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Allah
Almighty has said in the Qur’an
[O
ye who believe! save yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is
Men and Stones.]
(66:6)
This
verse emphasizes, among other things, the duties of parents towards their
children. While considering the ways of giving the best modern education to
children, many Muslim parents in their eagerness to follow the current trends
forget or overlook the Guidance of Allah Most High. We must never lose sight of
the fact that as Muslims our first and foremost duty is always to our Creator
and Sustainer, and so we should strive our utmost to see that our children also
imbibe the true spirit of Islam into their lives.
The
Qur’an presents us with a model parent in Luqman Al-Hakeem (may Allah be
merciful to him). His words of advice to his son should be cherished as a
treasure so that every father and mother can make use of them at the right time
to teach their children how to grow up in Islam.
Remember
that Luqman’s advice (Surah Luqman 31:12-19) includes the following precious
gems:
-
To
worship Allah alone, and not to fall into practices even bordering on shirk
(associating others with Allah);
-
To
be overflowing in love and kindness to one’s parents;
-
To
be willing to abide by their wishes, except when they demand something
forbidden or undesirable;
-
To
believe that there is a Day of Reckoning when all humans have to account
before Allah the All-Powerful, for all their thoughts and deeds;
-
To
be regular and punctual in the performance of salah (obligatory
prayers);
-
To
enjoin good and forbid evil;
-
To
be patiently persevering in the way of Allah, in the face of all odds;
-
To
not strut with arrogance on earth, but rather to show humility and
gentleness in speech and the dealings with others.
The
above principles carry in a nutshell, all the moral instruction and guidance
any sensible parent would wish to impart to his or her children. We know that
as parents we are answerable before Allah for the upbringing of our children,
as we are their custodians or guardians; so we need to pay the utmost
attention to our role as parents and to the tasks related to it.
Small
children are naturally more attached to their mothers than to fathers, and so
the mothers have a greater role in teaching them the most basic things like
eating habits, proper ways of dressing, respecting the elders, and such other
good manners. They should also enlighten their children with stories of the
prophets and the Companions at a very early stage, so that the children grow
up as young Muslims proud of a great tradition.
In
fact, the role of women at home is not sufficiently appreciated by men, even
in this so-called enlightened age. Many great men and women of the future have
been given a proper sense of direction and destination by the insightful
admonitions and guidance of mothers. Often when we try to assess the level of
development a great nation has attained, we forget the great and noble
contributions made by women as mothers, through their influence on the
impressionable psyche of world’s greatest men and women in their childhood.
The influence of the father, if any, is often secondary; and this is a fact
indicated by our Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) when he
said in a well-known hadith that a person should be three times more indebted
to the mother than to the father:
Abu
Hurayrah (may Allah be pleased with him) related that a man came to the
Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and asked, "O
Messenger of Allah, which person of all the people is best entitled to kind
treatment and good companionship from me?" He answered, "Your
mother." The man asked, "And then?" He said, "Your
mother." "And after her?" He said, "Your mother."
“And after her?" The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said,
"Your father." (Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
Similarly
there is another saying of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)
reported by Mu`awiya ibn Jahima. He said that his father approached Prophet
Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and said, "I intend going on
jihad. I seek your advice." The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him)
inquired, "Is your mother alive?" He answered, "Yes." The
Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "Go and serve her, for
Paradise lies beneath the feet of mothers" (Ahmad, An-Nasa’i, Al-Bayhaqi).
Is
this saying of the Prophet relevant to some modern mothers who delegate many
of the duties of motherhood to nurses or other surrogates? Not likely. Mothers
should ponder over the significance of this hadith and try to live up to the
great tradition of the noble wives of the Prophet, who are given the title of
“Mothers of the Believers,” to merit the honor bestowed on mothers by him
in the above hadith.
The
duties of fathers are similar. But unfortunately in many Muslim cultures, the
father relegates the task of parenting to the periphery of his immediate
concerns, and he is not usually seen to be much interested in the onerous job
of overseeing the moral training and education of his children. This, I think,
is one of the reasons for the educational backwardness of Muslim societies. To
a great extent this sort of negligence is dependent on the unbalanced
religious education provided in our countries, also.
The
solution, apparently, is an immediate overhauling of the educational system
with a view to attaining the right balance between the religious and secular
areas of education. This is a crucially important reform, which, I think, is
overdue in most Muslim countries. |
