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Bringing up Our Children in the West
By:
Dr. Ahmad Shafaat
(1986)
In bringing up our children, whether in
the West or anywhere else, our goal should evidently be to help them
get the best in this world and the best in the hereafter - success
and happiness in this life and salvation and paradise in the
hereafter. This means that we should help our children successfully
pursue necessary study and/or training leading to a profession and
also to provide them whatever they need to become good Muslims.
Being a good Muslim is not only needed
for salvation and paradise but it is also helpful in this world.
Good, clean, habits, discipline and a sense of
responsibility that Islam inculcates
can greatly help children in their studies, and later on, in the
successful practice of their profession while faith and trust in God
that Islam teaches can add happiness and peace to their success in
life.
To help children become good Muslims two
things are essential:
1) A good parent-child
relationship
2) Parents' strong
Muslim identity
In a Muslim society these two
things are generally sufficient; if a good parent-child relationship
exists, so that the children do not develop any emotions rejecting
what their parents stand for, then the Muslim identity of the
parents, if it is sufficiently strong, naturally passes on to the
children. However, in the western world, the above mentioned things
are usually not enough, since the Muslim identity of parents as well
as children comes under many powerful pressures which an average
family cannot withstand alone.
In the West, therefore, a third
factor is needed:
3) The cooperation of an
organized, united and dynamic Muslim community.
Let us look at these three factors in a
little more detail.
PARENT-CHILD
RELATIONSHIP
A good parent-child relationship
consists of love and respect between parents and children. To
establish this relationship is the sole responsibility of the
parents and they can do so by giving their children unconditional
love, which then generates in children love, respect and obedience
for the parents. This natural process is disturbed and the
parent-child relationship starts running into problems if parents
cannot or do not give sufficient love to the children. It is often
believed that parents always love their children. But this
idea, though it has the support of a Hadith (see note), is in
conflict with the Holy Qur'an and observed facts. The Holy Qur'an
mentions those pagan Arabs who used to bury their female children
alive:
"When the female infant buried
alive is questioned - for what crime she was killed? " (81:8-9)
This is a recognition that parents
can do zulm (injustice, cruelty) to their children and
that they will be answerable for it on the day of judgment.
Cruelty to children is not something
that existed once upon a time among the Jahili (ignorant and
pagan) Arabs. To a more or less degree it is a practice in all
cultures. Even in modern "civilized" and prosperous North America
hundreds of thousands of children are subjected each year to
ruthless torture by their parents, many of whom, unlike the
Jahili Arabs, are not in any kind of economic difficulty. These
are no doubt extreme examples but they should destroy the myth that
all parents have nothing but love for their children.
Moving from extreme cases to normal
cases, it can indeed be said that a vast majority of parents,
especially Muslim parents do love their children. However, it is not
certain that even normal parents give their children sufficient
love. I would be inclined to think that most of them do not. In any
case,rolex replica it cannot but do good to once in a while admit the possibility
that we as parents may not be giving enough love to our
children. This admission would put parents in a far better position
to establish a good relationship with their children than would be
the case otherwise.
At this point a word should be added
about the nature of love. Love does not mean continuously pampering
the children and giving in to all their wishes. Love is rather a
deep concern for the well-being and happiness of the children which
manifests itself in softness when softness is needed and in firmness
when firmness is needed. It takes a lot of effort to be firm.
Parents can make that effort only if they care enough for their
children.
In dealing with
children try to avoid negative emotions. For
example, if children are rude to you, and in the West children can
be quite rude to their parents, do not ask them to clean their
rooms, etc., in retaliation. Children are much more aware of
their parents' real feelings than we may think. If parents have
negative feelings of revengefulness towards them, they are likely to
react negatively to what the parents are telling them.
We should try to be consistent with our
children. We should not, for example, stop them from something bad
when we are angry and tolerate it when we are in a good mood.
A good communication is also needed to
establish a good parent-child relationship. If a child is not
positively responding to what you are saying and this is happening
again and again, then it is time not to get more and more mad and
frustrated but to think and to talk to the child or otherwise find
out what is going on in his or her mind.
IMPARTING MUSLIM
IDENTITY
Now let us come to the all-important
topic of imparting Islamic identity to our children in the West. In
this connection the main requirement evidently is that parents
themselves should have a strong Muslim identity. But their are
additional important points to be kept in mind.
In developing their Muslim identity we
have to naturally impress upon our children that our ways are quite
different from those of the rest of the western society. But this
should not be done in such a way as to create hostility towards the
western society as a whole. This can create emotional
conflict in a child and it is also against Islam. The Holy Qur'an
says of the people of the book that
"they are not all alike"
(3:113) and it praises some
of their good qualities along with condemnation of what is wrong
with them (5:85-87,
57:27,Swiss Replica Watches etc.). We must not
therefore make a general condemnation of the western society as a
whole but rather point out to them what is good in this society and
what is bad. We should help them identify themselves with what is
good here and to reject what is bad.
For example, we should tell them: "Most
Westerners believe in the Trinity and in the divinity of Jesus (may
peace be upon him), which we reject totally. But there are many
Westerners who believe in one God and the prophethood of Jesus (may
peace be upon him) in much the same way as we do." "Most Westerners
take alcohol and/or drugs, but many reject this practice, as we
Muslims do." "Many Westerners are homosexuals or are willing to
morally accept this deviation. But many others consider it immoral,
just as we do." "Many Westerners are for abortion but almost as many
are against it." Then we should point to the evidence of the harm of
the things prohibited by Islam, e.g. death by accident, ruined
lives, broken homes in case of alcohol/drugs, etc. and AIDS in case
of homosexuality.
Then it should also be pointed out to
our youth that in some ways Western society is more Islamic
than most Muslim societies. For example, here there is democracy and
constitutionality which is more Islamic than the arbitrary rule of
dictators and kings found in most Muslim lands. Also, there is
generally less corruption (bribery, etc.) here than in some of the
Muslim countries. Much self-criticism in the end will not weaken our
children's Muslim identity but rather strengthen it. More-over, it
will help some of them grow up to be reformers which we so badly
need.
In matters of details in which there are
found differences among Muslims (e.g. how to pray, who should have
been the leader of the Muslims after the death of the Prophet) we
may tell our children what we think but without being too dogmatic
about it. We should concentrate on inculcating love for God, the
Prophet, Islam and Muslims and on teaching the basic and agreed upon
beliefs and practices of Islam. For the rest we should take a more
relaxed attitude. This would not only help Muslim unity, but also
increase our chances of success in bringing up our children as
Muslims, since dogmatism in every matter can in the end drive our
youth away from Islam.
THE ROLE OF THE
COMMUNITY
As we noted earlier, the work of
bringing up children as Muslims in the western world is not easy.
Most parents cannot manage it on their own. Therefore, a close
cooperation is needed between parents and the community. The parents
should, as part of this cooperation, take interest in community work
and contribute to it whatever they can while the community, through
its elected representatives, should provide the parents with all the
facilities they need to educate their children in Islam and to make
them comfortable with, and proud of, Islamic values and traditions.
Note
It is said the Prophet was once asked
whether one should obey and honor one's parents even if they do
zulm (injustice) on their children. The Prophet is alleged to
have replied that parents cannot do zulm on their
children. This Hadith must be rejected as false, since, as we said
above, it conflicts with the book of God and observed facts.
More-over, this Hadith seems incompatible with some other ahadith
where the Prophet exhorts parents to treat their children well and
spend on them, e.g. the following two ahadith:
Joining together two of his fingers the
Prophet said: "Whoever
performs his prayers properly, spends on his children in spite of
his modest means and does not speak ill of others will be in
Paradise as close to me as these (two fingers of mine)."
and
"Whoever is given daughters and
spends on them and treats them well - surely God will reward him in
paradise."
The very fact that such ahadith
encourage parents to treat their children well means that parents
may not always love their children enough, for otherwise such
encouragement would not be needed. Daughters are specially the
victims of parents' selfishness in many cultures, where for economic
and social reasons many parents do not feel too happy to have
daughters. |