By Dr Adekunle Mikail
Children can be adornment of living to their parents and guardians as they can well be the opposites as tumults, disturbances and storms in the tea of the society. Both cases are vividly represented in the glorious Qur’an both in its references and stories.
For example, in Qur’an 18 : 46, we have :
” wealth and children are adornment of the life of this world; and the ever-abiding, the good works , are better with your Lord in reward and are better in expectation”
In another instance, we read in Qur’an 8:28 :
” And know that your wealth and children are a tumult ,and that Allah is He with whom there is a mighty reward”
In the stories of the companions of the Cave and the son of prophet Nuhu ( Alehi Salaam), we find the two opposite worlds of children being cynosure of eyes and eyesores to the societies at once!. In one, for believing in God and working righteousness, they became the blessed eyes of their communities and for ever, they are made the perfect examples of how youths should put the most important period of their lives to purposeful and judicious use.
In other child, despite the fact that his father is a consecrated apostle of God, the blessing of the father could not save him of the peril he had used his hands to bring upon himself by being heedless and stone-hearted to the words of his father which were invariably the words of God!
The first category of children above, are the Companions of the Cave which the glorious Qur’an has made their history permanent in its reference. In the first place, they are serenaded as follows in the verses of the Chapter of the Cave:
” Or do you not think (o Muhammad) that the companions of the Cave and of the inscription were wonders among our signs?
Behold, the youths betook themselves to the Cave ; they said, Our Lord! Bestow on us Mercy from yourself and dispose of our affair for us in the right way”
_ Qur’an 18:9-10
Their story is that ,for being believers in God, the Roman Emperor who persecuted the believers then had wanted to deal ruthlessly with them. For these, seven believer youths of Ephesus left the town and laid themselves in a cave in a mountain nearby.
Afterwards, inside the Cave, they underwent a miraculous process of hibernation and slept for centuries. In the words of Al-Suyuti, the Egyptian skilled expert in the science of the glorious Qur’an and the Hadith of the prophet, they are said to have slept for 309 years inside the cave!
Their bodies were preserved and upon waking up, they neither aged nor were ill. It was though they had fallen asleep for a short while. They remained unaware of their situation until one of the youths went to a nearby town in search of food. The story of these youths has since become a widely held discussion among people and remains so to this day while Allah Has vouchsafed them for their faith which had worked for them in defence of the truth and unity of God as follows:
” We relate to you their story in truth; they were youths who believed in their Lord and We increased them in guidance” _ Qur’an 18: 13
The second category of the children are the example of the son of prophet Nuhu, who had called his son to faith in God but the son had declined. After the Apostle Nuhu had completed the making of the Ark, he had called every creature of Allah, including man to enter into it ,so that the deluge would not overtake and kill them but only few heeded his calls but his son was not among these few!
When Nuhu/ Noah, called out to his son , who had separated himself from the rest for being recalcitrant, saying o my son! Embark with us , and be not with the unbelievers! The reply of the son in the Quranic language is as follows:
”The son replied:” I will betake myself to some mountain : it will save me from the water. ” Noah said: ” This day nothing can save from the command of Allah anybody, except those on whom God Has mercy!”
The waves of water later came to the mountain the son was covering himself with and he was among those who were drowned! When Noah saw this , in the Quranic refrains, he said:
” And Noah called upon His Lord and said : ”o my Lord ! Surely, my son is of my family and your promise is true and your are the Justest of Judges!”
And Allah replied him:
” O Noah! He is not of your family : for his conduct is unrighteousness. So ask not of me that which you has no knowledge! I give you counsel, lest you become one of the ignorants !”
It is therefore , one of the wonders of this time that despite the sophiscation attained in both the wisdoms of the age,i.e the religion education and the western education, the children of today, are still , many times, prefer the unruly ways of prophet Noah’s son to the righteous and morality of the companions of the Cave!
The stories being emanated from the escapades of the country youngsters in recent times are heartbreaking to say the obvious. Despite the good schools both in terms of Islamic studies and modern methods of education which can enrich the minds of discerned among the youths and build a niche for their future, our youths are still acting like unmanned cows killing their counterparts ,for rituals ( money and power), seeking for wealth from immoral ways, and disregarding the sweetness embedded in delayed-gratification !
What this is telling the parents and guardians out there , is that they must look beyond the traditional dictum of sending their children to religion enclaves to be baked in the ways of God and to the modern western school alone for his worldly empowerment. Rather, a new educational approach, should be berth for the betterment of the children in this age!
This new approach to Child-Education will be anchored on the goodwill of the parents, the guardians and the communities at large. It is an approach that will be more on the side of the fathers and mothers who sired the children and less on the teachers who are employed to take care of the children on behalf of their parents and guardians. To say the obvious, the teachers and tutors ,despite their training cannot do more than the one who have planted the seeds of the youngsters ,in the first place, can do!
Fathers, all things be equal, will look backward and at the same time, inward ,and ruminate his investments in the marriages of the mothers of their children; his spending on the mothers and pregnancies until they can be called fathers. For this, they will hold the products of their loins sacrosanct and take good care of them.
The same thing can be said of the mothers who have strived to suffer the pangs of pregnancy and that of weaning their babies for many years before they can be called children in the proper sense of it. This is the rationale behind anchoring this new approach on the parents of the children.
This approach according to the scholars of education in Islam is divided into three folds. They are ; education by example; education by exhortation and education by happenings around the neighborhood!
The first educational approach above which is education by example has to do with the parents and guardians of the children we want to be useful for purposeful causes in the society for himself and others . The parents of these wards must be of good behaviour firstly before they can tell their children to be!. They must not be found wanting in immorality and debauchery so that the precocious minds of their wards will not be attracted to these vices.
Children’s minds are likened to a clean slate which makes more legible what is written in it. It is followed that what the children are exposed to when growing becomes permanently ingrained in their minds and forms the guidance of their behaviour _ if it is positive, the character will be more good and enduring and if it is otherwise, the character will be more negative.
What this approach to education portends is that , if the parents will want their wards to be exemplary, they must behave in the presence of their wards also in that regards for we don’t plant an onion and harvest a vegetable! . For most of the evil characters being displayed by the youngsters in our society today is a fall out of the negative behaviour the parents had exhibited in the presence of their children.
We can conveniently say that a higher percentage of youths who are into hard drugs had tapped the act from their parents smoking past time. Some of them were the one sent on buying errands in the bids to purchase these drugs for their parents, guardians and masters in their formative years.
The same time can be said of the parents and guardians whose focuses are good behaviour and rectitude. Their children have turned out mostly to be leaders of men and women in all things beneficial and helpful to human causes. They have become builders and protectors of morals and values which in turn are making the world a little liveable.
Prophet Muhammad (salla-llahu alehi wasalam) seemed to have realized the goodness in education by example when he prayed for parents and guardians who help their children and wards in their character- building processes by aiding them through their positive actions in that regards. He prayed thus :
” May Allah bless a man who aids his child on the good behaviour he wants to exhibit”
A poet has also poeticizes in that regards when he says :
” I have not seen the good behaviour except the imitation of what is good while I have not seen richness in man, except those who acts like a rich man”
The number two approach to education is education by exhortation. This is sequel to the first approach aforementioned. It is education through incitment of children to laudable acts. It is a type of means of educating a child by counseling and encouraging our wards to what is good and commendable. It is the system of education which the Saint and Sage of wisdom, Lukman, the Wise had adopted in the Qur’an for the good of his son!
It is a set up devised by Lukman the Wise in teaching his son of the evils and errors in associating partner with God. It is also the structure he built to show the son the righteousness in being good to their parents, the godliness in praying the five canonical daily prayers, the wisdom in encouraging others to engage in enduring activities in patience during tribulations and to forbid evils.
It is the logistic employed by this sage to discourage his son from turning away his face from people in contempt , nor go about in the land exulting overmuch,for surely Allah does not love any self-conceited boaster. It is the method he had finally used to tell his son to be moderate in all his going about and to always lower his voice when in the midst of others, for the most hateful of voices is the braying of the ass!
This approach to education is a personal one between the admonisher and the admonished.It is a private effort of making a child good between the child and his parents. Parents who are constantly on the move and who abandoned their children and wards to nannies, teachers and overseers in religions centers doted the land, cannot achieve this. Since , this approach is for the parents who know the importance of the future of their wards and who are ready to suffer today and smile tomorrow on their children. .This kind of approach to education sticks into the recess of hearts of the children and goes along way to guide their ways through life.
The last approach here, is education through the happenings around in the immediate environment of the children. This is by pointing children the repercussion in a given behaviour so that they would know what is obtainable in the venture they are about to dabble into ,so that this will curtail them of any inkling into thinking that they will go the way of the other people who are of adverse behaviour in the society.
If the repercussion is in the public glare, the children will be taken to where it is so that that will discourage them from pertaking in it. And if the victim is far away from where the children and their guardians are living, the newspaper that carried the news with the pictures of the victim will be bought and shown to them.
All the approaches explained above are geared towards the good of the children. In Islamic manners of rearing a child, it is believed that the good of the society is invariably in the good of the family. It follows that, when the family is good, the society at large will be good for the products of the family are the users of the society.
In the meantime, if the parents and guardians are alive to their primary responsibility by spending quality times with their children and wards, it is believed that the efforts of the government and that of her employees such as teachers and tutors in the elementary, middle and higher schools will complement their own, and children will turn out to be the cynosure of all eyes in future but if the parents are derelict in their responsibility and rely only on the secondary teachers of the children, children may turn out to be eyesores to her primary teachers, who are the mothers and their society.