In the times when giving birth to daughters was seen as a heinous crime, in the lands where people buried their infants because she was a girl, lived a man who cherished his child. A child whom he loved beyond everything in the world. A child who was known to be his shadow, who’s every characteristic matched his –from gait to personality to intelligence to nature.
People wondered what was special about this family, why did the man love his child so much. Why did he cherish the child more than anything? Why couldn’t he see tears in its eyes? Why did he love and care for her so much – to the extent he put the child’s needs before his? Why did he feel so much love for this child – after all it was a girl?
Days passed and the villagers curiosity grew – why was this child not sent to be nursed they wondered? Why did the mother breastfeed her herself? Why was this child being treated so lovingly they wondered –especially when this privilege was only for sons.
Years passed on and the villagers silently continued to observe the altruistic man’s love grow deeper and deeper for his daughter. The same could be said for the daughter and it baffled them. The fierceness with which she protected her father, the reverence her eyes held for him left them baffled. How could she love her father so much? When the daughters of their time were ordered not to follow on the same path as their father’s.
As the girl grew older they were surprised to see her affection for the villagers and everyone around her. She really was the persona of her father. The young man imbibed the same values in her which he had they thought.
Then one day came the biggest blow –the young girl lost her mother –in the crucial times when she needed her mother she became a mother – because that was how they could only describe the care she gave her father. It was only then they realised this girl lived for her father and the father lived for his daughter. They supported each other in their testing times. The affection, care and love she presented to her father brought tears to their eyes because it made them reminisce those days where the father doted upon his daughter. Now when the father needed his child she was there for him.
It was much later in history they realised that the woman they grew up with or saw growing up was to become one of the most prominent women in the history of mankind.
She was a woman who grew up to be the Queen of Heavens and a role model for every woman that was born with, before and after her. That woman was no other than Fatimah bint Muhammad –cherished daughter, beloved wife, and loving mother.
By farha
