By: Seyyed Ali Shahbaz

 

“Indeed We have granted you Kowthar;”

The above tiding of God Almighty to His Last and Greatest Messenger, Prophet Muhammad (SAWA), forms the first Ayah of Surah 108 of the Holy Qur’an.

It speaks of the perpetually abundant munificence granted to him. No other Prophet received such an inexhaustible fountain of Divine bounties.

Note the words of Allah. The Ayah does not say that the Prophet might receive Kowthar in some distant future – perhaps on the Day of Resurrection.

True, on the Day of Judgement, there will appear a blessed fountain of Kowthar of which the true believers will quench their thirst, while the disbelievers and the hypocrites amongst the Muslims, including those who had deviated from the path of the Ahl al-Bayt or Immaculate Progeny of the Prophet, will be driven away from its pristinely pure waters.

The Ayah thus says the Prophet has already received Kowthar, while the second Ayah of this brief Surah tells the Prophet to thank God and offer sacrifice. The third or the last Ayah reads:

“Indeed it is your enemy who is without posterity.”

Commentators of the Holy Qur’an are unanimous that this Ayah is a reference to the taunts of the Arab infidel Aas bin Wa’el, who prided on his male issue, and tried to ridicule the Prophet, who had lost his sons, Abdullah and Qasim, in infancy to the cold hands of death.

Glory to God for granting Prophet Muhammad (SAWA) the Glorious Kowthar in the form of his Immaculate Daughter, Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA)!

Fatema (SA) is thus the Prime Source of the pure and pristine everlasting progeny of the Prophet, whose existence ensures the survival of the world.

In other words, the message of the Almighty to all people until the end of the world is clear. It means that while the ignorant take pride in the birth of sons and frown upon daughters, the progeny of the Prophet enjoys eternal glory through his only surviving child, that is, the Impeccable Daughter, Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA).

To be more precise, the peerless Fatema (SA) through her blessed marriage to the equally matchless Imam Ali ibn Abi Taleb (AS) is the firm link between Prophethood and Imamate.

As the mother of two spotlessly pure sons, Imam Hasan (AS) and Imam Husain (AS), through her younger son, she is the ancestress of Nine Infallible Imams – the Last of whom is her father’s 12th Divinely-Designated Heir, who will reappear in the end times as Mahdi al-Qa’em (AS), to establish the global government of peace, prosperity and justice.

Now we understand the meaning of Kowthar, and why this Noblest Lady of all times (Seyyedat-nisa al-alamin min al-awwalin wa’l-akherin) is also known as the “Bez’at ar-Rasoul” (Part of the Prophet).

Born in Mecca on the 20th of Jamadi al-Akher, five years after God formally appointed her father as Prophet, Hazrat Fatema az-Zahra (SA) was often referred to as “Umm Abiha” (Mother of her own Father) for the care and concern she had for her widower father after the passing away of her mother.

Hazrat Fatema az-Zahra (SA) was not an ordinary lady, nor was her birth an ordinary occurrence, neither was her mother an ordinary woman. In fact, her mother Hazrat Khadija (SA), who was a monotheistic lady in the days before the advent of Islam, was famous for her chastity and thus known as “Tahera”. For over 25 long years, Khadija and the Prophet lived a blissful life, and as long as the First Lady of Islam was alive, the Prophet never took another spouse.

This is indicative of the arrangements Divine Providence had made for the birth of Hazrat Fatema (SA), who was born five years after the Prophet had publicly proclaimed his universal mission. She was conceived of the Fruit of Paradise that God gave the Prophet to eat during his “Me’raj” (Ascension) to the highest points in the ethereal heavens and back again to Planet Earth in the part of a single night.

No wonder, we read in the special salutation or Ziyarah for her, the phrase “Tuffahat-al-Firdows (Apple of Paradise). It is thus clear that the “Me’raj” was a physical journey transcending time and space, and certainly not a dream or spiritual ecstasy experienced by the Prophet, as the weak of faith conjecture.

The status of Hazrat Fatema Zahra (SA) is evident from the following narration found in one of the six famous Sunni compilations of hadith, the “Sihah as-Sitta”:

“Kaanat Fatema iz dakhalat ala Rasoul-Allah qaama ilayha fa qabbalaha wa ajlasaha fi majlesahu” (Whenever Fatema would enter the presence of the Messenger of Allah he would rise to his feet in her honour and seat her in his own place).

Despite her lofty merits, Hazrat Fatema (SA) would personally do all household chores. After marriage and a very simple dowry given by her father consisting of basic amenities, the couple shared the blessings of a blissful life, whose fruits were four immaculate children –sons Imam Hasan (AS) and Imam Husain (AS), and daughters Hazrat Zainab (SA) and Hazrat Umm Kulthoum (SA). The husband was responsible for all outside work while the wife took care of household affairs.

They made an excellent husband and wife pair. As the supreme symbol of feminine virtues, she displayed the highest ethical traits in marital life in view of the hadith: “jihad al-mar’a husn at-tab’al” (a woman’s jihad [striving in the way of Allah] is to behave excellently with her husband).   

She also enjoyed very cordial relations with her mother-in-law Fatema bint Asad (SA), the lady who had brought up her father the orphaned Prophet as her own son and to whose care the Prophet had entrusted Hazrat Fatema (SA) after she was orphaned on Hazrat Khadija’s (SA) death. She never allowed her mother-in-law to trouble herself with household chores and left to her the social relations for keeping the necessary contact with family members and friends. In 7 AH when the Prophet provided her with the virtuous Abyssinian maid, Fizza, she divided the work equally, by giving rest to her maid a whole day after a day’s work and discharging the duties that day herself.

These qualities make Hazrat Fatema (SA), the Pride of the Virgin Mary, and the model par-excellence for all virtuous women. That is the reason the Islamic Republic of Iran celebrates her blessed birthday as “Mother’s Day” and “Women’s Week”.