Nazik Ramadana

Here is the representative of The Woman's Voice surprising me — while I am busy with my students, explaining certain points to them — with this question:

What are your feelings on the Prophet's Birthday? What influence did woman have in the life of the Prophet, and what was her station with him?

I was startled out of what I was doing, and my thoughts and feelings passed over to the veneration of moments that were a dividing line against ignorance and an eloquent lesson in the bearing of pains and the facing of hardships and dangers for the spreading of peace.

The birth of the Arab Prophet was an hour that proclaimed the close of one age and the opening of another! A brilliant light that shone forth in the midst of a barren desert, lighting the plains and flooding the universe, scattering the darknesses of error and lifting the film from people's eyes, that idolatry and sin might appear in their two ugliest forms!

A clamorous, troubled life that knew no stability! An age in which the strong preyed upon the weak — and through its expanses spread the preachers of justice, enjoining the good and forbidding the wrong!

Faces bowed and brows submitted to an unlettered man who came with clear proofs, before whose splendor stood helpless... the giants among the great; an orphan, poor, upheld by the hand of divine power, to strike at the hands of tyrannical oppressors and to take the side of the weak and the wretched!

A faithful savior who came to lift the buried infant girl from beneath the dust and to establish her station beside men, blessing her with the words: "And among His signs is that He created for you, of yourselves, mates that you might dwell with them in quiet, and He set between you love and mercy." What, then, after this, should my feeling be at the birth of the lord of the messengers and the seal of the prophets? God's blessings upon him, again and again — you in whose life, in all its stages, woman had an important part.

Here is Muhammad, the orphan child, cradled by "Baraka," who watches over his upbringing and surrounds him with her tenderness and her affection, to fill a void that orphanhood had left; and she continues so until divine providence delivers him into the arms of the noblest of women and the best of them, Khadija bint Khuwaylid. At her side he feels calm and reassurance, hearing within himself the echo of an inner voice calling to him: "You were created to carry a great message." So he takes refuge in the cave of Hira, worshipping his Lord there and receiving the revelation for the reform of his people, while she, behind him, awaits him with food, breathes strength and resolve into his soul, and fills his heart with hope and faith! The struggle wears him down, and he finds in Aisha's youth, the sweetness of her talk, and the delicacy of her character the best solace of his later years — and what a pupil, who preserved his teachings and comprehended his book! And here he is breathing his last, his head in her lap, saying, his tongue faltering and his speech breaking:

"God... God... in the matter of women: they are as wards in your hands; you have taken them in the trust of God." He said this, and his pure soul departed.

It is influence and station enough for woman with him, that mentioning her and commending her to men's care was the last thing he uttered (peace and blessings of God be upon him), and that her womanly inspiration was his greatest encourager in the spreading of his religion. And how should I define her station with him — he who made of his religion a blessed world renaissance whose foundation is the cooperation of man and woman and their mutual support?

At the very time when minds in Europe were in turmoil over fixing her place in the social body, and a decree was issued by the Council of Mâcon that woman was created to serve man, the voice of Muhammad rose, honoring and exalting, and said:

"Women are but the full sisters of men."

Thus we see that Islam ennobled woman and gave her such a station as the most advanced of states grant her.