Islam and Human Rights — Page 141
Article 16 141 beneficent values. Some women have been inclined to put a career above home and the care, upbringing and training of children, others have been compelled to make that choice under economic pres sure or necessity. Islam disapproves of the first and seeks to relieve and remedy the second. It assigns to parents and especially to the mother a position of great dignity and honour. “Thy Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and conduct yourselves benevolently towards parents. If one of them or both of them attain old age with thee, address not to them any word expressive of impatience or annoyance, nor reproach them, and speak kindly to them. Lower to them the wing of humility out of tenderness and pray: “My Lord, have mercy on them even as they nourished me when I was little” (17:24-25). “We have enjoined on man to conduct himself bene - volently towards his parents. His mother bears him in travail and brings him forth in travail, and the bearing of him and his weaning takes thirty months, till when he attains his full maturity and reaches the age of forty years, he prays: My Lord, grant me that I may be grateful for Thy favour which Thou hast bestowed upon me and upon my parents, and that I may act righteously so as to please Thee, and make also my issue righteous. I do