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The family is at the center of the Islamic way of life anywhere in the world. The Qur'an exhorts the believers, "Save yourselves and your families from hellfire," thus placing the family at the core of one's responsibility in this life. Numerous hadiths (sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, PBUH) extol the virtues of taking care of one's family.
The principle role of the Muslim family in contemporary times is to:
- Model an Islamic way of life,
- Excel on all fronts, materially and morally,
- Raise a new model generation,
- Offer its members stability and comfort in its sanctuary, and
- Offer solutions to social ills that plague contemporary society.
The Muslim community can take specific steps to help the contemporary Muslim family fulfil the role that it needs to play. Each aspect of the family's role contributes not only to strengthening the family but also the community that it is a part of.
Modeling An Islamic Way Of Life
In order to enable the Muslim family to model an Islamic way of life, the community can provide educational opportunities for parents to learn, encourage conscientious families to group together, and promote "mentor" systems for parents and children. Let's look at each one of these points.
A family begins with a father and a mother, who then become responsible for children, who in turn become parents themselves. While there are always exceptions, a typical Muslim family can be only as Islamically oriented as the parents are. Thus it is of paramount importance that parents - both mother and father - be well educated in Islam. When parents put their lives in a "learning mode" and instill that spirit in their children, the Muslim family will be on its way to become a model of an Islamic way of life. Families interact with other families and in the process "learn" or "teach" certain behaviors by their examples. Exemplary Islamic families will interact with others in an Islamic way, and seek companionship with one another. By encouraging conscientious families to group together, the community can encourage better conduct to become the norm among them.
"Mentoring" of individual persons has become an accepted practice in training and human development. A mentor is one who has the experience and wisdom to guide the one who has not yet traveled the same path. This concept can be extended to families, encouraging the more experienced and wiser families to guide others.
Excelling In Society
In order to enable the Muslim family to excel on all fronts, materially and morally, the Muslim community can create training and enrichment opportunities for them. Muslim families should work towards superior performance in whatever they do, as individual units and as groups of families bound together by an effort to perform and achieve. Small groups of such families can become examples for other groups to form. Internally, Muslim families should be motivated to become centers of excellence, establishing high standards of conduct for themselves and seeking out other families with even higher standards for socialization and friendship.
Raising A Model Generation
No role is as important for a family as that of bringing up a new generation that will internalize and articulate - perhaps in a better way - the values and lifestyles of the parents. In order to enable the Muslim family to fulfill this role, the community can encourage good parent-children relationships, help families in educating their children, build Islamic schools with family involvement, and foster relationship with children.
Allah SWT has created a link of special love between parents and children and has clearly defined the responsibility of one to the other. It is the duty of the family as a whole to not let these bonds of love and responsibilities weaken. When they do, communication suffers and the flow of experience and guidance from the parent to the children is interrupted. The importance of encouraging an open and caring relationship between parents and children cannot be stressed enough.
The Islamic education of children in contemporary society is a bigger challenge than most parents can handle on their own. The dearth of proper educational material, the distractions of television, and peer pressure in schools are just some of the obstacles families must face. The Muslim community can establish programs and institutions to produce children's literature and entertainment in a superior, captivating format. While the above may help, the solution that may offer more lasting results is the establishment of Islamic schooling. This could include full-time schools, as well as home schooling or supplementary schooling where full-time schooling is not possible. In each situation, the family should be involved as a unit to ensure success through its continued participation. Islamic schools can help give children the sense of direction they need to stay on an Islamic course of life.
Beyond the family, the community itself must build relationships with children, and work with them to help develop better parents for the future. Although the essence of parenthood is a matter of instinct, there is much to be said for a community helping parents learn how to be more effective in parenthood.
Offering Comfort to Family Members
In order to enable the Muslim family to offer its members stability and comfort, the community can train families to do so, focus families' attention to learning from the Qur'an, and deal with families as a unit.
The Muslim family should be the building block of the society it is a part of. It should function as a supportive environment for its own members, each of whom should be conscious of his or her responsibilities toward the others. It should offer a learning environment, with focus on the Qur'an for guidance. Each member of the family should look for guidance and solutions to problems in Islamic sources and reinforce one another's commitment to do so. The community should deal with the family as one unit. It is essential to continually reinforce the family unit, especially when numerous forces in society tend to pull it apart depriving it of its basic source of strength. The Muslim family should be encouraged to establish and safeguard its internal unity.
Offering Solutions To Social Ills
In order to enable the Muslim family to offer solutions to the social ills that plague contemporary society, we must be able to uphold it as an example to others in society. It is an accepted fact in that in all societies, social ills spring primarily from some failure in the family structure. Well-adjusted and well-motivated Muslim families can offer solutions by their examples that no amount of social analyzing and theorizing can.
These are the ideals for the Muslim community to nurture. The life of the Prophet SAW and our rich Islamic heritage can offer guidance from day to day as we struggle to reach them. Challenging as they may be in today's environment, they are not options to be exercised if we wish, but marching orders for shaping a future for Muslims in contemporary society.
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