With the Processions of Mothers

In the middle of last month the civilized world celebrated Mother's Day — on every breast a white carnation...

And the processions of mothers passed. That mother who colors her little ones' childhood with hues of happiness sits in their midst, her face radiant with contentment... smiling at this one.. hugging that one.. answering the other.. Everything in her house is a sweet musical song.. her little ones' playmates she welcomes, preparing a happy atmosphere for them.. her evenings with them are sweet — on the balcony in summer, around the stove in winter — telling them tales and stories.. cakes... sweets... presents... her house is fragrant with motherhood.. she lives for her little ones... So I pictured her — when behold, an inspired poet in the distance bends over his lyre, caressing its strings, and out comes a plaintive melody as he sings with it:

Come, bow down and bend your heads — for here gloom shall never prowl

And I saw her smiling, content, wanting from her world neither jewels nor ornaments, like the great Cornelia when her lady visitors boasted each of her jewels, and she went out and came back holding her little ones, saying.. These are my jewels... I saw her holding herself above the vanities of the city, as though her happiness lay in her kingdom and her holy paradise in her home. And I listened to the poet, and he was singing softly...

Motherhood is a lofty flame that has made souls pure
Since Mary hallowed it, its holiness has dazzled the Magi

And I saw her, when the Arab nation was at the height of its glory, rushing to the fields of battle, chanting behind the fighters and firing their spirits.. I saw Umm Umara — Umara being a diminutive of Umar — then a boy of fourteen with a forelock; I saw her, when a sword-stroke struck him so that his shoulder sagged and he fell to the ground, hurry to him, draw from her waistband bandages she had prepared for that day, dress her son's wounds, set the shoulder back in its place, and then cry to him like a lioness: Rise, my son, and fight the foe. And he rises and fights.. I saw the armies of the Arabs conquering the lands, and behind them the women and the mothers, giving heart; and I heard the poet, bent over his lyre, singing with fervor:

Who made the children heroes leading armies?

And I saw an Arab empire stretching from East to West, governed by men who established justice, so that it flourished and astonished the world with its glory and greatness; and behind every great man among them I saw a great mother... I saw alert, conscious peoples shaping their own policy, and I heard the poet still playing with fervor and chanting:

Who brought forth the people that fashioned the captain and the chief?

And I saw her binding wounds in the home, as a mother still — motherhood exalted her feeling and made her a mother to every wretched, tormented soul. All this while the poet's lyre played on and he sang tenderly:

Who stilled the searing pain and made scowling fate laugh?
From the springs of overflowing affection how many cups have we sipped

I saw her a mother of prophets and messengers, before whom the generations bow, whom the peoples glorify and history immortalizes... not because she gave birth, but because she reared... I saw her as the imagination of the poet saw her, bent over his lyre, singing a plaintive air:

Come, bow down and bend your heads — for here base things shall never tread
Motherhood is a wellspring that gave drink to its Muhammad and its Jesus

What has been said of mothers and about them

Abraham Lincoln, the great president of the American republic, liberator of the slaves, who died for his idea, and who rose from nothing to become president of a republic, said to the delegations that came to congratulate him on reaching the presidency:

"Do not congratulate me; congratulate my mother, for without her I should never have reached this station of mine."

"When a Spartan committed an offense, they would flog his mother. Thus did the mothers rear the youth of Sparta well, and the young men weighed every step lest the whips fall upon their mothers' skins."

— The historian Michelet said after his mother's death: "In losing her I lost my last friend. She was my good example and my true encourager in all my duties and works."

— The historians said of Abd al-Rahman al-Nasir, pride of the Arabs and pride of history: "His greatness, and the fount of his inspiration, was his mother... His father died while he was still unborn within her, so she alone brought him up and planted the secret of perfection and the spirit of that secret in his soul."

— Billy Sunday said likewise: "If you wish to see greatness, do not look for it on a throne; go rather to a cradle."

— Gibran said: "Was the love of Judas' mother for her son any less than the love of Jesus' mother for her son?" And yet, what a difference between mother and mother!

— And finally, the Arab historians with one voice laid upon the mothers the responsibility for the collapse of the Arab empire. They said: the nation was at the height of its glory so long as its mothers were Arab women of pure stock; but when the palaces and houses filled with slave girls and captives, these bore a generation abject as the abjection of captives and dissolute as the dissoluteness of slave girls — and thus the Arab empire began to decay, and then to pass away.