As devoted Muslims we must know the importance of loving and caring our parents and more especially mothers. A mother is a miracle on her own as they say ‘Paradise is at the feet of mothers’.
According to a hadith, a man once consulted Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) about taking part in a military campaign. The Prophet asked the man if his mother was still living. When he said that she was alive, the Prophet said: “(Then) stay with her, for Paradise is at her feet.” (Al-Tirmidhi)
On another occasion, the Prophet said: “God has forbidden for you to be undutiful to your mothers.” (Sahih Al-Bukhari).
The above hadiths tell us how important our mother is whether she is a Muslim or not but as long as she is our mother. Therefore, I think each of us should appreciate what we have in our mothers since they are also our teachers and our role models. Being with them every day is an opportunity to grow as a person. We have to know that every day away from them is a missed opportunity.
However, different Muslim scholars and Imaams have been discussing the issue of mothers day from the Islamic perspective, on whether it is Islamic to celebrate mothers’ day. The concesus is that there is no problem to celebrate mother’s day but on condition that everyday is our mother’s day.
So putting a specific day to show special love and care for our parents, especially the mother, is by no means blameworthy as it does not contradict the Islamic teachings, nor can it be merely considered a form of joining the Western vogue of making celebrations. It will just be the continous and fulfillment of Allah’s obligation that we should be dutiful to our parents.
Let us take Islam as our best reminder of mother’s presence.
Islam commanded us some 1432 years ago to be dutiful to our mothers and remember that paradise lies on the feet of our mothers. While the Western World came up with such ideas recently, Islam directed us to honour our mothers a long time ago. Is surprising that today even muslims tend to embrace this culture of mothers'day as if it was a new idea and yet their very own religion is the pioneer in advocating for one's dutifulness to his or her mother. This tells one thing,and that is how lagging behind we are in Islamic teaching. It calls for doubling the efforts in educating ourselves in Islamic knowledge. May Allah open our hearts to embrace Islamic teaching so that we can re-educate the world with this beautiful Islamic teachings.