By Ustadh Dr Adekunle Mikail
And a female child is not better than a male counterpart too ! In Islam, premium is not given to a child based on its gender. Those that discriminate against a child based on its gender do not reflect on the true essence of human creation and the purpose behind it!
The Purpose Behind Human Creation
The purpose behind human creation is to worship God .To devote and dedicate oneself to the true worship of the Creator who is Allah. It is not to superimpose one gender of human being on other nor to judge a gender based on the innate ability naturally conferred on it by its creator using the parameter of other gender!
And the creator had not created both the male and female gender so that they would be providing sustenance for Him or they would be striving in catering for His needs.This can be more understandable when reading verses 56- 58 of Suratul-Saariyaati of the glorious Quran as follows :
” And I have not created the Jinn and the Men except that they should worship me. I do not desire from them any sustenance and I do not desire that they should feed me. Surely, Allah is the Bestower of sustenance , the Lord of power, the strong”
No Gender -Induced Discrimination In Islam
Since Allah is the final Decider of what the type of gender the product of the male and female semen will be, there is no basis for gender-induced discrimination in Islam.
Human beings should be pleased with the children that Allah Had decided to grant them, regardless of whether they are boys or girls. They must know that whatever Allah decrees for them is part of His great knowledge and design. Nothing happens haphazardly in Allah’s design. Allah says:
‘‘ To Allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and earth. He creates what He wills. He gives to whom He wills females, and He gives to whom He wills males. Or He couples them as males and females, and He renders whom He wills childless. Indeed, He is knowing and capable.” _ Qur’an 42:49-50.
Who Is Better Or Who Is Going To Be Better Are Conditionally Based.
Who is better or who is going to be better between the male and female children depends on four factors underlisted here:
* attitude of the family to child upbringing
* the peer group a child goes out with
* the schools a child attended
and
* the physiological cum psychological make-up of a child!
The Most Important Factor Is The Family Attitude To The Child Upbringing
But the most important factor of all the factors above is the attitude of the family to child upbringing!The reason being that, all other factors that presupposed a child success depend on the family attitude to child upbringing.
Therefore it presupposes that the betterment of a child;male or female, is presumed on how the family which is blessed with the child rear the child -if it rears him or her well, the child becomes the best but if it is negligent, the child pans out to be like its upbringing!
It is then a truth to say that a child is a product of his or her upbringing. So our people especially, the Muslim must stop discriminating against the female children. They must cease being like the pre-islamic Arabs that disliked female children to the extent of burying them alive for fear of poverty, familial ‘s shame and weakness on the part of female children!
Disliking Girls Is An Ignorant (Jahili ) Attitude
It a jahili attitude to favor boys or girls or dislike the birth of a girl in Islam . Simply put, it is a pure manner of ingratitude to the one that has bestowed one the child in the first instance.
Allah, the Lord of the world and words described the Arabs then as being”depressed then furious” when given the news of a new daughter born to their families!
The pagans of jahiliyyah hated to have girls and considered them as a source of shame and scorn. They often killed them or buried them alive to get rid of of the disgrace associated with them.
Though, female children are not killed again as they were hitherto, but many a family is killing them literarily by their attitude towards their upbringing these days ! Some are abandoning them only to their mothers, some are divorcing their mothers for a poor and flat reason that the mothers are not capable of giving birth to male children except the female!
A visit to major towns and cities in the country will also reveal what a poor upbringing that is anchored on only western education with no morals and etiquette, is doing to our daughters!The most damning and pathetic ones among these females are Muslims’ daughters and female children!
Now Muslims ‘daughters are abandoning the good manners taught in the Quran and Hadith. Their shame(nudity) which is to be covered,is now unthinkably exposed, and nakedly displaced.
At this juncture, the parents need to come to their daughters’ aid through education imbued with Islamic morality .As an Arab poet has observed:”A female is a school(the first school a child will attend)and when you nurture her well, you have nurtured a fruitful tasteful tree !
Merits In Fathering Girls
A believer is pleased with whatever Allah grants him. He realizes that one girl could often be better than many boys.
When Maryam, the mother of prophet ‘Isa, ( Jesus Christ) ,was given birth to by her mother, she said soliloquizing :
” My Lord! Surely , I have brought it forth a female and Allah knew best what she brought forth _ and the male is not like the female and I have named it Maryam …” , thinking that Maryam as a girl would not be as good as a boy!
What the mother of Nana Maryam had done differently from today’s mothers ,was that she had prayed that her daughter be righteous in future and her prayer had come into fruition in her child and Jesus Christ, whom Maryam had been blessed with later! The glorious Quran had recorded this scene as follows:
”… And I commend her and her offspring into your protection ( O Lord), from the accursed Shaitan!”
” So her Lord accepted her with a good acceptance and made her grow up a good growing and gave her into the charge of Zakariyyah; whenever Zakariyyah entered the sanctuary to see her, he found with her food . He said, O Maryam! When comes this to you. She Said! It is from Allah, surely , Allah gives to whom He pleases without measure.”
A Raiser Of Righteous Girl Is A Darling Of The Prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam) On The Day Of Resurrection!
Besides, a raiser of righteous girl is a darling of prophet Muhammad salla-llahu alehi wasalam, on the day of recompense! He will be his accomplish and a closer ally, in the paradise of Firdaos, the highest of the eight levels of Paradise!
Annas Ibn Malik, the maid of the prophet salla-llahu alehi wasalam, reported that the prophet salla-llahu alehi wasalam, had said regarding raising a righteous girl-child :
” Whoever nurtures two girls until they reach puberty, he will be with me on the Day of resurrection like this ( like the index and middle finger are closer to one another!)
Prophet Musa’s Burden Was Lifted Through A Righteous Female
Prophet Musa (Alehi Salaam), having helped one of the oppressed Israelites against an Egyptian who was terrorising him and in the course of doing so, his strike resulted in the death of the Egyptian!
Musa (Alehi Salaam) regretted this , prayed to Allah on it and repented , but the second catastrophe brought the matter to a head, and he was plunged in adventure.
At another instance, Musa considered further that the Egyptian was unjust, he was going to intervene again, when he received a double warning from the Egyptian who was fighting him and from another man, probably ,an Israelite ,who was friendly to him that the palace ( pharaoh and his coteries of courtiers) would arrest him soonest! The glorious Quran recording of the events as follows:
” He therefore got away therefrom,
Looking about, in a state of fear.
He prayed : ”O my Lord! Save me from people given to wrong-doing”
” Then, when he turned his face towards the land of Madyan,
He said: ” I do hope that my Lord will show me the smooth and straight path”
” And when he arrived at the watering place in Madyan,
He found there a group of men
Watering their flocks,
And besides them he found two men
Who were keeping back their flocks
He said:” what is the matter with you?”
They said:” We cannot water our flocks until the shepherds take back their flocks
And our father is a very old man”
” So he watered their flocks for them ,then he turned back to the shade, and said:
” O my Lord! Truly I’m in desperate need of any good that you dost send me!”
It was one of the two damsels who Musa had helped watered their flocks that came back to inform him that their father prophet Shuaib ( alehi salaam) would want to reward his goodness towards them!
Nothing could have been welcome to Musa than such a message! He honoured Shuaib’s invitation and went and met him! And when he came to Shuaib, he narrated his ordeal to him, and Shuaib, as an experienced prophet, assured Musa that he should fear not !
It was one of the two righteous damsels that advised her father that he should employ Musa and pay him a robust wage so that he would be an helping hands to them and their old man.
The Old man acquiesced to her daughter’s suggestion and informed Musa as follows in Quranic rendering :
” He said : I intend to wed one of these my daughters to you
In condition that you serve me for eight years;
But if you complete ten years,
It will be a grace from you.
But I I intend not to place you under a difficulty:
You will find, indeed, if Allah wills,
One of the righteous”
Musa agreed and fulfilled the term and afterwards, he was commissioned as a full prophet! It was the advice of a female child who had been raised to be righteous to her father which had helped Musa in time of tribulation and which had set his foot straight in his path to prophethood!
Some Suggestions
Parents out there, should educate their daughters in God’s ways . They should:
Teach them morals by example i.e by being one
Mother dress well for them the way you want them to dress when you are not there!
Know their friends and their bankgrounds
Tell them the moral in having good friends and the danger inherent in having bad friends
And remember that having male of female child is not enough but educating them is a way to their progress!