...should be every day.
Things like International Women's Day or Muslim Women's Day or Women's History Month always makes me think of how and why we are in a situation where we *need* these designated days to raise awareness of the fact that women do play a huge role in society, in history, in life.
As women, we need no specific reminders of significant men or male contributions to science and art and politics and literature and religion. It is the default curriculum that we are taught.
But women? We barely know the names of our grandmothers.
As children, we are taught alongside our brothers about the Prophets and great male Companions. We are taught their names, their struggles, their personalities.
But women like Maryam, Aasiyah, Hajar, and Khadijah? They were good wives and mothers, we are told.
If we want to know about who they really *were* - as women, as believers, as beloved to the Creator - we must dig through books, desperately seeking snippets of more than their wifehood or motherhood; we must sit through lectures that invoke their names to tell us how we should be more demure, more obedient (to men, usually), more of a wife and mother.
Uncovering the legacy of our #ForgottenHeroines is like digging for treasure, each tiny discovery more valuable than the pearls and diamonds we are so often compared to.
For us, as women, unlearning the ways we have been told of these women is difficult - relearning them as vibrant, amazing, powerful, world-changing individuals is new and strange and sometimes uncomfortable, because it goes against so much of what we have been taught.
But this isn't just about us as women.
This is also about our brothers. How many of our fathers, brothers, and sons know who their own ancestresses were? How many of them know the names of the women who carried this Deen forward?
How many of them know the women who fought, with their hearts and minds and swords and pens, to uphold Islam in the face of shirk, kufr, colonialism, and misogyny?
How many Muslim men today know the stories of the women who raised the Ummah with their blood, sweat, and tears?
Today, draw your siblings and children and strangers close; today, tell the stories of Hawaa, who was created to be a vicegerent of this Earth; of Hajar, for whose sake God sent His angel to release the blessed spring of Zamzam, in whose footsteps we follow in pilgrimage.
Tell the stories of Umm Musa and Aasiyah, the women whom God chose to raise a Prophet, the women whom God comforted with His Divine Promise, the women whose stories we recite during every khatmah of the Qur'an.
Tell the story of Maryam, she whom God elevated above most of mankind; tell the stories of Sumayyah and Nusaybah, who gave their lives for love of God; of Hafsah bint Sireen, a lioness amongst scholars; of Zaynab al Ghazali, who faced down a modern day Pharoah.
Tell these stories, today and every day.
Tell these stories so that our sons and daughters do not need to be reminded, one day or one month out of the year, that women matter and have always mattered.
Tell these stories so that we remember the women that God reminds us of.
#MuslimWomensDay
Things like International Women's Day or Muslim Women's Day or Women's History Month always makes me think of how and why we are in a situation where we *need* these designated days to raise awareness of the fact that women do play a huge role in society, in history, in life.
As women, we need no specific reminders of significant men or male contributions to science and art and politics and literature and religion. It is the default curriculum that we are taught.
But women? We barely know the names of our grandmothers.
As children, we are taught alongside our brothers about the Prophets and great male Companions. We are taught their names, their struggles, their personalities.
But women like Maryam, Aasiyah, Hajar, and Khadijah? They were good wives and mothers, we are told.
If we want to know about who they really *were* - as women, as believers, as beloved to the Creator - we must dig through books, desperately seeking snippets of more than their wifehood or motherhood; we must sit through lectures that invoke their names to tell us how we should be more demure, more obedient (to men, usually), more of a wife and mother.
Uncovering the legacy of our #ForgottenHeroines is like digging for treasure, each tiny discovery more valuable than the pearls and diamonds we are so often compared to.
For us, as women, unlearning the ways we have been told of these women is difficult - relearning them as vibrant, amazing, powerful, world-changing individuals is new and strange and sometimes uncomfortable, because it goes against so much of what we have been taught.
But this isn't just about us as women.
This is also about our brothers. How many of our fathers, brothers, and sons know who their own ancestresses were? How many of them know the names of the women who carried this Deen forward?
How many of them know the women who fought, with their hearts and minds and swords and pens, to uphold Islam in the face of shirk, kufr, colonialism, and misogyny?
How many Muslim men today know the stories of the women who raised the Ummah with their blood, sweat, and tears?
Today, draw your siblings and children and strangers close; today, tell the stories of Hawaa, who was created to be a vicegerent of this Earth; of Hajar, for whose sake God sent His angel to release the blessed spring of Zamzam, in whose footsteps we follow in pilgrimage.
Tell the stories of Umm Musa and Aasiyah, the women whom God chose to raise a Prophet, the women whom God comforted with His Divine Promise, the women whose stories we recite during every khatmah of the Qur'an.
Tell the story of Maryam, she whom God elevated above most of mankind; tell the stories of Sumayyah and Nusaybah, who gave their lives for love of God; of Hafsah bint Sireen, a lioness amongst scholars; of Zaynab al Ghazali, who faced down a modern day Pharoah.
Tell these stories, today and every day.
Tell these stories so that our sons and daughters do not need to be reminded, one day or one month out of the year, that women matter and have always mattered.
Tell these stories so that we remember the women that God reminds us of.
#MuslimWomensDay
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