Islamic Emphasis on Mothers

There is a saying in Arabic which translates to, “The mother is the first school”. This means that whatever you have learned in your early life can be attributed to your parents, and specifically your mother. This also could be emphasizing the importance of at home behavior and habits in shaping a child’s future. So, in a sense, this is explaining the importance of a mother in your life, and it is explaining to the mother the importance of her actions and behavior for the future of her children’s lives.

Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “Paradise lies at the feet of mothers.” But not all mothers’ feet are a source of paradise for others. This means that your rank and esteem in life, whether good or bad, will be found through the training you have obtained through your mother, but it also means that of all people to be respected in the world, your mother comes first. In fact, so emphasized is the rank of a mother, that it is narrated that the Holy Prophet Muhammad emphasized the mother three times, before mentioning the father, as the person most worthy of your respect and gratitude. Many of us can attribute our moral foundations to the things our parents taught us when we were younger, and thus it is also the job of the parents to understand how fundamental their good example, good training, and good acts are in the future establishment of their children.

While children are more than happy to benefit from their parents when younger, these same people who have spent their youth, their time, their energy in giving you everything they have, are now sadly seen as a burden by many people when older. Unless the parents are causing you to go against your faith, in no way should they be cut off from your care whether their company be pleasant or not. Islam does not mandate the joint family system practiced in many South Asian countries, nor does it say we must involve them in our personal matters to the point of withstanding constant critiques and intrusion into our personal lives and our marriages, but it does mandate taking care of them as much as you can, even if living separately. As the saying “what goes around comes around”, thus, the level of care and concern that we have shown our own parents is what we can expect in return. On Mother’s Day let’s use this day, to remember that the memory of our mother isn’t encapsulated in just a day, but rather use that day to remember that this is the person who sacrificed the most precious days of her own life, so we would be able to be where we are today.