Abstract
This article examines the spiritual merit that Islamic tradition attaches to the raising of daughters and sisters, drawing upon a key narration in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim together with classical scholarly commentary. Through an analysis of the report’s wording and the socio-historical setting that gives it force, the paper explores how the care of female relatives is elevated into a highly rewarded act of faith and a deliberate instrument of social reform.
Introduction
In Islamic ethics, the compassionate upbringing of one’s female relatives — daughters and sisters in particular — is presented as a direct pathway to Paradise. This emphasis operates on two levels at once: it is a spiritual directive promising immense reward, and it is a corrective aimed squarely at an inherited cultural prejudice against females. The narration examined below stands among the clearest expressions of both dimensions.
The Text (Matn)
The foundational text on this subject is a well-known tradition recorded by Muslim in his Ṣaḥīḥ (no. 2631), narrated by Anas ibn Mālik (may Allah be pleased with him), in which the Prophet ﷺ said:
«مَنْ عَالَ جَارِيَتَيْنِ حَتَّى تَبْلُغَا جَاءَ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ أَنَا وَهُوَ»، وَضَمَّ أَصَابِعَهُ
“Whoever cares for two girls until they reach maturity will come on the Day of Resurrection — he and I — like this,” and he joined his fingers together.
Grading (Ḥukm)
Ṣaḥīḥ — recorded by Muslim in his Ṣaḥīḥ, and thus of the highest degree of authenticity.
Linguistic Analysis
The depth of the teaching lies in the precise vocabulary the Prophet ﷺ chose. Three expressions repay close attention:
- ʿĀla (عَالَ — “cares for,” in man ʿāla jāriyatayn). The verb denotes assuming full responsibility for another’s provision: their maintenance and financial support, together with their moral and practical upbringing. It is not passive guardianship but active, sustained undertaking of another’s welfare.
- Jāriyatayn (جَارِيَتَيْن — “two girls”). The dual form refers here to female children, i.e. daughters, foregrounding the female object of care that the report intends to honour.
- Ḥattā tablughā (حَتَّى تَبْلُغَا — “until they reach maturity”). The condition marks the term of the undertaking: caring for them until they attain adulthood, or until they pass into marriage and the responsibility is transferred.
To this is joined the Prophet’s gesture — the joining of his index and middle fingers — a vivid metaphor conveying that the one who discharges this duty will be his near companion in Paradise, side by side.
Socio-Historical Context: Why Females Specifically?
A natural academic question arises: why does the tradition single out the raising of females for this ultimate reward, without a parallel mention of males? Classical commentators — among them Ibn Hubayrah in al-Ifṣāḥ ʿan Maʿānī al-Ṣiḥāḥ — identified two principal reasons, rooted in human nature and in the historical setting of the revelation.
First: sincerity untainted by worldly benefit. In the tribal society of the time, a son answered to a range of worldly and tribal expectations: he could bear arms in the tribe’s defence, and he carried forward the family name and lineage. A daughter, by the reckoning of that culture, offered no comparable worldly return. Precisely for this reason, dedicating oneself to a daughter’s upbringing was an act of near-pure sincerity — devotion detached from any expectation of material or tribal gain — and it is this purity of intention that the reward answers.
Second: the abolition of a pre-Islamic evil. Pre-Islamic Arabia harboured a severe contempt for female offspring, a prejudice that in its worst form issued in female infanticide (waʾd), a practice the Qurʾān condemns in the sternest terms. By binding the supreme spiritual reward — companionship with the Prophet ﷺ in the Hereafter — to the very act of raising daughters, the tradition strikes directly at the root of that prejudice. It does not merely forbid the wrong; it transforms its object of contempt into a means of the highest honour.
Conclusion
The guidance surrounding the care of daughters and sisters reflects a decisive shift in the moral order of its society. The immense reward the Prophet ﷺ promised functions at once to honour females and to mandate their dignified upbringing. Through it, the raising of girls is transformed from a perceived cultural burden into a supreme act of worship — a reorientation of values whose reward reaches, quite literally, to the side of the Prophet ﷺ on the Day of Resurrection.
And Allah knows best.