(Reflect upon this series of articles as we prepare for the blessed month of Ramadan)

By: Ali Ibrahim

?????? ?????  ????? ???? ??????? my dear respected brothers, sisters, and elders in Islam. All of us in our daily and busy lives need help and support from our fellow Muslim brethren. Is it any wonder then that the people that we spend the most of our time with are our friends and the people that we spend the least amount of time with are our family? Siblings spend more time together than with their mothers and fathers so the older folks in our respective families get the boot when it comes to spending quality time, giving the full respect and love that they deserve, and treating them better than our own friends, our own spouses, and even our own kids.

Ever since we were born, we were helpless in the world. There is not a single person amongst us that could survive totally unaided just by ourselves from Day 1. Let’s look from how Allah has created us. He placed love between two people (our parents) and in the most intimate and beautiful act in nature, we, the child, were created from that bond of humanity. Not only that but Allah heaps reward and good deeds upon that intimate act. Now take that same act and replace the pure love with insatiable lustful desire and it becomes one of the most abhorrent acts that ever existed: fornication. Those are the two environments in which we can be born from: purity vs. lust. Allah has shown us mercy by having us born as a result of a union of love rather than a union of sexual desires fulfillment. This is Point 1.

From the time that we are born, we are the kings and queens of the world. Our every need is catered do, from out mother’s milk, to our favorite rattling toy as an infant. When we cry in the middle of the night, immediately our mothers come rushing to comfort us. When we have eaten, our mothers wipe our bodies clean with countless amounts of diaper changes on an hourly basis. When we are sleepy, our mothers gently “rockabye baby” us with soothing tunes until we are fast asleep. The entire focal point of our mothers’ lives is the well-being of ours. We may scream at them, hit them, disobey them, but no matter what, our mothers are the ones that love and cherish us the most…our fathers cannot even come close at this stage in our young, tender lives. A king may have an entire kingdom but he has to maintain that, worry about being killed in the night because of his wealth, and as result, can never fully appreciate all that he has. An infant has more of a kingdom than a king: whose king’s mother will wipe their private parts clean? Whose king’s mother will suckle them when they are hungry? Whose king’s mother will soothe him to sleep? Which baby goes to sleep worrying about being killed? Such is the luxurious life that we have from the time that we are born that kings search for in vain their entire lives. Allah has given the mother so much love for her child that nothing can separate her from her beloved. The mother cannot even have as much love for her husband as that which she has for her child. Our mothers treat themselves as our servants while we are the kings and queens, our every single demand, wish, and desire instantly being fulfilled. This is Point 2.

Fast-forward a few years: we are now 5 years old. The majority remember how we were at that age. Were we nice to our parents? Did we clean our rooms? Did we do our chores on time? Did we say “thank you” and “your welcome” to them? Did we play all day and annoy them? Did we get mad easily when we didn’t get our way? Did we cry and run away from school towards our homes when other kids called us fat or ugly or four-eyes? Did we sniffle in the laps of our mothers whenever we needed comfort? Did we rush to their arms when we first fell off our bike and scraped our knee? Did we wail hysterically in their arms when a dog barked at us? Did she tuck us in every night stroking our heads and saying, “I love you” before retiring to bed herself after a tiring day dealing with our screams of indignation and rage? Did she wake us up in the morning softly by saying our name and say, “It is Fajr” and did we ignore her or pretend we were sleeping until she went away? Did she get mad when we didn’t like the breakfast she made for us and break the plate on the ground? Did she let us watch endless hours of TV and computer games all the while knowing that we lied to her about finishing our homework? If we are honest with ourselves, we all know how we were at that age. Sadly, some of us are still a screaming 5 year old to our mothers even to this day. Allah gave us a mother who would ignore whenever we hurt her, either physically, with our words or our actions, and who would overlook our faults and make excuses for us saying we are “still too young”. This is Point 3.

Stay tuned! Next Friday, we’ll be discussing the infamous and never-ending ‘School Project’ which you won’t want to miss.

(This article is cross-posted on the author’s website.)

Admin note: As a means for encouraging our youth to be active in all ways that suit their skills and interests, we will be hosting Guest Contributions from long-standing readers. Given that these are articles not written by the Imaam or the admin team, we cannot vouch for the authenticity of all that is written; we do make every effort, however, to ensure that the content is in keeping with general outlook of traditional Sunni norms. So, any questions that arise from Guest Contributed-articles should definitely be directed to a scholar that you trust.