Fatima Barkatulla – Ramadan 2022 #01 – Women in the Qur’an Intro & Wife of Pharoah

Fatima Barkatulla
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The title "verbal woman" in the Quran is a common phrase that is often associated with men and women, and is linked to a chapter in the Bible that talks about women and men. The crisis of feminism is global and men are responsible for protecting and supporting women. The importance of men as a role model for men and the need for men to provide financial protection and support their well-being is emphasized. The segment discusses the negative impact of motherhood on women, particularly in Muslim society, and encourages viewers to make a donation to help build a Muslim women's organization and create initiatives for reaching non-female men. The segment ends with a call to make a donation and a reminder to make a donation to the organization.

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			Huh
		
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			woman Wi
		
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			Fi she
		
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			was Shafi ona
		
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			from the Lillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah Dear brothers and sisters As Salam aleikum. So this
session
		
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			is actually a session that we're going to have in short a lot every day in Ramadan, if the last part
that I like gives us energy and life.
		
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			And it's going to be about women in the Quran, women in the Quran.
		
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			You might be listening into this and on Twitter spaces, and it probably shows up as
		
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			the Twitter page for Muslim womanhood, right hosting this Twitter spaces. Although me, I'm actually
hosting it. And I am Fatima barkatullah. So that might be a bit confusing to some people. But I'm
actually the founder and CEO of Muslim womanhood, which is a new Muslim women's organization.
		
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			We want to help women, especially in the West, but really in the 21st century, women all over the
world, help them with the challenges and struggles of living as a Muslim, especially in the West.
		
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			And that could be from an ideological perspective, it could be from a motivational perspective, from
a knowledge perspective. And so this is actually our first Twitter spaces. And we've only recently
launched our Twitter page even So Twitter accounts, so please do follow the Twitter account for
Muslim womanhood and spread the word. So why, why is this topic important? And why did we want to
launch an organization for Muslim women?
		
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			Well, look, my session today is about women in the Quran. And the one today in particular, I'm going
to focus on
		
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			a particular woman in the Quran, who's mentioned in the Quran, and she is the wife of Pharaoh. And
the reason why the topic of women in the Quran is important is that there's this misconception isn't
there, that,
		
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			especially amongst people who don't really know much about Islam, or who haven't studied Islam in
real depth, that, you know, Islam is a so called patriarchal religion. It's a religion that was, you
know, it's very much skewed towards men with a male bias.
		
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			There's this
		
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			image that people have of religion in general, that
		
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			it's a very much
		
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			you know, something that men interpret, and that the holy books or scriptures talk to men. And when
it comes to the Quran, this could not be further from the truth. Because unlike the Bible, the Quran
has always been
		
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			a scripture, revelation that was accessible to all people, all Muslims, all people.
		
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			What I mean by that is that when it came when it comes to the Bible, it's only very, very recently,
relatively recently that the Bible was translated. And before that,
		
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			the Bible was actually not something that the average man and woman could access.
		
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			In fact, it was something that the priests would access and they would, you know, interpret, and
they would explain, so you always had to go through,
		
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			like somebody in between, right, in terms of accessing the Bible.
		
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			The Quran is not like that at all. From right from the beginning, the Quran was not only revealed
sometimes in the presence of women, right? You know, we know that Ashura de la Anna. Sometimes the
Quran will be revealed when the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam was literally lying in his bed in
Arusha, or the lion has house.
		
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			It could even be revealed when he was his head was on her lap, you know?
		
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			Subhanallah
		
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			so she would wait
		
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			In the Quran being revealed,
		
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			and not only that, but women would memorize the Quran right from the beginning they would understand
it. I showed her the Latin her, she was known as a great Morpha sera of Quran, who the Sahaba could
come to and they would say, you know, if there was any ayat of Quran they had a any problem with or
any question about, they could always come to Arusha and have the wife of the Prophet, and she would
always have some information about it, she would always have some information about and that's a
beautiful thing. So
		
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			I actually learn her and the other female companions of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam
would often ask questions and try to understand different verses of the Quran in more depth.
		
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			When
		
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			when, you know the Quran was
		
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			when the standardized version of the Quran was written,
		
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			then it was kept with Hafsa not the Lionheart. Right? Who is one of the wives of the Prophet is the
daughter of Homer atop
		
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			Subhan Allah so, you know, women
		
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			had not only had access to the Quran, they were the safe keepers of the Quran. They were the
memorizes of Quran they were the interpreters of Quran. And not only that they were in the Quran as
well the Quran speaks to women.
		
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			The Quran speaks to women as well as men, right?
		
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			The Quran
		
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			speaks about women.
		
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			There are many women mentioned in the Quran. And some of them, most of them are not mentioned by
name. Okay, so that first name is not necessarily mentioned. But you know, there's a description, or
there's some other phrase to refer to them.
		
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			But, you know, there's even a chapter of the Quran that was labeled the chapter of women. There's a
chapter of Quran called surah. Medea, who about Mary, right, the mother of Christ, who is also a
very revered figure for us as Muslims.
		
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			So, the Quran, and women are inextricably inextricably linked. The Creator of the heavens and the
earth, he didn't.
		
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			You know, he didn't reveal guidance for men alone. He created men and women. And he revealed
guidance for men and women. He cares about men and women.
		
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			And we see that in so many verses of the Quran, and Charlo if I get a chance, in one of these
sessions, I will mention to you,
		
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			you know, some of the amazing verses that you can look up, and that will leave you in no doubt, that
not only does Allah the Creator of the heavens and the earth, care about women, and speak to women,
but that he loves women. And you will have no doubt about that, in sha Allah when you read some of
these amazing verses.
		
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			Now,
		
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			the first thing I think I should mention is, is God is Allah. Mel.
		
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			I want to talk about that because, again, this is something that
		
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			you know, some people have a misconception about, or they wonder about, you know, why is God in
general? Why is he always referred to in the masculine? And, you know, in obviously, in the Jewish
and Christian traditions, it's quite common to think of God as the Father, right? As the father. But
		
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			obviously, like in Islam, we don't have that same kind of characterization of God.
		
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			You know, Allah subhanaw taala, the word Allah means the one worthy of worship. So, you know, if you
want to call God the higher power, you want to call him the force behind creation, the Creator.
		
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			That is what Allah is, that is who Allah is. And
		
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			the word Allah does not denote maleness nor femininity.
		
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			You know, we don't believe that God
		
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			The Creator, the higher power is male or female. He's above these things. He's above gender, right?
		
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			We refer to him as he, in the English language because it's, it's the most appropriate,
		
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			neutral word to refer to God as.
		
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			Right. But we don't mean by he, that God is male, not taught.
		
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			We believe that God is the Creator, the Sustainer of All human beings, men and women, that God is
the highest authority for men and women.
		
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			He's not male.
		
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			Islam, the word Islam simply means submission to the Creator, submission to the higher power
submission, or surrendering yourself or,
		
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			you know, acknowledging and giving yourself to
		
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			the Creator to the higher power, being at peace with the higher power. That's literally what the
word Islam means. So it's submission to the Creator. It's not submission to men. It's not submission
to human beings. It's submission to the creator of human beings.
		
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			And even in the Arabic language, you see the word Hua, that we refer to Allah as,
		
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			you know, because the Arabic language doesn't have a new term, right?
		
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			And the masculine Hua
		
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			is, you can use it for genderless nouns, right? It's not it doesn't denote gender necessarily. And
because Allah
		
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			refers to himself as Hawa in the Quran, that's why we refer to Allah as Hua it doesn't mean that
we're implying any maleness or male attribute. Right?
		
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			Just like in Arabic, you know,
		
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			objects, even objects can be horror and hear
		
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			literally translated as he or she, but obviously, an object is not he or she, right. It's it's
neutral, neuter. So,
		
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			um, and Professor Maura O'Neil, in her book, women speaking women listening women in inter religious
dialogue, she actually mentioned this as well, you know, as a Western academic, she acknowledges
this and says, that Muslims do not use a masculine God as either a conscious or unconscious tool in
the construction of gender roles. Muslims do not use a masculine God as either a conscious or
unconscious tool in the construction of gender roles.
		
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			So it's a widely known and accepted and understood fact that you know,
		
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			when we as Muslims refer to Allah, we are not referring to a male god, god is above gender.
		
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			But when we say he were just referring to God in the way that
		
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			is most appropriate in the English language,
		
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			and also because, you know, in the Quran, Allah refers to himself as Hua, so we say, for
		
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			just a moment, okay?
		
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			So I'm trying to, I'm gonna keep these daily sessions relatively short. But we're gonna really go
through some aspects of women in the Quran and womanhood in the Quran, right? Because Subhanallah
we're living in a time
		
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			when I think,
		
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			you know, after the second wave of feminism
		
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			prequels, we're probably sort of in the fifth wave or something, right, but especially after the
second wave of feminism in the 60s and 70s. A lot has happened. And there's been enough time, I
think, for women and men and societies to really feel the effects of that second wave.
		
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			Whether it was beneficial or not, you know, and also, it's, there's been enough time for people to
take stock, I think of, you know, what impact some of the ideology and, you know, the moves that
were
		
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			really promoted in the 60s and 70s.
		
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			There's been enough time for us to take stock of it and to see you know, what effects has it had
		
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			and
		
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			I've got a book here called the equality illusion by Kat barnyard, who is a feminist herself. And
she says In it, she says today, women's and girls bodies are widely denigrated as inanimate objects
to be publicly scrutinized, judged, maintained and manipulated for the benefit of others. They are
shared public property, a female body is deemed an object that could and should be made beautiful,
at almost any cost for the benefit of those looking at it.
		
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			Wow, you know, so she's saying, and this is a book, I believe, written in the relatively recently
she's saying that women's and girls bodies today are treated like objects, right? inanimate objects.
And there is this obsession for women to constantly,
		
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			you know,
		
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			shape their bodies, and be obsessed with their bodies and their faces and their appearance for the
benefit of others. And so she describes women in modern times as a type of shared public property.
SubhanAllah. I mean,
		
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			you know, it just goes to show that things have actually gotten worse for women.
		
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			And even Germaine Greer, you know, the famous feminists
		
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			in a BBC documentary called Blurred Lines, the new battle of the sexes, she actually said,
liberation hasn't happened. Even sexual liberation didn't happen. She says, what happened was that
commercial * was liberated. Fantasy was liberated, but people want liberated. And she says
that things have gotten a lot worse for women since she wrote her book, which is called The Female
Eunuch. And she was a real proponent of the, you know, the second wave of feminism. So, in a way,
she was responsible for some of the some of the negative effects of it.
		
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			And today in the UK, we see that
		
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			these are like statistics, I think I got about 10 years ago, actually. So things are probably worse
now. Okay.
		
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			There are
		
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			200,000 abortions. Every year in the UK.
		
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			over one and a half, 1000 of those abortions are over 22 weeks old. So baby is a fully formed baby.
Right inside the womb, over one and a half. 1000 of those are over 22 weeks old.
		
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			In the US 1.2 million babies a year. That's about 3333 a day are aborted.
		
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			Now, what does that show you? You know, what does that show you about what's happened? Because, you
know, women, obviously they
		
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			there is an effect that those abortions has on women, you know, on their psychology, on their sense
of worth, on, you know, something that is supposed to be a beautiful part of life, motherhood
		
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			that many women are either feeling they should, or, you know, just thinking they can
		
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			abort their babies. There are 80,000 Prostitutes in the UK.
		
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			One in 10 men in the world have visited a prostitute
		
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			to two and a half million victims of * trafficking are being trafficked at any one time.
		
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			Wow.
		
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			And * trafficking is the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. And obviously the
majority of those, those victims are women.
		
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			Prostitution is legal in 22 countries.
		
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			And of course, the majority of prostitutes are women.
		
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			And they're being used and abused by men.
		
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			According to feminist charity * crisis. 85,000 Women have raped on average in England and Wales
every year.
		
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			Gosh, over 400,000 women are sexually assaulted each year.
		
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			One in five women
		
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			Fine has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16.
		
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			And every second, I don't know if this is a global statistic, I've actually forgotten. But it says
here every second 28,000 People view *.
		
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			What does that say? What does that say about the value of women? What does that say about the crisis
of womanhood that is being experienced at the moment all over the world. And of course, this has an
impact on men, and it has an impact on families. According to Nat Sen. Research Group.
		
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			300,000 Fathers don't pay to support their own children
		
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			in the UK, and 1 million children,
		
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			1 million children, the UK, have no man at all in their lives.
		
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			According to the gingerbread society, the number of single parent families has more than trebled
since the second wave of feminism
		
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			92% of single parent families are mothers looking after their children.
		
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			So obviously, that that is an immense burden. And that's a responsibility that really should be a
responsibility that's shared. But it's very much falling onto the shoulders of women.
		
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			And so there's a crisis of womanhood, for hate, there's a there's a crisis going on. And as Muslims,
I believe, that we have an alternative vision for womanhood, that we should be sharing with the
world, we should be sharing the alternative vision for womanhood with the world. And if we don't do
that, we're really
		
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			failing in our duty, you know, because I know and I've met women out there, who before they knew
about Islam before they looked into Islam, they thought there was no alternative to the typical, you
know, Western Disney fied version of womanhood, right, the Hollywood version of womanhood that is
presented to them, right. And many times, you know, people are just conditioned into being a certain
way, and thinking that a certain way of being a woman is normal. And, you know, the only way
		
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			and if we as Muslims do not present the alternative, then I fear that many millions of women will
continue to suffer, and will continue to, to live lives of misery, you know, and we will continue to
be victims of
		
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			men who don't, who are responsible men who don't know what their role is, women themselves who don't
know what their roles are, and what they're entitled to.
		
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			And the message that the Quran brings to women is that women are valuable, that women are important,
and that God the Creator, cares about women.
		
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			And so one of the beautiful things that Islam has,
		
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			ideally, okay, is that it creates a system that is designed to support women from the cradle to the
grave, from the cradle to the grave. So when a girl is born, her father is responsible for her in
terms of financially, and to look after her to be responsible for her well being to protect her.
		
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			When a woman reaches a certain age, and she's ready to get married.
		
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			Then her husband becomes the person who's responsible for her protection, her well being for
financially providing for her that doesn't take away from her autonomy, because, you know, she, as a
Muslim woman, she has the right to buy to sell to own her own property, to have her own legal
identity. That's never been up for question. But her husband is responsible for protecting her and
taking care of her needs, including financially and then when she moves into old age,
		
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			if she doesn't have a husband
		
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			the responsibility
		
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			For financially providing for her, and taking care of her well being falls onto the shoulders of her
sons, right? Or other male relatives.
		
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			Now, that shows you that, you know, in Islam,
		
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			Islam wants to protect and look after women from the cradle to the grave. A woman is not meant to be
left out there in the cold, to look after herself, to even financially provide for herself. That's
not the ideal. I know, it does happen. And you know, there are different situations, but we're
talking about what What is Islam actually encouraging and what is Islam actually trying to make the
norm. Right. And the norm is that women are taken care of and looked after and protected
		
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			by society, and especially by men.
		
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			And if you just reflect on what's happening in Ukraine at the moment, subhanAllah you know, what,
the first thing that happened when the war broke out in Ukraine,
		
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			right, in Europe, where, obviously, there's this, usually there's this kind of mantra, right, that
everyone repeats, which is that of equality, that of men and women virtually being the same. There's
nothing that a man does that a woman can't do. And there's nothing that a woman does that a man
can't do, etcetera, etcetera, right? The lines between the genders are very much blurred, or between
the sexes are very much blurred.
		
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			But what happened when war broke out in Ukraine, you see that immediately, human beings defaulted to
their nature, right, their true nature. And a law was brought in a law was brought in
		
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			prohibiting men
		
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			from the age of 18. So that's basically teenagers, right? From the age of 18, to the age of 60. So
that's basically elderly men, right?
		
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			preventing them from leaving the country and obliging them to fight and protect the country.
		
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			But no such law was brought in for women to fight. In fact, women and children were encouraged to
leave.
		
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			So you see that even that society that European Western society, defaulted to human nature, which is
that men are the protectors of women.
		
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			And, you know, women and children are to be protected as much as possible
		
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			and taken to safety.
		
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			So,
		
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			Inshallah, every night I'm going to have this session, that was pretty much an introduction.
		
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			Tomorrow we can start off with
		
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			a great woman that's mentioned in the Quran. I mentioned the verse and then we'll explain it
tomorrow.
		
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			Allah Subhana Allah says in chapter 66 Verse 11 of the Quran he says
		
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			I'm just gonna play it actually I'll play it I could recite it but I think it's better to just play
		
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			it again
		
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			fever is born at
		
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			the company
		
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			so
		
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			well all
		
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			around what do I need you
		
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			okay, let me get the right tire inshallah. So in Surah 66 which is going to headin number 11. Well,
done long
		
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			Ramona is born at Divini if
		
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			you want to Genie Genie me.
		
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			I will know Amelie you wanna Genie Mina little poem and Wally me.
		
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			So Allah says in the Quran was out of Allah who methodology Lavina man Umbra tough your own. And
Allah. God sets forth.
		
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			The example an example for the believers, the wife of Pharaoh.
		
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			And then he says, if garlotte When she said
		
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			Robert Neely and Dr. Bates and Phil Jana.
		
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			My lord, build me a house in paradise near you.
		
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			We're not Genium in FIRA Onawa, Emma Lee, and deliver me from Pharaoh and his evil doing when a
Jimmy mineral Comey volley me and save me from the oppressive or wrongdoing, people.
		
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			So in this ayah, Allah subhanaw taala gives us the example as a role model. He gives us the example
of the wife of Pharaoh. And
		
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			at a very painful moment in her life when she was being tortured by Pharaoh, because she was a
believer, she believed in the message of Musa alayhis salam of Moses, and she refused to worship
other than Allah, other than God, she refused to worship Pharaoh. And because of that, Pharaoh
subjected her to punishment and torture. And as he was torturing her to death, she called out to
Allah. And she said,
		
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			and she said, My Lord, build for me a house in paradise near you, and deliver me from Pharaoh and
his evil doing and save me from the wrongdoing people.
		
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			And Allah subhanaw taala allowed her to glimpse her house in Jana, in those moments when she was
being tortured.
		
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			So she was a woman who gave up a life of luxury, who gave up a life of comfort, you know, she could
have just gone along with Pharaoh, she could have rejected Moses, she could have pretended to reject
Moses even.
		
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			But she didn't do that. She was a believer. And Pharaoh couldn't stand that there was a believer in
his own household, his own wife. And we know that this great woman who God Allah, the Creator above
the seven heavens gives us as a role model Lavina Amen. For all those who believe so she's a role
model not just for women, a role model for women and men.
		
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			Who believe
		
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			Allah gives her as a role model for us in the Quran, because of her sacrifice. And even before this,
she was a woman of great intuition and insight. She's the one who convinced Pharaoh to to allow the
baby Musa baby Moses, who, of course was in the river, put in the river, his crib was put in the
river by his mother, to try to save him. Because Pharaoh had a policy he was killing all of the male
children rather than the newborns of the children of Israel that year. And so in order to save him,
the mother of Musa
		
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			had put Musa into a little basket, into the river, right. And the basket had gone past the palace of
Pharaoh, and some of Pharaoh's servants or people had discovered the basket. And Pharaoh seeing the
basket and seeing that the child was a child of the children of Israel, he could tell because of
certain, I believe certain clothing and certain, you know,
		
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			ethnic indicators, I guess.
		
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			He wanted that baby to be killed. But his wife asiyah
		
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			The same woman has been clipped praised in the
		
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			she convinced him not to kill the baby. And she actually said in Surah 28 Chapter, sorry, in chapter
28, verse number nine talks about it says we'll all
		
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			learn.
		
00:34:52 --> 00:34:59
			So it says that, we'll call it America to fill out Pharaoh's wife said to him, this baby could be a
source of joy.
		
00:35:00 --> 00:35:10
			For me and for you, coolness of our eyes, right? And then she said, do not kill him, perhaps he may
be useful to us or we may adopt him as a son.
		
00:35:11 --> 00:35:12
			And then Allah says,
		
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			you know, we're home, Lea showed one they were unaware. You know, they were they couldn't perceive
what was about to happen, right? Subhan Allah so, you know, obviously more so grew up in the house
of Pharaoh and yet,
		
00:35:28 --> 00:35:35
			Musa alayhis salam ended up being the one who challenged Pharaoh, right.
		
00:35:36 --> 00:35:39
			He was within his own house, he was brought up by him.
		
00:35:40 --> 00:35:42
			And so it was this woman, this asiyah
		
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			Salaam, who, you know,
		
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			encouraged Pharaoh to allow Musa Ali salaam to live.
		
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			Okay.
		
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			And so Subhan Allah, again, this is a beautiful example. There's a beautiful Hadith in which the
prophets Allah when he was salam says,
		
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			Many men reached a state of completion. But none amongst women reached that state of completion. So
like a completion in the spiritual status, except marry the daughter of Imran so the mother of
Jesus, right? And asiyah, the wife of Pharaoh. And in another Hadith, he mentioned four women and we
will, we will talk about them Charla in a future session. So inshallah I'm going to end the session
today. This was just an introduction
		
00:36:45 --> 00:36:54
			to why it's important for us to care about Muslim womanhood, and share, you know, these stories and
these these insights
		
00:36:57 --> 00:37:18
			with non Muslims and with the communities around the world, so that the alternative vision for
womanhood is heard and understood, and women have the choice to adopt it. Because I believe that if
more and more women knew what Islam what the Quran, what Allah subhanaw taala offers women in terms
of
		
00:37:20 --> 00:37:21
			vision for womanhood,
		
00:37:22 --> 00:37:28
			a God centered vision, that more and more women would adopt it, they would find peace in that.
		
00:37:29 --> 00:37:42
			So I'm going to allow people to ask questions or make a comment. But before I do that, I want to
encourage all of you because I'm trying to build this Muslim women's organization, Muslim womanhood.
		
00:37:43 --> 00:37:50
			Okay. I need your help, you know, so this Ramadan, we're doing a fundraiser, if you
		
00:37:52 --> 00:38:06
			wouldn't mind, I would encourage you all to go to launch good.com/muslim women. So that's launch
good.com/muslim women. And I encourage you to please,
		
00:38:08 --> 00:38:09
			to please
		
00:38:11 --> 00:39:02
			you know, make a donation, 25 pounds, or even less than that, whatever you can afford, make a
donation help us to build this organization want to launch initiatives from us, and we're in
campaigns want to reach out to non Muslim women as well. And we want to establish an annual
conference, and other courses and initiatives that are accessible to women everywhere. So go to
launch good.com/muslim women, and please make a donation for our organization, Muslim womanhood. And
I hope in the coming year, you're going to see some amazing and interesting initiatives coming from
us, but we can't do it without your help. So let me see if there are any.
		
00:39:04 --> 00:39:07
			If there's anyone who wants to make a comment or ask a question
		
00:39:09 --> 00:39:12
			I'll give you a chance now to make a request
		
00:39:24 --> 00:39:25
			you have to make a request.
		
00:39:28 --> 00:39:30
			Okay, let me hear
		
00:39:38 --> 00:39:38
			okay.
		
00:39:39 --> 00:39:43
			Salam aleikum. You have to unmute yourself.
		
00:39:44 --> 00:39:47
			Hello, Michael. While I can set up
		
00:39:50 --> 00:39:51
			hello.
		
00:39:52 --> 00:39:59
			While it was salaam, Sister, where are you calling? Where are you joining us from? Oh yeah, Hello,
I'm from Indonesia and
		
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			This is my first time listening to your space.
		
00:40:06 --> 00:40:08
			So, I think
		
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			I'd like to share a little bit of my observation about this
		
00:40:14 --> 00:40:16
			gap between
		
00:40:18 --> 00:40:24
			Islamic womanhood and the way Muslim woman live in the present, like,
		
00:40:25 --> 00:40:39
			I think there is a very noticeable gap between what Islam has granted Muslim woman and how Muslim
woman are really traded within the Muslim communities.
		
00:40:41 --> 00:41:28
			For example, in Indonesia, which is a majority Muslim country, it is very common for woman or
daughters to have to work to be the provider of her family. She has to work not only to sustain
herself, but also to pay for, like her siblings educations or her parents household expenses. It
seems to be very easy for Muslim men right now to deny their financial responsibilities. And this,
this thing opens up many troublesome complexities to how Muslim women should live their life in
accordance to Islamic teachings due to many
		
00:41:30 --> 00:41:52
			unnecessary burdens they have to bear. And so do you think like, how should? How should a woman who
are trapped in this kind of situation, navigate her trust in us low that out to protect her, and yet
over and over again, easily transgressed by her own communities? Thank you.
		
00:41:54 --> 00:41:57
			Does ocular Heron sister that was an excellent point that you made?
		
00:41:58 --> 00:42:24
			Yes, I actually traveled to Malaysia a few years ago, and sisters, were saying a similar thing
there. You know, unfortunately, what was happening is, look, the norm that Islam wants to promote
and has always promoted in the past has been that women are not responsible for the financial, you
know, needs of the house, right?
		
00:42:25 --> 00:42:56
			That responsibilities falls onto the shoulders of men. However, in many Muslim communities, what's
happening now, what has been happening is that there's this expectation for women to also
financially contribute. And, you know, that in and of itself is not wouldn't necessarily be an
issue, except that, of course, the reason why women are not required to financially contribute is
because
		
00:42:57 --> 00:43:08
			Islamically is because they already have the immense responsibility and, you know, investment that
they put in when it comes to
		
00:43:09 --> 00:43:09
			child,
		
00:43:11 --> 00:43:19
			you know, pregnancy and childbirth, right? And then to look after that child as well, because
obviously, we want to encourage women to
		
00:43:20 --> 00:43:42
			mothers to look after their own babies to breastfeed their babies. And if, if you're going to have a
woman who's going to get pregnant for nine months, and then give birth, and then also breastfeed her
child, that's a long period of time. That's a very big physical toll. Right? It has a very big
physical toll.
		
00:43:44 --> 00:44:04
			And it's a huge responsibility that you can't, you can't economically, easily measure the value of
that, right. Although we know that it has an immense value, right for the stability of our society
and our communities and our children, the future, the future human beings.
		
00:44:05 --> 00:44:06
			Right. So
		
00:44:08 --> 00:44:30
			unfortunately, what's happening is that the traditional role of motherhood is being devalued, even
in Muslim communities. I met women in Malaysia who were saying to me that because they were educated
and they had a degree and maybe they used to work you know, when they were single, or early on in
marriage.
		
00:44:32 --> 00:44:59
			Now that they had just had a baby their families or sometimes their in laws were kind of putting
pressure on them to go back to work. Even though they had a very little baby, right? They wanted to
look after they wanted to breastfeed. They wanted to be able to look after that baby but
unfortunately, what was happening is, you know, their families were discouraging them and saying,
Oh, we can just bottle feed the baby or
		
00:45:00 --> 00:45:19
			You know, anyone can look after the baby. But you go back to work, right? As if motherhood is
something dispensable, right? You can just anyone can do it right? Which is not true at all. If you
read the book, raising babies by Steve Biddulph, who's a psychologist,
		
00:45:20 --> 00:46:10
			you will see that babies need their moms in a babies need their moms. The ideal is that mom is with
baby, especially in the early years. And somebody who loves the child is the one who primarily cares
for the child, not just a hired person, right? Not just somebody who's on the minimum wage, being
paid to look after a child who they don't have a natural sense of love for, right? I know, in some
situations, it becomes necessary, maybe, but we're talking about what we want the norm to be in
society, you know, what do we want? What is the best thing for the well being of the future human
beings? And we know that the early years are the most important, yes, for that, right. So Sister,
		
00:46:10 --> 00:46:13
			you're, you're highlighting something very important. And
		
00:46:14 --> 00:46:56
			I don't know what to put that down to accept an increase in materialism. You know, that's, that's
happened in, in some Muslim communities. And I think, as women, we should put push back on that, you
know, at the end of the day, men also need to realize that, you know, they should feel embarrassed,
actually, if the if there is no need. And just for kind of financial benefit and financial, I don't
know to have a more affluent lifestyle, etc. They're asking their wives to go out and work, you
know, Islamically, in the Islamic marriage contract, that is not
		
00:46:57 --> 00:47:01
			that is not a wife's responsibility.
		
00:47:02 --> 00:47:35
			Now, of course, I don't want to be unrealistic, I know that there are situations where that becomes
necessary, or even, like, they can come to an agreement that that's something that they want, right,
because they do want a higher level of lifestyle, or because, you know, things are so expensive,
they have to do that. But what is not good is the devaluing of motherhood, the not giving women a
chance to experience motherhood and really invest in their children, especially their very young
children, because you have some kind of
		
00:47:36 --> 00:47:41
			false expectation of them. And because you value,
		
00:47:42 --> 00:47:47
			their economic contribution more than their contribution to motherhood.
		
00:47:49 --> 00:47:55
			So I think the only way that's going to change is if we, as women,
		
00:47:56 --> 00:48:37
			make it clear that that's what we want. Right? That will raise the next generation of boys to
understand that, that that is their responsibility. And for them not to expect, you know, the, their
wives to be contributors, or, you know, for them, at least not to expect that as the norm, you know,
and to realize that, it is their responsibility to provide for the family, and to support their
wives in being able to commit themselves to their roles as mothers as much as possible, and make it
as easy as possible for them to do that.
		
00:48:38 --> 00:48:46
			I think the only way that's going to change is if we raise the next generation of boys with that.
And if we when we're getting married, right?
		
00:48:47 --> 00:49:02
			We make that understood, you know, but you're right. It's, it's unfortunate that even in some Muslim
societies, now, women are now doing a double shift, right, which is basically
		
00:49:03 --> 00:49:22
			they're looking after the children and they're doing the housework. And they're going out to work.
You know, it's like, okay, so you want the wife to do all the traditional roles as well. But then
you also want her to financially provide, you know, that's, that's too much.
		
00:49:24 --> 00:49:28
			You know, for centuries, men and women have divided their labor.
		
00:49:29 --> 00:49:32
			And when when men and women divide the labor,
		
00:49:33 --> 00:49:35
			the family functions very well.
		
00:49:36 --> 00:49:49
			Dear Brothers and Sisters, please do head over to launch good.com/muslim women that's launch
good.com/muslim women, and helped me build this organization that I want to build.
		
00:49:50 --> 00:49:59
			We want to launch some courses want to launch our platform for Muslim women like an educational
platform called Muslim Excellence, which is about tarbiyah
		
00:50:00 --> 00:50:05
			and self improvement and from an Islamic perspective for women.
		
00:50:07 --> 00:50:19
			And, you know, we want to have campaigns, maybe we would have campaigns, as the sister mentioned,
you know, that really highlight the importance of motherhood, the importance of men fulfilling their
role,
		
00:50:20 --> 00:51:12
			that there's so much potential for the organization. And there's so much we want to do. But, you
know, in order to do it, we we are going to need to, to raise some funds. So I'd really appreciate
it if you would also share the link which is launch group.com/muslim Women launch group.com/muslim
women and if you would head over there and make a donation, you know, that would be great. Just like
them allow Hara and in sha Allah. I'm going to leave a Salam o Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
Subhanak Allah homo behind DECA Shadwell, la isla Atlanta snowfield our to be like, join me tomorrow
we will continue to talk about women in the Quran. This Ramadan in sha Allah at the same time,
		
00:51:13 --> 00:51:14
			woman Wi
		
00:51:17 --> 00:51:18
			Fi she
		
00:51:20 --> 00:51:23
			was sure Fiona young man knows you