Keys to Prophetic Parenting
1 / 10
Key #1: Vision | Keys to Prophetic Parenting
Our children are gifts from Allah. How we raise them has an impact on our life in this world, our life in the hereafter, and the entire Ummah. In fact, the story of Musa (as) teaches us that the first step to transform the entire nation was telling a mother to raise her child.
In this first episode of our newest series, Keys to Prophetic Parenting, Sh. Ibrahim Hindy shares the meaning of “coolness of your eyes” in relation to children and how we can achieve that with the right parenting tools, insha'Allah.
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. The Gift of Allah When Allah speaks about children in the Qur'an, when he is blessing people with a child, or people are asking Allah to bless them with a child, the Qur'an consistently uses the word wahab. Wahabna, habli, meaning we gifted them, or they say, oh Allah, gift us with a child. The phrase gift comes up over and over again when referring to children. Children are a gift from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And the gifts and blessings we receive from Allah require our care, protection, and guardianship. Instinctively, whether we are Muslim or otherwise, every parent knows that we need to take care of our kids. We need to raise them, to protect them, to help them. But for a Muslim, our need to assume responsibility of being parents is even more important. As a believer, our role as parents affects everything. Our dunya, our akhira, and our ummah. It affects our akhira, our place in the next world. Our Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said that all the deeds of the child of Adam are cut off at the time of death except for three. One of which, waladun salihun yada'ula, a righteous child praying for them. People think about what legacy they're leaving behind in this world. But the reality is that the mark we leave on our friends, on our co-workers, is often very casual. But the mark and the impact we leave on our children is significant. And when it's a positive impact, their prayers for us are so powerful that it propels us forward in the next world even after we've passed away. And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam warns us about leaving a negative impact on our children and what that will do to us in the next life. The Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said, كفى للمرء من الاثم أن يضيع من يقوت He said, it is sufficient of a sin for you to neglect that which you are obligated to support. It's enough of a sin, big enough of a sin, for us to be neglectful of our children. Those whom we are obligated to raise and strengthen and to support.
And the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam said, أَلَا كُلُّكُمْ رَاعٍ وَكُلُّكُمْ مَسْؤُولٌ عَن رَعَائَتِهِ He said that, indeed each of you is a shepherd and each of you is responsible for his flock. And then the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam gave the examples. A man is a shepherd over his family and he's responsible for his flock. A woman is a shepherd over her children and she too is responsible for her flock. Allah has placed us, fathers and mothers, as shepherds over our children. And we will be asked about how we took care of that responsibility. Did we strive to protect them, to guide them towards what will benefit them, in a way that a shepherd protects his sheep from wolves and guides them to food and water. Or did we let down our flock. How we raise our child affects our Akhirah. It can raise our status in the next world or it can cause us to fall behind. It can remove and cleanse our sins and bring us closer to Allah, when our children love us and pray for us after we've gone. Or it can cause Allah to take us to account if we have neglected our responsibilities. How we raise our children also affects our dunya, our life in this world. Both in the Quran and in the hadith of our Prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam, the righteous child is often referred to as قرّة العين which is sometimes translated as coolness of the eyes. The Arabs would use the phrase because they would describe that when a person is going through times of stress or hardship or difficulty, that the person is unstable. And they're so unstable that even their eyes are roving and churning and spinning. But قرّة العين literally means stillness of the eyes, calmness of the eyes. So through قرّة العين a person feels calmness, you feel stability, you feel relief, their eyes are at rest. And so when قرّة العين is mentioned in relation to children, it kind of indicates that our lives are turned upside down, stressed out, anxious, when we experience troubles with our children. Anyone who has experienced their child going down the wrong path would be willing to give up everything for that not to be the case. But when our children are doing well, there's no better relief, there's no better joy.
Oh Allah, make our children the coolness of our eyes and the calmness of our eyes. Finally, how we raise our child not only affects our akhira and our dunya, but it also affects our community, our entire ummah. In surah al-Qasas, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala ends the surah by speaking about the oppression that Fir'aun, the pharaoh, commits against Bani Israel, the children of Israel. How he enslaved them and oppressed them and killed their children. Allah says, وَنُرِيدُ أَنَّ مُنَّ عَلَىٰ الَّذِينَ أَسْتُضَعِفُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَنَجَعَلُهُمْ أَئِمَّةً وَنَجَعَلُهُمُ الْغَارِثِينَ Allah says, we wanted to give a favor upon those who are oppressed in the land and to make them leaders and make them inheritors. Allah wanted to transform the history of the children of Israel from being oppressed and marginalized and downtrodden to being leaders and inheritors in this world. So how was this achieved? The first verse to follow this is a command, وَأَوْحَيْنَا إِلَىٰ أُمِّ مُوسَىٰ أَنُرْضِعِيً We inspired the mother of Musa, nourish him, take care of your child. The first step to transform an entire community or ummah or nation was to tell a mother to raise her child. A righteous mother raising her child leads to leaders like Musa alayhis-salam who can change the entire course of history for his people. Through the efforts of Musa and his leadership Bani Israel went from a people who were enslaved and oppressed to a people who were free and ultimately became strong. As we look at the ills and oppressions which affect our community and ummah today, we have to realize that the solution is to build strong homes and to raise righteous children. Join me for this series on the keys to prophetic parenting. In this series we will explore and discover keys to help us unlock how to effectively raise our children as healthy adults and righteous Muslims. We will look to how the prophets and righteous people approach raising their kids to unearth important tools that can guide our journey through parenting. And we will be exploring different modern studies and data on children and how it converges often with the prophetic approach.
In this series you will learn, one, prophetic parenting techniques, using examples from the prophetic tradition that we can employ with our children. Two, how to engage and empower our children to become responsible and faithful adults. And three, how to avoid pitfalls of parenting, some of the common errors that parents sometimes make in good faith or they're well intentioned, but errors inshaAllah that we can correct. Join me on this journey as we all try to become better parents along the prophetic path.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
1 items
1 items
1 items
25 items
50 items
9 items
