Revive Your Heart: Putting Life in Perspective

unthā
not 
al-unthā
;
in other words, you say ‘a girl’ not ‘the girl’. But to Allah (
ʿazza wa-jall
) she is
special, so He says 
al-unthā
not 
wa-idhā bushshira aḥaduhum bi-unthā
. Rather,
bi-l-unthā
. The 
al-
is for honouring (
takrīm
). He honours this daughter that’s
been born. In contrast, the husband’s given the news and as soon as he hears it’s
a girl: 
ẓalla wajhuhū muswaddah
—his face turns dark. Allah doesn’t say that he
said anything yet but you could just see the darkness, the cloud hanging over his
face. This is Allah describing a 
mushrik
(idolator)! Someone who doesn’t
believe in Allah! When you don’t appreciate a daughter, it’s like you’re not
appreciating your own mother, that’s where you came from. And so his face
becomes darkened and depressed, and before I even go further, let me highlight
that this is supposed to be a disease of the 
mushrikūn
. They’re supposed to get
sad when they hear that a daughter is born; not the believer. Not the believer in
this Prophet (
ṣallā Allāh ʿalayhi wa-sallam
).
Do you know how many 
aḥadīth
there are—one after another after another
after another—about daughters. 
Rasūl Allāh
(
ṣallā Allāh ʿalayhi wa-sallam
)
made such a big deal out of daughters! It’s not a small subject. It’s not one
hadith or two hadiths. It’s hadith after hadith after hadith.

---

Lā yakūn li-aḥadikum thalāth banāt aw thalāth akhawāt fa-aḥsana ilayhinna
illā dakhala al-jannah
—‘There’s not a single one of you that has three daughters
or even three sisters and he is good to them; except that he goes into 
jannah
.’
Your goodness to your daughters will land you in 
jannah
. In another hadith it
says: 
lam ya’idhā
—‘he didn’t bury her alive’, okay, 
al-ḥamd li-Llāh
he didn’t do
that—
wa-lam yu’thir waladahū ʿalayhā
—‘and he didn’t give preference to his
son over his daughter’; that one gets 
jannah
. So he didn’t compare his daughter
to his son. He didn’t think having a girl. ‘Oh I wish I had a boy, man. I was
really looking forward to a boy. What are we going to do? This is such a burden
on my family. Now I have to pay for her education and it won’t even pay back.
She’s not even going to get a job and provide for the family. She is going to get
married and be somebody else’s family, and then we have to pay for the
wedding on top of that! All these expenses!’ He keeps giving preference to his
son or wanting to have a son, even that mentality can be a block for you from
getting into 
jannah
.
Half these 
aḥadīth
are about a direct ticket to 
jannah
and the other half of the
aḥadīth
are about how these girls will become a barrier (
satr
) between him and
Hellfire. His daughters will be the wall between him and Hell. Allah didn’t say
that about sons, by the way. He said that about daughters. It’s an honour Allah
gave to these girls that are born in our households. I’m reminded—I say this
often, 
al-ḥamd li-Llāh
—Allah has blessed me with four daughters. I’m one over
the hadith limit, but I will tell you something: I had two daughters in a row, and
then when my third daughter was born I was really happy. And so I got a bunch
of doughnuts and I went to the masjid. For ʿIshā’, I’m just going to give
everybody doughnuts because we had a girl again. This brother came outside the
masjid and he said ‘Oh doughnuts? What happened? Good news?’ I said ‘Yeah,
it’s a girl’ and he said, ‘