Dr Adekunle Mikail
Most problems of life do not need sophisticated processes or adept manoeuvres before they can be unraveled. Some mountain-like ordeals encountered by man in his Odyssey here required not cutting-edge skills nor scientific know-how for their solutions. They just required a few rectitude here and there for straightening their crookedness.
Starting from the time a man is planning to build his family in Islam, he is enjoined to bar crookedness which can push him into debauchery and which in turn can destroy the fabric of his family, society and the international community at large!
The purity and fidelity of a family, is believed in Islam to determine the purity of a society which still goes on to say the kind of a nation or country one will dwell in. This is the reason the building blocs of a family from the scratch should not be sand, stone , iron and cement alone but honesty, trustworthiness and righteousness.
This is also the reason why righteousness should be the focus of every groom in his bride he wishes to marry and every bride in his groom she wishes to spend the rest of her life with ! As good as financial capability is, as one of the four capabilities a man should fulfil viz ; moral, financial, health and and social capabilities ; when he is about to enter the marital contract, the would-be, bride will do good to herself by first of all considering moral capability before she goes for any of the afore listed capabilities.
This is so as the financial wellness of the family can dwindle in the ensuing years; its sound health can degenerate, while the economic realities may push the family to abandon a social interest it might have in the beginning. Only the moral capability, if formidably built from the beginning will remain for life with its owner if well nurtured and kept.
This is the rationale behind the prophet’s advice to the family of the bride that ”whenever a morally-laden man approaches your family to seek the hands of your daughter in marriage, you should endeavour to kowtow to his wish for if you refuse, commotion and immorality will envelope the land”
If the bride family insists to marry their daughter only to the financially capable hands; when they refuse to see the whole picture of godliness and goodness in a young man who is in possession of high moral but little money, marriage may become an article of ostentation where every would-be groom will strive by all means available to him to earn a substantial material thing which he can use to lure a woman into marriage. The end of such a union can be imagined!
Not only the woman and her family are warned from looking for material peculiarities only in her husband and their in-law respectively, when searching for husband, but the man himself has also be commanded to ”be wary of where he puts his sweats (semens) for sweats do become dominant” , I.e semens also do resemble who emit them!
In the same vein, when the child is growing, he is to be raised in the cubicle of righteousness blended with truth psychology and the love of others. In the words of a moral poet of Arabian, he says that ” it is through righteousness that you reach the height you desired and with it what is difficult becomes easier!”
As life is not like a candy you munch easily as you want, one is bound to encounter one difficulty or the others while growing up ,this is the justification for making righteousness the pillar of a child’s wisdom. It is righteousness that will restrain him from lying or engaging in corrupt acts as ways out of difficult situations. It is also what is lacking in today’s youths which predispose them into cutting corners in climbing the ladder of success.
It is the deficiency of righteousness and truth psychology which has put paid to the love of easy money, examination racketeering, deploying of substandard materials in the construction of public utilities and wanton love of leadership positions without possessing the required requisites for them.
Above all, lack of the love of others or putting others into considerations in our domestic and public doings has compounded our woes. Respect for constituted authority, care for one’s parents, kindness to the old and the young, helping the poor and being one’s brother’s keeper are commendable acts which are rare to come by in our society these days.
While the morally suffused nations are prosperous in every field of human endeavor despite their less religiosity , ours who is religiously suffused is dwindling in every fortune that is known with religious nation like ours !. Our religiosity instead of buying peace of mind and security of life for us, has been our nemesis for it lacks morality, the father of righteousness and righteousness which exalts a nation!
Morality in religiosity will raise the bar of growth and development of a society no doubt but religiosity without morality amounts to worshipping God without first of all believing in Him . It is also a similitude of a tree without fruits. It is a motion without movement and a prayer without ablution!
This is a rationalization of saner communities and countries for not preaching righteousness, trustworthiness and love of others alone but for their demonstration of these virtues . Since preaching morality is good but its demonstration is better while acting it is the best ! Saner climes of the world all over make sure that they demonstrate and act the morals they want their children to grow into in the future to them at their formative years.
It is the wisdom behind the prophet’s prayer to God to ” bless a man that help, aid and support his children on the morals and goodness he want them to be known for in future” from when they are growing! The belief of the prophet ( salla-llahu alehi wasalam), in inculcating morals and in aiding children to act them from their teething stage, is that if morals are instilled in their souls from when they are about to be formed, nothing will dissuade them from exemplifying them when they are grown into adults. And for the prophet’s knowledge that if morals are properly ingrained in the consciousness of the young people’s minds, a lot of the life’s problems will be solved without much ado for it is a long- age truism that if wealth is lost ,nothing is lost but if morality is lost, everything is lost!
Aliyah Bint Sharek Ibn Abdul-Rahman al-Azdiyyah And Her Son ,Imam Malik’ s Examples Of Righteousness Inculcated From The Cradle
************************************
That Imam Malik became a mountain taller than many other scholars in Islamic knowledge and jurisprudence and that he came to be known and nicknamed as the ”imam of Darul-Hijrah, I.e the Leader of the country of the prophet ‘s migration , are not a surprise to the discern among the people of knowledge all over the world. The plant; Imam Malik, had been watered perfectly by no other person than his mother, Aliyah Bint Sharek Ibn Abdul-Rahman al-Azdiyyah ,who had nurtured her son with moral and the love of knowledge since his formative years.
There is a famous story about Malik and his mother, which Malik originally told to his nephew. Imam Malik said:
” I asked my mother : ” should I go out and start writing lessons?” She replied:” come here and put on a scholar’s clothes. Then go out and write”
”She took me and dressed me in an elaborate outfit, and she put a long piece of cloth on my head and wound a turban around it. Then she said: Now you go out and write”.
”She would always dress me with a turban and say : ” go to Rabi’ah and learn from him his good manner , even more than his knowledge”.
And when grew up, whenever he prepared to give a lesson on the prophet’s Hadith, he would first perform ritual ablution as if for prayer. Then he would put on his best clothes and hat and comb his head. If anyone criticized him for this behaviour, he would say:” The dignity of the prophet’s Hadith demands it”
We can see Maliki’s devotion to knowledge and morality thereafter. He never took a day off from learning from his teachers who are said to be nine hundred in number; three hundred among them are followers of the companions of the prophet salla-llahu alehi wasalam, include Nafi’ who had been the ward of the famous companion of ‘Abdullah Bn ‘Umar!.
He would study even on the days of ‘Id. Indeed, he would wait for the ‘Id because he knew that no one else would be competing with him on that day for the attention of one of Madinah’s scholars , particularly Ibn Shihab Al-Zuhri. Malik would later recall one of these ‘id day lessons as follows:
” I attended the ‘id prayer . Afterwards I said to myself :” So I immediately went from the prayer area to sit by his door. I heard him ask his servant girl: ” look to see who is at the door.”
” She told him, it is that white- skinned associate of yours, Malik”. He said: let him in. ” So I came inside, and then he said to me :” it doesn’t seem like you even had a chance to go to your house before coming here ” I told him that he was right ”. He asked :” have you eaten” I said no”. He said ” then eat something” I said ” That is not what I need” Then what is it that you want?” , he asked. ” I want you to relate knowledge to me” come here then”
” I took out my copy boards and he related forty hadith to me. I asked him to relate more but he said:” forty is enough for you to relate, for you to commit to memory”
” I said: ” Indeed I already related them”. He then took the copy boards from my hands and said:” relate then ”. I related then all to him. Then he returned the copy boards to me and said :” come with me, for you are one of the vessels of knowledge!”