The Ideal Muslimah (An Excerpt from the Conclusion of the Book “The Ideal Muslimah: The True Islâmic Personality of the Muslim as Defined in the Qur’ân and Sunnah”)
By Dr. Muhammad ‘Ali Al-Hashimi
The Muslim woman’s role is not merely to stay at home, nursing children and taking care of the home. In addition to all that, the Muslim woman is in fact raising a heroic new generation, playing an important role in Da’wah and making an important, constructive contribution in all areas of life, working side-by-side with men to populate and cultivate the earth, enrich life and make people happy. It is abundantly clear that the Muslim woman who is guided by Islâm is pure, constructive, productive, alert, aware, educated and refined. She fully understands her duties towards Allâh ( ), and towards herself, her parents, her husband and children, her relatives, her neighbours, her friends and sisters in Islâm, and her society as a whole, with all the different types of people, events and transactions it includes. She believes in Allâh ( ) and the Last Day; she is alert to the trials of this life and the traps of the Shaytan; she worships Allâh ( ), obeys His commands, heeds His prohibitions, accepts His will and decree, returns to His protection and seeks His forgiveness when she stumbles or becomes negligent; she is aware of her responsibility before Allâh ( ) towards the members of her family; she is keen to please Him by whatever she does; she understands the true meaning of being a slave of Allâh ( ) and supports His true religion; she enjoins what is good and forbids what is evil as much as she is able.
Translated by Nasiruddin Al-Khattab and Revised by Ibrahim M. Kunna and Abu Aya Sulaiman Abdus-Sabur Copyright and published by the International Islâmic Publishing House (IIPH), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 1999