That the continuance of the species derives from motherhood, and that the preservation and honouring of motherhood is the foundation of Islam

The instrument of man sings melodies When struck by woman’s plectrum; his soul’s pride Swells of her deference.

The woman clothes The nakedness of man; the loveliness Of the beloved a garment weaves for love.

The love of God is nourished at her breast, A lovely air struck from her silent hand;

And he in whom all beings make their boast Declared he loved three things – sweet perfume, prayer, And womankind.

What Muslim reckons her A servant, nothing more, no part has won Of the Book’s wisdom.

If thou lookest well, Motherhood is a mercy, being linked By close affinity to prophethood, And her compassion is the prophet’s own.

For mothers shape the way that men shall go; Maturer, by the grace of Motherhood,

For mothers shape the way that men shall go; Maturer, by the grace of Motherhood, The character of nations is, the lines That score that brow determine our estate.

Behind the form, our word community Hath, in the Persian, many subtleties.

He, for whose sake God said Let there be life, Declared that Paradise lies at the feet Of mothers.

In the honouring of the womb The life communal is alone secured, Else is life raw and brutish.

Motherhood Quickens the pace of life, the mysteries Of life revealing; tortuously twists

The current of our stream, so that it flows Bubbling and whirling on its rapid course.

Take any peasant woman, ignorant, Squat-figured, fat, uncomely

unrefined, Unlettered, dim of vision, simple, dumb;

The pangs of motherhood have torn her heart, Dark, tragic rings have underscored her eyes;

If from her bosom the community Receive one Muslim zealous for the Faith, God’s faithful servant

all the pains she bore Have fortified our being, and our dawn Glows radiant in the lustre of her dusk.

Now take the slender figure, bosomless, Close-cosseted, a riot in her glance

Her thoughts resplendent with the Western light; In outward guise a woman, inwardly No woman she;

she hath destroyed the bonds That hold our pure community secure; Her sacred charms are all unloosed and spilled;

Bold-eyed her freedom is, provocative, And wholly ignorant of modesty;

Her learning is inadequate to bear The charge of motherhood, and on the dusk And evening of her days not one star shines;

Better it were this rose had never grown Within our garden, better were her brand Washed from the skirt of the community.

Stars without number whispering No god But God, ungleaming in the dark of time And not yet risen from nonentity,

Still wait without the bounded territories Of quality and quantity,

being hid Within the shadows of our patent life, These our epiphanies still unbeheld;

Dew not descended on the rose’s bloom, Buds not yet torn by the lascivious breeze.

This garden of potentialities, These unseen tulips blossom from the bower Of fertile Motherhood.

A people’s wealth Rests not, my prudent friend, in linen fine Or treasured hoards of silver and of gold;

Its riches are its sons, clean-limbed and strong Of body, supple-brained, hard-labouring, Healthy and nimble to high enterprise.

Mothers preserve the clue of Brotherhood, The strength of Scripture and Community.