Keep Your Heart Lamp Alive Always

Time of India

29-07-2025

By Narayani Ganesh
Bhanu Mushtaq's Heart Lamp, stories from the Muslim community in Karnataka, narrates heart-rending stories of women and children routinely treated as subhumans by patriarchal, insensitive men thriving on false interpretations of holy scriptures like the Quran and Hadiths to justify their dominating behaviour. But these holy books uphold the rights of women and respect them as valuable human beings.
Maa ke kadmon ke neeche Jannat hain – Paradise lies beneath the mother's feet – says a Hadith on mothers. Another says that while you are offering namaz, and your mother calls for you, you can pause your prayer and answer her first. In the short stories by Mushtaq, one is saddened that mothers and wives are ill-treated by their fathers, husbands and brothers, all citing justification from Islamic holy scriptures, keeping the women in ignorance and terrorising them with their bullying, reducing them to chattels, enslaved and kept in deprivation, abused and discarded at will.
'As evening started to lose its light, lamps were lit around the house. But the lamp in Mehrun's heart had been extinguished a long time ago. Who should she live for? What was the point? The walls, roof, plates, bowls, stove, bed, vessels, the rose plant in the front yard – none of these were able to answer her questions.' Mehrun and her children, abandoned by her uncaring husband and dismissed by her maternal family, have nowhere to turn. In desperation, she wishes to end it all. Dare I try and answer her questions?
Mehrun, you should live for yourself first. Stoke the flame of your heart lamp gently every day; remind yourself you are a person in your own right, with children to nurture, besides yourself. No one is worth destroying yourself for. No one should be given the power to extinguish your heart lamp. It is your pure, inner light that keeps your spirit alive; your source of self-inspiration and your sustainer, no matter how grave the challenges you face.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent and submission, and no one can dare try to put out the flame in your heart. Keep the light aglow, find a way to survive despite all the humiliation and rejection. You will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes and overcome. And thrive.
When Aashraf, in another narrative, seeks justice from mosque officials following her husband Yakub abandoning her and the children once she had a third girl baby in succession, she is ignored and dismissed. With nothing to eat, she begins working at Zulekha Begum's house. Hearing her story, the Begum tries to educate her on the true import of Islamic teachings.
'The Prophet himself had only daughters. A son was born, but dies when he was still a child. Have you read about how much he loved his daughters? Bibi Fathima was his life. They were living proof of the bond that can exist between father and daughter.' (Prophet's son/sons all died young ). Aashraf did not understand a word. Kept in darkness about such matters, like the other women, she suffered indignities and humiliation at the hands of patriarchal misogynists who hijacked teachings and twisted them for their own convenience.
Religious leaders need to talk of the true import of holy scriptures in simple language; educate women of their rights and cancel patriarchal practices that obstruct social justice and insaniyat. Heart lamps need to be kept alive.
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Views expressed above are the author's own.