 Have you ever heard that women should not go to the grave? Have you ever... Have... Raise your hand if you have never been to the grave. To a graveyard, to a cemetery. Raise it really high. Let's look around. Women who've never been to a graveyard or cemetery. Okay. Raise your hand if you've been told women shouldn't go to the graveyard or to the cemetery. Okay. Raise your hand if you have been told you shouldn't even pray the Genaza. Alright. In the beginning, in Mecca, the companions, رضي الله عنهم, were new in their belief. They were still following, or learning, still learning about Islam and about the cultural practices that they used to practice not being appropriate anymore. One of those practices was going to the graves and when they were at the grave, they would call out to the dead. One is they would praise them to the point of almost worship. Two, they would take them as intercessors between them and Allah. Three, they would hire people, custom was to hire people and specifically women to come to the grave and to basically build up the personality of the person who died. So they could pay someone, a person could pay someone before they died or pay women specifically because this was especially a part of the pre-Islamic women's culture. To go to the grave and to be the hype people of this dead person. So that the people still living could be like, wow, all the living come from that family? They would become arrogant about who had passed away. So the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam forbid men and women from going to the grave to protect them from falling into these practices that could lead to calling out to the dead instead of Allah. Once their hearts were firm, once e-men had been strengthened in their hearts, then the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam changed that ruling and instead ordered and recommended that the believers, men and women, go to the grave, go to the cemetery because it's an opportunity to remember how short life is. It's an opportunity to think about our own lives and how we're going to live when we're here. And it's an opportunity for grief, to process grief, to realize that Allah is the only one who is really with us in these moments. And this is why there's a specific narration of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, cursing women who frequent graves, going day and night every single day, day and night every single day, obsessively going and not doing anything else and not being able to focus on other things in life, including the responsibility upon your own body. Why? Because this was a practice that was especially common amongst women that included ripping, their clothing and screaming. Asma'Allah had been in Abyssinia, so she had not been in Medina, she had not been in Mecca for many years in which the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam was teaching filth. So in this moment, the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, despite the fact that he has lost his own cousin whom he loved so much after being apart from him for 10 plus years, despite the fact that he has so much mercy for these new orphans, that he is crying and overwhelmed with emotion, despite the fact that he says to the people of Medina to cook food for Asma'Allah and her family so that she doesn't have to worry about that in this moment. She can focus on her family, her children and her grief. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam respectfully, kindly, lovingly teaches her filth. Have you ever been taught filth in such a way, in such a moment? Or have you been in the midst of your grief and because you are a woman, have been told you cannot even cry this person that you love is going to hear you crying and they're going to be punished? The immense pain that women experience sometimes in even the biggest spaces of pain is a testament to the strength of your faith. We ask Allah to make us sincere and give us the bat, but the point is that we have too raw, we have so much scholarship that has addressed this and why it is and the way it is in the context. Has any of that context been even ever mentioned to any of you when it's been told women shouldn't go to the grave? Where is the context? Context is so critical because if we only take one statement then we can say, oh the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam just send this to Asma'u Alayhi Allahu Anha in her pain. We don't know that he was in pain. We don't know that he went to love and support her family. Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam