Every Day Is a Mother’s Day
By Mohammad Yacoob
Hawthorne, CA

This year the Mother’s Day will be celebrated on May 10, 2015. I would love to honor my mother on Mother’s Day and every day, because I remember her every day and pray for her salvation and ask Allah to give her afterlife abode in the heavens and Jannat. For me, every day is a Mother’s Day.

There are hundreds of reasons to thank Almighty God for giving me such a good and strong mother. Her actions reflected my family’s traditions at the highest level of decision making. As a Muslim my mother knew what Islam had given to women. She was a decision-maker and never shied away from expressing her opinions, occasionally by using very powerful words, a rare trait among people. In the 1940’s my family was living in Poona, now known as Pune, a city approximately hundred miles from Mumbai. One day she sent me back to our hometown, Hyderabad Deccan, south India, while my two brothers and a sister stayed with her. More than ten years later, I found out that one of my aunts wanted to adopt me as she had no children. My mother was not going to give me away for adoption. She made her own decision by sending me away before the patriarch of our family could make a decision. It means she was ready to confront the patriarch of the family if he made a decision to allow my adoption. My mother read stories from Arabian Nights (One Thousand and One Nights) to us. She had her own favorite book, a thousand-page book written in Urdu for women by Maulana Ashraf Ali Thaanvi, a Muslim scholar. The book was entitled “Bahisti Zevar”, meaning Heavenly Jewelry, for Muslim women on the Islamic Fiqh, Islamic values, and responsibilities of Muslim women in Islam based on the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah – life of Prophet Muhammad.

In the early 1950’s one of my teachers made a comment about this book to show how Islam had liberated Muslim women 1400 years ago. He said, “If your wife is the owner of two houses and you live with her in one house, then you don’t have the right to tell your wife that you would collect the rent of the other house. She has the right to conduct her own business”. This is one of the finest statements about women’s liberation uttered in the 20th century.

I came to California in 1962. My wife and my two children joined me four years later in 1966 after I graduated from the university. My mother gave my wife a copy of the book Bahisti Zevar as a gift for me. She was directly telling me without saying as to how respect women by referring to this book. Of course, I had read this book, my mother’s own copy, in early 1950’s, even before my marriage. My uncle and my father raised all of their children together, in a big house. We were so close that the fourteen first cousins were like siblings. We would fight, remain friends, break friendships, play games and enjoy school days, even snatch home work from each other’s hands to read. One day my mother saw me and told me, “Just don’t touch girls.” In the US we tell our children not to talk to strangers and also tell them not to allow anybody to touch them. Our Islamic values and cultural values require us not to touch women or shake hands with them. From a woman’s perspective, my mother in the 1950’s was telling me that the naked physical hostility against women starts with simple actions like this.

My mother advised me in 1962 about meat and flesh when I was coming to the United States. She used the Urdu word ‘gosht’ twice, telling me to stay away from them; this word that has two meanings meat and also flesh. Eat Halal meat and as a married man stay away from flesh, in other words, stay away from other women. She said that realizing that no halal meat was available in the US in the 60’s. She said, “Make omelet often and eat vegetable and fish.” In addition to this, she dispensed an additional advice and said, “If you feel you are missing your wife and your children, drop whatever you are doing and go to sleep.” My mother gave me advice; face to face to a married son; helping me in following the Islamic values and ethical values.

In late 1980’s my mother decided to visit us in California after performing Hajj. Ten days before departure for Hajj, she had a mild heart attack, a third one in six years. In the hospital she heard about death of another patient. She mentioned this to her doctor who avoided talking about death. My mother quipped, “Doctor Sahiba, mai yahaan apney marzz kay elajj kay liye aayee hoon; mout kay elaj kay liye nahi.n” (Doctor Sahiba, I have come here to get medication for my disease; I have not come here to get medication against death). The next day without filling any discharge papers or obtaining any release authorization my older brother brought her home. It was a classic case of kidnapping. My older brother went to the hospital later and completed the paperwork. Our family members accused my older brother of trying to kill our mother. He said, “It is the command of my mother and I could not disobey her wishes. Her wisdom, determination, courage and faith are so powerful that she would under no circumstances have changed her mind not to go to Hajj.” She cancelled her program to come to California and after performing Hajj returned home as a much stronger and healthier person. She lived for another three years before going to her eternal abode.

My mother always received requests for money from relatives and close friends. Many times distant relatives approached her for a loan. She had developed a unique way of dealing with people. Whenever she was informed that a relative had arrived and was waiting for her in the living room she would immediately ask, “What does he want?” or, “What does she want?” Once my married younger sister came and stayed with us. Two weeks later my brother–in-law came to take her home. My younger brother went to tell our mother of his arrival and his keenness to see her. As usual and without much thinking she made the customary enquiry, “What does he want?” My younger brother turned to her and said, “What does he want? Mom, he wants his wife.”

That was my mother. She is always with me because I recall incidents from my memory as to how she communicated with her family, relatives, friends and servants. I remember her every day. (Mohammad Yacoob is a retired Industrial Engineer and Engineering Proposal Analyst who lives in Los Angeles)