"And We have enjoined upon man, to his parents, good treatment. His mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship, and his gestation and weaning [period] is thirty months. [He grows] until, when he reaches maturity and reaches [the age of] forty years, he says, “My Lord, enable me to be grateful for Your favor which You have bestowed upon me and upon my parents and to work righteousness of which You will approve and make righteous for me my offspring. Indeed, I have repented to You, and indeed, I am of the Muslims." (46:15)
The general stereotype regarding Islam has been its disregard towards women's rights from the gender inequality issues we see in the Middle and Eastern countries nowadays. Indeed, society tends on to highlight such viewpoint, however there is in need to know that the fundamental problem does not arise from the Quran or the hadiths but from the misled interpretations of the fundamentalists. Rather, the Quran promotes gender equality and respect towards the female gender by emphasizing the role of 'mother' and her strength as the verse above. The Prophet Mohammad went on to say, "Heaven lies beneath the feet of your mother", manifesting his high regard for the role of mother and women in general.
Coming across this verse that highlights the strength of the role of mother, I came to contemplate on my own mother's strength and courage she had shown us through childhood. I have never seen nor been inspired by any other human being stronger than my mother for the years she raised my brother and me in a land that wasn't her home but a foreigner to. At the time, my own realites and focus in my life had disallowed me from looking at the world in my mother's eyes and what she must've been going through. She never took off the shield of courage infront of her young children who looked upon her as an answer for everything and a taken-for-granted supporter. But reading this verse recently, made me view, for the first time, the lonliness and fear she must've felt as a young single mom in the United States, but how she overcame such through her love and responsibility for her children.