PARENTS:THE SOLID FOUNDATION
By
Abdullah Al-Junayd
When a Muslim child is born, he is nurtured and taught the way of life.
He is enrolled in both the Western school and Madrasah (an arabic school) for formal learning.
However, he is to get the informal education from cradle. He grows through the rhymes of “La Illaha Illa Allah”, “Allah Akbar” and other adhskar that are instilled in him. He might get to further memorize surah Fatiha and other short-versed surahs by paying attention to the Qur’anic
recitations made around him.
At such young age, it is psychologically believed that whatever is taught to a child stays with him forever. How true is this, however?
As a Muslim child edges adolescence, the parents enjoin and guide him to observe Solah. Forbid him to shake hands
with the opposite sex, to take someone else’s belongings without
their permission, to be involved in all acts of immorality.
But do parents get to give their child the reasons for these forbiddings and the severe penalties a person shall incur for violating them?
Do they make the spiritual, physical and phycological consequences of the above-mentioned vices known?
Do they compliment the pieces of advice given with follow ups: proper guidance and monitoring of their social engagements?
So, suddenly, sadly, the born to the purple child begins to behave born in a barn; the one supposed to be vehemently resistant to commiting sins
due to the lifestyles and the teachings drilled in him starts to find solace in sinful commitments.
This treatise is to expose how a child who you thought would unhesitatingly grasp and follow suit your
teachings — turned to a ‘devil incarnate’.
Apparently, the world is tending its end and the more the days count, the more we lose count of sanity.
Is it not indeed startling news of your sub-imam-the hāfidh (young teen)
who leads Salah in his sonorous voices committing zina (adultery) with another Muslim sister?
Gone were those days one could vouch for the deen of a Muslim child who because wears jalamia
with tajiya cap or a Muslim girl who because has her hijjab dragging behind her feet.
Parents need discern the
world has become topsy-turvy — teens know more than they think of, they are constantly exposed to more wrongdoings than the righteousness they bred in their bone — that their Muslim child need be more watched than they were by their own parents.
As these children do not lack proper upbringing, the lapse, however, is the orientation for being righteous over being unjust and the rewards and consequences for their actions not in tow of their upbringing.
Suffice it to say, dear parents, do not only tell your children to lower their gaze; let them also know
its benefit as well as its spiritual and psychological consequences. Tell them the prescibed benefits then punishment
of those acts in the Holy Qur’an and Hadith.
It is important to make mention of some parents’ negligence. Most parents do not even bother to underseek their teenagers’ source of income that provides them materials, gadgets, perhaps phones bigger than
theirs or how they make subscriptions themselves while still jobless or without them seeking their parents’ help.
Some parents have failed to guide their teens on the use of the internet-enabled gadgets which may expose them to obscenity. This is a great failure on the parents’ part.
In the medical world, doctor advises people to social distance from other people with infectious diseases in order to avoid contraction. To say, healthwise and economically, prevention is better than cure even if the diseases have their cures. And it is always that cures are not as expedient as preventions.
In the same vein, parents’ negligence have brought a huge disaster upon our Muslim teens’ moral and spiritual life, which could have been prevented.
Recently, I was discussing the level of degeneration of Muslim teens with two other like minds, and I
was heartbreaking stories. Unfortunately, the ‘Alfas and ‘Hajias’ mentioned in the discussions were our Islamic Leaders’ children – those whose outward appearances were enough to convince anyone of the pious people they are; but unfortunately, what lies beneath is nothing to write home about.
Enrolling teens in madrasah and schools are not enough. Some parents believe they have done their
parts by paying tuitions and getting textbooks while the rest is left to the teachers. This is wrong.
Many parents
believe their children cannot indulge in trending immoralities in society. You cannot so trust them, you must always watch them.
Recently, some new students were brought to our madrasah for admission (boarding). And when we asked them why they have been brought down here, they said their parents think they they have become thugs and
that their parents cannot handle them again.
This scenario portrays something so wrong with the upbringing of the Muslim children and misplaced priority as to why they were not earlier enrolled in a madrasah.
They have just believed that our asaatidh, and alfas are psychotherapists or the Madaaris are dumping sites for ill-nutured children? Or that
responsible ones are sent to school but the irresponsible ones are sent to Madāris?
To our parents and parents-to-be, you should start preventing to avoid expensive cure in the
nearest future. And don’t forget that some diseases are still incurable, scientifically.
No one but you are to lay the solid foundation for your children. Do not wait until
you see signs of gross misconduct in your wards before you take steps. Start taking
precautionary steps now. The earlier, the better.
It is not the writer’s intent to trouble his audience if this content is found offensive.
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