I spent Friday visiting two dear friends who had each lost their mothers this week. At the burial, I was asked to offer a short reminder. After making duʿāʾ for the mothers, I spoke to the congregation about something I believe deeply: that mothers are the greatest university anyone can attend. I reminded those present, especially those who still have their mothers, not to limit their relationship to gestures of affection alone: kisses on the cheek, bouquets, a trip to the shops. These are beautiful, but they are not enough. I urged them to sit with their mothers, listen to them, and learn from them. To attend this great university while it is still open, because once it closes, it will not reopen. And the knowledge, love, and wisdom it held become rare, and painfully hard to find.
There is a generation of women slipping quietly from among us, leaving behind a way of life deeply rooted in Iman, dignity, and selflessness. They are our mothers—the mothers of a generation now turning 50. These women were not scholars in the academic sense, nor students of formal institutions. They rarely sat in study circles or dissected religious texts under fluorescent lights. But they lived Islam in a way books can only attempt to describe.
Their Islam was not a subject. It was breath, instinct, habit, reflex. And this was no accident. They were raised by parents who had lived under the remnants of an Islamic system—one that naturally cultivated Iman, dignity, modesty, and trust in Allah (swt). It was a way of life where Islam shaped the rhythms of the home, the market, the school, and the street. So when these mothers raised their own children, they did so from a place where Islam was not explained—it was embodied. It was lived.
It was in the way they opened their doors without hesitation, their homes ever-ready to receive guests—ten, twenty, even thirty—without flinching. No one left hungry. No one left feeling like a burden. Their hands served with grace, their eyes sparkled with hospitality, and their hearts, open like the pages of the Qur’an, welcomed all.
These were women who never debated rizq; they knew. Sustenance came from Allah. They didn’t fret about the next paycheque or hoard for retirement. They gave. They fed. They trusted. They stitched clothes from little but made them beautiful. They ran homes like quiet empires of barakah, where money stretched and love overflowed.
Forgiveness came to them like water to a dry plant—they poured it without measure. Where others now nurse grudges, they would forgive before sunset. Feuds never lasted long under their roof. They believed in a peace that came from God, and they protected it, fiercely and gently, in equal measure.
They raised children while raising families, hosting guests while feeding neighbours, making room in their homes and in their hearts. They loved with endurance, not expectation. They gave with sincerity, not strategy.
And now, as they leave us, one by one, the world feels colder. Quieter. Less generous.
We who were raised by these mothers are now mothers and fathers ourselves. But our world has shifted. Guests are appointments. Meals are transactions. Relationships are weighed, calculated. Conversations are interrupted by screens, and silences filled with doubt.
And it is not that the modern woman has failed. No. It is that the modern world—shaped by secular liberal values—has failed her. Stripped her of her Community, her devotion, her values. Told her to be everything and yet left her with nothing.
So today, as we bury another mother of that golden generation, we mourn more than a life—we mourn a way of being. We mourn a world where faith was felt more than spoken, where giving was instinctive, and where a mother’s presence was the quiet axis of every home.
I concluded by reminding the congregation: let us not forget those mothers who have given birth to a generation of believers in Gaza. A two-day-old baby is held in the arms of a mother, and from that point onwards, the child is taught resistance—to resist the occupation. The mothers do not have aspirations for their children to acquire a house, a car, or a good job, or a property portfolio. Their aspiration is simple: to resist the occupation. And let’s not forget it’s these mothers who have raised children whose response in the face of severe trials and tests is: Hasbuna Allah wa ni‘mal wakeel.
May Allah envelop all Mothers in His mercy, raise their ranks among the righteous, and allow us to inherit not just their memories, but their meanings.
May we become echoes of their grace, and may our children, when they speak of us, see in us even a fraction of the beauty we saw in them.
Ameen.