Losing My Mother Islam Teachings Mourning Grief Loss

Nothing prepared me for losing my mother. But in Islam, to mourn someone means keeping them alive in our actions | Shadi Khan Saif

Mum taught us to stay kind and honest, even when things were hard. Now I feel her presence in choices that don’t feel easy, but feel right

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Mum was kind and gentle in a way that felt so natural. She raised all five of us pretty much on her own after Dad passed away. Those were not easy years, and there were many moments when life could have pushed us in the wrong direction, but she never let that happen. She taught us to stay kind and honest, even when things were hard.

Her father named her Ţalā, which means gold in Farsi. But she was even more precious than that.

Being the youngest, I was born at a time when our family was already going through a hard time. My older siblings had to sacrifice a lot, including their education, to support the family. But Mum made sure I didn’t fall behind in my studies. At the same time, she quietly placed a sense of responsibility in me from a very early age. I didn’t realise it then, but I see now how carefully she balanced those two things.

When Dad passed away, I was too young to fully understand what had happened. But I still remember that day, and how she kept me close to her the entire time. This continued in the days that followed. I didn’t have the words for it at the time, but it felt as if she was trying to protect me from something too heavy to carry.

In the years that followed, our family faced more loss.

My eldest brother was hired as a migrant labourer in Saudi Arabia, working under punishing conditions that slowly took everything out of him. Then my maternal grandmother passed away – she had lost her entire family during the Russian bombardment of Afghanistan in the 1980s, yet still carried herself with quiet strength in the years she lived with us.

Each loss left a silence behind. And as I grew older, I began to understand that silence more deeply.

But nothing prepared me for losing my own mother last year.

She had been unwell for months in Kabul – struggling with a cough and losing her appetite. I used to call her from my home in Melbourne, holding on to those conversations without really knowing how important they would become. You always feel like there is more time. And I regret not calling her more often.

The news came early in the morning. In our Afghan way of speaking, when someone dies we say someone has “paid back their debt”, which is to say that they have returned their life to the One who gave it to them. But when I heard it, everything just stopped. It felt unreal. Like life had paused, but only for me. And then, almost instinctively, the words came: Innā lillāhi wa innā ilayhi rājiʿūn (Indeed, to Allah we belong, and to Allah we shall return).

At the mosque, the imam said the same when I told him. He offered to hold the prayer that very day. Our home would never have been able to hold the number of people who came – friends, neighbours, familiar faces. People stood together, quietly, making space for one another and sharing my pain.

In Islam, mourning someone is not about loud expressions or words. It is simple and sincere. We pray for them. We ask for their forgiveness, for their peace, for their place in the next world. There is something deeply calming in that simplicity – it reminds you that this life, no matter how full, is only temporary. There is a verse we grow up hearing: Kullu nafsin zaikatul maut (Every soul shall taste death).

It’s something you always know, but only truly feel when it reaches your own home. There are still moments when I miss her deeply. The kind of moments where you just want to sit with her, to feel that quiet reassurance she carried. There was something about her presence that made things easier to understand.

But now, in a different way, she is still there. In the small things she taught us. In the way we try to carry ourselves. In the choices that don’t feel easy, but feel right.

In Islam, we’re taught that what we can do for those who have passed is to remember them in our prayers, to do good in their name, to keep something of them alive through our actions. It gives you a way to stay connected – not by holding on to the past, but by carrying it forward.

Mum’s name meant gold. But what she gave us was not something that can be measured or replaced. And maybe the only way to honour her now is to keep living with the same quiet strength she showed us – holding on to kindness, staying honest and trusting that even in loss there is a return to something greater.