(46:15) - Selfless Nurture - Quran: Al-Ahqaaf (Talha Ghannam) #FridayReminders #QuranReflections

Selfless Nurture   وَوَصَّيْنَا ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ بِوَٰلِدَيْهِ إِحْسَـٰنًا ۖ حَمَلَتْهُ أُمُّهُۥ كُرْهًا وَوَضَعَتْهُ كُرْهًا ۖ وَحَمْلُهُۥ وَفِصَـٰلُهُۥ ثَلَـٰثُونَ شَهْرًا ۚ حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا بَلَغَ أَشُدَّهُۥ وَبَلَغَ أَرْبَعِينَ سَنَةً قَالَ رَبِّ أَوْزِعْنِىٓ أَنْ أَشْكُرَ نِعْمَتَكَ ٱلَّتِىٓ أَنْعَمْتَ عَلَىَّ وَعَلَىٰ وَٰلِدَىَّ وَأَنْ أَعْمَلَ صَـٰلِحًا تَرْضَىٰهُ وَأَصْلِحْ لِى فِى ذُرِّيَّتِىٓ ۖ إِنِّى تُبْتُ إِلَيْكَ وَإِنِّى مِنَ ٱلْمُسْلِمِينَ   We have commanded people to honour their parents. Their mothers bore them in hardship and delivered them in hardship. Their ˹period of˺ bearing and weaning is thirty months. In time, when the child reaches their prime at the age of forty, they pray, “My Lord! Inspire me to ˹always˺ be thankful for Your favours which You blessed me and my parents with, and to do good deeds that please You. And instil righteousness in my offspring. I truly repent to You, and I truly submit ˹to Your Will˺.” (46:15)     My dear beloved son   Imagine there was a way to have a child without going through any of the pains; no months of pregnancy for your mother, no pains of labour to endure, no sleepless nights to wake through, no anxiety about your well-being, no worry about finances to raise you. Imagine Allah ﷻ had decreed that the way we have children was a painless process as easy as ordering a gift from Amazon, arriving as an independent, fully grown adult for whom you are genetically connected with and share a lifelong bond with.   If you asked any mother or father, you will not find many who would trade this for the role of raising a new-born baby, regardless of how difficult and exhausting it may be. This is not for any sadism or love of pain. No parent enjoys the sacrifices that they have to make. They simply endure them lovingly with the understanding that it’s the required investment to nurture something far greater in return; Love.   You see, raising a child is almost entirely a selfless act, requiring almost continuous sacrifice on behalf of the parents in order to raise and nurture the child. Whether it be time, money, sleep or ambition, every parent must sacrifice something in order to give to their children. The result? Love; an unquantifiable, intangible human experience universal to us all brought about in a moments smile from a new born child after endless sacrifice for their sake. It is not that the parents enjoy the pain; they endure it knowing it is the currency through which they obtain the reward it nurtures