In the Name of Allâh, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful
by Muhammad Alshareef
What do you give to your son on his wedding night as a gift?
A Mitsubishi Lancer, a Honda Accord, or do you give him the ever useful
toaster?
When Ibn Al-Qayyim’s son was getting married, he found
himself in this gift dilemma. He thought and thought and decided upon a gift
that would not only benefit his son, but all the Muslims. He lit a candle,
dipped his pen in the ink, and began writing. The gift, you ask? A book
dedicated to his son and daughter-in-law about marriage and the rights of
children. He named the book, Tuhfatul Wadood, bi Ahkaam al-Mowlood.
The value of the gift? Priceless.
Many times we hear about the respect due to parents – because
it is often the parents who are speaking. Yet, how often do we hear about the
rights of children? Indeed, they have many rights that go farther back than 9
months before their creation. For example, they have the God given right
that their future mother or father choose a spouse that will teach them about
Allah and be an excellent example for them In his book, in Chapter 25, Ibn
Al-Qayyim discusses the obligation of teaching the children, disciplining them,
and being just between them. Additionally, one of the rights of children is the
right to an Islamic education.
Allah ta'aala commands us:
O you who believe, protect yourselves and your families from
a fire whose fuel is people and stones …(At-Tahreem 66/6)
We are commanded by Allah ta'aala to save ourselves from
Hellfire. But it does not end there. The commandment extends to our family; we
must save them also. Using all our resources we must save them from Hellfire,
and the biggest weapon we have to protect them is knowledge of what Allah and
His Messenger require from them. For verily, a human is enemy to that which he
does not understand.
In another verse, we see the example of Luqman with his son:
But if they endeavor to make you worship others with Me –
that of which you have no knowledge, then do not obey, yet accompany them in
(this) world with appropriate kindness (Luqmaan 31/15).
Notice how Allah ta'aala mentions the shirk that the child
is being called to as something which he has no knowledge of.
Meaning, no knowledge of its divinity, for there can be no knowledge about
something which is non-existent and untrue.
And yet in another situation, Allah ta'aala describes the
exchange between Nuh and his son:
…And Nuh called to his son who was apart (from them),
"O my son, come aboard with us and be not with the disbelievers." /
(But) He said, "I shall take refuge on a mountain to protect me from the
water." (Nuh) said, "There is no protector today from the decree of
Allah except for whom He gives mercy." And the waves came between them,
and he was among the drowned (Hud 11/42-43).
It has been said that about 90% of everything a child
learns, he learns it within the first 5 years of his or her life. If that is
not enough cause for concern, the children at that fragile age are ever so keen
to please the adults in their lives, especially the ones they see day after
day. Subhan Allah, it is a survival skill that Allah ta'aala created in humans.
For had they not had this desire to please the 'teacher', they most likely
would not develop intellectually.
If you went to public school, imagine back to your public
school kindergarten class or grade 1 class and how you used to act with the
teacher. Did you try to please him or her every chance you got? Would you do
things just to win her pleasure? I know for me, when our school play for the
Christmas Concert was coming up, the teacher chose me to play one of the lead
roles because of how good an actor I was. Mind you, I disliked the part and
when a boy offered me a handful of corn puffs to switch parts with me, I readily
accepted. I took him to Mrs. Mitchell and proudly announced that Jason would be
taking my part. She was disappointed and said how much she wanted me to do the
part. I could not bear to see her disappointment, so I continued with the part.
At the time, I was in kindergarten.
The horror story begins when the child is entrusted to a
non-Muslim – to someone who knows nothing about our obligation to Allah
and His Messenger sal Allaahu alayhi wa sallam, someone who our Muslim children
are so eager to please.
There once was a little girl in a public school in a Muslim
country whose teacher was not practicing Islam. The little girl, following the
blessed example of her mother, would go to school with her hijab on. The hijab,
however, was something displeasing to her teacher, so she told the girl to take
it off and not dare come back to school with it on the next day or she would
suffer the consequences.
Home this girl went and told her mother of how the teacher
did not want her to wear hijab in school and how she did not want to upset her
teacher. Her mother calmly said, "Who do you want to please then, your
teacher or Allah?" The little girl looked her mother in the eye and said,
"Allah!"
The next day, the little girl returned with her hijab on,
defiant. When the teacher saw her, she exploded in chastisement, "How dare
you disobey me?"
The painful words kept coming and coming until the little
girl lowered her head, sobbing. Then she shouted back, "I don’t understand
who I am supposed to please – you or Him?"
"Who’s Him?" asked the teacher.
"Allah!"
Her eyes widened and a chill ran through her. The teacher
stopped talking. From behind her tears, the little girl said, "No, I shall
please Allah and Allah alone."
That day the teacher sent a letter home to the little girl’s
mother with the words, "Today your child taught me who I was and truly who
is Allah. Thank you for raising such a blessed daughter."
Television sets and public schools are spreading a subtle
devastating poison through the bloodstream of our youth. Take a random class of
Muslim high school students from public school and reflect on their habits and
their knowledge of Islam. If a parent has chosen public school for his son, in
the final year when he looks over the school yearbook and sees a picture of his
son standing hand in hand dancing with a kafir woman, at that time it will be
too late to question his upbringing. Now is the time to question it, now,
before it’s too late.
Al-Hasan ibn Ali radi Allahu anhu used to say, "Educate
yourselves today, for today you are the youth of the community but tomorrow you
shall be the seniors."
Alhamdulillah, there are many exceptionally smart adults out
there. When you are in their company, you cannot help marvelling at their
intellect. However, a question comes to mind: "What could this person have
done for Islam and the Muslim community if his parents had educated him about
the deen?"
There is a child, in grade 3, who has memorized almost 7 juz
of the Qur’an . He is 8 years old. This child, more than likely, knows more
Qur’an than most adults. There are other children just as smart as him thrown
to public school, their intelligence squandered on the Incas and the pyramids,
while they cannot recite the very letters of their mother tongue.
Yahya ibn Humayd said, "We went to Imam Hammad ibn
Salamah once and found him sitting with children narrating hadith to them. When
he completed and the children left, we approached him and said, 'O Abu Salamah,
we are the seniors of your tribe. We have come to you to learn. Why do you
leave us and turn instead to these children?'"
"He replied, 'I once saw in a dream that I was sitting
on the banks of a river, bending over with a bucket to get water to drink.
After drinking, I turned around and saw these children standing there, and so I
gave them the bucket of water after me'" (Ibn Abee Ad-Dunya,Kitaab
al-Ayaal).
A poet once said:
Young trees, if you raise them firm, they will grow
straight, They will not slouch if kept firm with a stick. Perhaps discipline
for young ones brings benefit But that same discipline will no longer bring
results in a senior.
PART II
Sa’eed ibn Rahmah
Al-Asbahee used to tell his students:
"I used to camp out in the masjid in the hopes of
getting the best seat in the halaqah of Abdullaah ibn Al-Mubaarak. I had
friends my age, but none of them would do as I did. When the time for the
halaqah would arrive, Ibn Al-Mubaarak would come and with him would be the
seniors. They would complain to him, 'These children have overcome us at the
halaqah, there is no place near you for us.'
"Ibn al-Mubaarak would reply, 'These children are
dearer to me than you. You – how long shall you live? These children, however,
perhaps Allah shall carry them far.'"
Sa’eed would then say to his students, "Today there is
no one alive from that halaqah of Ibn al-Mubaarak except me."
When children work on a science experiment, an instrument
that they might use is a thermometer. This is a device that reflects the heat
coming from an object or area. At home we all have this thing called a
thermostat. When we are too hot, it cools us down. And if we get cold it warms
us up. Not only does it reflect the heat, it does something about it.
When we look at the Muslim ummah, we will see that many of
our communities are nothing more than thermometers. When there is heat coming
from Bosnia, it registers a reaction in our salah, our du’aas, and our
checkbooks. And when there is heat in Chechnya, it registers a reaction in our
salah, our du’aas, and our checkbooks. This is the action of a thermometer.
What we must become is thermostats; cooling things down when they get too hot
and warming things up when they get too cool.
Today everyone is looking to our brothers and sisters in
Palestine and pulling their hair because they cannot seemingly do anything. We
must not let the things we cannot do stop us from doing what we can do.
By Allah, the long-term goal is the children.
If we do not stand up to the challenge of educating them in Islam and raising
them as best we can, we – with our own hands – are paralyzing the future of
Islam in this country.
All of you are shepherds and all of you shall be questioned
regarding your flock.
Never think that the work you do for the betterment of our
children’s Islamic education goes in vain. There is an English word called
sacrifice. Some Muslims when translating the idea of sadaqah may incorrectly
use this concept of sacrifice. A more correct word is 'to deposit'. We are not
spending these dimes hoping for nothing in return. Nay, we are investing it for
an enormous return; we are depositing it in the Hereafter.
"What’s in it for me?" we always ask. Of the many
blessings…
Firstly: Allah ta'aala will protect your children because of
your piety.
The example given to us in the Qur’an is that of Khidr. When
he built the wall without any compensation, he told Musa why:
And as for the wall, it belonged to two orphan boys in the
city, and there was beneath it a treasure for them, and their father had been
righteous. So your Lord intended that they reach maturity and extract their
treasure, as a mercy from your Lord… (Al-Kahf 18/82)
Secondly: By educating and protecting the Muslim children,
you would be fulfilling the amaanah (trust) that Allah has placed upon you. And
in the fulfillment of one’s trust lies success and a 401k plan in Paradise.
Allah ta'aala says:
Certainly successful are the believers …they who to their
trusts and their promises are attentive / And they who carefully maintain their
payers – those are the inheritors / Who will inherit al-Firdaus wherein they
will abide eternally.
In conclusion, I would like to pose the question, who is
responsible for these Islamic schools? We are all responsible – every one of
us. This school and everything in it is our ra'eyyah and we shall
be questioned for it.
As I was speaking to a good brother recently, he asked me
about the situation of our Islamic school. We spoke about the upcoming
fundraiser, and then he said to me, "A’aanak Allah (May Allah
help you)."
I said, "No. You said it wrong. It’s a'aanan
Allah (may Allah help us), because brother, you’re just as
responsible for these Islamic schools as I am."
Courtesy Of: Khutbah.com & kalamullah.com
