The Laws of Women: On the Birth of a Girl

A. O my sisters! O my daughters! O women, my people and pride! Hear my words, understand my musings, consider my way, for I am your brother. I have gathered for you beautiful words, chosen from the words of the exceptional ones, from the discourse of the refined, to awaken the slumbering and to turn the rebellious to the worship of the eternal God—God of the last and the first—to subdue the heart of man, so he will follow the guiding path, the ways of the righteous, and the deeds of the praised.

B. We are the children of Israel [and have been] for thousands of years. We are subject to the Law and the dictates, which the Creator, glorified and exalted, commanded us by way of the prophet Moses, His messenger. Because of the Creator’s kindness to us, we are firm in our religion. We are known among all the nations. Muslims and non-Muslims alike bear witness to us. Our Torah is the most ancient of all! It has not been tainted, has not been broken. It has not been diminished or weakened. It has not been changed or replaced. [ . . . ]

Chapter 6

When a woman delivers a daughter, she experiences distress, which brings danger upon her when she is giving birth. She does so because of the situation. She does not overcome this distress if she sees around her relatives, friends, and loved ones berating and denigrating girls – even her husband and the house[hold] of her uncle. As though she had been negligent and done a bad thing! It is as though they had sent her to the market to purchase a male, but she purchased a daughter instead! But the fact is, everyone knows and understands that this child is a gift from the eternal God. No artisan crafted it; no peddler offered it for sale. It was not purchased like merchandise from a market. Rather, her father and mother conceived her together. And the great Creator created her. He did not wish to make her a boy. He made her a girl. How could the mother have intended to do evil by this birth? And then, after her torment in bearing her daughter, she is then miserable. She walks in shame and failure. These days, we see in these lands how they stutter and stammer. They say about girl children that it would have been better had their heads not emerged. But they do not consider this: these girls, this is their gender. Can one go and change one’s gender? One must be aware of what he says as it relates to himself. A very strange story, indeed. Very peculiar, indeed.

It is true that everyone loves the arrival of male children and rejoices in them. Having said that, one should not be oppressed by the arrival of daughters. One should not be apprehensive of their coming. For how can one sound off and speak against this, or condemn and complain about the gift of the compassionate Creator, who sees everything that will occur in the end of time? O women of good intent! Consider all the men in the world. See! Many men have raised their sons and met evil and misfortune because of them—because they were born ugly and malformed. But their daughters were born beautiful. Afterward, they [i.e., the parents of daughters] have sons-in-law to advise, and the children of their daughters are virtuous. These men, if only they knew the hidden meaning [i.e., the divine plan]! If they but knew what would occur in the end, both good and bad things, they would be saddened by the birth of their sons and rejoice greatly at the birth of their daughters. For everything given to him by God, a man should render thanks with his words and rejoice in his heart, because no man knows what will happen with the passage of time. But the glorified and exalted One, He knows the goodness of all creatures and their beauty, and He provides them with what they need.