Mother’s Day

The khutba focuses on the subject of this week’s khutba and that is of our dear mothers.

Those of us who are blessed enough to understand the importance of our mothers may have come across the status given to mothers as declared by Allah SWT.

‘Paradise lies under the feet of mothers’ is something that needs to be understood in order to get an understanding of the role we must fulfil for them.

Only Allah SWT knows what your mother does for you. Only He knows the true pain a mother feels when she is attempting to give it’s child what it wants. Only He fully knows the mother’s love and kindness.

Allah SWT talks of the mother, and indeed the parents in the following ayat from Sura Al-Isra (23) in which it’s translated as saying:

And your Lord has decreed that you not worship except Him, and to parents, good treatment. Whether one or both of them reach old age [while] with you, say not to them [so much as], “uff,” and do not repel them but speak to them a noble word.

Dear brothers and sisters, we need to understand that Mother’s Day in a Muslim’s eyes is every single day of the year. And why do we need to do this?

Our mother’s cared for us for 9 months before we were even in this world, sacrificing sleep and comfort. She looked after us when we were helpless in looking after ourselves. All this at a cost to her time, her energy and her well-being.

These are just a few things that our Mothers do for us. They do so much more of which we do not know about.

The truth is that is however hard we try, we can never repay our mothers for what they have done for us. Our mothers are indeed a great blessing from Allah SWT. We ought to appreciate and value this blessing as much as we can.

And whilst our mothers are still in this world with us, we have a golden opportunity to guarantee ourselves success in this world and the next.

So what does this mean practically?

For most of us, the expression of love does not come easy. This is especially true of the brothers. We are being fed in this time and place that the best expression comes from a card purchased from the supermarket along with flowers or a chocolate once a year in March.

However, the truth is that we need to make our mothers feel loved every single day from us. For them, it doesn’t matter how old we look, they still recall the helpless infants they cared for when they look into our eyes or listen to our voice.

When was the last time we said to our mothers we loved them? Simple “I love you mum”? For those of us who are married, we know that a woman craves the affection over the gifts and our mothers are no different.

So to conclude, here are some tips that we can all do today and throughout the year with our mothers.

1. Listen to them. That means put the screen down and listen to what they have to say with attention, a smile and a soft heart. They may sound old-fashioned or full of worry but their heart belongs to you and that is the manifestation of that fact.
2. Help them. Don’t wait to be asked. Be proactive in helping them. Mothers often don’t want to burden their children so they won’t ask for help. Therefore it’s our job not just to help them but look to see where they need help. That means being involved in their lives even if we have busy lives of our own.
3. Make them smile. Whether it is through gifts, jokes, company or anything else. Make your mother smile, make her laugh. She made you laugh for the very first time in your life so return that favour and be a source of happiness for her.
4. Talk to them. Nobody said this is easy. As our parents get older, the task of communicating becomes harder as your world become further apart. But the universal bond of mother and child is always there. Nothing makes a mother happy than for her child to tell her of their dreams and for them to pray for their child. Use that as a means to tell them about your life. Whether it is career, family or other concerns, word it in a way that doesn’t burden their heart with worry and at the same time share your life experiences with them and insh’Allah it will result in their involvement in your life as well as sincere duas for your success.
5. Pray for them. This is something we should aim to do in every Salah. We should be praying for our parents at least 5 times every single day, whilst they are with us and especially after they return to Allah SWT. It is the least that we can do for them.

Dear brothers and sisters, Mother’s day will come and go. For some people it is an opportunity to drop the standard template and be someone else for part of a day under the premise of Mother’s Day.

Let’s instead be those people for whom Mother’s Day is the day when we began a consistent effort to be someone else, someone better for our mothers.

May Allah SWT protect all our mothers. May Allah SWT enable us to do right by our mothers and may Allah SWT reward us for our efforts with our mothers.