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| Awards for Excellence
Khadijah, the first convert to Islam, the first wife of Prophet Muhammad, is known as the mother of the faithful - the first, again, to receive this most honoured epithet. Born in 555 CE, Khadijah grew up in a loving and supportive environment that few daughters of the pre-Islamic Arab peninsula would have known. She established herself as a confident and astute figure in the Makkan business community and her commercial acumen led her to employ Muhammad ibn Abdullah to lead a trade caravan to Syria. So impressed was she with Muhammad's negotiating skills and his demeanour (he was known as al-amin, the trustworthy) that she proposed marriage. And Muhammad accepted. I t could be said that by the age of 40, Khadijah had seen and experienced all that life held for a woman of her time, indeed of any time. She had been widowed twice, she was a single mother. Yet she survived the hostile odds and flourished. And now she was to share her life and her business with a man who would in due course receive revelation from Allah, and revile from members of his own family and society at large. Khadijah was his solace and his strength, and the mother of his children. Such was her love for Prophet Muhammad, and so unerring was her loyalty towards him that Khadijah risked her enviable social standing to proclaim and promote Islam with its message to uproot and replace all the prevailing social norms. Khadijah inspires in us all the steadfastness with which goals, even in the most trying of circumstances, are transformed into successes. |
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