Asiya the wife of Pharaoh had declared her faith in the message of God after witnessing the miracle of Moses in the Court of Pharaoh.

The holy Quran has presented Asiya daughter of Muzahim as one of the best role models for women. “And God sets forth an example to those who believe the wife of Pharaoh when she said:

My Lord! build for me a house with Thee in the garden and deliver me from Pharaoh and his doing, and deliver me from the unjust people.” (66:11)

Now, Asiya heard about Prophet Moses religion and began to pursue its news and that of those who embraced it. But she was very distressed to know that they were punished severely for clinging to it.

Asiya liked this new religion, and was convinced by its concepts. She even started to sense the effects of injustice on the pure souls who worshiped Almighty. She felt also that her devotion to her husband was beginning to wither away little by little, as his violence & tyranny grew more & more intolerable.

A big wall of hatred rose between the tyrant Pharaoh and his God-fearing wife, who now spent most of her time worshiping and praying to Almighty God.

All the gifts and pleasures of life which her husband laid in front of her, could not change Asiya’s stern beliefs. She stood firm in her opposition to tyranny and disbelief, and turned away from Pharaoh’s world. She renounced too, her prestige as a queen to all the people, and took the path of Jihad and suffering so as to win God’s contentment and His eternal heaven.

Pharaoh knew that his beloved wife had abandoned his religion and had adhered to the religion that declared God’s Oneness. He was very angry indeed, and wondered how his wife had turned away from him. But try as he could with all the power and temptations he possessed, he was unable to dissuade her from her new religion. After witnessing the death of another believing, woman under torture, Pharaoh tried to turn her away from the God of Moses and sought her mother’s help. But Asiya refused to reject the God of Moses. On Pharaoh’s order, she Was tortured to death.

The faithful woman martyred for the sake of her Creator, and in that, she became a great example of the believers’ bravery.

Asiya’s greatness lies in the fact that although she was the wife of one of the most Powerful, arrogant and tyrant rulers of Egypt, she was able to see and accept the truth in message of Prophet Moses. For her, wealth, beauty or status was not the main criterion of human excellence; she realized that without faith in God, a human being has nothing.

In this lady, we see the example of supreme sacrifice: By marrying Pharaoh, Asiya became the Queen of Egypt, she gained everything that she wanted in this worldly life from the materialistic point of view: the best of clothes, food, palaces, jewels, servants and maids, etc. But she sacrificed all that to be closer to God. And that is why we see her included by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in the list of the four women who attained the level of perfection.

By Perihatin