
protects us. The garment is our adornment. The
garment is a means of protecting our modesty
and chastity, and that is the role that
the husband and wife play for one another.
So that is another aspect with regard to
to to the role of a woman. Another
aspect with regard to the role of the
woman is, and that is why important for
us that we bear this in mind when
dealing with them as wives.
Be good to your wives. If you dislike
something in them, perhaps you dislike something, but
Allah has kept many other good qualities in
her. Accentuate the positive, overlook the negative.
And then, of course, one of the roles
with regard to a woman is a daughter.
Look at how Allah has made mention. When
Allah makes mention,
And He grant whomsoever He wants males. He
made mention of the female first.
He made mention of the female and the
daughters first.
And today, what is our situation? Especially sometimes
people who come from the Hindu
subcontinent. Allah has condemned
Sometimes when the people give them the news
of a daughter that is to be born
to them, their faces become dark in disappointment,
and they suppress the grief.
Is this the way that Islam has taught
us? As the Aisha says, one day a
woman came, and she had 2 daughters with
her. Right? She was hungry.
She said, oh
oh, mother of the faithful, I have not
eaten for so many
days.
So he said, I
gave her 3 dates.
So she gave one to the one and
the other one to the other daughter. And
because they were so hungry, they ate it
up so
quickly, and they started looking at the one
other date, which the mother kept behind.
And the mother broke it
in 2 and gave it to the 2
daughters
and didn't eat herself.
And when she merited this to Nabiya Khareb's
or Salem, Nabiya Khrib,
said whoever is put any through any difficulty
and the words are used up ex the
exact translation of the hadith.
Whoever is put under any difficulty
in the guardianship
of these daughters,
Allah will grant them.
Allah will grant their parents
who looks after their daughters well. Therefore, my
brothers,
the paradise
of children lies under the feet of the
feet of the mother.
To bring up
our daughters
with loving manner and care assures us
freedom from the fire of Jahannam.
And the righteousness of a husband is determined
by how he deals with his wife.
The best amongst you are those who are
kind and good to the worthy wife. I
can go on in making mention, but I'm
just saying
one more other thing before I go. It
is a little bit of a public policy,
so I'm gonna take a little bit few
more minutes just to to conclude this. You
see, in Islam, beyond that,
Islam has also looked upon the woman, not
only in terms of her domestic responsibilities,
just as you and I have a responsibility
the
and making sacrifices for the sake of death,
then in a similar manner, woman in the
past and woman today has a responsibility to
put their shoulder to the wheel and make
an effort for the upliftment of death.
Whoever today feels and I'm gonna say this
with great amount of confidence,
whoever feels that the challenges of the ummah
can be faced
and can be resolved by only one group
living in silos.
He is nave.
Whoever thinks that you can you can solve
and resolve the challenges of the ummah by
living in silos, you are nayiv.
The challenges of the ummah are not going
to be resolved in silos. It's not going
to be resolved only by 1 group. It's
not only gonna be resolved by the males.
Or will be resolved by the ulama.
It requires a concerted effort of all different
groups and categories of people to be able
to come together to resolve the crisis of
the Ummah. Because we are not doing that,
therefore, we are not successful.
This is a reality that today even with
regard to ulama,
you can't become an alim and an imam
without.
You and imam without followers. How is that
possible?
The
role and the challenges of this ummah only
going to be faced when we do it
all collectively and that is why
Allah has made mention with regard to it.
Many years ago, I went with a very
remarkable human being for, you know, few days
in Jamat,
So he said the elders used to say
a very amazing thing. He say, if you
don't make an effort to bring your woman
and your wife according to
deal, then even if you are deemed that,
even if you are biased, you will bring
deal to the door of your house, and
she won't allow Dean to come into the
house.
You have to make a collective effort, male
and female, mother and father, to be able
to bring deed into the house of the
children. Otherwise, if only you make an effort
and you don't bring your wife with regard
to that particular effort, you will not be
able to be successful with regard to the
upbringing of your children. Therefore,
The believing male and females are protectors and
helpers and guardians of one another. They protect
one another in what way? By commanding good
and preventing evil. And look at our history.
There are so many
remarkable examples. As
a fought a battle with her tribe. And
after her particular tribe, you know, when when
they came victory, there was you know, they
were taken as that time the the the
min was with regard to save. Eventually,
she came into the niqah of our beloved
Nabiya Karim,
and when she came into the niqah of
Nabiya Karim, the
entire Sahaba,
He
said, you Allah, this tribe
is
from the family of Nabiya Karim, from the
wife of Nabiya Karim,
they
freed all the people of the tribe.
Hazrat Aisha says,
I never saw a woman
who was so beneficial to her tribe in
Juwaire, the mother of the faithful. Hazal Aisha
herself,
subhanallah, look at their situation.
She was amongst the most knowledgeable of
the companions of our beloved Nabiya Karim across
the board, both male and female.
2,220
saints of Nabiya Karim
reported from her. Hazal Musa Shari
says,
We were never ever faced with any complexities
of any matter of deen, that we do
not go to Aisha, and she gave us
a resolving of that particular complexity that we
were facing. And not only indeed, she was
also someone who was knowledgeable in other fields
like medicine and math, etcetera.
And let me give you another example in,
you know, later time. I'm sure it is
a time of the Sahabi.
Fatima.
You know, Fatima
gained a great amount of
inheritance.
She had gained great amount of inheritance.
And today, a woman gains inheritance. What will
she do? Maybe she'll buy a Louis Vuitton
bed.
But what did she do?
She created the first university in Islam.
She was the first university that was created,
not only in Islamic history, human history, was
created by a woman by the name of
Fatima Al Fari. Hazar Mufti Takasa Usmani has
made mention of that university and said, it
was such an amazing university.
In one university, they were teaching Deen, and
they were teaching philosophy, and they were teaching
mathematics
and history. And who was it set to
set up by? Who was it established by?
Fatima al Fihri, a woman, who used her
inheritance money
to establish a walk up as we establish
an educational institute.
Even in South Africa, the first masjid, our
masjid,
the land was made
by a Muslim woman. So this is the
road that we, Islam, sees with regard to
Muslim woman. We are supposed to be
understanding of it, and we are supposed to
be those who encourage
the fulfillment of the throne. May Allah
give an adequate feel of understanding.