Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume I — Page 457
! ! 457 Methods for the Religious Education and Moral Training of Women Delivered by Hazrat Mirza Bashir - ud - D in Mahmood Ahmad Khalifat - ul - Masih II ra Some time ago, Haz rat Khalifa t - ul - Masih II ra del ivered a speech in a gathering concerning the religious education and training of women which is presented below for women to read and implement. T he rea l method of training is simply for women to thoroughly study that which has been revealed by God Almighty. To this end, women must first and foremost read the Holy Qur’ān. I t is my observation that the level of moral training which one can attain by [the acquisition of] knowledge cannot be gained to the same extent by any other means. Knowledge alone is the single factor , which enables one to implement those behaviors easily and readily , which would otherwise be very difficult to implement, if not impossible. Therefore , in my view, the most advantageous factor for the moral training of women is knowledge and many benefits can be gained from it. Therefore , the first point is that [acquisition of] knowledge is in itself a means of training a person. Knowledge assists in the development of truthful thinking and the recognition of what is right and what is wrong. Secondly, when a person learns to read and write and God Almighty ’s blessings are upon them , t he y are given the opportunity to read the sort of literature which discusses those points that are imperative for a person’s moral training. Thus , besides reading the Holy Qur’ān , any books concerning the Holy Prophet Muhammad sa , books written by the Promised Messiah as , t he y can also obtain benefit from books of othe r pious and intellectual persons. Additionally, with knowledge comes an awareness of the existence of various vices and their dreadful consequence s. H ence , knowledge allows people to recognize immoral behaviors and the