Following are excerpts from a Friday sermon delivered by Palestinian Minister of Religious Endowment Sheik Yousef Jum'a Salamah< aired on Palestinian Authority TV on March 10, 2006.

Sheik Yousef Jum'a Salamah: Many mothers have sacrificed their husbands in defense of the religion and the homeland. Many mothers have lost their children, who were martyred in defense of this blessed land.

Who is Al-Khansaa, who has become a role model? When her brother Sakhr died, before the advent of Islam, she was overwrought. All day long she recited poetry: "The sunrise reminds me of Sakhr, and I remember him at every sunset. If not for the many people around me weeping for their brothers, I would have killed myself." Just one brother - yet she couldn't bear it.

But when Allah opened her heart to the faith, and she became a Muslim, she sent her four sons to the Battle of Al-Qadissiya, where they were martyred. When the surviving soldiers returned victorious from the battlefield, and informed her that her four children had been martryed - did she cry? Did she recite poetry? Did she rip her clothes, and uncover her hair? No. She said: "Praise be to Allah, who honored me with their deaths, and I pray to Allah that He reunite us under His mercy." Brothers, victory lies there. Victory lies there, not in this world.

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There, the Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim woman will hold her head high, Allah willing, due to all her sacrifices for her religious and homeland - good sons, devoted husbands, relatives, and so on and so forth. That's how a woman should be.