The Sunday Mail
Umari Stambuli Holy Qur’aan Speaks
continued from last week
AT the time when the unborn child is four and half months old in the womb of the mother, it’s sense of hearing is complete and according to the Hadeeth (Prophetic sayings of Prophet Muhammed peace be upon him), that is about the time when the ‘rooh’ (soul) is infused into the unborn child. At that point, the unborn child can hear the sounds produced in the body of the mother.
Of all the sounds that the child hears in the womb of the mother, the most predominant and common one is the continuous rhythmic sound of its mother’s heartbeat – as long as the mother’s heartbeat is normal and regular, the unborn child feels safe.
In the 1940s, scientists discovered that the mother’s heartbeat affects the heartbeat of the unborn child in the womb in many ways.
The unconscious memory of the mother’s heartbeat, while the child was in the womb, remains in the child even after birth and for the rest of his or her life.
Several scientific researches support this view. It was shown that when the heartbeat was played on a tape-recorder in a hospital nursery, it reduced the infant crying in the nursery. Some researchers have mentioned that it is due to unconscious memory of the mother’s heartbeat.
After the birth, a child feels comforted when it is held close to the chest.
The mothers’ further sacrifice
The sacrifices of the mother for her child not only include the long and painful pregnancy period but the moment of delivery (giving birth to the child), which is equally painful.
Allah says: “We have enjoined on man kindness to his parents, in pain did his mother bear him (during pregnancy), and in pain did she give birth to him.” (Ch 46 : v 15)
Research shows that as compared to all the animals, the human beings are large brained and large skulled. For this reason, giving birth is an intensely painful experience for the human female.
Again, this is a sacrifice the mother makes to bring her child in to this world.
Research of the sociologists
Sociologists and other social scientists have explained that the body contact of the child to its mother is extremely important in the mental development of the child.
One of the ways mother-child body contact can be accomplished is when the mother is breast feeding the child. Hence, we can see how important breast feeding is.
That is why the reference to breast feeding the child for two years is mentioned in the Holy Qur’aan itself (Ch 31 : v 14).
About fifty years ago, in the wave of modernism, many mothers in the West started to bottle feed their children because they thought it backwards to breast feed.
They are still paying the price for that in the form of many afflictions. Research has shown that breastfed infants are more intelligent than bottle fed infants. Indeed, there is a myriad of other benefits of breast feeding over bottle feeding.
According to sociologists, 75 percent of the child’s personality is shaped in the first three years of its life. Upon birth, the human brain is only 23 percent formed.
That means that three quarters of the skull growth takes place after birth. The normal development of the human brain cannot be accomplished without the help of parents. That must be the reason Carl Jung, the famous American psychologist, had in mind when he said, “the human infant lives in the shadow of his parents.”
And that is why the Qur’aan precisely commands us to be dutiful, kind and thankful to our parents, (especially mothers) to a status second only to the worship of Allah.
(To be continued next week)
For further information on Islam or a free copy of the Holy Qur’aan, please contact:
Majlisul Ulama Zimbabwe, Council of Islamic Scholars
Publications Department
P.O. Box W93, Waterfalls, Harare
Tel: 04-614078 / 614004, Fax : 04-614003
e-mail: [email protected]
