Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume II — Page 77
77 He had become very frail and could not eat hard foods. E ven in those days, we used to crush the wheat with a stone, and m ake bread from that and g i ve it to him. ” Ha z rat A’isha h ra said: “The on e due to whom we have received all these blessings left us while bereft of them, but we, who have attained this privilege because of him, are benefiting from these bounties. ” As she uttered this, she sp a t out the piece of bread from her mouth and said , “Take away this bread from in front of me. Thinking about the time of the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa makes me choke and I cannot swallow this bread. ” Communities of the Prophets only A ttain R espect through S acrifice The truth is that the Prophet’s communities alway s attain respect by suffering hardships. Their honor does not come from the fact that they have so much money or so much wealth and property. Instead, all their respect comes from how much hardship they suffered in the way of God Almighty , s o instill the habit of tolerating difficulties for the sake of religion within yourself. You cannot please God with only financial sacrifices or simply by speaking. You must make sacrifices. And such sacrifice s, compared to which you r previous sacrifices pale in to in significance. Until you are ready to offer such sacrifices, you cannot achieve real greatness, and your progeny will always remain slaves to others. B earing children to be born slaves, oppressed, and degraded by others cannot be an occasion for joy. Instead, it is a cause for disgrace and shame. A woman, who bears ten children, and all ten children lead a life of slavery and humiliation , is not raising her family name any highe r , rather she bring s shame to it, because she has added ten slaves to th e family. Only that woman is worthy of respect who does not raise a child but raises lions , w ho does not raise human beings but raises angels. This is the work that was done by the Sahabiat ra [female companions of the Holy Prophet sa ]. I have given you dozens of examples of the sacrifices made by the Sahabiat ra. The virtue of their passion and the purity of their feelings and importance was such that if you keep that directly before you, it will act as your true model and real guide, helping you to perform your duties well.