We women understand the importance of being good homemakers, but does that mean we cannot pursue our dreams?
Recently I had a dialogue with a close family member. As I was doing the household chores with her, we started upon a conversation and I told her “I am afraid that I might spend all my life cooking and cleaning and not do anything purposeful .I don’t want to end up like this .I think we should draw a line somewhere so that we too have sometime for ourselves”. Before you jump to any conclusion about me, let me tell you as to why I had such thoughts. I am a young lady ,just married ,trying to get used to the homemaker role .It is not that I am not interested in household work, but the thoughts of achieving something, fulfilling my dreams was still on a high as it was when I was a student. Its not that I thought doing household work or cooking was less important its just that ,I felt I had the time on my hand, I could do something else. To my utter surprise, the other person replied “I have spent most of my life cooking…”coming from a woman who seemed very well satisfied with her role as a homemaker and a superb cook, I had to turn and look at her to see if I had heard somebody else speak but she continued to say, “I had always wanted to learn tailoring, but was not able to .When I was young , sending girls out to study was not common but then in the course of time I learnt it myself seeing my mom stitch…”.When I looked at her I saw her eyes filled with tears…an e.g. of a woman’s unfulfilled dream.
This might not be in everyone’s case, but it might be so with more than 50 per cent of women or maybe more than that also ,if we had taken a survey .We women do understand and know the importance of a woman’s place at home and that our first priority should be our family, but does that mean that we cannot achieve our dreams and that we should go on compromising and sacrificing for others .Each individual both man and woman have dreams. It is Allah’s will to fulfill them, but there should be support and encouragement from our dear ones too. There is a famous saying which goes “Behind every successful man there is a woman” ,why isn’t it the other way too?
There is an awareness prevailing among the ummah about the importance of education. That is why our parents educate us and we are thankful for that, but what everybody should realise is that education is a life-long process and that education does not end with obtaining a degree. In a world, which is fast changing, a degree is not enough. We need to study further and keep updating ourselves. Age should not be a barrier. We should not let our household duties or our role as a mother, wife and homemaker prevent us from earning knowledge. If we cannot go outside to learn we should make use of our free time to read Islamic books or any useful book to broaden our mind.
Islam never forbade a woman from learning and fulfilling the desires. Muslims may go in pursuit of knowledge and become an expert in a particular field. My request to all brothers and sisters ,young and old is, please let us take a resolution to encourage the people who have a thirst for knowledge and those who want to learn especially those who want to serve the ummah with their learning and experience with whatever we have .It might be with money or with just a few encouraging words. The interests might vary .It might be cookery, tailoring, medicine or anything else and once they finish schooling and college ,let us encourage them to study further and pursue what they want, to fulfill their dreams as long as the dream and means of fulfilling is not against Islam. Islam has empowered women long time ago, but we Muslims fail to realise it.
 |
September 2004 |