For Mums and Daughters: Holding on to Our Deen in a Changing World
Alhamdulillah, Allah has blessed me with children. One of them is a daughter who will, insha Allah, grow into a young woman navigating a world that looks very different to the one I grew up in.
When I think about her teenage years, I feel a mixture of worry and hope. Worry because of the challenges ahead, and hope because I have the chance to approach this with more awareness than I once had. I remind myself often that I was once that teenage girl. I remember the emotions, the confusion, the feeling of not always being understood, the frustration of trying to express yourself but being shut down or labelled as having an attitude.
As I reflect now, I realise something important. Yes, our upbringing shapes us. Yes, it can leave marks that stay with us for a long time. But it cannot be the thing that defines us forever. There comes a point where we have to look beyond our parents, beyond our experiences, and turn back to Allah.
For our daughters, and even for our younger selves, this is a reminder worth returning to often. We cannot keep circling back to what we did or did not receive. There is something far greater than all of that waiting for us. Allah is the One who instructed us on hijab, on modesty, on how we carry ourselves and how we speak. Our journey is with Him, regardless of where we started or what we went through to get here.
That does not mean our struggles are not valid. It just means they should not be the thing that keeps us stuck.
What Modesty Really Means Today
Modesty today is not just about what we wear, although that is certainly a significant part of it. Hijab is first and foremost an act of obedience to Allah. It is ibadah. But modesty also shows up in how we speak, how we present ourselves online and in person, and the kind of presence we carry around others.
And let us be honest, this is not easy today.
We are raising girls in a time where everything around them encourages the opposite. Attention is praised. Exposure is normalised. Validation is constantly tied to appearance and how much of yourself you are willing to show. Social media has built entire platforms around this, and our daughters are growing up inside it.
On top of that, many of our children are navigating spaces where being visibly Muslim can feel uncomfortable or even unsafe. Racism, xenophobia, and anti-Muslim hatred are very real. For a young girl, standing out because of her faith can feel like a weight she carries alone. We have to understand that before we can expect her to carry it gracefully.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, spoke about a time when holding on to the deen would feel like holding on to hot coals. That image alone says so much. It was never meant to be effortless. It can feel uncomfortable, even painful. But the greater the struggle, the greater the reward with Allah, insha Allah. This is not just comfort, it is part of the promise.
In Surah Al-Baqarah, Allah reminds us that He does not burden a soul beyond what it can bear. Our daughters are capable of this. We have to believe that for them, even when they do not yet believe it for themselves.
The World They Are Growing Up In
Our children are not growing up in a neutral space, nor an Islamic one. From a very young age they are exposed to ideas, lifestyles, and influences that quietly shape how they see themselves and the world around them. Social media, entertainment, friendships, and the wider culture all play a part in forming their understanding of identity, worth, and belonging.
Because of this, we have to approach them with understanding rather than judgment.
We cannot pretend the reality they are living in does not exist. But we also cannot water down our deen to make things more comfortable. Islam is complete. Allah says in Surah Al-Maidah that He has perfected our religion for us. Our job is not to reshape it to fit the times but to help our children understand its beauty and its wisdom so deeply that they want to hold on to it themselves.
This is the real work. And it is not always straightforward.
The Power of Dua
No matter what stage our child is at in their journey, whether they are close to the deen, struggling with it, or somewhere in between, we have to remember that our dua carries a weight we often underestimate.
Allah is Al-Muqallib Al Quloob, the Turner of Hearts. He can change what we cannot. He can reach places in our children that we simply cannot access. There is a reason Ibrahim, alayhis salam, made dua for his children and grandchildren. There is a reason the Prophet, peace be upon him, taught us to pray for our offspring. Dua is not a last resort. It is the foundation.
So we keep making dua. We guide, we remind, we model, and we trust that Allah is the One who ultimately guides. Even when conversations feel like they are going nowhere, even when they seem distant or closed off, we do not stop asking Allah to turn their hearts.
And we do not confuse our role with His. Our job is to convey with love and sincerity. The guidance itself belongs to Allah alone.
What We Model Matters More Than We Think
For those of us with younger daughters, there is something we need to be honest with ourselves about.
If our children grow up watching us without hijab, listening to music freely, backbiting, using foul language, or doing things we later come to leave behind, we cannot expect them to suddenly change the moment we do. It does not work like that.
Just as it may have taken us years of reflection and lived experience to begin improving, our children will need time too. We have to extend to them the same patience we would have wanted shown to ourselves.
But that does not mean we delay our own growth while we wait. If anything, recognising this should push us to be more intentional sooner. Our children are always watching us, even when we think they are not. The scholars often say that tarbiyah, the upbringing and nurturing of a child, begins long before they are born. It begins with who we are.
When we become parents, our priorities shift in ways we did not fully anticipate. We will be asked about how we guided our children. The idea that we are not ready, or that our children are too young to be introduced to the deen, deserves a second look. By the time our daughters reach their teenage years, do we want to be starting from scratch? Or do we want those early years to have already laid something steady beneath their feet?
When the People Around You Become the Obstacle
I want to share something personal here, because I think it matters and I do not think it gets spoken about enough.
When I was a teenager and into my early adulthood, I was trying. I genuinely was. I prayed. I wore hijab. When I was old enough to drive, I would go to Islamic lectures and take cousins with me who wanted to come. I had a real zeal for learning and for wanting to be better. It was not perfect, because none of us are, but the intention was sincere and the effort was real.
And yet some of the hardest moments I faced did not come from the outside world. They came from within my own circle.
People who knew I was trying to practise watched me more closely, not to support me, but to catch me out. Every small mistake, every moment of being human, was scrutinised. I was labelled as the practising one, which sounds like a compliment but in practice became a kind of trap. Because the moment I slipped, even in something minor, the comments came. The digs came. And some of those comments found their way to my mother, who, doing her best with what she had, responded by tightening her grip and restricting me further, thinking that was the right thing to do.
I understand now that she meant well. But those words from others stung in a way that stayed with me. They still do.
What I experienced is something I know many others have been through too. You start to try, you show up with sincerity, and instead of being encouraged you are held to an impossible standard. You are not allowed to be a learner. You are not allowed to make mistakes. The moment you do, you are called a hypocrite.
But I want to say this clearly. I never claimed to be a representative of Islam. I never said I had it all figured out. I was simply trying, the way every single one of us has to try. We are all sinners. Every single one of us, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether the sins are visible or hidden, major or minor, intentional or not. That is the nature of being human. The Prophet, peace be upon him, told us that every son of Adam makes mistakes, and the best of those who make mistakes are those who repent.
Shaming someone who is trying does not make them better. It pushes them away. And this is something our communities need to sit with honestly. There are people who have drifted from the deen not because they stopped caring, but because the environment around them made practising feel humiliating. When every effort is met with criticism rather than encouragement, when you are made to feel that trying and falling short is worse than not trying at all, something inside a person quietly gives up.
That is a loss we cannot afford.
If someone in your life is trying to grow, protect them. Encourage them. If they slip, make dua for them privately. The Prophet, peace be upon him, warned us against exposing the faults of others. He said that whoever conceals the faults of a Muslim, Allah will conceal his faults on the Day of Judgement. That applies whether the person is a stranger or someone in your family.
I wanted to give up many times, imagine being the reason why someone distances themselves from the Deen? Alhamdulillah, despite all of it, I kept going in my own way, of course still making mistakes but still trying. My relationship with Allah is mine and no one else’s words can take that from me. But I carry the memory of how that felt, and it is part of why I write this now. Because if it happened to me, it is happening to daughters right now in families all around us.
The Mother and Daughter Relationship
The relationship between mothers and daughters holds so much within it. If a daughter consistently feels judged, corrected, or shut down, she may begin to associate the deen with pressure and negativity rather than peace and belonging. But if she feels genuinely heard, supported through her confusion, and guided with mercy, it can make all the difference.
The Prophet, peace be upon him, showed us that gentleness is not weakness. He said that gentleness does not enter into anything except that it beautifies it. This applies so directly to how we guide our daughters. We are not trying to force submission. We are trying to nurture love for Allah and His commands. Those are very different things, and our children can feel the difference.
We are not aiming for perfection. We are aiming for sincerity. And we have to keep striving, because stagnation is not an option when the stakes are this high.
When Mothers Ask Me to Speak to Their Daughters
Over the years, at different points in my life, I have had mothers approach me with the best of intentions. They have asked me to speak to their daughter, their teenager, their young adult. To advise them. To say something that might help.
And I have found myself in one of the most difficult positions.
Because I could see the full picture in a way the mother sometimes could not. I knew what kind of environment that daughter had grown up in. I knew what had and had not been modelled for her during those early years when children absorb everything around them without being told. And when I would gently try to have a conversation with that daughter, the responses I heard were not rebellion for the sake of it. They were honest observations.
Why is my mum expecting this from me now when she did not wear hijab properly for years herself? Why did she dress modestly most days, but then for weddings or occasions it was different? How can she tell me what to do when I watched her not do it?
And honestly, sitting with those words, I did not always know what to say. Because they had a point.
That does not change the obligation. Hijab is fard. Modesty is an instruction from Allah, not a suggestion, and it does not become optional because someone around us is inconsistent. Every one of us will stand before Allah individually and answer for our own choices. That is the truth and it needs to be said.
But we also have to be honest with ourselves as mothers. If we spent years not practising, or practising partially, or sending mixed messages about when modesty applies and when it does not, we cannot expect our daughters to transform overnight simply because we have now decided the time is right. It took us time to get here. It took reflection, perhaps a difficult experience, perhaps a shift in our hearts that Allah placed there in His own timing. Our daughters deserve that same time and that same grace.
You cannot force someone into the deen and expect it to stick. If a daughter puts on hijab out of pressure, out of shame, or to keep the peace rather than out of love for Allah, what foundation are we building on? The Prophet, peace be upon him, said there is no compulsion in religion. Scholars discuss this in the context of non-Muslims entering Islam, but the spirit of it speaks to something deeper. Obedience that comes from the heart lasts. Obedience that is forced tends to break the moment the pressure is removed.
What we can do is make dua. Sincerely and consistently. We can create a home environment where the deen feels like a mercy and not a burden. We can work on ourselves, visibly and genuinely, so that our daughters see a real and living example rather than a set of instructions being handed down without the life to back them up. We can have honest conversations without ultimatums. We can acknowledge our own past without making excuses for it, and use it as a bridge rather than something we pretend did not happen.
And we can give our children the same patience Allah has given us.
He did not give up on us during our years of inconsistency. He did not withdraw His mercy because we were slow to arrive. He kept calling us back, gently and persistently, through circumstances, through people, through moments of clarity we did not ask for but desperately needed.
Our daughters are on their own journey towards Him. Our role is to be a signpost, not a gatekeeper. To point towards Allah with love, and then trust Him with the rest.
A Reminder for Daughters
For daughters reading this, there is something here for you too.
Your parents are not perfect. They have their own journeys, their own gaps, and their own moments of falling short. That is true for every human being. But your connection to Allah is not dependent on them getting everything right. That connection is yours. It is personal. It is between you and Him.
Allah says in Surah Az-Zumar that no bearer of burdens will bear the burden of another. We are each accountable for ourselves. We follow what Allah has commanded not because our parents had everything figured out, but because we know, deep down, that it is the truth. And that knowing is enough to begin.
And if you have been shamed for trying, if the people around you made you feel small for practising, if your mistakes were used against you rather than met with mercy, know that Allah saw your effort. He saw it then and He sees it now. Do not let the behaviour of people become a reason to distance yourself from Him. He is not them. His gaze is one of mercy, not scrutiny.
If you are in a difficult place with your faith, or if your upbringing did not always reflect what the deen teaches, know that Allah’s door is always open. He loves those who turn back to Him. He is Al-Ghaffar, the Repeatedly Forgiving. Al-Wadud, the Most Loving. Your story is not finished, and He is not done with you.
The Spaces We Are In
As families, it is also worth reflecting on the environments we surround ourselves with. Not everyone has the ability to make hijrah, and even in Muslim-majority countries there are challenges and influences that are difficult to escape entirely. There is no perfect place on this earth.
But we can still be intentional. We can think carefully about what we allow into our homes, what we normalise, what kind of friendships and spaces we encourage for our children. We cannot control everything, but we can protect what is within our reach. And we can be honest about the things we have allowed in that have not served our families well, without guilt but with the intention to do better going forward.
We Are All on This Journey
At the end of the day, this is a journey for all of us. We are learning. We are unlearning. We are trying to hold on in a world that does not always make it easy to do so.
But Allah sees every single effort. He sees the mother making dua at night when no one else is watching. He sees the daughter trying even when it is hard. He sees the intention beneath the struggle. And none of it is ever lost with Him.
In Surah Az-Zalzalah, Allah reminds us that whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it. Not some of it. All of it.
So we keep going. We keep trying. We trust Allah with what we cannot control, and we do our best with what we can.
O Allah, protect our children and keep their hearts firm upon Your deen. Place love for You and Your guidance deep within them, and make them from those who turn to You sincerely.
O Allah, for those of us whose children are struggling, distant, or have gone astray, guide them back gently and beautifully. Turn their hearts back to You, soften them, and fill them with light and understanding.
O Allah, strengthen the bond between us and our children. Allow us to grow together in faith, in patience, and in love for Your sake. Help us to be examples of goodness for them, and forgive us where we fall short.
O Allah, make us better parents, more mindful, more compassionate, and more sincere. Grant us wisdom in how we guide, and place barakah in our efforts.
Ameen.