MY MOTHER—AN EXEMPLARY WOMAN

positive thinking and a realistic approach—is capable of achieving. My brothers and I were greatly influenced by the example she set. In fact, this was the greatest gift that she could have bestowed upon us. In giving us this awareness of the virtues of Islam, she fulfilled the duties of both father and mother. I can still recall that after my father’s death, a maternal uncle used to pay us frequent visits. A great expert in legal matters, he insisted that my mother should file a suit to recover the land which had been willed to her by her father but which relatives by marriage were unwilling to relinquish. He assured her that all she had to do was to append her signature to the legal documents relevant to her claim on the land and that he would do whatever else was required. He promised her that she would soon have control of all the land of which she was the rightful owner. He continued to pay her visits over a long period of time and went on in the same vein each time, but my mother refused to allow herself to be persuaded by him. Being deprived of the property from our father’s side to which we were legally entitled did of course become a source of great provocation, and we increasingly felt the urge to fight for our rights. Ultimately, it was through the intervention of others that we were given some tracts of land, but this hardly improved our situation, for, human nature being what it is, it was all the arid and unproductive land which fell to our lot. This niggardly treatment had the effect of making us want to plunge into the fray to fight with the other party, but my mother staunchly adhered to her policy of patience, often admonishing us to exercise greater self-control. On such occasions she would recite to us this line of poetry: Patience is the Price of Eternal Paradise. Our family circumstances which, it appeared, could be improved only by resorting to litigation, were certainly such as to lead us all into negative thinking. Litigation meant a number of families all being drawn into the quarrel, with the inevitable series of unpleasant confrontations. It could even mean the loss of valuable lives, for such situations often bring out the most baneful characteristics in all of us. Had our mother not chosen to adopt the only attitude which could be considered positive under We studiously ignored the injustice of our immediate environment and endeavoured to pursue a morally correct course of action in the broader spectrum of the outside world.