[صدى المهدي]

اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ خَلَقَ الْإِنْسَانَ مِنْ عَلَقٍ اقْرَأْ وَرَبُّكَ الْأَكْرَمُ الَّذِي عَلَّمَ بِالْقَلَمِ عَلَّمَ الْإِنْسَانَ مَا لَمْ يَعْلَمْ

“Read in the Name of your Lord who created; created man from a clinging mass. Read, and your Lord is the most generous, who taught by the pen, taught man what he did not know.”5 6) In the Qur’an we are spoken to in regards to working, striving and struggling and when we glance at the life of Fatima Zahrah, we see that on many occasions her hands were calloused and bleeding from the amount of work which she used to perform.

وَأَنْ لَيْسَ لِلْإِنْسَانِ إِلَّا مَا سَعَىٰ وَأَنَّ سَعْيَهُ سَوْفَ يُرَىٰ

“And that nothing belongs to a person except what he strives for, and that he will soon be shown his endeavour.”6 7) In the Qur’an, there are verses in regards to showing justice in all aspects of life and when we study how Fatima Zahrah dealt with her house maid, Fiddah, and how she divided the daily tasks of the house, we see how she enacted justice in her life.

إِنَّ اللَّهَ يَأْمُرُ بِالْعَدْلِ وَالْإِحْسَانِ وَإِيتَاءِ ذِي الْقُرْبَىٰ وَيَنْهَىٰ عَنِ الْفَحْشَاءِ وَالْمُنْكَرِ وَالْبَغْيِ ۚ يَعِظُكُمْ لَعَلَّكُمْ تَذَكَّرُونَ

“Indeed God enjoins justice and kindness and generosity towards relatives, and He forbids indecency, wrong, and aggression. He advises you, so that you may take admonition.”7 8) In the Qur’an, we see verses in regards to the authority and governance of God and those whom He has put into positions of power and leadership and that it is only they who have a right to govern society, and Fatima Zahrah, peace be upon her, whether it be in her famous Fadak sermon which she delivered in the Masjid of the Prophet, or in the other ways in which she fought for her own rights and that of her husband, we see that in all of these instances, she stood up to the government of the time and openly and flatly rejected their right to rule and supported her husband, the Commander of the Faithful Ali ibne Abi Talib, which ultimately resulted in her own martyrdom for the cause.

إِنَّمَا وَلِيُّكُمُ اللَّهُ وَرَسُولُهُ وَالَّذِينَ آمَنُوا الَّذِينَ يُقِيمُونَ الصَّلَاةَ وَيُؤْتُونَ الزَّكَاةَ وَهُمْ رَاكِعُونَ

“Your guardian is only God, His Apostle, and the faithful who maintain the prayer and give the zakat while bowing down.”8 9) In the Qur’an, we are addressed in regards to having faith in the next world and that we should yearn for the next life, and indeed Fatima Zahrah, peace be upon her, heard from her father that she would be the first person from his nation to leave this world and join him in the next life.

وَالْآخِرَةُ خَيْرٌ وَأَبْقَىٰ

“While the Hereafter is better and more lasting.”9 By studying and understanding these few examples from the life of this illustrious woman, we can fully appreciate that Fatima Zahrah, peace be upon her, is the practical and real-world example of the verses of the Noble Qur’an. Despite the fact that amongst almost all civilizations of yesteryear and today and within the poems, stories and examples which are often recounted, women have almost always bore the brunt end of the stick and have constantly been humiliated and denigrated and have always been considered as a “thing” which must be associated to someone else (in order to gain some identity) and that women have always been lookd upon as being the “weaker gender”, the Qur’an has shown us that not only for all women, but rather for all men as well, that one of the best examples is that of a woman - the wife of the Pharaoh! Asiya, the wife of the Pharaoh, lived in the grandest of palaces - however she did not let the glitter and allure of the palace of her husband, the Pharaoh, delude her. She saw the enormous amounts of wealth of the Pharaoh, however she detached herself from it. She had all types of means and necessities at her disposal to make her life easier and in addition to this, she had gardens, streams, temporal power, authority, governance and everything else – the same things which made her husband intoxicated such that he went to the extent of claiming that he was the sovereign owner and supreme god such as his statement which is recorded in the Qur’an in which he said: And Pharaoh proclaimed amongst his people. He said, ‘O my people! Does not the kingdom of Egypt belong to me and these rivers that run at my feet? Do you not perceive?10 Despite the fact that all of this was at her reach, the wife of the Pharaoh still addressed God and said: ‘My Lord! Build me a home near You in paradise, and deliver me from Pharaoh and his conduct, and deliver me from the wrongdoing lot.’11 In this verse of the Qur’an, that which is even more important to her than paradise is the house in paradise near her Lord, and that is why she uses the word “کﺪﻨﻋ” – ‘near You [God]’. From this we see that a woman is such that she can reach to the level in which she is able to throw aside all of the material pleasures which are in front of her eyes and affix her heart to that which is with God and God alone and become the perfect role-model for men and women of all eternity.

• 1.Suratul Isra (17), Verse 23.
• 2.Surat Ale Imran (3), verse 92
• 3.Suratul Anfal (8), verse 74
• 4.Suratul Ahzab (33), verse 35
• 5.Suratul Alaq (96), verses 1 - 5
• 6.Suratul Najm (53), verse 39 - 40
• 7.Suratul Nahl (16), verse 90
• 8.Suratul Maidah (5), verse 55
• 9.Suratul A’la (87), verse 17
• 10.Al-Qur’an, 43
  وَنَادَىٰ فِرْعَوْنُ فِي قَوْمِهِ قَالَ يَا قَوْمِ أَلَيْسَ لِي مُلْكُ مِصْرَ وَهَٰذِهِ الْأَنْهَارُ تَجْرِي مِنْ تَحْتِي ۖ أَفَلَا تُبْصِرُونَ
• 11.Al-Qur’an, 66
  … رَبِّ ابْنِ لِي عِنْدَكَ بَيْتًا فِي الْجَنَّةِ وَنَجِّنِي مِنْ فِرْعَوْنَ وَعَمَلِهِ وَنَجِّنِي مِنَ الْقَوْمِ الظَّالِمِينَ