It was Salāh time. The boy nearest to the mic – as habitual of me – was charged with the iqāmah. His corresponding countenance depicted rejection but I rather looked away. So he could not but do it as best known to him.
What the boy – of about 10 – dished out was nothing describable. The pronunciation, the incoherence, the lack of confidence – all got my ears blown out. Ordinary iqāmah, he couldn’t do at such an age? What then could he possibly do of Islam? The laughable manner with which his nāfil was done thereafter said it all. His shabby raise of hands for takbīrāt; his funny rukū’; his jestable look, back and forth – also got me shocked to the marrow.
What I saw made me interested in knowing the son of whom the strange boy was. In the end, I got to know that it was with a pinch of salt the religion was taken by his single mother. He only found his way to the mosque that day at the instance of his mum’s friend.
In this age, where two-year olds do iqāmah with amazing convenience and confidence, isn’t it shameful that your own son of 10 cannot read the Arabic alphabet let alone make a word with them? In this age, when 10-year olds do not only recite the Qur’ān off-hand but also flow fluently in Arabic, what your own daughter has in her head is music: fuji, juju, apala, hip-hop and the so-called Islamic singers whose stage dispositions are rather antithetical to Islām. Isn’t that what you play minutely at home, including that of the marijuana addict? Are you seeing your life gradually ruined?
You call yourself a Muslim, but you do not observe Salāh. Your children do not pray because they don’t see you do so. You are not spiritually emulative. Shame on you!
Many parents, the only time they appreciate madrasah education is when they attend halflah (or walīmah). They would wish their children do same but they would not work towards it. While other kids are in madrasah going through Qur’ān tutelage, theirs are with their lesson teachers in furtherance of their schoolworks. From 7am till 7pm – including weekends – they learn nothing of Islām. Innā liLlāHi wa innā ileihi rāji’ūn! Those who manage to enroll their kids in madrasah do not mind those kids attending with truancy. They appear for one week and disappear for one month. And such people are usually the worst debtors as meagre as the monthly levy, whereas they pay their children’s school fees very promptly despite the hugeness of the amount. Meanwhile, when their children are refused attendance at madrasah as punishment for their indebtedness, they become shamelessly angry and the ustādh satirized, vilified, falsified etc. What hypocrisy!
On Judgement Day, the reason some parents will land in Hell is because of their little or no attention paid to their children’s Islamic education. And those kids will request Allāh to double their punishments and to also curse them big.
وَقَالُوا رَبَّنَا إِنَّا أَطَعْنَا سَادَتَنَا وَكُبَرَاءَنَا فَأَضَلُّونَا السَّبِيلَا. رَبَّنَا آتِهِمْ ضِعْفَيْنِ مِنَ الْعَذَابِ وَالْعَنْهُمْ لَعْنًا كَبِيرًا.
“And they (the children) would say: “Our Lord! We obeyed our chiefs (parents) and our great ones, and they misled us as to the (right) Path. Our Lord! Give them double Penalty and curse them with a very great Curse!”
[Surat Al-Ahzab 67, 68]
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