EVERYDAY LIFE
How should a woman spend her life from morning to evening and evening to morning? The complete framework for this has been laid out in Islamic teachings. A concise summary is presented here.
The very first task is to wake up early in the morning. Women who do not rise early lose at least two of the most productive hours of their day. This lost time may seem like just two hours per day, but over a span of 10 years, it adds up to more than 7,000 wasted hours. And this is just for one member of the household. If we calculate the wasted hours of all family members, the number becomes even more significant.
When the woman of the house wakes up early, others will also rise early. Then everyone will make ablution and perform the dawn (Fajr) prayer. In this way, rising early becomes a means of purifying both the body and the soul. It also ensures that all tasks throughout the day are completed on time, because when the beginning is in order, the rest usually follows suit.
Waking up early helps keep all the day’s activities on schedule. Children get ready and reach school on time. The men of the household get ready and engage in their work at the proper time. Cleaning the house is done early. Everything from kitchen chores to market errands is carried out efficiently. The entire environment of the home reflects alertness, discipline, and a sense of responsibility. The five daily prayers, which are obligatory for every believing man and woman, are also performed on time.
Moreover, it is important to understand that household management and prayer are not two separate matters; rather, they are deeply interwoven. The Quran commands:
“Say your prayers in My remembrance.” (20:14)
This tells us that the five daily prayers are actually reminders of continual remembrance. What is this continual remembrance? It is the constant awareness of God. You are expected to remember God throughout all your daily activities.
When you wake up in the morning, do so with the awareness that sleep is a remarkable blessing. It removed your fatigue from the previous day and refreshed you to begin a new one. This awareness should naturally lead you to words of gratitude.
Likewise, all the tasks you perform throughout the day should remind you of God. For example, when you are helping your child get ready for school and you find yourself thinking, “What an incredible miracle this human child is! How merciful and magnificent is the One who created such a wondrous being!” If your child stirs these reflections within you, then that moment becomes more valuable than piles of gold or silver.
In the kitchen, when preparing bread or curry, you might be struck by the thought: “How amazing are wheat, rice, and vegetables—true wonders of nature.” Over millions of years, God enriched the surface layer of the earth to make it fertile. He combined atoms of hydrogen and oxygen to create water—a miracle in itself. Only after setting such a vast system in place did it become possible for a seed to grow into a plant or tree, yielding food for human nourishment. When you think this way, your kitchen—and indeed your entire home—becomes a place of worship. Your prayer extends beyond the five prescribed times and becomes a continuous state of remembrance, day and night.
As the day progresses, the time for the Dhuhr prayer arrives, and all family members perform it. Then you offer Asr, Maghrib, and Isha at their appointed times. After dinner, you express thanks to God for providing you with food and water through His cosmic arrangement.
After Isha prayer and completing the necessary household chores, the time comes for you to sleep. Recite the last two chapters of the Quran (Mu‘awwidhatayn) and lie down to rest. Having spent your day with such purity of thought, you will fall into a deep, peaceful sleep. Waking up the next morning will feel like being gifted a new, fresh life all over again.
