The 365 · Verses · Day 85 · Family
'Weakness upon weakness.' The Prophet ﷺ named the mother three times before the father. The Quran names thanks to her as paired with thanks to Allah.
Qur'an Q 31:14
وَوَصَّيْنَا ٱلْإِنسَـٰنَ بِوَٰلِدَيْهِ حَمَلَتْهُ أُمُّهُۥ وَهْنًا عَلَىٰ وَهْنٍ وَفِصَـٰلُهُۥ فِى عَامَيْنِ أَنِ ٱشْكُرْ لِى وَلِوَٰلِدَيْكَ إِلَىَّ ٱلْمَصِيرُ
“We have commanded people to be good to their parents: their mothers carried them, with strain upon strain, and it takes two years to wean them. Give thanks to Me and to your parents, all will return to Me. (Abdel Haleem)”
Svenska: Gud har anbefallt människan [att visa] godhet mot sina föräldrar; [hon bör tänka på att] modern har burit sitt barn genom det ena svaghetstillståndet efter det andra, [fött det] och ammat det under två år. Tacka Mig och dina föräldrar [och minns att] Jag är målet för er färd! (Knut Bernström)
The story
Ibn Kathir reads this verse as part of Luqmān's counsel to his son, but more broadly as the Quran's specific recognition of the mother's weight. Mujāhid: 'the hardship of bearing the child.' Qatādah: 'exhaustion upon exhaustion.' ʿAtāʾ al-Khurasānī: 'weakness upon weakness.' Ibn Kathir notes the famous hadith of the Prophet ﷺ when asked who deserves the most companionship: 'Your mother.' Then who? 'Your mother.' Then who? 'Your mother.' Then who? 'Your father.' (Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5971, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2548, narrated by Abū Hurayrah.)
In the language
وَهْنًا (wahnan) is from w-h-n, 'weakness.' The doubling (wahnan ʿalā wahn) is grammatically intensified: weakness layered upon weakness. The Quran is naming pregnancy and infancy as a sustained, accumulating depletion. The closing verb اشْكُرْ (ushkur, 'give thanks') in the imperative pairs Allah's right and the parents' right under the same single verb.
Why this verse
Q 31:14 is the Quran's specific recognition of the mother's weight. The phrase wahnan ʿalā wahn (weakness upon weakness) is the Quran's most specific naming of pregnancy's cost. The verse closes with a paired command: 'give thanks to Me and to your parents.' Gratitude to Allah and gratitude to parents are the same verb in two directions.
Bring it into today
Tell your mother thank you today. Out loud. By name. For something specific. The verse 31:14 names the gratitude as a divinely commanded virtue. Practice the verb explicitly. Repeat next week. The accumulation across a lifetime is what the verse asks for.
A reflection to carry
The hadith of the threefold mother (Bukhārī 5971) is one of the most quoted hadith in the world's adab literature. The Prophet ﷺ named the mother three times before naming the father. The asymmetry is structural: the mother's contribution is named as exceeding the father's by a factor of three. Modern Muslim families that minimize the mother's weight or treat the parents as equal in this specific accounting are operating against the Prophetic ranking. The verse 31:14 names the cost (weakness upon weakness, two years of weaning); the hadith names the response (three times mother, then father).
Read the longer reflection
There is a useful theological depth to 'give thanks to Me and to your parents.' The Quran is naming gratitude as a single virtue with two valid recipients. Failure to thank the parents is structurally named as a deficit alongside failure to thank Allah. The classical commentators (Ibn Kathir among them) note that this verse is one of the strongest scriptural arguments that the parents' right is not just legal (obey, support); it is also affective (thank, honor, love visibly). The closing of the verse is a reminder of accountability: ilayya al-maṣīr (to Me is the return). The believer who fails the parents will face the same accounting as the believer who fails Allah; both verbs were paired in the same sentence.
Sources: Ibn Kathir. The Qur'an and its translation are verified; the scholarship is retold faithfully in our own words and credited to its sources, never reproduced verbatim.
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