The Best Gift My Mom Ever Gave Me

Until this very day, I cannot ride in the same car as my mom without her asking me to listen to her reciting Quran to perfect her memorization. Since I was little, I always remember seeing my mom with her green Quran that she carried everywhere, and I mean everywhere. It was a book conveniently divided into 10 different sections. So whenever she was reviewing a particular chapter, she would take that section of her Quran and slip it into her purse. Commuting from place to place, waiting for our food at a restaurant, getting to the mosque before the call to prayer, and getting stuck in traffic all had one thing in common: they forced my mom to pull out her Quran and read. 

As a little girl, I was always curious to know what it was in that green book that made my mother so attached to it. Was it the way it sounded, or the meaning of its words, or the feeling it put the reader in that grasped my mom's attention so much? I was eager to find out. 

As humans, we are all preoccupied with something in our lives, whether it be our work, children, phones, books, or the likes. Yet as mothers and parents, what preoccupies us no longer affects us alone, but our children as well. Children look up to their parents growing up, and what they see their parents doing will open their curiosity, as it did with me. 

I wanted to know what was so special about the Quran my mom always held and frequently spoke of. So I explored. I read. I asked. I questioned. And I found the answer. And until today, I am still finding new answers. This book is like a hidden treasure that has no end. The amount of pearls are infinite. You just keep digging, and you will keep finding. 

Looking back at my life today and everything my mother ever did for my siblings and me, the one thing I appreciate the most by far from my mother is her time with the Quran. She fulfilled our needs, but always showed us that the Book of God has a priority of its own. In turn, this has, by God's grace, reflected in my upbringing, as well as my siblings'. Had it not been for my mother's physical, mental, and emotional attachment to this book, I may have never even thought of exploring it. I may have never turned to it with my doubts, and may have never found that ultimate companionship in it. 

So as advice to myself and mothers and mothers-to-be: preoccupy yourself with that which you will want your children to be preoccupied with in the future. Children follow your footsteps. Give them a gift that has no price-tag. Helping them build a strong relationship with God's book will mean more to them than anything you ever did for them. And take it from someone who's been there. 

YOU have paradise eternally

It's interesting that in Chapter 43 of the Quran (Alzukhruf/ The Ornaments), God talks about Paradise addressing the reader as if it is for him directly. The word used more than once that makes it seem that way is أنتم, meaning "you". YOU are in heaven eternally. Enter paradise YOU and your spouses together. This is the paradise YOU have earned for YOUR actions. 

Now looking at the very next verses that talk about the punishment of hell, they not once suggest this is for the reader. Instead of using the word أنتم or "you", God says هم or "they". THEY wronged THEMSELVES and are now in this state. THEY will regret THEIR past actions. 

Reading this gives the reader hope in God and in his eternal bliss. Sometimes we feel like we are not doing enough and that goodness is just for a certain type of people, or "them". But it doesn't have to be that way. It can be me, you, we, us. أنتم: you all.