Honoring the Maternal Aunt as a Mother (and Uncles as Fathers)

Yā Rabb, the Prophet ﷺ, in one of his most beautiful judgments, raised the maternal aunt to the rank of the mother. He did not say she is similar. He said bi-manzilati, in the same position. And he taught us, through how he honored his uncle Ḥamzah after his martyrdom (standing over his body, weeping, naming him master of the martyrs) and through how he loved his uncle Abū Ṭālib (refusing to abandon him through years of social isolation), that uncles too were placed in our lives as fathers' brothers, equal in dignity. Ya Allah, my own aunts and uncles. Some are with You now; some are aging in homes I have not visited in too long. Forgive me for the layer I have neglected. The khalah whose number is in my phone whom I have not called this year. The ʿamm who came to my wedding and whom I have not seen since. The auntie who took care of my mother when my mother was newborn and whom I have not properly thanked. Open my hands, ya Rabb. Let me close some of these distances this week. Let me bring my children physically into rooms with their great-aunts, their great-uncles, so that the family memory survives one more generation. And for those of my aunts and uncles who are deceased, ya Allah, I make duʿā for each of them by name tonight in sajdah: forgive their wrongs, multiply their good, raise their stations, make their graves rest stations of Jannah, and gather me with them under the banner of Your Beloved ﷺ. And ya Rabb, if I have a niece or nephew who is struggling without a present parent, place me in the role You wrote for me, the role of khāl or ʿamm or khalah at the level of motherhood and fatherhood, so that no child in my raḥim has to look up and find no one. Āmīn ya ʿAṭūf.