Mothering is a form of divine architecture

In this time of fracture and uncertainty, when the ground beneath our feet seems to shift daily, many of us feel small against the enormity of change. But what if I told you that the very thing that makes you feel small—your capacity for care, your instinct to shelter and tend—is actually your greatest power? What if the qualities we've been taught to see as soft are actually the foundation stones of transformation?

I have been thinking a lot about the process of creating, nurturing, and sustaining new life. A new world. Not just in the literal sense of bringing children into being, but in the deeper work of birthing hope, nurturing community, and sustaining the sacred bonds that hold us together. This is the work of mothering—and it extends far beyond biology into the realm of the soul.

In Arabic, the word for womb, rahm, shares its root with Rahmah, the divine mercy of Allah. That’s not a coincidence. That’s instruction. The womb is not simply an organ of reproduction; it is a sacred sanctuary where life is held, nourished, and prepared to meet the world. Similarly, the ummah is meant to be a space where believers are held in safety, grown in faith, and launched into their purpose. The ummah, at its best, is a womb.

We live in a time where the maternal is undervalued, even in our spiritual spaces. Where leadership is often divorced from nurture, and where care work, spiritual, emotional, communal, is seen as optional rather than essential. But I believe, deeply, that a revival of maternal ethics within our communities is not just desirable, it is necessary.

As Toni Morrison once said: “Birthing is hard, but so is being born. It is a serious thing to be a mother…A mother is a person who is willing to postpone her own dreams so that her children can pursue theirs.”

This is not only true for biological children, but for the communities, movements, and futures we midwife into being. We are the ones who braid memory into bedtime stories, who pour resilience into tea, who hold grief and joy in the same palm. We teach, we tend, we testify.

The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ held mothers in the highest regard, reminding us that paradise lies at their feet. That is not simply a reward; it is a reflection of their position as gatekeepers of mercy. And when the ummah mirrors that ethic, it becomes a space of healing and hope.

Mothering the ummah looks like teaching someone to pray, or sitting silently beside them while they mourn. It looks like organizing meals for a family in need, or offering your voice when someone has lost theirs. It looks like calling someone in instead of calling them out. It looks like gentleness where you were once only taught discipline.

It also looks like boundaries. True mothering does not mean martyrdom. It means modeling boundaries. Modelling balance, wholeness, and the sacredness of one’s own soul.

Motherhood is a form of divine architecture. And every act of care is another beam supporting the sacred structure we are trying to build together.

When I reflect on motherhood, I often return to my own experiences. Of all my children, only one came to us by design. Yabi was our only planned birth, carefully anticipated and confidently awaited. Yet labor taught me humility in ways I had never imagined. The physical pain was overwhelming, intensified by back labor, and the postpartum journey was even harder. The isolation, the physical trauma, the emotional unraveling—it all led

May we never forget to mother each other. May we never forget to mother ourselves.

Call to Action
🌿 Tell me a time you were mothered when you needed it most. Or a moment when you quietly, lovingly, mothered someone else.

Remember, we are not building the ummah alone. We are weaving it together, thread by thread, prayer by prayer, mercy by mercy.

With love -

Angelica