Story of a righteous wife

She started by prasing Allah and sending peace and blessing upon the Prophet Muhammaad Sallahu alayhe wa sallam and she said that this topic is indeed an important one and she said she will try to advise us in the our she gave us the topic, on the trait of believing woman and how she should act with her husband.

She begun by saying, marriage a blessed union between a man and a woman and its through marriage the man and the woman becomes halal for each others and everything between them, from talking to touching to starting a family through marriage it becomes permissible for them And through marriage, the man and the woman starts the long trip of life in which they help each others, complement each others and assisist each other and are in need of each others, and Allah said, From His signs is that He created from you amongst yourself spouses to dowel therein and He placed between you love and mercy.

So this relationship is a divine relationship, because Allah created the man for the woman and the woman for the man. And they met each others upon love and understanding and with a desire to help each others, to perfect the manners and their imperfections for the other person, and its through marriage the muslim family is built and its through marriage the muslim community gets strengthened.

And the woman has a big role in that and she mentioned the hadith, where the prophet sallallahu alayhe wa sallam said, the world is a provision and the best provision is a righteous wife. So a righteous wife is a great blessings because he finds comforts with her, and he finds with her things that he would be able to find with any body else.

So the question comes, how can you be the best provision for your husband? So that you are honored, loved and sheltered by your husband. This is by taking the qualities of a righteous wife. So who is the righteous wife? She is the wife who is obedient to her husband so long this obedience is not in disobedience to Allah, and she is a wife who is keen to please her husband always. And she is also happy with him even despite what he doesn’t have. So she doesn’t look to what he doesn’t have whether its money or stuff he can’t afford or the qualities he doesn’t have but rather she looks at what he does have and she is pleased with that.
And the prophet sallallahu alayhe wa sallam said, the traits of the woman of this world who goes paradise is that they are patient and they have Ihsan when they serve their husband which means that they try to serve their husband and their homes in the most perfect way.

And one great example for us is that of Fatimah as-zahra, the daughter of the prophet and the wife of ali ibn abi talib, she was always working hard in house, always making bread and carrying water from the well to her house, and cleaning her house, to the point that her hand grow calashes and when a group of servants were distributed amongst the muslims, her husband told her: ‘ go to your father, and request a servant to help you.’ So she went to her father prophet sallallahu alayhe wasallam and asked him for a servant. And he told her to go back and he came to her while she was with her husband and he told to her, ‘be patient and tend to your house’, and he said,

‘Should I not teach you something better than what you asked?’ He said,

‘before you go to bed say, subhan Allah 33 times, alhamdulillah 33 times, and allahu akbar 34 times.’ She said she continued doing that, and they never left this dhikr once they learned it from the prophet sallallahualayhe wa sallam.

And another example of a righteous wife who is keen on serving her husband and her house no matter how much fatigue she went through, is the Asma bint abi bakr, the wife of Zubayr, and she said that zubayr was poor. He had no wealth, slave or anything . He only had a horse and a camel and she used to graze his horse and provided with food to it and look after it and ground dates for his camel and besides that she used make arrangement to provide its water and patch up its leather bucket and kneed the flour. She said: ‘I
> wasn’t good at baking breads so my female neighbor used to make the bread for me and I used to carry the seeds from zubayr’s lands which the prophet gave to him, and it was a distance of 2 miles from madina and she used to make this trip every day. And this was in her old age and despite her old age, she did this every day until one day the prophet sent her a servant who took care of the horse for her, and once the servant took care of the horse, she felt like she was emancipated. So despite the house work she was doing,she didn’t complain. And she took care of her husband and home to the best way she could. And this is how the Sahabiyat were and this is how they served their husband and the righteous believing woman should do the same and she should know the rights of the husband upon her, because his rights upon her are great, as the prophet sallallahu alayhe wa sallam said, if he could order any human to make sujud to another human he would have ordered the woman to make
sujud to her husband due to the rights he has upon her.

Subhan Allah, shaykah asked, do we remember this? Do we remember this when we interact with our husband, that their rights upon us are so great that this is what the prophet would have ordered. And she mentioned that Aysha radiallahu anha asked the prophet who has the greatest right upon a woman, he said, her husband and then she asked who has the greatest right upon a man, he said, his mother. Another hadith she mentioned, a woman came to the prophet for a need, and when he finished tending to her need, he asked her, are you married, she said, yes, he said, how are you with your husband, she said, I fulfill his rights except what I can’t do, so he said to her, look to how you are with him, because he is your paradise and he is your hell.

So the shaykah said, subhan Allah, how can you hear this sisters, and still fall short to your responsibility to your husband and house. Everything you do, should be first seeking the reward of Allah, and don’t make it just to please your husband, but make it first seeking reward of Allah, so you get reward for what you do.

And she said that, the women of the past they knew their obligation very well, whereas woman of today, they are ignorant of the rights and obligations their husbands have over them. But that when a woman takes care of her husband and house, this is the mark of the true woman. And it is an obligation upon a woman to do to what pleases her husband and to stay away from his displeasure. So another trait of the believing wife is that she should know how to win the heart of her husband, and this is part of the intelligence of the wife, and so a good wife also helps her husband in his deen, and also helps him to attain best manners. Best manners are not what you show toward your community, but best manners are what you show towards your family, specially, your husband and we will be asked about our manners towards our husband and we will be rewarded if our manners toward him were good and punished if our manners toward him was bad.
And another trait is that woman should respond to the call of her husband if he calls her to the bed, and she should never turn him away, because this is something that will bring happiness to the marriage life. Because obedience to husband leads a woman to Jannah.

The prophet sallallahu alayhe wa sallam said, if a woman prays the five prayers, fast month of Ramadan and obeys her husband, and protects her private part, she will be ordered to enter jannah by any doors she pleases, and this is what we seek. We seek jannah for obeying husband; this is a small price for jannah. And then she told of a sahabiyah, she knew how to reach the heart of her husband, the sahabiya was Umm Sulaym, he was one of the ten who was promised jannah, and they had a son, who was very sick, and abu talha used to asked about him every day, and one day he was away and the son died, and she told the members of the family, do not this news to abu talha until I tell him. So abu talha came home, she prepared dinner, he took it, while he did that, she adorned herself in a way that she had not done before, so she came to him, and they had a relationship that night and when they were done she said to him, Abu talha, if some people borrowed a jug or jars from another family, and the family asked for it, so would they have right to refuge, he said, no. so she said, I inform you of the death of your son, so be patient, and he was annoyed. He said ‘you didn’t tell me about this until I was intimate with you and you later gave me information of my son.’ So he went to the prophet to complain about this and the prophet told him, ‘May Allah bless both of you the night that you spent’ and she became pregnant and she gave birth to a son who became hafith of Qur’aan, and that son had many other righteous children. So this woman was a smart woman who knew how to break the news to her husband. And because of her intelligence Allah blessed both of them with much good. Because the way she dealt with the situations.

The prophet said, should I not tell you of your woman in paradis?, And the Sahaba said, yes. So he (sallallaahu alaihi wa sallam) said, ‘alwalul [woman who is very fertile] and alwadud [woman who is very loving toward her husband]’ and he said, ‘the woman of paradise if she angers her husband, she says to her husband, here is my hands in yours, and I will not blink an eye until you are pleased me. So another trait of the righteous wife is that she doesn’t leave her husband to sleep until he is pleased with her. And this is a reason for a happy life and this is one of the praise worthy traits of the believing woman. And it is hard but never the less one of the reward for it is jannah. Because it is one of the trait of the woman of jannah, they do not sleep until their husband is pleased with
them

And she re-emphasized the importance of responding to the call of the husband if he calls to bed and she mentioned the hadith where the prophet sallallahu alayhe wa sallam said, if a man calls his wife to bed, and she doesn’t respond, and he sleeps while he is mad at her, then the angels curse her until he wakes. And this again goes back to husband sleeping while he is angry with his wife. And in this case, this la’ana it is very dangerous and something that we should fear.

And the prophet said, by the one in whose hand is my soul [so prophet swore and oath that shows the severity] no man calls his wife to bed and she refuses, except that those in heaven are angry with her until he is pleased with her.

So the anger of the husband also angers those in the heaven for the wife, so the curse of those in heaven is upon the disobedient woman so the shaykhah reminded us that marriage in islam is full of responsibility, and the woman must answer the call of her husband and as long as she could do this, no matter when and where, except if she has a valid excuse like she is on period.

And the prophet sallallahu alayhe wa sallam said, a woman must respond the call of her husband even if she was at the back of the riding beast or at the woven. So there isn’t any excuse in not answering the call of your husband even if you are busy and tired still you are commanded to respond to the call of your husband.

And Islam allows the man to marry woman and in return she has to obey him and she must protect him from fitnah and the way to do this is by answering his call. The prophet said, if a man sees a woman outside of his home and he feels something in him, feels attracted to her, he should come to his wife because that will take away what he felt.