Voice of Islam TV New Zealand – Interview with Ustadha on her book- Khadijah (RA)

Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu Welcome back to voice of Islam TV.

My name is Amanda I am joining you this morning from Cardiff in the United Kingdom. I'd like to say welcome to all of our viewers in New Zealand in the UK and around the world, Masha Allah. Today I am delighted to welcome to our channel sister Fatima barkatullah, who is a

local very active Muslim sister here in the UK and who is author of this book which we're going to be talking about today, Khadija, mother of history's greatest nation.

Sister Fatima welcome to the program. family come Ali comma Salaam Rahmatullahi wa barakato

just for the audience I know Masha Allah here in the UK, you're quite well known within the Muslim community to Baraka love it for our international audience. Could you just introduce yourself a little bit, you know a

little bit about where you're from, what you do your background and so on.

Okay, I'm hamdulillah I'm a I was born in London. I'm a Londoner. My parents are originally from India.

And I was educated in the UK I traveled to Egypt and studied Arabic and Islamic Studies at a college of Aalto University. And then I completed my Islamic Studies, Sharia studies here in the UK at two Islamic seminaries.

The Ibrahim college seminary and the Salam Institute seminary. So Alhamdulillah I completed my Lamia studies. I'm currently doing my masters in Islamic law at so as the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London.

And I'm humbled like you know, over the years, I've had the opportunity to speak on various media outlets on all kinds of topics related to Islam on the BBC, Channel Four and various channels here in the UK. And,

and hamdulillah you know, I teach and I'm a student as well so, Mashallah to about a delight. Yes, I think learning never ends doesn't match at all, especially within Islamic sciences. So So you are you a full time student then it so us? No, I'm a part time student. Okay, Masha Allah, may Allah make you successful in that I went to solace as well. So I'm thinking

that's amazing.

Okay, so Could I just ask you now, you've written this book about our motherhood deja vu all day long?

And could you tell us a little bit about that? Um, you know, what inspired you to write this book?

Yeah, so like, ever since I was a little girl, my dad would buy me books, whatever books he could. So my dad is a scholar from India from the abundance. And he, so we were a religious family. Growing up in the 80s. In the UK, when there were hardly any books in English. Well, there were but they were of varying qualities, you could say, right? And my dad would hear, and my dad would do his best to find books in English for us. And I remember once he bought me a book about the life of Fatima Villa Anna. And because my name was Fatima, so, you know, he thought it would resonate with me. And the way that this book was written, it was written for children. But you know, in those days, books

were usually translations, or they were written in a very kind of factual, dry kind of way, you know, um, and so, I remember reading the book, and, of course, there were inspiring things in the book. But overall, I remember leaving the book feeling quite

a little bit depressed actually, because, because, because the way in which Fatima Dillon has life was presented was not in a particularly inspiring way or it hasn't been framed in such a way that a child with which I was at the time could really draw lessons from it or could feel kind of like this was a role model. For a child growing up in the West, you know, that it was very hard to find.

One as an adult when the opportunity came along, the publisher actually approached me

Because they were looking for somebody who could research in Arabic, as well as, right.

So when they approached me, I thought, Hmm, this is a real, I kind of relish the opportunity, you know. And I would say, through the process of writing the book, I actually became a better writer and learnt how to write a book for children, which is a different art to writing other types of books. And one of the key things I would say, I tried to do, because of my experience as a child, was to emotionally take care of the child throughout the journey of life, you see, so that, especially children growing up in the West, could understand the significance of various things, and perhaps be able to kind of see how it would apply to their life.

Mm hmm. I see what you're saying. Okay. That's very interesting.

So when you say the book that your father gave you the one about Fatima? Aloha, how would you say that it was quite

when when you say it left you feeling depressed? Is was that because it was just dry facts? Or was it because of, you know, the actual events of her life and so on. So for example, at the end of a story, you know, somebody, the, the, the protagonist usually dies, right? Like, in the biographical, right, in a biographical story. But for a child, like

that death needs to be framed in a certain way, you know, so that they can understand like, so for example, with Khadija della Anna, although she passed away at the end,

at quite a difficult point in the history of Muslims, you know, before profits or loss on him even traveled to Medina, right?

What the child needs to know is that ultimately, Khadija was successful, you know, that ultimately, her impact was felt throughout the world.

And so, what I'm trying to say is that, until very recently, Muslim authors have not really been very careful about the emotional journey of the reader, you know, what the reader is feeling as they're reading. So it's always very easy to absorb facts. But you know, we, as human beings are emotional beings, and we need

to be able to understand how something fits in to our, our world emotionally, right. And the readers feelings need to be taken care of as, as they're going through the journey. So, you know, typically, if somebody just dies at the end, and you know, they will become ill, and then they die. It's like, yeah, unless you kind of show people how that sits in the kind of bigger picture of history, right, and how the rest of their life has affected other things.

For a child, it's very hard to kind of be able to kind of see that as inspiring, you know, certain things need to be spelt out. That's what I mean. I see what you're saying Subhan Allah, okay, Zack left there for explaining that. I mean, I've read the book, Mashallah. And

it is it is written for quite a young target demographic, I will say, and yet at my Mashallah advanced age, I found it very enjoyable. You know, it was obviously a ball read a quick read for an adult. But there were still things in there that I benefited from such as, you know,

the discussion of the life of Khadija raviolo and her before she even married the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, right? You know, how she, how she, she knew that there was, you know, a prophet foretold coming, that she knew, and she knew that this man had good character she was she was on the lookout, essentially. And I think that this is something that

is often sort of glossed over when you read a lot of books about Sierra which are focusing obviously on the life of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam, and not necessarily on the lives of the people around him.

This this, you know, it really helped to flesh it out and to, you know, give her a very a much more three dimensional character.

I'm afraid we've lost the connection with sister with sister Fatima. Just One moment, please. We'll see if we can get her back up.

So I'm going to come sister.

Yes. I don't know. I don't know what happened there. How you came back. Good.

So yeah, you're saying in 2021 isn't it every

line we're always dropping off going back on. So yes, I was saying that, you know this I feel that this book even though it's aimed at quite a young audience, Mashallah it really brought the character of headteacher to life sort of in into three dimensions, four dimensions, I felt like I knew her a little bit better, right? That's exactly what I want to do. So hamdulillah Excellent. So no, I think you have succeeded in that. So I would really recommend this book, not just for children for for older, if you know, for older teenagers as well, I think they would find it enjoyable or, you know, anybody Mashallah, I think it is really a good read for people to to get into. And because

it's written for a younger audience, it's not something that's going to take ages for an adult to read either, which is, you know, makes it makes it an easy thing to pick up and to share with your friends and family.

Where can people buy the book from?

So I think there are a number of ways they could try to buy the book, because I appreciate that we have an international audience. So I wouldn't be able to be specific, but in some countries, it will be on Amazon.

Three sellers, you know, otherwise, it's available as a Kindle book. And also, you can always contact the publisher themselves, so they have their own website learning routes.

If you look up learning routes, Khadija or the Learn her it will come up and yeah, you can contact the the publisher directly because they sometimes have branches in various countries. So okay, so the publisher just for everybody listening, it's learning routes.com so that would be the main website. And obviously the Kindle edition, you can download it freely. But for the viewers there's also a link in the description where you can download a chapter of the book for free to sample it so you can see what it is that we're talking about. Masha Allah, if you go to that link, you can download that to which Mr. Fatima has generously supplied us with Masha Allah. So, sister you have a

topic to discuss with us today, which is five great lessons from the life of Khadija.

What would be the first lesson that you want to impart on us? Yeah, so as I was working on this book, um, you know, I think anytime you're working on, and you're researching the life of a person, you really start noticing things that maybe are not in the public conscience so much. And especially with the female companions, you know,

it's very easy to find online, for example, lectures about various, especially the male companions, you know, in detail and their lives, etc.

But, often, especially even in Islamic books, bookshops, the lives of the female companions have been kind of secondary, or they haven't really been written about in as much detail, especially in English. So when I was in the process of doing this, I found you know, that there were these big powerful lessons from her life for us as Muslims that were just staring at me, and I just really decided one day to articulate them. And, you know, I feel like they are lessons for all of our lives. So the first lesson, the first powerful lesson from the life of Khadija clarinha, is to live for a vision beyond your own life.

And the reason why I say that is because, you know, Khadija de Lyonne Has she, if you think about the trajectory of her life, she got married to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam after being widowed, and she, and then he became the Messenger of Allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and then their lives completely changed, right? And they went through this period of persecution, right, in Makkah, to the point that they were actually even expelled from their homes. And deja was a noble woman. She was like an upper class woman

who had lived a very comfortable life, you know, in the sense

She was from a wealthy family she had servants she had.

She had her own business that she had inherited, I believe from one of her husband's. And she was managing all of that.

And then suddenly she became like this persona non grata in, you know, in Makkah, being treated like the enemy, right, her whole family was being treated like the enemy, and being persecuted and for a time there was a boycott, where the Prophet sallallahu Sallam and his family including Khadija were expelled, they lived in a very narrow valley, in tents. And you know, nobody was allowed to buy from them or sell to them or provide them with food or anything. One of her nephews used to break the boycott and occasionally send some supplies, you know, to, to her and her family, but all of that kind of difficulty and persecution that they went through. And then she passed away, right? Just

before

they, the Prophet sallallahu Sallam found refuge in Medina, right. So in a way, Khadija died before she could see the fruit of her work, you know, in this life, so all that effort, all that, you know, she never saw Islam flourishing throughout Medina, throughout Arabia, and then, obviously, throughout the world, she never got to experience that. And yet, she was living for a vision for something that would actually actualize itself after her life or beyond her life. And so in that, I think, is the lesson for all of us, that the fruit we may not see the fruit of our work in this life, you know, but we've got to do it anyway, we've got to do the work anyway. So that's the first

kind of big lesson from the life Khadija I think, a lot and that is such an important lesson.

You know, Subhan, Allah, one thing that I've noticed, working with Muslim communities is a lack of long term strategic planning, a lack of long term vision, and impatience to try to get results now know, within, within the next you know, and when things don't work out, projects are abandoned so quickly. And I always think to myself, you know, Subhan, Allah, I, we have to work. And we may never see the results of it, maybe our children, our grandchildren even won't see the results of it, you know, Subhanallah and so this is exactly what our mother Khadija de la Han, who was experiencing this, this incredible hardship, the likes of which we have never experienced, if you think about it,

sister, Amanda, we sitting here in London, in Cardiff, in New Zealand, wherever we are in the world today. We are all part of her legacy, right? Because she literally funded the Islamic cause she she funded the dour of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam right?

And so

we are part of her legacy. And that's an amazing thing, right? Like, if it wasn't for the effort of people like for leisure, the message of Islam would not have flourished in the way they did. Right. I chose her to be that

facilitator in a way Subhan Allah, and that I think I you know, I'd like to just sort of interject here, although both of us are sisters, we are speaking about our mother. But these are lessons for everybody, not just for women, of course, of course. But I think sometimes we need to state that a little bit, obviously.

Remind every buddy that these are lessons for everybody, and that when we talk about this female companions and the wives of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam, the lessons from their lives are for everybody to learn, we shouldn't just restrict it to you know, women's issues, quote, unquote. So, I think that that's, that's an incredible lesson from your life. Mashallah, what is the second lesson? So the second powerful lesson from the life of Khadija is to seek our status with Allah.

Now, the reason why I worded it like that is that Khadija delanda had a status You see, before the message of Islam came, she was a noble woman, she was like a celebrity, even the prophets, Allah Salim as a couple they were like a power couple, you know, in in Makkah.

And

I think what we don't realize is that when on that day, that fateful day when the

Allahu Selim came down from the mountain. And he came home and he told her the job what happened to him, told her to cover him up and wrap him up. And then she took him to what to call her cousin. And he said to the Prophet, sallAllahu, wasallam, I wish that I was a young man. He said, I wish I was a young man, so that I could help you and your people turn you out.

At that moment,

Khadija and the Prophet sallallahu Sallam would have realized that their status in this society was about to change completely, you know? And this is why the profits or loss alone was so shocked. And he said to Wanaka, are they really going to throw me out? Are they really going to turn me out of my town? You know, because he had he, they were like, the beloved people of that town.

And he said, and you know what I said those words. He said, you know, that anyone who's come with a message such as yours has always been persecuted. You know. So, I think what we have to realize is that Khadija unharmed, she chose to stand by the profits or loss of them. And it wasn't a given that every prophets wife was family stood by them, right? We know that the Prophet nor any Salaam, the prophet, Lord, and Elise,

their spouses did not stand by them. Right? they abandon them. And what that goes to show is that, you know, when, when a messenger of Allah comes in, especially in the early part of their message, they're not popular. It's not easy. they're seen as strange, their message is seen as freakish. And at that point, the people who can stand by the messenger, have a completely different status to the people who come later when the religion becomes popular when the message is accepted. And when you know, it's in a state of strength and power, right? So, Khadija Dillon, her, she chose, gaining her status with Allah above her status in this life.

And

I think there's a beautiful Hadith in which, you know,

let me just find it the Prophet sallallahu Sallam told Khadija that the angel gibreel had come to say Salaam to Habiba, you know, and said Salaam to her, and conveyed salaams, from a, from even the, from Allah Subhana Allah. And

on moment,

he said about her that, you know, he said, O Messenger of Allah, a DJ is coming with a bowl of soup for you.

When she comes to you give her greetings of peace from her Lord, from Allah, and from me, and give her the good news of a palace of jewels in Jenna, where there will be neither any noise nor any tiredness. So although she lost her worldly status in this life, in that society Anyway,

she gained her status with the land. So the lesson for us is that you know, in standing for the truth, in obeying Allah, we might not win popularity contests, right? We might lose our worldly status and you know, how many people sometimes compromise don't they on, on their Deen on their beliefs in order to fit in in order to be accepted in order to keep their job which is basically keeping your status right, etc, etc. So, so the lesson there is that if you make a loss of Hannah Tyler your number one concern and your status with him what Allah thinks of you, then not only will you gain status with Allah and in the Hereafter, but Allah will establish love for you in the hearts

of people on this earth because ultimately for leisure, you know, where are the people who persecuted for the job? Nobody knows about them. Right. Then they're nobodies. But Khadija Dillon her her name. lives on, right? Pamela Cipolla? Yes, I mean, 1500 years later here we are discussing her life. Exactly.

So we've had to the first lesson, just to reiterate, for those who are joining us, sort of midway through the program we were talking about sister Fatima Markopoulos book Khadija

Mother of history's greatest nation and find great lessons from her life.

What would you say is the third lesson? So the third, the third powerful lesson from the life of Khadija is to patiently persevere in the face of ignorance.

Or another way of saying it is even the most beloved people faced Islamophobia. Right? So it's upon Allah, like, when we think of those people, people like Khadija and the prophets, Allah silom. And sometimes, you know, living in our times, we act as though

it's never been worse, you know, like, the way that Muslims have been feeling and experiencing things, you know, is something modern. But actually, if you look at the time of the Prophet sallallahu, Alayhi, wasallam. And the way Khadija Dylan, her and her family were treated,

the best of people experienced Islamophobia, the best of people experienced that persecution. And so

what we learned from them is that it's to be expected, a level of resistance to the message of Islam is to be expected. And not that we accept persecution, but that we persevere. And we don't give up and we continue to obey Allah and continue to stay away from the things that lies forbidden in the face of that ignorance and that persecution, right. And I think, you know, our brothers and sisters in New Zealand are a wonderful example of that, because you know, what they experienced?

I don't even remember how long ago it was.

Has it been a year ago? Not, not two

fields field so recent, but it feels like today?

Yeah, so what our brothers and sisters experienced the rest of us around the world witnessed, you know, and they touched the way they responded and the courage and their refusal to become bitter. You know, suppiler was some of the amazing individuals that were being interviewed,

and how they were responding and saying that, you know, they had peace in their hearts, and they supposedly was like,

it was from another world, right? So, by being role models by being role models, even when they, they faced the worst types of Islamophobia.

They, they moved to the world, you know, they moved politicians, they moved lawmakers, they, they moved the entire nation, I think of New Zealand and beyond. So, you can see, I think our brothers and sisters in New Zealand, you know, they don't need any lessons from me in that regard.

You know, they have been amazing role models.

What they just life reminds us of is that we're not the first you know, our generation is not the first experiences homophobia, it's happened before. I'll give you some examples from colleges life. So at one point, he you know, the wife of Abu lahab, who was the uncle of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, she would hire slaves from the, from the town to go and throw the garbage and rubbish from the town over the walls of the house of Khadija. So that they would enter into her courtyard, so you can just imagine she, she would be sitting maybe with her children, she might be doing something, and suddenly all this filth and, you know, rubbish would just come crashing over

the walls right into how her courtyard. And this was like a regular campaign of hate that the wife of Abu lahab conducted against for the Gers family. Also when Khadija Dylan her son passed away, so one of her sons passed away in infancy, the mushy corn the polytheists, in Medina, in Mecca sorry, they began to mock family and mock the Prophet sallallahu wasallam. And, you know, labeled him as avatar, which means like, No, you won't, you are cut off, you don't have any lineage, you don't have any progeny. Right.

And I just want to think about like, how would that have felt imagine you've just gone through a personal a massive personal tragedy, and the society around you is mocking you and laughing at you. Right? I mean, it was terrible. And then of course, we already mentioned the, the actual physical persecution of you know, them being

expelled from their homes. So I think the lesson for us is that there may be tough times ahead, but that with commitment and continuing to do our work of being a lot

and asking ourselves what is a lot asking of me in this situation, you know,

that ultimately the believers will be successful because Allah says in the Quran, while if you buy too little mucked up, in the end, the success is for the believers.

When you say the end success stop. Yeah, again, this ties into the first lesson of, you know, having a vision beyond your own life, that success may not be

our individual personal success.

You know, we need to think of the believers as being as he says, one body. Yeah, but we all have a role to play. But it might be long term, it might be, you know, in five years, 20 years, 100 years, 300 years, a lot of it's it, you know, it may not be our personal success. But as long as we strive we also have our personal success, but perhaps not in dunya.

I think,

I think the way to look at it is Look, a lot does promise that those who believe in Him and do work righteous deeds, and live a good life, Allah will give them joy in this life as well, you know, the sweetness of Eman sweetness of faith, which is not something that you can really, tangibly quantify, or, you know, explain to somebody who doesn't, hasn't experienced that, right? Yeah. So, so there isn't, I don't want it to sound as though, you know, we're saying that the believer is definitely going to have a life that is miserable, or something like that, you know, I don't want that to come across, you know,

that's not what it is, what I mean is that, this life will be full of tests. And Allah has given us guidance as to how to overcome those tests. And in doing that, we will experience sweetness, of course, you know, and a happiness or joy that is very hard to explain to those who don't experience it, the sweetness of faith, um, but in terms of what the world values, what the world thinks is success, you know, money, fame,

freedom, whatever, all those things are, you know, that the world labeled as success. We mean, we, we were not created for those things, right. So, we're not going to indulge in those things. We're not going to be seen as successful, you know, by most people. But our focus has to be on what success is as defined by a lot, right? Absolutely, yes.

So what is the fourth lesson then?

So the fourth lesson is be a tool for law schools. And one of the blessings of Khadija Diana was that she was a wealthy woman.

But you see, sometimes we highlight the fact that she was a businesswoman or that she was a wealthy woman. And we leave it at that, as if being wealthy in it, in and of itself is a virtue.

But rather, it's not the fact that she was wealthy. That was an amazing thing. It's what she did with her wealth, right? It's what she did with her wealth. And her willingness to use her wealth and resources in the way of a lot was her one of her greatest traits. In fact, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would get very emotional after the death of Khadija, or the land or even, you know, into his time in Medina. And he could never forget how readily she had believed in him. And how selflessly she had put her resources at his disposal. Right so every time you think about you know, the profits or loss alum organizing, big dinner for his relatives where he's inviting them to Islam,

or you know, all of these kinds of things, you have to remember that it was headteachers wealth that was funding that right? This Khadija behind that. So

the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said about her.

After her death, he said, she had faith in me when people rejected me. She believed in me when people disbelieved me, she supported me with her wealth when people prevented me. And Allah blessed me with children through her and not through any other wife. So she was a tool and she made herself a tool. You

Using whatever resources she had, for the sake of Allah, and in that is a lesson for us, that we all have resources, we all have talents, we all have things that we could utilize, to become tools for a lost cause for spreading the message of Islam for changing the way people see Muslims by for actually changing society and doing good in society, right. So if we put

our resources, whether they're material or otherwise, you know, it could be your time, it could be your wealth, it could be opening up your home, it could be our children as well, right? Because human beings do treat their children even though people act as though they don't, we treat children as resources, you know, these countries, all countries, treat children as resources, wanting them to be educated in particular areas, wanting them to, you know, go into certain jobs, etc. You know, if you do it for the sake of Allah, you point your children in the direction, such and you bring them up such that they have a higher consciousness not just to make money, but you know, to serve Allah,

then, then we would have been successful in teaching them to be tools for a lot. So that's the fourth lesson.

Okay, I think somebody has put into the comments. And actually, I did want to interject at this point that if any of our viewers have questions for sister Fatima, please do put them into the chat, and we will try to ask them at the end. But somebody somebody rightly noted in the comments, that wealth can also be a trial, it's not always a blessing. And this is important reminder for us that, you know, when we're looking at the life of God, God, Allah Hannah, yes, she was wealthy, Mashallah, and how, as you said, is that how she used that wealth was in a lost cause. Once the coal came

in, we didn't, didn't, you know, I'll give, you know, 20% of my wealth for this cause, but I'm going to keep the rest for myself or anything like that literally everything she had she gave.

Or even, you know, how many spouses would actually stand by their spouse, you know, if they were being treated in the way the prophet SAW Selim was being treated, if they had caught with a message that, you know, most of society was rejecting and, you know, unifying. So even just her willingness to stay with him and stand by him, and then support him financially in every way.

was amazing. And yes, of course, wealth can be a test and the test is that the resources you've been given, how will you use them? right? Exactly. Yeah, maybe use them for good? Or will you use them for selfish reasons? Right, so Exactly, exactly. Look out for that.

Which brings us to the fifth lesson.

So the fifth lesson is more of a, I would say down to earth lesson, which

I feel that is often overlooked. And that is that to be the backbone of your family, to be the backbone of your family, because that's what Khadija was, you know,

although people sometimes try to cast her as some kind of,

kind of symbol of female empowerment or something, right.

hadisha was a wife, and she was a very devoted wife. And that's one of the things that made her or that's the key thing that made her have the status that she that she had. She was a source of comfort for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam assigned a sanctuary that he could retreat to right. Where did he want to go when he was

when he wanted to find strength? Where did he go when he was first given that monumental message, right?

He needed Khadija and he wanted her the job by side and she strengthened him she reassured him, she supported him she listened. She was present to his needs.

And you know, even even before his message that just the fact that she would, she understood his need to go up on the mountain, you know, for days. You know how many spouses would be okay with that right.

and deliver food to him she would deliver food to him and like anyone who's been up on that mountain, which I have, you know, as a child, oh, climb all the way to the top.

It's not

Not easy. It's not like

a little bill. Sorry. It is a climb. I did. When I went on camera and I saw it. I thought that's what she climbed up.

I didn't climb it, I saw it from the comfort of the bus. But I think

that that is devotion. Yes, yes. And so I think, look, you know, every home needs a pillar of strength to steady it. And in our times, that's not a fashionable message, to give to women and, and to, even to men, right? That actually the home needs to be prioritized, their family needs to be prioritized. But, you know, each of us husbands and wives have our part to play and in showing support and love to one another. But the particular type of security that Khadija delana provided, I think was one that us as women can provide, you know, and, and that's something we should be proud of, not something that, you know, society's kind of devalued, that now you know, and yet, by by the

home environment, being stable, right, with the home environment, having somebody who's focused on it,

by treating your family as a project, you know, like your finest project,

what we do is we, we create the healthy environment from which excellence will flourish in society, you know, from our children, from our spouses, you know, the value of a stable home with an emotionally stable parent is, you know, something that society cannot, cannot kind of quantify, you know, you can't put an economic value onto that.

So, you know, there are times when we as women especially, and as mothers, there are very difficult times that we go through, like as mothers, you know, physically and emotionally. And I feel that sometimes, you know, we feel as though nobody understands us. And I think that feeling has been put into us so that we draw closer to Allah, you know, we stopped depending on everyone else. And because he's the only one who can really understand those feelings that we're having, right, especially during those, you know, those days of childbirth, and then pregnancy, childbirth, and then the early years of a child's life, and it's very demanding time,

perhaps is to draw us closer to Allah, you know, and it's in times like those that we realize that, that Allah is the one who's there for us, right? He witnesses the hardship that we go through.

But we can't underestimate the importance of creating a common comforting home for our spouses.

And, you know, this the Hadeeth, I mentioned about

jabril and a solemn

giving glad tidings to Khadija have a house in general where there will be neither noise nor tiredness. The scholars of Islam said the reason why they said he said that where there will be no noise, no tiredness is that Khadija de la used to put

as much effort as she could to create a calm and quiet environment at home for the Messenger of Allah sallallahu Sallam because that their life outside the home was so you know, there was so much Islamophobia and there was so much kind of hatred and negativity and shouting and noise, that she created that sanctuary in the home. And for that, Allah said, He will reward her, you know, for with a peaceful home and Jenna, Pamela, so I think all of us, you know, can can really reflect on what kind of energy are we bringing into our homes? No, what kind of environment are we creating? Often we as women, we have the power to change the mood of the home, we have the power to change the

culture of our home, right?

We don't realize that we have that power. So I would like us to become more mindful of that.

Perhaps you could advise people listening because I mean, what what you're describing is

an ideal but I you know, some there's part of me that can't help but think that the way society is today especially in the so called West in Britain, in New Zealand and so on.

It doesn't give us the luxury of living. This kind of a

lifestyle. I mean, I know here in the UK At any rate, it is almost impossible to survive financially with only one parent working. And we as women are being forced to, you know, to be out in the public life to be economically active just to make ends meet in many, many cases.

And thereby supporting, you know, that our our families and our husbands, but it takes us away from being there emotionally and physically for our families as well. And, you know, I do sometimes wonder how can we, in the situation that we can't necessarily get out of? How can we reconcile this with the idea of being that backbone for our family that we want to be? Hmm.

Interesting question. And, you know, actually, I recently had a discussion with on my YouTube channel, you can find it and on my Muslim Central podcast,

a discussion I had with Chef Haitham al had about this very topic. And

it's on a series called oma talk that I recently released. And you can find that on my YouTube channel. And one of the points that he made is that, you know, what is your priority, I think, all of us in society, when we want to, when we really want to prioritize something, we prioritize it, if your priority is to build wealth, you will prioritize that, if your priority is to raise a family and to invest in your children, you will prioritize that. And I think we and you will make sacrifices for that. Right. So I think I would push back a little bit on, I think this

in many cases, myth that, that we are forced to have two incomes, you know, I think it's a choice. And I know, it's might be difficult for some people to accept that. But you know, I would do and also encourages us to have a sense of canal, which is contentment with what we have, you know, there might be periods of time, in our lives, when, and especially when children are very young, when we will put everything on the side, you know, everything else goes to the side, in order to focus on that, because

raising children is an enormous task. And it's also a very important task, you know, it's not something you can just do on the side. Right. And, and I think one of the things that

I would like to see is a change in that culture and in the narrative in our communities, as Muslims, you know, where we actually prioritize motherhood, where we allow mothers to prioritize motherhood,

because it is a societal thing, isn't it? It's the whole

sorry, when the whole community comes together,

to support mothers, and to allow mothers to be freed up to focus on that role, then they're able to do it right. And that takes the men stepping up, it takes the society supporting that and, and the community supporting that. So I think we have to create the environment. And you know, where we actually start realizing that motherhood is significant is important. It's one of the greatest investments we could make.

Absolutely, I think a lot of young mothers who I know personally feel a huge amount of guilt surrounding this issue of guilt, guilt, if you stay home guilt, if you go out to work, it's sort of the, you know, they can't win. And I think it's so important for us to reframe how we think about this, that I mean, obviously, there are some women who, because of their situation, do have to leave their children and go out and work, maybe they're widowed, maybe they're divorced, and so on, you know, and then that is a situation, that's very sad, but there isn't much they can do about it. But even if society pulled together to help such women, and to help us to find themselves in this

situation, I think that it would just it would benefit everybody, because, you know, when you see countries that have a good system in place of you know, long term maternity leave longer term paternity leave than what we have in other countries and so on. You do see that children are more well adjusted, they are healthier mentally and physically, they are doing better in education and so on. And there's a lot to learn from that. And I think that we can apply these lessons from the life of Khadija as well, to this, you know, this last lesson that you've brought up

Being the backbone of our family, you know, applying this as well, even if maybe we can't be physically present as much as we can, but being emotionally present. Yeah. is so important for everybody concerned Savonarola. Yeah. And I think I think we as Muslims, we were we, we should be proud of the fact that our Deen actually puts the responsibility for providing financially squarely on the shoulders of husbands. Right? You know, that's literally one of the rights of Muslim women, right? And we forgotten that. And there's a reason why Allah Subhana, Allah made that the responsibility of men, right, the primary responsibility of the husband, not the wife. And I believe

the reason for that is because the role of motherhood is such an enormous undertaking, right? That it requires that women be supported financially and in every way, to be able to fulfill that role and to be freed up for that role. So I think we need kind of like a shift in the way we normalize that in our society, because obviously, the the wider society has, in general devalued motherhood,

over many decades, you know, various movements, etc. And that has affected us as well as Muslims, I believe.

Somebody has just written a comment that I'd like to touch upon, she's saying, or

I'm not sure if this is a brother or a sister writing apologize. Apologies for that. But the viewer is saying some Muslim feminists say that the deejo de la Han, who was a businesswoman, so Muslim women must pursue their career and that they should be financially independent. And this is the only lesson that they need. Yeah. So I think I already alluded to that didn't like that, you know, being first of all, you know, the idea of Khadija delana, as a businesswoman, she owned the business, and she wasn't the one who she wasn't getting up nine to five, you know, and leaving the house, you know, she doesn't, that's not the kind of work it was, you know, maybe that shows us that actually,

entrepreneurship is something that, you know, we as Muslim women, you know, this the rise of mompreneurs, as they call them, right, maybe that's one of the things we could do, because it's something you could actually do from home. But

it was

a battle Mal, she was the one who had the wealth and the, and she used to give it to managers that she would have like a business partner, the prophet SAW them was basically a business partner.

And she, he was responsible for doing the running around in the work, and she provided the wealth. So he would go, he would go and buy, you know, goods from the south from Yemen, which probably came from India and all sorts of places and then travel to Mecca, and then to Sham right to,

to Syria, the area where Syria is today, and sell and buy and then travel back down. And so he was the one who was doing the run the legwork. Right. And so I'm not trying to save trying to diminish what Khadija was as a as a, you know, successful businesswoman. But what I'm saying is, there's no question of, you know, kind of

leaving her babies, like, no, this is the thing that we do need to understand she wasn't getting up in the morning, going to an office working nine to five getting home. No, you know, she was still able through this, this this business that she had to be in her home. And this is really ideal. So when you think about it, and you've used mompreneur was at it. Yeah. That's a new thing. I'm Chris. So

there's a whole movement. Now in the UK, I think they're called trap traditional waves or tread waves or something. Yeah, of women who are like saying, you know, what we actually want to be women. Again, we want to be wives who are financially supported, and who focus on the home because the home is a big deal, you know? So there is this kind of whole movement of women you can find to try.

I mean, just the other day, I was having a discussion around the so called Islamic feminism with somebody and I said, you know, that term is problematic because feminism, as we see it in the West, is a reaction to misogyny. It's a reaction to question of women. Whereas it's lound gives everybody that rights. We don't need to be feminist. We don't need to adopt these

Outside ideas. And I think that this this sort of traditional wife thing has been a response to this Western feminism because for those of us who grew up with Western feminism, myself included, what what some feminist ideals tell us we can be it should be, it's actually very exhausting.

Right, and it's always holding the man up as the ideal, right? Like metal.

maleness is the ideal that we will have to aspire to, rather than saying that no male and female are distinct, that we have differences. And those differences should be celebrated, that we complement one another not, we're not in competition with one another. Rather than saying that feminists in the past have tried to erase any kind of difference between the male and the female. And that's led to the kind of

strange things that you hear that are happening in the news today, right with people literally, not knowing the difference between male and female not accepting the difference. And I think this very well ties into your second lesson, which was that we should seek our status with a lot with our Creator, not carrying ourselves to other human beings, not that you know, not women thinking that they want to be like men, or men thinking that Oh, women have it so good, we should be like women, not looking at other people and thinking they have status, we want to be like them know, our status is with Allah. Allah knows who we are better than we know ourselves upon Allah. And we should seek

His pleasure rather than anything else. That's what I'm taking away from this and Han Allah.

In one of the comments, one of the brothers is saying that, you know, most families can survive on one income, it just means you need to spend less, I, I would say that,

I think we need to think about that, you know, we really need to think about that as, and I know many families who do that, because they're prioritizing the fact that they want mom to be able to be there, especially in the early years.

And the home needs needs that focus. And so what that does is if it makes it forces the men to step up, write it and make sure that they can provide, but also, it makes everyone realize, you know, what we need to maybe we need to simplify our lives a little bit, you know, maybe we don't need to go on holiday every year.

Now, nobody's going on holiday, right? We've all proven

money.

Right? So I think it's about actually questioning the narrative that we're constantly told, you know, you have to go on holiday every year, you have to have you have to own your own house, you have to do this, you have to do that. If we question that and say, Well, actually, can I live in this way? You know, what do I want to prioritize? That's what it comes down to. and be proud of that choice. Because prioritizing your children is not anything to be embarrassed about. You're literally investing in human beings, right? I mean, I personally know several of our Muslim sisters who, you know, through various situations, find themselves as single mothers, and they're only able to work

part time because they have their children to take care of. And yet, you know, with that low, so called low income that they're bringing in, and yet they're able to provide everything that their children want, because they're also able to be there, you know, as much as they possibly can be. And it is a struggle, it is a huge struggle, but if they were

a happily married couple can do it.

Yeah, and of course, we know that there are exceptions. But I guess that what I'm talking about is what we want to become the norm, right? in society. Of course, any of us could find ourselves in exceptional circumstances where we do have to do things that are not, not the norm that Islam originally promotes, you know, yeah. But obviously, somebody who's speaking about I'm trying to talk about like, we want to become the norm in society, right. And even for widows, even for, you know, divorces,

we need to have support systems in place, right? Unfortunately, the this idea of individualism and the nuclear family has meant that, you know, families don't support don't get support. The idea of a village raising a child right.

has gone by the wayside. Even though many of us have come from cultures, those of us who, you know, were born into Muslim families, we've come from cultures where

the nuclear family is not the norm. You know, extended family is the norm and so, that comes with its challenges, but it also

He's incredibly supporting, you know, for children for times of crisis, cetera, et cetera, right? Absolutely. We have actually gone over time a little bit. But there is one last question that somebody has written, which I think it should be asked, If there was one key advice for young Muslims and young Muslim as that you could give from the life of Khadija, rather than her what would it be?

I think

that's so difficult. One key advice, I would say, you know,

as with Khadija, and with other of the great women of Islamic history, and the great women who are mentioned in the Quran,

the thing that you notice that that binds all of them is that whatever situation a Lost Planet, Allah gave them in life, right, whatever life threw through at them. So in our Khadija case, it was that her husband was destined to be the Messenger of Allah.

They rose to that occasion, you know, they rose to the occasion, and they did the right thing. And so I think it's the same with Madame la salam, right, she was given a huge task. And she accepted and fulfilled that task to the best of her ability, right? Even though it's a very difficult thing, and she knew that her society would vilify her, etc, right? So and I think the thing that binds all of these women is, and what we can learn from them is that in whatever situation, Allah has put you, in whatever kind of challenges he's put in your way that you rise to overcoming them. And you ask yourself, you know, what is the next right move? What is the thing that Allah subhanaw taala would

want me to do? And is asking me to do in this situation? And that's exactly what Khadija did. You know, she, she, and that's why she responded in the way she did in being that pillar of strength and support for the profits and loss alone. And in doing so, spreading the message of Islam.

Allah Mashallah does Akela hair

the standard for coming on this morning?

We have been discussing with the southern Fatima barkatullah about her book, Khadija Mother of history's greatest nations does echo fair to our viewers in the UK and New Zealand and around the world for joining us today.

For those of you who haven't had a chance to read the book yet, there is a free chapter available to download. The link is in the description for today's program. We have gone over time, I do apologize for that. But May Allah bless you all for tuning in with Stata. I hope you will come on again. I think there's so many lessons that you have for our viewers that we could discuss.

Maybe we can go into maybe we can go into the life of it next time. Because that's that might be one Oh yes.

Please.

For today, we have to sign off. There everyone and Salaam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh salaam alaikum