When Our Women Are Educated

There is a beutyful story from the history of al-Andalous (Muslim spain) where the Khalifa [caliph] at the time. He wanted to find someone to mary his daughter. And the Khalifa, he doesn’t just want anyone to actually sorry it was his son. He didn’t want just anyone to marry his son, he wanted to find the best girl available.

So he made a proclamation in the city of Qurtuba, he said : is there a family who has a girld that is of the age that is ready for marriage, meaning maybe, you know 16-20 years old. Put a candle in your window tonight. Hence she is ready  for marriage and she has memorized the Qor’an. Put a candle in your window tonight. They said the entire city was lit up that night.

That entire city was lit up that night because there were so many young girls who had memorized Qur’an. So he said “Khayr” [good], my son can’t marry that many women. So he said, the next night’any of you who has a daughter, who is of the age to marry, who has memorized the entire Qur’an and also one of the certain books of “maliki fiqh” [school of jurisprudence] put a candle in your window tonight. It was said again that night nor as much as the night before, but almost again the whole city was lit up by candles.

I would dare to say that if we were to ask about our entire Ummah today to have one girl who is  of the age to get married, who has memorized the entire Qur’an and has memorized one of the book of Maliki fiqh, ‘khalas’ eny book of fiqh. We would not have a single candle in our windows tonight.

This shows the state of the Ummah [nation] and this is a sign that we see, ‘when our women are educated, the Ummah is strong!” for the man to be educated, ‘khalas’ men are always going to be educated, they are always going to be  needed. You are always going to need an ‘imam’ but the true test for the Ummah is when the women are going to be educated.

You see today, most of our women. Some parts of the world the women can’t even go to the Masjids, they won’t even have a space for them in the ‘Masjids’ let alone educating them! You findd ‘khalas’ she knows how to cook and clean, perfect! Masya Allah this is all we need! No! They must be educated! This is why Andalous...it was seen as a high time for the Ummah. To know about Islam!

No, I’a not saying for her to go to University and study liberal arts and accounting, I am talking about Islam! To come to the Islamic centre and to know her religion, we must have this! Becuase she is the one who is going to raise a nation!

The husband you know the father isn’t there to raise, the children, the mother is. If she doesn’t know about her religion. What is she going to pass on? This shows how healthy we are! And the reality is that as an ummah today we are very sick. The women know nothing About Islam and our men are very uneducated. So we have to turn this around!