MY MOTHER—AN EXEMPLARY WOMAN
A Child’s Schoolroom
THIS is the story of my mother—a mother whose nobility of character, under the severest of strains, is an example worth sharing with the readers. The way in which she came through certain ordeals in life is a clear proof that, within the limits prescribed by Islam, women can be positively constructive not only within their own domestic sphere, but also much further afield. They can indeed be a powerful and beneficial influence upon others.
The daughter of Khuda Bux, my mother was born towards the end of the nineteenth century in the town of Sanjarpur (Azamgarh, U.P., India), and was given the name of Zaibun Nisa. When she passed away in Delhi on the 8th of October, 1985, she was about 100 years of age. The type of education she had, permitted her to read only the Quran and a little Urdu. She was a religious woman in the fullest sense of the word. Never did she tell a lie or act in a way which could be described as unethical. She was punctual in her prayers and fasting and had performed Hajj. Spending her entire life in hijab, she was a woman of fine, upstanding character and unbending principle. She was the wife of the biggest landlord in that part of the country, with lands spread over several villages. On a routine visit to his farm in Newada, her husband suffered a paralytic stroke, fell unconscious and had to be carried home on a bedstead. There could be no words of final parting, for he passed away the next day without having regained consciousness. Quite suddenly, she found herself a widow. She was a mother to three sons and two daughters. The daughters, being older, were then not even in their teens. Both her daughters died during her lifetime.
The death of our father at that time was a great blow, not only because we had lost a loving parent but also because of the treatment we received at the hands of certain members of our joint family. After my father’s death, these relatives took over the management of the entire family property. My grandfather, under the joint family system, was the person who had actually been entrusted with the management of the farm. But he was so honest that he would not take a single penny more than what was actually required to meet the barest of necessities. After his death, those who then took charge of the farm exceeded all limits of injustice in their treatment of us. From being landowners of some substance, we suddenly found ourselves landless. There was no easy way out of our problems.
Our family home had been very commodious, but after father’s death, we found ourselves in a disused, half-ruined stable. We lacked even the basic necessities of life, and were unable even to find enough money to buy food. At this juncture, people began to advise our mother to remarry or return to her parents’ home, or go to court to recover the land which was lawfully hers. But she refused to follow any of this advice. The brave woman that she was, she resolved to face up to those circumstances on her own. This decision was backed up by just two things: faith in God and hard work.
Whatever my mother did, she did in the true spirit of Islam. Instead of turning to man, she turned to God. Instead of thinking in terms of the world, she focused her attention on the Hereafter.
Although her parents owned a vast tract of land, 20 acres of which had been willed to her by her father, she never demanded her share of the land, nor did she seek any help from the members of her family. She depended upon God alone; her sturdy independence was a shining example to us all. She would get up early every morning, say the prescribed prayers and then work right through the day without once stopping to rest. When she went to bed, it was always late and only after having said the Isha prayer. The tasks on which she spent her entire day included looking after poultry, goats, etc. In this way, I too found the opportunity to graze the goats, a sunnah (practice) of the prophets.
In addition to this work, she voluntarily stitched clothes for people in the neighbourhood. Although she did not accept any money for this, her neighbours would send her grain and other comestibles in return. This work was by no means easy for her, because it was done in the days before sewing machines had become popular, i.e. she did it entirely by hand. She also managed to keep a buffalo, and in our broad, open courtyard, she grew vegetables and planted fruit trees, like papaya and banana, which gave us a good yield. In those early days of penury, a woman passerby once remarked, “I see you have kittens to look after.” We did indeed look like scraggy little kittens in those days, and if my mother had not made such extraordinary sacrifices in order to look after us, our fate might well have been no better than the little, stray, motherless kittens one sees wasting away in the streets.
My eyes are witness to my mother’s total commitment over a prolonged period to our proper upbringing. But it would really take a whole book to do justice to her. How straitened were the circumstances in which we were living in those days can be judged by my not even having one paisa to buy a small piece of rubber for a catapult I was making. Hearing of this, one of our acquaintances kindly gave me the money for it. It was galling to think that once having been the biggest landowning family in the area, we had now come to such a sorry pass.
To be quite honest, after our father’s death we had not even the smallest pittance to call our own. The hardships my mother faced at that time are now barely imaginable. It is greatly to her credit that she bore up as well as any man. And from within the confines of the four walls of her home—such as it was—she contrived to influence the external world. She gained the upper hand over her circumstances where such circumstances might well have proved too overwhelming. The most remarkable feature of her attainments is that she succeeded in achieving, within the limits set for her by Islam, all those objectives for which it is now considered necessary to make women emerge from the Islamic fold, in the process, divesting themselves of their essentially feminine virtues.
She encouraged us to turn our eyes away from what had been denied us and, instead, to give our full attention to that which we still enjoyed, namely, our God-given existence.
Whatever she did, she did in the true spirit of Islam. Instead of turning to man, she turned to God. Instead of thinking in terms of the world, she focused her attention on the Hereafter. All her actions were perfectly in consonance with traditional religious thinking. She had received no such higher education as would have led her to consider the philosophical implications of the course she took. But now, her strivings, seen through the eyes of a scholar, appear as the manifestations of human greatness. Even if she had left her home in quest of such higher education as would have fitted her for a post in some secular organization, she could not have done any better for us than she did. Even to imagine her taking such a course of action is quite meaningless.
Her sacrifices made it possible for her not only to give us a satisfactory upbringing but also to demonstrate what the Islamic bent of mind— positive thinking and a realistic approach—is capable of achieving. My brothers and I were greatly influenced by the example she set. In fact, this was the greatest gift that she could have bestowed upon us. In giving us this awareness of the virtues of Islam, she fulfilled the duties of both father and mother.
I can still recall that after my father’s death, a maternal uncle used to pay us frequent visits. A great expert in legal matters, he insisted that my mother should file a suit to recover the land which had been willed to her by her father but which relatives by marriage were unwilling to relinquish. He assured her that all she had to do was to append her signature to the legal documents relevant to her claim on the land and that he would do whatever else was required. He promised her that she would soon have control of all the land of which she was the rightful owner. He continued to pay her visits over a long period of time and went on in the same vein each time, but my mother refused to allow herself to be persuaded by him.
We studiously ignored the injustice of our immediate environment and endeavoured to pursue a morally correct course of action in the broader spectrum of the outside world.
Being deprived of the property from our father’s side to which we were legally entitled did of course become a source of great provocation, and we increasingly felt the urge to fight for our rights. Ultimately, it was through the intervention of others that we were given some tracts of land, but this hardly improved our situation, for, human nature being what it is, it was all the arid and unproductive land which fell to our lot. This niggardly treatment had the effect of making us want to plunge into the fray to fight with the other party, but my mother staunchly adhered to her policy of patience, often admonishing us to exercise greater self-control. On such occasions she would recite to us this line of poetry:
Patience is the Price of Eternal Paradise.
Our family circumstances which, it appeared, could be improved only by resorting to litigation, were certainly such as to lead us all into negative thinking. Litigation meant a number of families all being drawn into the quarrel, with the inevitable series of unpleasant confrontations. It could even mean the loss of valuable lives, for such situations often bring out the most baneful characteristics in all of us. Had our mother not chosen to adopt the only attitude which could be considered positive under the circumstances, we might, at that early formative stage, have fallen prey to unreasoning destructiveness. Each of us would have become permanently tainted by hatred and the desire for revenge.
It was really her single-mindedness in remaining patient that altered the entire course of our lives. She taught us that it would be wrong to fight against those who deprived us of our rights, and inculcated in us the belief that the only course for us to adopt was to improve our lot in life by dint of sheer hard work. She encouraged us to turn our eyes away from what had been denied us and, instead, to give our full attention to that which we still enjoyed, namely, our God-given existence. George Herbert spoke the truth when he said, ‘One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters’.
Undeniably, it is the grace of God which has saved me from an ill-fated existence and caused me to become a medium of expression of the truth.
Today, my evaluation of this attitude is a rational, conscious process, but in our youth, our positive mental adaptation to negative circumstances was, as it were, an unconscious process stimulated by my mother’s training.
This capacity for detachment having become a permanent trait in all of us, we were able to steer clear of confrontations, and chose instead a course of action which should be free of disputes. We three brothers may all have followed different paths, but our basic attitude remained unaltered. That is to say, we studiously ignored the injustice of our immediate environment and endeavoured to pursue a morally correct course of action in the broader spectrum of the outside world. If we were deprived by man, we would seek from God.
My elder brother went into business when he grew up, “emigrating” to the town of Azamgarh in 1944. At the outset, he had a long, hard struggle, for he never borrowed and never accepted credit. Only after 40 years of strenuous effort did he attain the position of Chairman of the Light & Company Ltd., an Allahabad firm which produced electrical goods. From being considered the least important member of our very large family after father’s death he became its most respected member. He even succeeded in having his share of the family lands restored to him by having the property re-divided in a just manner. The most noteworthy feature of this redistribution is that he caused it to come about without once resorting to litigation.
My younger brother, who opted for scientific studies, received his degree in engineering from the Banaras Hindu University. He later entered the Department of Technical Education run by the Government of Uttar Pradesh, from which he retired as Deputy Director. By virtue of his hard work, faultless character and principled life, he commanded the respect of his whole department.
As for myself, I was interested in religious education, having been initially educated in an Arabic school. I later worked hard to learn the English language and made a thorough study of whatever academic literature available to me in English. Now, by the grace of God, I am able to work in a positive and constructive manner, as I am sure the readers of my works will confirm.
One special aspect of my work—the call to Muslims to rise above negative thinking and become more positive in their approach—has found an effective vehicle for my mission in the Al-Risala monthly, an Urdu magazine which I started in 1976, and Spirit of Islam monthly started in 1984 (under a different name). This mission has, by the grace of God, assumed the form of a powerful movement all over the world. I frequently receive oral or written comments from academic circles which acknowledge that these magazines mark the first Islamic movement in modern times which has attempted to steer Muslims resolutely away from negative activities and set their feet on the path of positivism.
We must never underestimate the role of woman as mother. It is perhaps her greatest role in human affairs.
I acknowledge all those who have been good enough to encourage me; but the real credit for my achievements must go by rights to that devoted woman called Zaibun Nisa. In this material world of ours, if there is anyone who may be fittingly called the initial founder of this modern, constructive movement, it is certainly my mother. She had never heard of “Women’s Lib,” being very far removed in space, time and culture from such activities, but it is worthy of note that she needed none of the philosophizing of the women’s liberationists to be able to perform what she regarded as her bounden duty in the eyes of God. Whereas my brothers and I set about our tasks in life in a reasoned, conscious manner, for her it was all a matter of instinct, prayer and faith.
I know more than one of my own relatives who, having lost their mother at an early age, became destructive in outlook. We must never underestimate the role of woman as mother. It is perhaps her greatest role in human affairs. In Islamic history, there have been numerous examples of the strong and decisive influence of mothers upon their families. A notable example is Maryam Makani, mother of the Emperor Akbar. When Akbar was harsh in his treatment of Shaikh Abdun Nabi, a great religious scholar of his time, she convinced him of the error he was making and persuaded him to stop what amounted to persecution.
I cannot but imagine that if I had been deprived of my mother in early childhood, or if I had the kind of mother who kept urging me to consider some people as foes and to fight them, my life would have taken an entirely different, and downward, course. Undeniably, it is the grace of God which has saved me from an ill-fated existence and caused me to become a medium of expression of the truth. But in this world of cause and effect, the human purveyor of God’s will was a lady, a mother, a homemaker—one who was Islamic to her very fingertips.