Prophet Muhammad: the Messenger of mercy and peace…to women

Assalamu Alayka, Ya Rasul Allah

May the blessings of Allah shower upon you eternally and may His peace be upon you continuously.

Truly, you were not sent but as mercy to the worlds. And I, a Muslim woman, what speck am I in the history of humankind? What insignificant component of the infinite universe do I represent? What infinitesimal fraction in the history of the world is my life? Yet, I mattered to you, and your words, your actions, your stand concerning women has saved my faith.

Many are those who despite their religiosity are apt to explain the Quran in a narrow, biased way. Their words have hurt many women. Their words have acted as screens that conceal the wonder of Islam, the light of Quran and the merciful you, peace be upon you. But for those free souls who push past people’s interpretations, who insist on meeting you peace be upon you, through your  words, your  actions and the reactions  of the sahabah to you…a love story begins that only intensifies with time.

From our birth you pronounced your stance, a firstborn girl was barakah, at her birth, a delicate one born of a delicate one, he who sustains her gets great reward. If a man had two daughters or more and raised them well and didn’t prefer his sons to them they would protect him from Hellfire. Little girls fill the seerah pages with their antics and you, you race with them and carry them behind you on your mule, you listen to them sing their welcome to you and you prevent those who would prevent them to sing with tambourines in your home for Eid.

Some men are capable of being fair and playful to little girls. But you didn’t shun us as we grew older. When the young girl menstruated as she rode behind you and clung to the saddle not wanting to descend, you took away the awkwardness of the moment, told her to go to the women-folk, use salt in the water and to return to you! You allowed Asma bint Abi Bakr to be a vital part of your critical and historical immigration to Medinah, neither her tender years nor her pregnancy and mostly not her gender were seen as obstacles by you…peace and blessings be upon you.

Some men are capable of nurturing the self-esteem of young girls at an age when those men are certain they are being looked up to as older and more important. But you, you continued to care for us as we grew to adulthood. You announced us to be “like unto men”, you honored the political asylum we gave to non-Muslims, not only were we allowed to have opinions, you did not feel it touched your masculinity to follow our suggestion. You admired our ability to reason and present a case as you did with the woman who came to complain on behalf of women, the lack of our chance for shahadah.

Some men are not threatened by women of strong character as long as they are strangers, but at home they keep the women they are related to in their place. You, master of the first and the last, with wives and believing men and women to offer their lives for you, you whom Allah swore by your life, would darn, and bake and are described as being at his family’s service at home. You sought Aisha’s permission to stand before your Lord in prayer on her night, you joked and were lighthearted with them, even though they might raise their voice in anger, sulk or even sadden you. Such was your interaction with the women closest to you.

To this day there are some Muslims who have trouble with the equal worth of a man and a woman, but you peace be upon you had no problem being biased toward women when you said a mother is three times more worthy of her child’s good companionship than a father. But it is when you say “…a woman” (meaning a category not one specific woman) “pale in the cheek will race me to Heaven”, (race you O Messenger of the Worlds?) “a woman whose husband died and she remained with her children to raise them.” It is when you say this that we should be humbled by the peaks of honor you impart upon us.

How can anyone that gets to know you, feel anything but confidence that this is the true religion of God? How can anyone that gets to know you misunderstand anything you ever said concerning us? Can we forget that you proclaimed our treatment to be the criterion by which to judge the best of men saying “The best of you are the best of you to your wives?”  And on your death bed can we forget that we were on your mind and that you asked men to treat us well? Peace and blessing be upon you forever more.

It is for this and more that Um Anas presented you with her most valuable possession -her own son, finding she had no expensive gift to give you as the other Ansar women had. It is for this that the Deenary woman being told her husband, father and brother were killed in battle kept asking after you, asking for you to be pointed out to her and then seeing you, said, “Any calamity with your safety is insignificant.”. It is for this that Aisha said, “As much as I love your closeness, I love what pleases you more.”

And so it is when I read your words, I know what context to put them in. So is it that I hoard your sayings in my head and heart, and it is this treasure that gives me peace. When I read or hear anything by anyone less than you, attributing their unfair actions to you, or establishing their mistreatment and disrespect upon abusing your words or actions, I see your eyes, twinkling from under the helmet as they did in Uhud, I see you smile as you often did, I see your gentle ways and loving merciful actions, I see you as you said like one who from afar waves to his people that they may heed the danger, one stern, valiant and fearsome in the face of disbelief, one so tender as to worry about a mother bird separated from her chicks and to listen to the complaints of a camel. I see you as such, and I rise above people’s misconstrued views.

Peace and blessings of Allah, Most High, be upon you, the beloved chosen one, the instiller of peace in women’s hearts. A peace that allows us to deal with people with a calm that transcends all hurt and leaves no chance for bitterness or confusion.

On this day, the anniversary of your birth, the anniversary of your death, do I present to you this website, as a token of my boundless gratitude and overwhelming appreciation, as a miniscule gesture of love, hoping and praying it will help other women and bring peace into their lives that they may begin a path of love toward you.