On Breeding an Islamic Way of Life: Raising Children

Society Religion & Philosophy
1

:salam:

In the early days Islam was the dominant religion, people admired the Muslims, technology was in our hands, our culture flourished, art was delivered by us and Arabic was the language modus oper*andi.

In such a world it was not difficult to imagine that a child raised on the words of the Qur’an to love and memorise, to beautify by pen and by voice was as a natural as a walk in the park. Today we have no such comfort factors.

Today we struggle by being in societies which are different to the Islamic way. We speak in English or our native languages with our children. We expect them to learn Islam like we learn Mathematics or English - i.e. as an academic subject and then we wonder how we can extrude secularism and secular values from them.

Islam is a way of life and it can only be taught by complete submersion. It is the culture that we create in the home that makes our children feed on Islamic values.

Take the hijab for example many households women don these with great honour and it becomes something that is part of the life of each member in those homes, this is also the case with the prohibition of pork products. The case being that to embody the ethos of those values makes those values ingrained it is seldom necessary to understand why things are being done.

Arabic grammar is not a subject for children neither is the study of fiqh. All we need to do is study these things ourselves and put those edicts into our lives that they become part of us and hence our children’s lives.

We should learn Arabic and speak with our children in Arabic and allow them to speak in Arabic and to find outlets for them to be able to speak Arabic with others. This way they will be appropriately multilingual in Arabic and whatever other language of our choosing.

Submersion techniques are prevalent for teaching us these things. It is perhaps more important to practice the recitation of the Qur’an by rote and allow the children to learn from us just as though children learn nursery rhymes or songs. It is not necessary that a child learns what a twinkle of a little star is to learn the song.

We need to pray and we need to observe the principles of fiqh to teach our children fiqh. The study of the mechanisms and rulings of fiqh should be for us or students of knowledge only. We need to be people who are willing to change and embody an Islamic lifestyle to correctly teach our children Islam.

People are afraid of Arabisation, but we have been Anglified without threat. We can also maintain dual cultures or more if we try.

May Allah (SWT) make us role models for our children and make us embody Islam so our children can follow us in this. Ameen.

2

^ nice topic.

Yes, we need to learn arabic and teach our children arabic so that they can learn and ponder on the subjects elucidated in Quran. but I think we need not to become arabic or mimic them in order to become good muslims.
Why do you think muslims in a very short span of time become masters of the world not just politically but culturally, w.r.t scientific research and progress? and why did they loose what they achieved and now are on the recieving end?
The usual answer we get is 'alienation from religion' but we don't understand what does it mean. Apparently, we have lots of good muslims, scholars etc. Our mosques are full of 'namazis', we fervently fast in ramadhan and recite quran, do other rituals but what is lacking?
Here is my humble attempt to list points that lead to early success:
0) Solid belief in Allah
1) Revolutionary improvement at personal level in ethics.
2) Sense of togetherness or unity
3) Great manners in dealing with others
4) Honesty at every level
5) Research, thinking, reasoning as Islam has asked us to use our brains to think and ponder
6) Excellent treatment with non-muslims even with POWs
These are a few points, you can add to it if you like
Now what lead us down the hill, make exact negative of the above mentioned points, you will get your answer.
In short, muslims should mean better humans i.e., better than average in ethics, manners, good and honest dealing with others (relatives, employers, employees, servants etc.) among other qualities

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Re: On Breeding an Islamic Way of Life: Raising Children

^ To become Arabic or not is a misnoma of the secular era we live in. Today we are English whether we agree to that or not. It is the language we choose to speak to one another in.

The thread was geared toward the upbringing of children. I have had people mention to me that it is pointless to teach children Qur'an in the style of madrassas today i.e. by memorising Qur'an without understanding. This is because they argue that the children do not understand it. However, the alternative offered is to attend grammar classes for Arabic, which are worse first you teach the children grammar in English or Urdu and then you draw parallels for them in Arabic grammmar.

My point was that they have missed the point ... the learning of Qur'an by heart is not to understand it, but to learn it. The Arabic needs to be taught like we teach our own languages i.e. by submersion. Otherwise we take the instructions of scholars and that should be enough ... to appoint ourselves authorities of Qur'an by learning Arabic or by reading translations is a path to failure and we will never break free from the mindset of reducing Islam to an academic subject.

Learning Arabic should be done by culture encapsulation not by textbook ... this way when we sit to learn Arabic grammar we already know the words and sentences structures can use them but we learn and categorise them we do this with our own languages ... we first learn to speak English or Urdu and then learn the grammar afterwards ... it is not done the other way round.

Fiqh is also such a beast ...

4

:salam:

Is there more to be said. Until we regain these things … its just an uphill battle. People always flock and adapt from the powerful.

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5

Re: On Breeding an Islamic Way of Life: Raising Children

So, lets become one.

6

Lost glory is not so easily retained especially when we are not destined for it either going towards Qiyamah.

Sometimes when I ponder upon the struggle of muslims on the subcontinent I think where would they have been if for people like Sir Syed and others who continuously amplified to our previous generations the importance of education and to rise. It was the foundation stone that led to muslims recognizing their lost identity and enslavement. If not for that, us muslims from South Asia would be living side by side with the Dalits in India.

We cannot fight and win against our enemies until we first come up to their level somewhat and have complete faith in Allah SWT that our efforts are sincere and for his SWT sake. We're at the bottom of the ladder and climbing has to be painful.

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Re: On Breeding an Islamic Way of Life: Raising Children

I am glad that we already know the consequenses and the sequences of those, our aims and targets and black spots and our strengths and weaknesses.

8

I got the philosophy of your idea but what are your suggestions for visualizing it.
One simple solution would be settling in an arab country. That way, arabic will be the medium of day to day interactions and dealings. what else?
As far as English language is concerned, it is not our choosing to communicate in English. It has become an international language one way or the other. What is your suggestion to make that idea of 'cuture encapsulation' realize?

9

Peace kchughtai

Well there are a number of things ... Islam for one advocates travel to learn. However, one simple recipe is to learn Arabic ourselves while we expect our children to learn it. And then to converse with them in Arabic. I have seen success stories where a British Pakistani mother has learnt Arabic (mainly from books) and has then embarked on speaking with her children in Arabic. Consequently her children are fluent in Arabic.

Look it is simple ... The first part of language submersion is to be able to recognise some simple terms. These are:

Ma = what
Hadhza or Hadzihi = This
Dhzalika or Tillka = That
Mann = Who

Then a whole set of nouns both masculine and feminine and we have people speaking in sentences.

For example:

A) Mann hadhza? (Who is is this?)
B) Hadzha Waladun (This is a boy) really it is Walad but it is good to say waladun because of later on when 'ishara will be learnt.

Then using this interrogation method not only will we become accustomed to knowing what simple enquiry questions are in Arabic but we will learn Arabic nouns through this method. Using pictures and pointing to objects like children do will teach us, enforce it in us and teach our children.