What is the role of motherhood in society and religion?

Question: What is the philosophy of motherhood? What is the relation of woman to society with both positive and negative aspects? Can motherhood be one of the factors that contribute to building a good and faithful nation that can resist corruption and tyranny?

The answer: Once, I heard Ayatullah Muhammad Taqi al-Mudarrisi say in one of his lectures, ‘If you want a good society, you have to look for a good mother, because if you find society sinking under the pressures of corruption and loss, you should know well that all these evils shall reach mothers. A mother is not only a school, but she is also the life, origin, and essence of man….

In order to treat the problem from its roots, you have to turn to the mother and try to treat the problems that the mother suffers from, and then, you will know the reasons behind the deviation of society. Looking for another place to cure the social diseases will be nothing save a temporary tranquilizer that soon disappears and then the pains of the diseases will come back again.’

About the philosophy of motherhood and the qualities of an ideal mother, he says, ‘Before all, man has to ask himself: has he come to this life to enjoy its pleasures and live for a certain period and then he dies and everything finishes, or has he come to play a role and undertake a responsibility? If the second conception is true, then what is the responsibility of this man?’

To answer this question, I say: the greatest responsibility that man undertakes in this life is the good upbringing of his children. A mother who understands this responsibility knows well that all the affairs of this life are minor before her responsibility for her children…

An ideal mother makes her children be among the people of Paradise and tries her best to carry out this goal. She makes them love Allah and fear the punishment of the afterlife…

Things like these are not realized unless a woman pays a lot of attention to other things that are considered as bases to attain these goals. A woman does not become a good mother except when she becomes a good wife. As a man has to look for a good woman to marry, a woman does not have to accept save a good man to be her husband. After marriage, she has to try her best to raise and educate her children in the best way. Also, she has to watch her husband especially concerning the source of his livelihood. A good wife does not allow her husband to bring money from anywhere, because she knows that unlawful money causes unlawful sperm, and a man who is created from an unlawful sperm is difficult to be reformed.’

We invite the Ulama’, thinkers, preachers, and pious people to take extensive care to spread the culture of motherhood in societies, especially amongst the rising generation of girls. Islam has paid a lot of attention to the position of girls in the house due to her vital role in the future when she becomes a wife and mother.

The Prophet (S) said, ‘Whoever has a daughter and he brings her up well, educates her well, and is generous to her with what Allah has granted him, she will be as a fort and cover him from Fire.’

In another tradition, the Prophet (S) declares that the right of a mother on her child is two times more than the right of a father. A child has been recommended to be kind to his father, while he has been recommended to be kind to his mother three times as much.

The best speech is that of Allah when He says, (And We have enjoined on man doing of good to his parents; with trouble did his mother bear him and with trouble did she bring him forth; and the bearing of him and the weaning of him was thirty months; until when he attains his maturity and reaches forty years, he says: My Lord! grant me that I may give thanks for Thy favor which Thou hast bestowed on me and on my parents, and that I may do good which pleases Thee and do good to me in respect of my offspring; surely I turn to Thee, and surely I am of those who submit. These are they from whom We accept the best of what they have done and pass over their evil deeds, among the dwellers of the garden; the promise of truth which they were promised).

source: For a Better Future