Our First Spiritual Guides: Parents

Bismillah hir Rahman nir Raheem
Allahumma salli 'alaa sayyidinaa Muhammad, wa 'alaa aali sayyidinaa Muhammad, wa 'alaa as-haabi sayyidinaa Muhammad, wa baarik wa sallam.

As-salaamu 'alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu : )

I'm taking this class called "Race, Gender and Motherhood" and it's been making me think about a lot of things. For starters, I just keep being reminded of how grateful I must be for being Muslim. SubhaanAllah, the kinds of things I hear in that class from my classmates make me shudder... but actually the scary thing is, I have to hear them twice a week, for four hours straight, for six weeks in a row, so I'm almost becoming immune to them. I remember on my first day of class when someone said, "the only difference between a mother and a father is that the mother breastfeeds," I had to make some serious dhikr to get my blood to cool down, all the while fighting off chakkar. Now I've reached the point where I hear rabid feminist statements and hardly so much as flinch. I'm ashamed to admit it.

But anyway, that wasn't what I came on here to say. I've naturally been thinking a lot about motherhood because of this class, and furthermore about how much I really just don't know anything about motherhood because it's the kind of knowledge which is 95% experiential... except for the love... that's 100% experiential. No one can ever understand the love a mother has for her child unless she herself has had her own. Not even the the father can understand. His love is different. Beautiful, without doubt, but different.

So then these thoughts of motherlove and mothercare extended themselves to thoughts of both parents, mother and father, and I remembered something Shaykh Hamza hafidhahullah once said that was so beautiful, and so beneficial to hear. I'm not sure if these ruminations were his own, or if he was passing them on from another great heart and mind in our Islamic spiritual and intellectual tradition, so I apologize if I'm not giving proper credit (though such "credit" is not needed among Muslims.... do you see anyone's signature on the Haram Shareef, or Masjid un-Nabawi, or Masjid ul Aqsa, the way one expects to see a signature on any great work of artistic expression?)

Shaykh Hamza was talking about one of the many hikmas behind the immese amount of love and respect commanded of us in the Qur'an and hadith towards our parents. Think about what it's like when you're born. You're weak, feeble, and entirely dependent. You can't even so much as lift your head on your own, let alone eat or drink to keep yourself alive. And who is it that facilitate your ability to do these things? None other than your parents. Therefore from the very start, you can't help but love your parents, even if it was simply because of the care they took of you. Then, on top of the things they did for you, is their love for you. They watched you, took care of you, listened for your voice, ran to you at the slightest whimper, shed tears upon your first step and gave themselves to you, mind, body, and soul. Hazrat Zulfiqar quoted in his book Love for Allah: "Love itself will teach you the aadaab of love." What your parents showed you were the aadaab (proper manners) of love. They didn't need to tell you they loved you (though in many cases they usually do), their love screamed itself known through their actions.

So what he was saying is that the relationship we have with our parents, from the very beginning, is a way for us to learn about and understand, through experience, our relationship with Allah as His slave (what an honoured status....) Think about how similar it is- when you're born you're entirely dependent on their looking after you for your survival and growth. The same way, we are always entirely dependent on Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala for our survival, growth and anything else we could ever need. Then, on top of the fact that He keeps breath in our lungs and causes our hearts to beat and that He nourishes and sustains us, He loves us. He loves us sooo much, and that love is made manifest in every single thing in our life, whether we are wise enough to realize it or not. The very fact that you are alive shows He loves you. And then, subhaanAllah, the fact that He gave us Islam and His Beloved Messenger salAllahu 'alayhi wasallam shows His love for us. Every single thing you see in or around you, feel, hear, smell, taste, touch, understand, or experience is a sign of His love for you. SubhaanAllah. How can we not then love Him in return? How can we not then make sacrafices for His Sake? How, then, can we go on disobeying Him? He who loves us more than our mother. Not just "more"... infinitely more... subhaanAllah.

May Allah subhaanahu wa ta 'aala make us among those who are entirely obedient to Him in every facet of our lives, and may He grant us a beautiful relationship with our parents... the two people He chose to be our first teachers of Love for Him. Wa aakhiru da'waana anilhamdulillahi Rabbil 'aalameen.