Hosai Mojaddidi – The Role of the Muslim Woman as a Mother
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
Our next speaker we're going to shift over is Isetta Husein, which
I did deep. And she's an educator, public speaker, author, writer,
spiritual counselor and mental health advocate for over 25 years.
She's a book publisher and a wife and a mother of two and she
resides here in California. So we're going to invite you up and
she's going to be addressing the role of a woman as a mother
Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim Al hamdu lillah wa Salatu was Salam
ala Ashleigh Colombia even more serene se than our Mola. Now,
where have you been on Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam while
it was Savio, setenta Sleeman Kathira as salaam Wa alaykum
Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh
from the land this is a homecoming for me in many ways, so I want a
little bit more
I want to feel a soul hug because this space Subhanallah so many
memories, I'm actually trying to hold myself because my children
when I had them here in Irvine in this community, they were raised
in this Masjid until I moved back to the Bay Area so fond memories a
lot of beautiful faces that I recognize some many new faces Ma
sha Allah, but truly what a beautiful gathering mashallah,
let's give it up for our beloved Shiva, Dr. Haifa and her team her
amazing team mashallah
and good enough
as well as our mashallah shefa Zainab is such a incredible
speaker, I love to hear her and I'm so glad we were able to make
it just in time, you always move me mashallah, with your beautiful
reminders and you know, may Allah subhana continue to bring you more
and more to our community. I'll be selfish, a little bit in the bay
as well as here in Southern California. hamdulillah so I have
some slides if you know me, you follow anything that I do you know
that I like to bring slides, because I'm a visual learner and I
don't want you guys dozing off on me, which has happened, I will
admit it has happened in the past. So inshallah The slides will keep
you engaged. So I'm here to talk about this role and Subhanallah it
turned out that you know, we just had a program last night at the
Garden Grove masjid. And today we had a lovely sister ream, I don't
know where she is, but mashallah, she was. She picked us up from
the, from the airport. I mean, I'm sorry, from the hotel. And you
know, she's expecting so we've been talking a lot about
motherhood. So it's kind of a topic obviously, for those of us
who are mothers, it's always on our mind, because no matter what
age your children are, this is, you know, a lifelong journey that
we're on in motherhood, but I wanted to specifically concentrate
on raising children, especially with everything we just heard from
shifa. Zainab, and the importance of really maintaining a strong
identity in these times how we can build our children with
resilience. And so the first aspect of that is obviously in
order to, to, you know, to raise your children in a certain way,
you have to be able to model that in yourself. So the very first
focus here that I hope there's three points I'm going to address,
but this one is the first which is in our tradition, they're the
Hadith that we use, usually reference, especially with
leadership in general, is this particular Hadith, Allah Aquila
camera in Wakulla, coma, Solon, unreality, which is every one of
you is a shepherd and is responsible for his flock. And the
Hadith, you know, goes through the different roles right of leaders
of men of women. And so for women, it's very clear you're a woman is
the guardian of her husband's home, and his children, and she is
responsible for them. So I have always loved this because it's
such a powerful again, analogy to leadership, but also parenting
because think of a shepherd. And I purposely picked this image here
because this is a female, she is out there, she's wearing her
hijab, mashallah, she has her staff and the shepherd is, if you
have ever, you know, learned about shepherding, it is a role that
requires a lot of knowledge, you have to build your knowledge of
what you're going to do, how you're going to take care of the
animals that you're going to look after. And obviously, beyond a
schedule, you have to be a regimented person, you have to be
a disciplined person, you have to be a person that has all of these
qualities, and also has the tools necessary. And so I think the
shepherd analogy is just genius on so many levels. Because in fact,
again, as we see with mothering and parenting in general, there is
no handbook, you know, you do have to learn and the best way to learn
of course, is to surround yourself with excellent models, you know,
people that will that you can learn from. And so, in our
tradition, this is why it's so important. We were just having a
conversation about women sharing spaces like this and learning from
each other, and having, you know, time to actually watch and
observe, I was reading earlier about mirror neurons, you know,
this incredible part of our brain that helps us to be empathic. It's
all through mimicking and modeling that we adopt those virtues and
good qualities. It's because we're watching someone else. Now, how
many of you by show of hands in your mothering journey? Have you
felt more isolated, then surrounded by the village that we
all need? How many of you have felt isolation, right? So when we
look at why we struggle a lot of times this is partly why is
because we don't have that opportunity to watch our mothers
and grandmothers and aunts and uncles. I mean, not uncles, aunts,
and other female, you know, family members or friends who have
children ahead of us. We're not really having those types of
gatherings and meetings, we're not socializing on that level. And
that can make us feel very isolated. So shepherding. Back to
this analogy, again, it's about leadership and really
understanding what that entails. So specifically to shepherding
right? What what do we get here, being humble? This is very
important, you have to admit that this is a new domain, you don't
know a lot of things and you have to be willing to take advice you
have to be willing to open you're gonna have unsolicited advice if
you if you've ever had children, you know what that is you'll have
people telling you about everything how to you know, dress
your child how to feed your child how to birth your child, all of
it, but that's okay. Let it you know, handle a welcome that
because this is a domain that you don't, you haven't yet learned
about. So humility is really important responsibility.
Motherhood, parenting, in general, it's an Amana, just like the
shepherd is responsible for the flock, almost panda is giving you
the charge of making sure they're well fed. They're safe, that
they're, you're protecting them from the harm. You're you have to
see your children not as little, you know, extensions of you, which
is a very Neff see sort of impulse that unfortunately has come into
parenting, people just want to have little trophy children. This
is totally, you know, alien to our tradition. I remember many years
ago, I had a debate with a brother Michelle, who was a very learned
brother. And he made a claim. He said, most parents are very
selfish. And I was like, What do you mean by that? And you said,
yeah, they're selfish. Ask them why they want children. And so I
started to go through all these different reasons. I said, Well,
you know, they want to have children to love. He's like,
That's so selfish. That's a selfish reason. It's like, you
just want a child just to love the child. That's very selfish. And I
want to continue my family name that selfish to take care of me in
the future. That's selfish. So everything I was trying to offer,
he was like, it's selfish. And then he said something and I'll
never forget it. He said, Where's the parent who says, I want to
produce the next Salahuddin? Allah UB? Where's that parent? That is
the intention of parenting. Right? So he said, if you're not
parenting with that intention, you're a selfish person. And that
really opened my eyes because intentionality with everything
that we do we say Bismillah R Rahman Rahim was everything that
we do, even with when you want to have children? Why do you want to
have children? Right, so to see it that this is an Amanda from
Allah's pada when he blesses you with a child, and to also make
sure that you, yourself, are willing to submit because not
everything is going to go your way? There are many people, myself
included, I mean, how many of us who had children walked into the
hospital with a birth plan? Right? My oldest sister's laughed the
entire time. I walked into the hospital that like yeah, good luck
with that. Throw it out. It's right. It's, uh, you know, at
best. It nothing will go I wanted candles. I wanted soft music.
No, no, no, I just was telling put him in the car. Like, I hope I'm
not traumatize you. We told her our birth stories start the photo
and I and I was like, it's about 46 hour labor, like Nicholas, you
think you're gonna die. So you have to be willing to submit.
Allah is in control, right? That's a prerequisite of being a really
strong mother. And also making sure that you don't allow your
knifes to get ahead of you, right? All of these things we're talking
about is is making sure that you are in against submission to all
of us out there because our challenges us he says out I am and
tada Allahu Hawa. Have you not seen the one who takes his own
desire as God and that's where living in this very materialistic
culture we can get absorbed with the, you know, the
commercialization of parenting? How many? You know, people plan
more for their nursery and for their photos that they're going to
take than actually thinking about how am I going to discipline this
child? How am I going to teach this child how am I going to put
them on the dean of Huck, how am I going to do those things? Those
are the things that should keep us up at night. Not where's my
photoshoot going to happen? Right so we have to
really come back to this question. You know, don't worship your
desires worship Allah subhana being dutiful, devoted and
watchful, just like a shepherd, we have to be ahead. I can't tell you
how many conversations I have with parents who are unfortunately
willfully ignorant. They don't want to know certain things. I was
just actually speaking with a solid father, as well about some
parents who, even in the older phases of parenting, you know,
they turn a blind eye because it's, it's uncomfortable for them,
you know, they don't want to know about what their children are
doing online, they don't want to know about the companions that
they're keeping. This is very dangerous. It's It's akin to a
shepherd leaving the gate open for the wolves to come in. How is you?
How are you protecting your children? If you're all of your
gates are open, the boundaries have to be closed. And that's on
you to make sure the gates are locked. Right? That's on you. So
being watchful, always present? Where are my children? Who are
they with? Where are they spending time with, this is how the
Shepherd leads.
And then being upright, resilient and confident, very important, as
I said, you're our children, we know this, it's researched, it's
very clear, they learn best when they are model when you are
modeling the right character for them. So you have to make sure
that when you want them to have a strong Muslim identity, that you
are embracing your own identity, if you're going to tell them to
pray, but you don't pray if you tell them to read the Quran, but
you're not reading Quran. And these are you know, I've talked to
many teachers of Quran, who's who have these conversations with the
parents, their parents come to complain to them. My child doesn't
want to read Quran, he's in a half's program, he's doing this,
he's doing that she's doing this, she's done that and then the
teacher will ask them, do you read Quran?
I don't know how to sew, that's it. Tell us because you don't know
how to you're never going to even try. I mean, think about how, you
know, we talked about self harm as a physical thing. To me, that's
soul harm, right? If you do not,
you know, understand the weight of not having access to the book of
ALLAH SubhanA that as being harming yourself. Let's, you know,
make that clear right now. And I invite every sister here to never
let what we call blameworthy modesty, right. It's actually a
disease of the heart. Because you know, modesty is usually that's a
concept that we understand in a positive sense, but there is
blameworthy modesty, which is your you let your hijab or your shame
prevents you from learning. If you don't know what to do, when you
haven't learned the book of Allah, please don't let your enough's
dictate to you, you have to say, it doesn't matter if I'm 5060 7080
years old. If Allah subhanaw has given me life every single day as
an opportunity, I have to go and be that person who's going to
prioritize and make sure that I have that strong identity. So this
is how we model we have the upright resilience and confidence
in our faith, resilience and confidence in our faith. So this
is how we Shepherd and there's much more to this, but again, in
the interest of time, we're going to move on. And this hadith is
really the one that I think every mother holds on to write even
before you become a mother. We can't wait to use this on someone.
Right? We can't wait we memorize it. We don't know, a lot of Quran
but every woman knows this hadith. And the one about gender being
under our foot right? Mashallah. It's a good, we should know all of
these Hadith. But we should also know that this is earned. It's not
given. It's earned. If you want this status, you have to earn it.
And how do we earn it? We have to understand that the Muslim mother
is honored and she's honorable. Right? So we are honored and
humbled. We're elevated look at the entire Sierra of the prophesy
sent from the beginning of his mission and to the end of his
mission. He was constantly elevating women. And that's why
we're here today. Look at us. I mean, honestly, I just it's so
beautiful. I wish you saw what we saw as speakers. This is
breathtaking, beautiful, modest women here learning and you know
their Deen praising Allah SubhanAllah. This is such a great
honor for us. But we also have to remember that it's earned as I
said, so how do we earn this honor?
What does it mean, to be honored and honorable means being modest?
In Word, in speech, in conduct and dress, very important because I'm
seeing this is not to call out any specific generation. But honestly,
the trends that we see online are very disturbing to the soul. When
you see young Muslims who are very strong and mashallah they have
passion when they speak, but then in the same breath, if they talk
about their faith, they will drop an F bomb. This is unacceptable.
We do not curse we do not use foul language as Muslim women or as
Muslims. We do not dress inappropriately we do not speak
about inappropriate things, foul things, we are not vulgar people.
We are honorable people almost on an elevated so we have to elevate
our speech
right in here in the Quran. Or the F Muhammad pada if the * me
known right Allah Subhana Allah says this successful indeed are
the believers go through all of these look at your in it whenever
I you know
read verses of the Quran, especially when describing certain
groups, we we should this is how we check ourselves you have to,
you know, look in your own spiritual mirror and say, Do I,
you know, follow into any of these? Am I humble? Right? Do I
avoid idle talk? Am I wasteful in my speech? Do I waste my time
talking about nonsense that will never benefit me or anyone else,
and potentially harm people. Because sometimes we talk about
things and we're not realizing that we could be sending someone
down a very dark rabbit hole with things that we speak about, you
know, you put up planted a very bad seed a wheat, not a seed right
in someone's mind. And the next thing you know, they're going down
and searching and looking and now you're going to be held
accountable. Why did you bring up that topic or that, you know that,
oh, I watched this movie. And now this person is watching the movie,
not only are they watching the movie, they've abandoned their
salah, they've abandoned the Quran. So we have to be very
careful when we come together to make sure that our speech is
valuable, right that our way of being brings value. And this is
how we are honored and what it means to be honorable. And of
course, chastity and modesty. This is not just the domain of Muslim
women, although it's always seems to be framed that way. Every
believer Allah subhanaw taala says, Every believer, men and
women alike must be modest in dress, conduct, speech, all of
that. So this is how we maintain our honor.
And then the last, the third part, the Muslim mother is a refuge,
strong insecure, subhanAllah when I think of my own journey into
motherhood, and I know there's there may be even women here who
have struggled with infertility, and may have even gone through
procedures, I actually know very, very dear beloved people to me,
who have gone through procedures where the womb, their womb has
been removed. And there is this spiritual connection that
sometimes we don't realize it's very real, that the word the womb,
right, it comes from the same word or the hymn right?
As one of the or the, the attributes of Allah subhanaw
taala, or a man or Raheem Russian. So we are connected very much to
our Creator through the womb, whether you're a mother or not, by
the way, it doesn't matter if you've never had children or not,
you have this capacity, right. And so really seeing yourself as a
place of refuge, if you're a mother, that your children, your
family, your husband as well, we have to also mention this because
we're in a time and age where men and women are being constantly
pitted against each other. And there's so much divisive language,
and we're seeing as enemies, we're not we're complementary to each
other. And so we should provide that type of security for one
another. But just to have that mindset that if I am to embrace
this role of mother, I also want to be a place where my children,
my loved ones always feel like they can come back. And so this is
where practicing compassion you may find with your children, as
they get older, they're going to have struggles, they're gonna have
questions they're gonna have, they're gonna bring up maybe
topics that bother you, you know, why don't don't respond? Why are
you asking that because I hear from teens all the time, they get
the door slammed in their face, you know, by by their own parents
on topics, you know that they are curious about? LGBTQ, whatever it
is, whatever controversial topic there is, be a place where your
children come to you, you should be the first point more than
certainly before the internet before their friends, you have to
be that person that I want to be the one that my children feel safe
talking to me about these things. Because if you don't teach your
children how to navigate these, there are wolves in sheep's
clothing, who are ready to jump on them and take them and consume
them and they will they'll, they'll eat apart their souls and
that's exactly what they're doing. So you have to be that Shepherd,
that protector, that put that place of refuge for your children.
So be that in your spirit, and your ability to listen before you,
you know, condemn or before you judge. And these are very
important, you know, concepts again, connecting back to,
to our natural disposition as women we most of us, Inshallah,
all of us have these qualities of nurturing and loving and
protecting, but it's just really important to see yourself as this
in the capacity of motherhood. Now, the next slide here also is
more on you know, compassion and building this empathy. I mentioned
neuron, mirror neurons. If you've heard me speak, you know, I talk a
lot about emotional intelligence. And, you know, this concept of
empathy is the fourth quality of emotional intelligence. It's
something we have to inculcate. And this is where you know,
working on your knifes if you have a hard time, feeling empathy for
people, that is a spiritual problem, because the prophesy
Saddam was empathic to all creation. I mean, he had empathy
for birds and camels and animals and even a hood when he was on a
hood, and it started to tremble right within Arman. He What did he
do? He gently tapped it and said, be calm.
I had so if he can have empathy to the creation of Allah subhanaw
taala we have to question where's the empathy within our own hearts,
so inculcate these things and make it a priority that you work on
your own knifes so that you can inshallah possess this beautiful
virtue of, of empathy. And these are just further Hadith just as
reminders of the power of the womb, don't underestimate the
power of the woman will in fact, be given the capacity to speak
like all of our limbs. So when you practice when you don't practice
empathy, and I've seen this unfortunately, in our community,
where relations are cut, people get, you know, done, I'm done with
her, I don't want to talk to her. This is not our way this is not
our language. This is not our language to have riffs and family
families we should know this is a cabal from the 17 Cabal and which
are the enormities it's among the top to cut people off. So if you
know family members and or you know grandparents or whoever were
there, these things exist work on softening the hearts especially as
the month of Ramadan draws near. We should really be intentional
about trying to remove this break and family. Chef Xena mentioned
this. This is what this culture aims to do, to divide destroy
families to break families apart, they would love nothing more than
all of us to be cut off from one another love one another. But our
Lord calls us to not do that and to actually resist our own knifes
and to work on practicing empathy being understanding that people
are struggling. We have so many challenges upon law. And so again,
I'm sorry, I don't know how much time I have left but just in the
last two slides because I'm sure you can see the theme here.
Mashallah, she ever did much better with bringing her Katya but
our hearts, our hearts were art. They were here. But our hearts are
somewhere else. And so I wanted to just take a moment because these
are the extraordinary mothers that we learned from look at their
example. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't change the slide.
I mean, I'm sure we saw all of these in the pictures and videos
that were coming out these are the ones that when I would look at
them my heart
I mean, look at this woman Mashallah. bathing her children in
the middle of rubble.
Smiling, that is what a mother does. She shields her children
from the harm around her. So, learn, feeding, protecting,
covering, dragging, making dua to Allah subhanaw taala, constantly
turning to Allah. This is the mother that we aim to be not the
mother who again is all over social media. In her polished
filtered world. That is not the mother you want to be. Man, I'm
not judging people. I'm just saying don't aspire for that
aspire for the faith of women like this. This is what motherhood is
in our deen and this woman Mashallah. She just took my breath
away when I saw this picture.
One of my favorite hadith is a moment of marital moment.
And it's a challenge because you know, what it means is that we
suppose we're supposed to reflect right beauty to one another, we're
supposed to reflect I think most of us the reason why we're moved
by these images is because we see in these women what we hope we
have right the qualities that we wished we possessed. So when we
see their strength, I mean she looks like everything that we just
talked about strong, honorable, devout. Look at her hands. I mean,
those are the hands of a working woman. Right? Humble, courageous,
resilient, modest, watchable. So this is the definition of
motherhood in our deen May Allah subhanaw taala make us inshallah
best of mothers and May He give us strength and help us to raise
children who love Him and love His prophets of Allah Allah He was
salam alaikum Allah al Qaeda and Osama on a coma
does that kill lock here or Stella? Jose Masha? Allah. Yes,
the roll. I mean, this is the inspiration. And it's a perfect
segue for our next speaker. So just to really, really quickly
recap, you know, part of being a Muslim mother is being the
shepherd, right. And the shepherd, as you mentioned, is someone who
has to know each of the flock and each one is not the same as the
other. And so being able to put the boundaries where they need to
be to be able to protect and to, to be flexible in adjusting the
style to each of the children. Another important part was the
importance of bringing children into this world to raise the next
generation of people you know, like the next Filipina up, you're
up in sha Allah, like, that's the intention of parenting that that
we hope to have. That way that is the legacy that one person would
would love to have and to to create and to
to Allah for the OMA, the Muslim woman being honored and honorable
and modest, modest and not just the dress, sometimes we think of
it just as the dress but in this case it's being. It's elevating
our speech. It's in our conduct, it's in the way that we speak and
the words that we use and being a refuge, being strong and secure,
having empathy and making sure to continuously be tying the
connecting the dots and connecting the bonds in sha Allah. And so we
ask Allah subhanaw taala to bless all the mothers bless their
journey in parenting. Children who are solid D like following the
deen and just people that do something good for Islam in sha
Allah, just like good luck here.