The story of Hajar offers the Muslim woman the most marvelous example of deep faith in Allah (swt) and sincere trust in Him. Ibrahim (may peace be upon him) left her at the Kabah in Makkah, above the well of Zamzam, at a time when there were no people and no water in the place. Hajar had no-one with her except her infant son Ismail. She asked Ibrahim, calmly and with no trace of panic: "Has Allah (swt) commanded you to do this, O Ibrahim?" Ibrahim (pbuh) said, "Yes." Her response reflected her acceptance and optimism: "Then He is not going to abandon us." Reported by Bukhari in Kitab al-Anbiya.

Here was an extremely difficult situation: a man left his wife and infant son in a barren land, where there were no plants, no water, and no people, and went back to the distant land of Palestine. He left nothing with her but a sack of dates and a skin filled with water. Were it not for the deep faith and trust in Allah (swt) that filled Hajar's heart, she would not have been able to cope with such a difficult situation: she would have collapsed straight away, and would not have become the woman whose name is forever remembered night and day by those who perform Hajj and Umrah at the house of Allah (swt), every time they drink the pure water of Zamzam, and run between the mounts of Safa and Marwah, as Hajar did on that most trying day.

This deep faith and awareness had an amazing effect on the lives of Muslim men and women: it awoke their consciences and reminded them that Allah (swt) witnesses and knows every secret, and that He is with a person wherever he may be.

The Believing Woman is Alert (part 2)

Nothing gives a clearer idea of that consciousness and fear of Allah (swt) at all times than the story of the young Muslim girl related in Sifat al-Safwah and Wafiyat al-Ayan and cited by Ibn al-Jawzi in Ahkam al-Nisa:

Narrated Abdullah ibn Zayd ibn Aslam, from his father, from his grandfather, who said:

"When I was accompanying Umar ibn al-Khattab on his patrol of Madinah at night, he felt tired, so he leaned against a wall. It was the middle of the night, and (we heard) a woman say to her daughter, "O my daughter, get up and mix that milk with some water." The girl said, "O Mother, did you not hear the decree of Amir al-Mu'minin (leader of the believers, i.e. Umar) today?" The mother said, "What was that?" The girl said, "He ordered someone to announce in a loud voice that milk should not be mixed with water." The mother said, "Get up and mix the milk with water; you are in a place where Umar cannot see you." The girl told her mother, "I cannot obey Him (Allah) in public and disobey him in private."

Umar heard this , and told me: "O Aslam, go to that place and see who that is, and to whom she was speaking, and whether she has a husband." So I went to that place, and I saw that she was unmarried, the other woman was her mother, and neither of them had a husband. I came to Umar and told him what I had found out. He called his sons together and said to them: "Do any of you need a wife, so I can arrange the marriage for you? If I had the desire to get married, I would have been the first one to marry this young woman." Abdullah said: "I have a wife." Abd al-Rahman said: "I have a wife." Asim said: "I do not have a wife, so let me marry her."

So Umar arranged for her to be married to Asim. She gave him a daughter, who grew up to be the mother of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz."

This is the deep sense of awareness that Islam had implanted in the heart of this young woman. She was righteous and upright in all her deeds, both in public and in private, because she believed that Allah (swt) was with her at all times and saw and heard everything. This is true faith, and these are the effects of that faith, which raised her to the level of ihsan. One of the immediate rewards with which Allah (swt) honored her was this blessed marriage, one of whose descendants was the fifth rightly-guided khalifah Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (may Allah be pleased with him).