FROM MOTHER TO DAUGHTER

 

FROM MOTHER TO DAUGHER

TRUE ISLAMIC WOMEN – An article by Mary Nafeesa sahiba published in Crescent dated Oct. 26, 1975:

My dear Fathima, Assalamu Alaikum

I see some of the parents of these girls, they seem to know something of religion and keen on observing religious practices. The women are modest in their dress and cover their heads. Their daughters get educated, begin to wear blouses that reveal a little more than should, do not want to cover their heads, and find it difficult to learn their religion !

I see other parents educated, religious, and their children learn from their parents. I also see sophisticated, ultra-modern city-dwellers, whose children seem to be lost (along with their parents) to Islam !

I can hear you murmur that it is the environment in which they have been placed, that has made our girls, all that I describe. Perhaps, yes! But then Fathima, I also in various walks of life – medical, teaching and what have you, the elder women who have failed and are failinf to set models, failing to set standards.

INDIVIDUAL IDENTITY

As a responsible teacher, I feel frustrated, and God save me. I ask myself the question during the few years that our girls spend with me, what have I offered them? Have I co-operated with my colleagues in impressing on our girls the necessity to retain and be proud of their individual identity? Have my colleagues helped me on these lines? Have we as teachers, taught our students what character, discipline and ideal citizenship are? Have we given our girls- I mean our Muslim girls – the training we owe them in order to make them truly Islamic women, capable of teaching their children in turn?

Too many questions Fathima, too many of them. How shall I tell you without a pain in my heart, that many of us are failing in our duty? This is why Fathima, I insist on your praying before everything else. That is why I am not very keen on, well, in fact, I am against, your eager plans to develop your dramatic talents. After your studies, I would much prefer that you should read the holy Quran and translations and commentary, a few verses each day.

How many of our girls say their prayers with understanding and feeling? And after going through years of “education”, what is the use if our girls do not acquire the initiative to learn their own religion?

And if they don’t, what is going to happen to their children and the future generations?

Tell me now, Fathima, whether or not, I have reason to be dismayed and frustrated?

I wish and pray that we follow the Right Path shown to us by Allah and His prophet, and above all, with that our teachers, men and women, would discharge their responsibilities to the future generation, so that we could hope for mercy on the Day of Judgement.

Wassalam.

NAFEESA