[Muslim Role Models ]    [From Convention to Conviction ]   [Responsibility for Household ]    [Responsibility for Society ]   [Waking up to the Challenges ]   [Search for Knowledge ]   [References ]  Responsibility for Household Allah the most high has said "O ye who believe! Save yourselves and your families from a fire whose fuel is men and stones, over which are appointed angels stern and severe who flinch not (from executing) the commands they receive from God, but do precisely what they are commanded." (Qur’an 66:6) Many scholars have understood this command to shoulder a responsibility on Muslims not only to ensure that their families keep to the path of Islam but also and particularly to save their families from the consumption of haram. For the prophet made it clear that Allah does not accept the prayer of those who have filled their belly with haram and any flesh built on haram will have to be burnt off in the fire of Jahannam. When this aya of the Qur’an is read along with the hadith of the prophet, as it ought to, when he said that, "each and everyone of us is a shepherd and every shepherd shall be asked about his flock. A woman is a shepherd in the house of her husband. ..." The responsibility of Muslim woman in the house of her husband, is therefore not just to make the house hold look nice and comfortable, which indeed is a good thing. But far more important is to ensure that no haram comes into the house hold. The wives of the Sahaba so understood this command that they used to tell their husbands, when going out for the daily bread, that if they should fail to get halal, they should please come back empty handed but never bring haram in to their house, for while they can endure hunger and deprivation in this world, they cannot endure the fire of Jahannam in the next world. This moral responsibility on Muslim women has unfortunately been lost today. If anything women and their demands for the trappings of this world have been one of the major pressures that have driven many men to run for haram daily on end, for which we are all suffering today. So if Muslim women can re-imbibe these values once again and make the wives of the Sahaba their models and be content with halal and protect their households from haram, our society would have been much better than it is today. Even the country as a whole would have been different, for Muslim women would have been models for others to emulate. Until this can be done it does not look like we can have much hope for the transformation of this corrupt society where corruption has literally suffocated every sphere of human endeavour.