The Radiant One: Azzahraa’
Dr. Pasha
(Bringing Islam to the World One Concept at a Time!
Taking the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It --
And which One Does Not?)
We are talking about the Household of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.
Ahlul Bait! That is what the Qur’an calls them!
And here we are talking about the daughter of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam: Fatimah.
The world calls her The Radiant One: Azzahraa.
Fatimatuz Zahraa!
That is what the world calls her: The Lady of the Light.
The Radiant One.
They say she was the closest to Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam. She even looked, walked and talked like him.
That should tell you where the radiance is coming from. Two lamps lit from the same divine fire that is the secret to all the light in heaven and earth:
Noorus Samaawaati Wal Ard!
Ask the Qur’an and it will tell you. The Qur’an has no secrets from the Believers.
And how radiant is that glow? And how pure and powerful is that effulgence? Again, go to the Qur’an and the Qur’an will give you the answer:
Yakaadu Zaituha Yudee-u wa Lau Lam Tamsashu Naar!
It glows by itself!
Was that why, on a moonlit night, under a clear blue sky, the Sahaabah Kiraam – the Noble Companions – looked at the radiant face of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, with a red mantle wrapped around his shoulders, and then looked up at the full moon of the 14th Night swimming in the blue ocean above, and they could not help saying to themselves:
“By God, his face is more beautiful, more radiant, than the full moon up above?”
There is no separation between Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, and his noble and blessed family.
They are one and the same. They are the same people. Made of the same essence.
And they are the people – “Ahlal Bait!” as the Qur’an calls out to them – whom God himself intended to put through the most thorough cleansing and purification.
That is what God says in the Qur’an:
Li-Yuzhiba 'Ankumur Rrijsa Ahlal Baiti wa Yutahhirakum Tat-heera!
Fatima was the daughter of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, born, most likely 5 or so years before Nuzool Qur’an, meaning, prior to the arrival of the Qur’an on earth.
Fatimah, The Radiant One, arrived heralding the arrival of the Qur’an.
The lamp in the house of Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, was lit preparatory to the light that would come down from Heaven in the form of the Qur’an and set the whole world aglow.
If foolish and naïve Muslims, and if the ignorant and even more foolish world, would only take a minute and reflect about how much they all owe the Household of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, especially the Females of that Household!
When Fatimah was born, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, did not choke her to death or bury her alive.
For, that was the custom in those days, for many macho men in Arabia: to do precisely that – for fathers to bury their own new-born daughters alive – an evil practice that the Qur’an put an end to.
Instead, the Prophet, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, loved Fatimah – The Radiant One – and cherished her.
And – listen to this – he honored her by showing her the most profound respect on every occasion he could. Every time Fatimah, his daughter, walked into his presence, let us say in the mosque, he would stand up to welcome her.
What a powerful lesson this was about the true place of a woman, in one’s own personal household as well as in society at large – in the middle of the 7th Century – delivered repeatedly to the macho and arrogant men of Arabia who had no more respect for women than did their counterparts in Europe or elsewhere!
Oh, how much the world owes the blessed Household of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, especially the Females of that Blessed Household!
And how much more so – infinitely more so – the females of this world!
How much they – the females of this world – owe the Females of the Blessed Household of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam!
If I were a truly enlightened, liberated woman of today, living in any place or culture or society on earth, I would be a slave to the Females of the Household of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam!
That to me would be the true measure of my own personal sense of dignity, liberation and self-empowerment.
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