I still vividly remember the first night I spent by myself in the hospital after delivering my eldest son Shaan. The guests were gone for the day, the hallway lights were dimmed, the nurses were speaking outside my room in muted tones.
"Knock, knock!" came a cheerful voice from the doorway. "Someone's hungry and wants his mommy!"
The nurse wheeled in the crib that held my newborn, only a few hours old at the time. She cooed over him as I struggled to sit up, then efficiently handed him into my waiting arms, bustling out of the room after giving me a few words of encouragement.
I pulled the blanket away from his cheek and smiled in awe at this fragile, little creature who was being left alone with me for the first time ever. I felt privileged to be trusted with his care, overwhelmed with the weight of responsibility. No one was watching over my shoulder; he was all mine and I could do whatever I wanted.
I felt it was an appropriate time to take care of something that no one had thought of arranging so far - introductions.
"Assalaamu alaikum," I whispered to the warm bundle nestled against my chest, "I'm your mommy." I stroked his face and then asked the rhetorical question that every mother has asked since time immemorial. "Now, how am I going to raise you?"
It's a question that I have continued to ask since that first magical night in the maternity ward.
I've asked it of grandparents, parents, sons, and daughters. I've asked it of Pakistanis, Indians, Afghans, Arabs, Americans, Asians, and Africans. I've sat people down at parties, emailed friends' parents, called up aunties on the telephone, and stopped uncles on their way out the door. Any family whose practice of Islam has impressed me, any child whose manners have stunned me, any teenager whose conduct with his or her sibling has given me reason for pause, any adult whose balance of deen (religion) and dunya (world) has wowed me, I have accosted and asked,
"What exactly did your parents do with you?!"
"How did you raise your children?!"
"I beg you, tell me the secret of bringing up Mu'mineen like the ones I see in your home!"
Examples of Good Training
I have seen with my own eyes children under the age of ten who willingly set their own alarms to get up for Tahajjud prayer.
I have hosted a young soccer marvel in my home who begins his day before mine by reciting Quran at Fajr.
I know of an Ivy League university student who insisted on turning the car around because she realized she had left home without giving her mother salaams.
I have been acquainted with doctors who make more money in a single month than most people make in a single year yet choose to live in small homes with no mortgages so that their salaries can be spent supporting scholars of Islam.
My husband and I work with a young man who once flew with his mother to Jordan, then turned around and returned on the next flight home - all of this so that his single mother didn't have to travel across the world alone.
I have witnessed fourth graders who were able to sit quietly with impeccable etiquette in front of Muslim scholars while the adults around them stretched, yawned, and sighed.
I have heard children silence their young friends with urgent reminders, "Don't say that about him! It's backbiting!"
A sign of someone whom Allah loves is that when you see him/her, you remember Allah. The examples I have listed above are all people who have caused me to wonder about my own station with Allah in relation to theirs; they have motivated me to at least try to change, to improve. I'm sure readers will agree that, although Allah Alone knows the hidden reality of hearts, these people at least seem to have triumphed both in their embodiment of the true spirit of Islam and in their practical participation in the dunya. I pray that Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala will continue to send examples like them into our lives so that we may continue to learn and implement that which draws us closer to Him. Aameen.
One open secret of good Training: Teach your children Love of the Prophet (saww)
The Prophet (saww) was a living, breathing reality in our lives.
"What better suhba is there than one who reminds another of the deen? Can there be a better `companion' than the Prophet (saww)?" asks a UCLA graduate married to a doctor who also does interfaith work for Islam.
When a learned scholar was recently asked, "What should we teach our children?", his response was swift and unequivocal - "The seerah (biography of the Prophet) and nasheeds (devotional songs of praise). If your kids love the Prophet, they will automatically love Allah."
"The best way to call people to Islam is to have them fall in love with the Prophet," insists another scholar. "Children should fear and love Allah, but teach them about the love first. They can learn about the fear when they're older. And who loved Allah more than the Prophet (saww)?"
An eight-year-old recently burst into tears when he realized that his mother had neglected to wake him up for the Fajr prayer. The adults who were present exchanged glances, wondering what kind of terror the parents must have driven into this young one's heart. Was he afraid that Allah was going to punish him? Did he think he was going to burn in hell?
Upon inquiry, the child revealed that the real cause of his distress was the knowledge that he had neglected something the Prophet (saww) took very seriously, something he had exhorted the believers about on his death bed. Needless to say, the mother has been vigilant about waking her son on time for prayer ever since.
Many of the parents made it a regular part of the daily routine to recite the sunnah duas - the duas for beginning and ending meals, the duas for entering and leaving the home, the duas for studying - until it became automatic. It isn't a surprise for guests in their homes to see children as young as three reciting the dua for traveling as they get strapped into their car seats.
"We didn't minimize any sunnah in our home," one Pakistani-American father tells me. "Once you start to think, `Oh, that sunnah isn't a big deal; we can ignore it', you've entered dangerous territiory. What comes next?"
"A co-worker recently asked me to name one thing that makes Islam different from other faiths," my brother-in-law once shared with me. "Among other things, I told him that with Islam I got a prophetic example for how to live my day-to-day life. No other prophet's life is so carefully recorded as our Prophet's (saww)."
With toddlers and pre-schoolers, I noticed that a lot of the parents mentioned the Prophet Muhammad (saww) as if he were a relevant person in their lives. They talked about him the way one would talk about any respected elder whom the child adored. It wasn't unusual to hear parents telling their little ones, "The Prophet Muhammad (saww) loved green, so let's wear our green clothes for Friday Prayer!" or "Prophet Muhammad (saww) taught us that we should sit down when we get angry, so let's sit down since you're feeling so frustrated."
While visiting my sister in Southern California one weekend, I noticed that an English translation of Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husain Tabatabai's "Sunan An-Nabi" (a collection of narrations on the conduct and customs of the Noble Prophet Muhsmmad (saww)) sat on my nine-year-old nephew's beside table. She informed me that it was part of their son's bedtime ritual for her husband to share one hadith from that famous ninth century text with him.
"Knowing personal things like the fact that the Prophet (saww) liked to eat dates with cucumbers makes our son feel like he actually knows the Prophet (saww)."
"Today's generation is so fortunate, Masha'Allah, " says one grandmother. "When our children were younger, there was hardly any quality Islamic literature or media out there. Today's kids have so many choices! My grandchildren go through a different seerah book every year. They are constantly humming new songs about the Prophet (saww). I pray that they always find joy in learning about (and then following) their Prophet, insha'Allah. "
