Veiling in Islam

Even in this world, because he has not received a proper Islamic upbringing, he may fail to respond as he should to his mother's extraordinary compassion and may instead treat her with great ingratitude.

If, however, she directs that innate shafqa toward saving her helpless child from the eternal prison of Hell and from the everlasting annihilation brought about by misguidance, then the reward of all the good deeds performed by that child will likewise be recorded in her own book of deeds. After her death, those good deeds will continually send light to her soul, and in the Hereafter, instead of becoming her accuser, her child will intercede for her with all his heart and soul and remain a blessed child to her for all eternity.

Indeed, a person's first teacher and most influential instructor is his mother. In this connection, I wish to state something that I have experienced with certainty throughout my own life.

Although throughout my eighty years I have received innumerable lessons, I swear that the most fundamental, enduring, and constantly renewed lessons I have ever received are those instilled in me by my late mother. Those lessons became embedded in my nature as though they were seeds planted within my very being, and I now see that everything I learned afterwards was built upon those seeds.

Thus, the teachings and counsels that my late mother implanted in my nature and spirit during my earliest years have, at the age of eighty, revealed themselves to me as foundational seeds from which great truths have grown.

Among these, I can state with certainty that the most important aspect of my path in the service of the truths of faith—namely, shafqa and compassion, which constitute the greatest truth and the foremost of the four foundations of the Risale-i Nur—I learned from my mother's compassionate conduct, her example, and the spiritual lessons she imparted.

Indeed, if a mother's compassion, which naturally embodies true ikhlās and genuine self-sacrifice, is misdirected so that she turns the innocent face of her child toward this fleeting world—worth no more than temporary fragments of glass—while neglecting the diamond-like treasure of his eternal life, then she has misused that compassion.

A striking proof of the heroic self-sacrifice found in women through shafqa—a self-sacrifice that seeks no reward, no recompense, no personal benefit, and no display—may even be seen in a hen, which attacks a dog and gives up its own life in order to save its chicks.

Now, ikhlās is the most precious and indispensable foundation both of Islamic spiritual training and of deeds performed for the Hereafter. This genuine ikhlās is clearly present in the heroism born of such shafqa. If these two qualities begin to flourish among those blessed women, they will become the means of immense happiness within the sphere of Islam.

The heroism of men, by contrast, is seldom entirely free of expectation. In one way or another, they often seek some form of recompense, if only honour, recognition, or fame.

Sadly, because of their weakness and vulnerability, those blessed and helpless women are often compelled to comply with the wishes of cruel or non-practising husbands in order to protect themselves from mistreatment and oppression.