Daughters in Islam -II

The fruit of raising daughters righteously is reward in this life
before reward in the Hereafter; this is proved by the fact that Allaah
rewarded the righteous man who raised his two daughters virtuously,
the result being Him facilitating themarriage of one of them to the
honourable Prophet Moosaa .
The Prophet sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam would express his love for
his daughters by, for example, making statements like "(My daughter)
Faatimah is a part of me, so whoever angers her angers me."
(Al-Bukhaari & Muslim)
' Aa'ishah recounted that Faatimah once came walking in a manner
identical to that of the Prophet sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam; When
she arrived, he stood up and exclaimed: "Welcome, my daughter!"
Then,he seated her to his side and whispered into her ear, and what he
had said caused her to cry; then, he then whispered to her again, and
she laughed. ' Aa'ishah later asked her: "What made you weep and then
laugh?" She replied: "I will never expose a secret that the Prophet
entrusted me with." After the death of the Prophet 'Aa'ishah asked
herthe same questions again, so she answered: "First, he informed me
that his death was near, so I cried. After that, he told me that I
will be theleader of the ladies of Paradise , so I laughed."
(Al-Bukhaari &Muslim)
'Aa'ishah said: "I have not seen anyone closer in physical appearance
and character to the Prophet thanhis daughter Faatimah … Whenever she
would enter into his presence, he would stand up and seat her in his
place, and whenever he would enter into her presence, she would stand
up, kiss him, and seat him in her place."
This is how he cared for his daughters. Zaynab who was another
daughter of the Prophet sent for him due to her child being close to
death, but the Prophet sent the messenger back to her, telling him to
tell her: "Whatever Allaah takes away or gives, belongs to Him, and
everything with Him has a limited fixed term (in this world);and she
should therefore be patient and anticipate Allaah's reward.'' She sent
for him again, pleading with himfor the sake of Allaah to come.
Therefore, the Messenger of Allaah went, accompanied by Sa`d bin
`Ubaadah, Mu`aath bin Jabal, Ubayy bin Ka`b, Zayd bin Thaabit and
others . The child was lifted up to the Messenger of Allaah while
breathing heavily, in the last moments before his death. Upon seeing
this, the eyes of the Prophet sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam streamed
with tears as a result of compassion that Allaah had placed in his
heart. Due to this, Allaah causedthe boy to be cured, as Imaam Ibn
Hajar stated.
The Prophet sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam would carry Umaamah during
prayer whilst standing, and place her on the ground before
prostrating. (Al-Bukhaari)
Once, Faatimah complained to him about suffering due to strenuous
housework, and that it was causing her hands to roughen and develop
marks; he therefore taught her to mention Allaah before going to bed
by uttering 'Subhaan-Allaah' (i.e., glory be to Allaah) and
'Al-Hamdulillaah' (i.e., all praise be to Allaah) thirty-three times
each, and thirty-four times 'Allaahu Akbar' (i.e., Allaah is the
Greatest); he told her that this would be better for her than the
assistance of a servant.
Also, when the family of Abu Jahl requested ' Ali to marry their
daughter, he refused and said: "Never will the daughter of the
messenger of Allaah and the daughter of the enemy of Allaah be under
(the guardianship of) one man. Faatimah is a part of me, and whoever
saddens her has harmedme." He later stood up and explained to the
people that he was not making unlawful what Allaah made lawful, nor
was he forbidding polygamy, but rather, he did what he did due to
Faatimah being the daughter of a messenger,which is a special case,
since no one is permittedto harm the Messenger .
Faatimah was courageous and proud ofIslam. In the incident when her
father was praying in front of the Ka'bah and the disbelievers placed
the guts of a camel on his head whilst he was prostrating and then
laughed and mocked him, it was she who came, by herself, and screamed
at the disbelievers and then removed the guts. (Muslim)
This is how the life of the Prophet was regarding dealing with his
daughters, so let us make it a guideline by which we live.
Some people are truly hardhearted, to the pointthat they do not
express any emotions toward their children. It is a disaster when a
daughteris raised in such an emotional vacuum, because it is easy for
any evil person to then affect her with his deceptive words and entice
her into his trap, and this is how the calamity of fornication occurs.
This iswhy we need to pay close attention to the issue of daughters
and grant them their due consideration, especially when we live in an
era where everything evil is available and within reach.
It is indeed a great responsibility to satiate the emotions of our
daughters with the love they need from the hearts of their merciful
fathers, lest evil men do this instead to achieve their vile
objectives.
We must also give the same level of attention toour sons in this
regard, because the problems wehear regarding our young men are due to
the negligence of their parents. What is our role?It is, as Allaah
says (what means): "O you who have believed! Protect yourselves and
your families from a Fire whose fuel is people and stones, over which
are [appointed] angels, harsh and severe; they do not disobey Allaah
in what He commands them but do what they are commanded." [Quran 66:
6] We must soften their hearts with a warm smile whenever we see them,
and speak to them with merciful words.
If we do not pay attention to this issue, a day will come when our
communities will be just like the immoral and dissolute ones.
A British survey of two thousand fathers found that: "Forty-percent
(40%) of fathers feel lonely and depressed. They miss their sons, but
miss their daughters a lotmore."
Some contemporary hypocrites who write in newspapers and magazines
state that our daughters do not need guardians. They oppose to the Law
of Allaah in general, and specifically the ruling that prohibits
intermixing between men and women; they demand that women leave their
homes and 'prove their ability'. Why do these hypocrites wish to
eradicate our honour? This mandates even morecare and attention
towards our daughters; we must raise them uponobedience to Allaah and
His messenger and upon adherence to the Hijaab; we must not wait till
they reach the age of puberty to instruct them wear it, because it
might then be too late for them to accept it.
Some parents allow their daughters to wear dresses that are
revealingand which leave them naked, or almost naked, and this is a
far cry from correct cultivation. It is not a reflection of love
ormercy to our daughters to allow them to have their own mobile phone,
or to have a satellite receiver in their rooms. Itis not a sign of
love or mercy to allow them to go to places where immorality is
spread, or to parties, or salons where they pluck their eyebrows,
adorn themselves and then go out like that.
We must convince our daughters that these matters are prohibited and
that they must refrain from doing them, but in order to convince them,
they must experience our love and see it in our dealings with them.