Is a Woman’s First Child a Means of Baraka?
Answered by Mawlana Ilyas Patel
Question
I’m in the jumu’a khutba here, and the imam said that if a woman gets her first child as a female child, she is a woman of baraka, like she is considered a woman of baraka. How true is this? It sounds like a bidah.
Answer
In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate
Children are a blessing, gift, and trust bestowed upon us by Allah Most High. There is no virtue of one over the other. However, daughters are an excellent means to attain blessings and ultimately enter paradise.
Children – a Divine Allah-Given Gift
“To Allah alone belongs the kingdom of the heavens and the earth. He creates whatever He wills. He blesses whoever He wills with daughters, and blesses whoever He wills with sons, or grants both, sons and daughters, to whoever He wills, and leaves whoever He wills infertile. He is indeed All-Knowing, Most Capable.” [Quran, 42:49-50]
Virtues of Giving Birth to a Girl Before Sons
Wathila (Allah be pleased with him) narrates that he (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: “blessed is a woman who gives birth to girls before boys.” [Daylami]
Also reported from ‘A’isha (Allah be pleased with her), she said one of the woman’s blessings for her husband is the ease of marriage payment and giving birth to girls before.
The existence and birth of women are a blessing, no doubt. However, the above hadiths, which mention the birth of a girl before boys being a means of blessings, are both weak and, according to some scholars of hadith, fabricated.
Anyway, Imam Sakhawi (Allah have mercy on him) comments: “If daughters didn’t bring blessing (baraka), the blessed progeny of the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) wouldn’t have spread through his daughter.” [Sakhawi, Al-Maqasid al-Hasana]
One should pray to Allah Most High that he bestows us with children who are a source of goodness (khayr) for us in this world, coolness for our eyes, and means of continuous charity, Amin.
Check this link as well:
The Virtues of Having Children – SeekersGuidance
Why not begin your search for knowledge by signing up for a course on SeekersGuidance?
SeekersAcademy (seekersguidance.org)
I pray this helps with your question.
[Mawlana] Ilyas Patel
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Mawlana Ilyas Patel is a traditionally-trained scholar who has studied within UK, India, Pakistan, Syria, Jordan and Turkey.
He started his early education in UK. He went onto complete hifz of Qur’an in India, then enrolled into an Islamic seminary in UK where he studied the secular and Alimiyyah sciences. He then travelled to Karachi, Pakistan.
He has been an Imam in Rep of Ireland for a number of years. He has taught hifz of the Qur’an, Tajwid, Fiqh and many other Islamic sciences to both children and adults onsite and online extensively in UK and Ireland. He was teaching at a local Islamic seminary for 12 years in the UK where he was a librarian and a teacher of Islamic sciences.
He currently resides in UK with his wife. His personal interest is love of books and gardening.
