Empowerment of Family Psychosocial Stability Based on the Hadiths of Exemplary Women in Kutub al-Sittah

Abstract

The wholeness of family relationships is an essential core in maintaining the well-being of a family institution. Despite the significant focus on men as the leaders of the family, women, especially mothers and wives, play an equally important role in ensuring the psycho social stability of the family. However, there has been minimal discussion about initiatives to empower family psycho social stability based on hadiths concerning women. Accordingly, this study aims to present an initiative to empower family psycho social stability based on the hadith of the exemplary women in the Kutub al-Sittah (six major collections of hadith books). Specifically, 11 hadith narrations about exemplary women have been identified in six kitābs (books) and eight bāb (chapters) in Kutub al-Sittah. Based on the thematic content analysis method, this qualitative study found that the description of Exemplary Women in Kutub al-Sittah contains the best example of empowerment of family psycho social stability. Overall, the psycho social sustainability of the family is found to be more stable when women are actively included in the institution and able to exercise their roles holistically. Precisely, Maryam bint ͑Imrān RA and Khadījah bint Khuwaylid RA, who were crowned as exemplary women in Kutub al-Sittah, exemplified such empowerment in sustaining the psycho social stability of the family. Ultimately, we hope that these findings will contribute to the agenda of empowering women and families worldwide, particularly in Malaysia.