20 Dec 2021

Chapter 19: Separation of Our Cooking and Eating Arrangements


After we had moved to Madeenah Munawwarah, all our trade and household management was a joint arrangement between our families. Our mother had distributed household duties to each of her three daughters-in-law. All the meals would be prepared and cooked in one place and then our mother would distribute to all our families.  Each of the family women would fulfil their individual roles and then would work together to complete any additional tasks. Naturally, two out of the three daughters in law began to feel a little discomfort with this arrangement. The main reason was because Saeed Ahmad bhais’s wife was the niece of our mother marhoom and the others were from non-related backgrounds. They preferred that every family prepared their own meals, however, this was not possible at the time as there were little or insufficient groceries, and it became a necessity to remain patient or to teach yourself patience in these matters. When I had travelled to Gangoh shareef with my elder brother, our mother had a dream; In the hujrae mutahhara nabwiyyah (ala sahibihas salat wassalam) a wooden bed was laid out over the qabar shareef and Janab Rasul sallallahu alayhi wasallam was lying down taking rest. Our mother marhooma was sitting behind pressing his blessed back. Suddenly, my elder brother’s wife (the mother of Waheed marhoom) appeared. Thereafter, Janab Rasul sallallahu alayhi wasallam addressed our mother and said, ’why don’t you keep them separate?’ The next morning our mother marhoom related this dream to our father sahib and on that very day our father separated the arrangements for all our families. Saeed Ahmad’s wife, however, still chose to remain with our mother as she felt there were no issues and because of close family ties. All the grains that were purchased, including meat and greens and other relevant purchases were all equally distributed within each family. Even after the income gained from the stipends, this arrangement continued for a good while. Much later this arrangement changed as our father sahib told us all to spend our own income upon our own family needs.