Making a Difference: Khadijah

Making a Difference: Khadijah bint Khuwaylid
After the horrific September 11 attacks that occurred in the year 2001, many people all over the world began to look upon the Muslims in a different light. Because of the negative media attention that was given to Muslims at the time, many people started to hate Muslims and at the same time, tried to understand them. One major topic that many Westerners don’t seem to understand is the equality of men and women in Islam.
What many people don’t understand is that the inequality that is portrayed coming out from the Middle East is something is not related to Islam at all. For example, women have every right in the world to go out and get an education and work. Actually it is very much encouraged in Islam because the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be Upon Him) stated that “whoever goes out to attain education is on the road of God until he returns from that journey”. He also states that “one’s education is a person’s arrow towards his enemy”. That goes for both men and women. One woman in Islam that particularly proved that was the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) first wife, Khadijah. Khadijah changed the lives and statuses of women throughout the Middle East and the Islamic world.
I chose to research Khadijah because she is actually a role model for me. Whenever I am told by someone, specifically a male, that I cannot reach my goals, I look to her and see how successful she was in a time where women were looked down upon. During that time period, baby girls were buried alive because they were thought to be bad luck upon a family. Khadijah proved herself to be independent during a time where a woman was not supposed to be independent. I have been told by many men and women in my lifetime that I could not reach my dream of becoming an ambassador or president of the United States because I was a woman. I know how much those remarks hurt, and I can imagine how Khadijah might have felt to have heard that when she was alive. I want to prove to all throughout the world that in Islam women are supposed to be treated equally because that is what the Prophet (PBUH) ordered his followers to do. It is just the people who misinterpret and who like the idea of ruling over another person, that change around the rules. Clearly women are supposed to be treated with equality and dignity in Islam. My goal, just as Khadijah’s was, is to be a role model for all women and girls, both in the sense that a women can be independent and at the same time be a wonderful wife, mother, and friend.