The Ideal Muslim Woman
- Ameera Begum
- 15 Oct 2019
- 6 min read
Growing up, I heard about Prophet Muhammad’s (peace be upon him) excellent character. Teachers from my weekend Islamic classes extolled the virtues of Sayyidina Abu Bakar (may Allah be pleased with him) and Sayyidina Umar (may Allah be pleased with him). I marvelled at the rank and stature of Sayyidina Uthman and Sayyidina Ali (may Allah be pleased with them both). Sayyidina Umar’s sense of justice and fierce personality captivated me, seeing a tiny bit of my personality in him.
As a teenage girl and young woman though, I was constantly told that I was “too loud” and had to be “less fierce” or “less assertive” in order to be “more modest” as a woman. I would counter by saying that my role model after the Prophet (peace be upon him) was Sayyidina Umar but would swiftly be rebuked and told, “But he’s a man, and you’re a woman!”.
It took me many more years before I finally learnt that the Prophet’s wife, Sayyidatina Aishah (may Allah be pleased with her) was feisty. And that Nusayba bint Ka’b physically defended the Prophet (peace be upon him) in battle! In a course called Companions of the Prophet by Rabata (an educational outfit led by Shaykha Dr Tamara Gray based in the United States) that I took last year, we learnt about both male and female Companions and while there were some male Companions I hadn’t heard of before, most of the female Companions were completely new to me.
After years of learning the religion, I finally began to see the Companions, both male and female, as rounded, complex, multi-dimensional human beings, instead of the one-dimensional characters that I had been introduced to. This was especially important to me as a woman because I felt like I was always asked to make myself smaller, quieter, more invisible to fit the ‘ideal Muslim woman’ role. I would look at my brother or my male cousins and they could be ‘good enough Muslim boys and men’ without needing to sacrifice their personalities, and yet for myself and my peers, there seemed to be only one way for us to be – quiet, modest, compliant. This isn’t to say that there aren’t shared good values for both genders to emulate. Indeed, the Prophet Muhammad was sent for everyone, and his noble character and traits of mercy, empathy, courage and more were for all of us to aspire to.