Al-Zahra’ : Her Father’s Mother

 

One of the most strange of what we have ever heard is a statement someone made saying that al-Zahra’ (A.S.) compensated the Prophet (A.S.) for his mother who had died when he was still a child, and that for this reason, she was called “mother of her father.”

This same person says the following verbatim: “The Prophet started his life complaining about having lost his mother’s love because such love could not be provided by a wet nurse or a governess... So she provided him with her maternal affection by embracing him, and the Messenger of Allah said to her that the vacuum which he had felt through the loss of his mother he could now fill it through his daughter.”^[1] I would like to say to him that such talk is not acceptable, for we cannot agree that the Prophet (A.S.) used to suffer from an inferiority complex resulting from losing his mother, so he needed someone to compensate him for what he had lost. Rather, it simply means that al-Zahra’ (A.S.) used to take care of her father like a mother taking care of her son. This does not mean that doing so was a compensation for the Prophet (A.S.) for an emotion which he missed, nor was it to complement a shortcoming.

Can this person accept that someone else other than al-Zahra’ (A.S.) was able to fill that gap had she cared for the Messenger of Allah (A.S.) and given him the emotion which he needed?!