Ismail Kamdar – Child Education in Islam
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AI: Transcript ©
Assalamu aleikum wa rahmatullah warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
Al hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa Salatu was salam wa rahmatullahi aalameen dia de nobilia, San elijo Miki
indeed are crazy God, Allah subhana wa Taala.
And we ask Allah to send his peace and blessings upon the mercy to this universe, the final messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam,
and to all those who follow His righteousness until the last day.
The topic I have chosen for discussing in this session is the issue of child education in Islam, its importance, and how we can go about in doing it.
If you look at the oma Today, many of the children and the young Muslims are running away from Islam.
And they do not want to attend the Islamic schools. They do not want to attend Islamic lectures and workshops, they do not want to go to the madrasa and the Islamic Institute's.
And this should raise a question in our head as to why why don't the children want to study Islam.
What
it means is children, they want to study Islam, they want to, but our approach to teaching many times is wrong.
To open, our approach to teaching children is one of rigidity, and harshness, and
always condemning them, and declaring things to be heard.
And it's also one of blind following, where the students are not allowed to ask questions, they are not allowed to express the views and the doubts. And all of this will chase the youngster away.
And so if we want to attract children back to our historic Institute's, we need to change our methodology of presenting Islam to them.
Now, if your content is authentic, is no need to change the content. But the way your content is presented, the type of teacher that presents it, this might need to be changed. If the call if the presentation is chasing the youngsters away from Islam,
this is a very important topic. Because if we want to see a global Islamic revival of the current understanding of Islam,
then we need to reach out to the younger generation. And we need to educate our children and raise the upon tauheed, to raise them upon karasuma to raise them upon the correct understanding of Islam.
If we don't do this, then we will see another Lost Generation.
How do we do this? Well, there are two types of people who play a very important role in this education. The first is the parent and the second is the teacher. And I think the first is the period. Because the first mistake too many parents make is that they leave the children's Islamic education to the teachers. And they will think they don't need to play any role. Rather, the parents play the primary role in shaping the children's Islamic understanding. Because the child spends his first five or six years of his life completely in the company of his parents, to watch every move that the parent makes the follow everything that the parents to images of speech is that of the
appearance. And so if the parents are not practicing Muslims, they should not expect the children to be through as well.
Even after that when the child starts school, if you put him in an Islamic environment in an Islamic school,
environment is not Islamic, what will happen, that child will go to school and see something he will come home and see the opposite. He will number one lose respect for his parents. And number two, he will become confused and many times he will decide not to
practicing Islam
as soon as appearance plays a primary role in shaping the children's understanding of Islam.
After the appearance comes the teachers
and it is very important to choose the teachers of your children carefully.
You should find people in your community who are not just knowledgeable about the deen.
But number one, they should be practicing Muslims, the knowledge should be authentic should be number two. And number three, they should be able to connect with the young Muslims. They should be such people who when the youngsters see them, they want to be like them. Their hearts Connect, they look up to such people. These are the individuals who you should send your children to to study Islam.
And this is the way of the early generations that parents would share should send the children to disclose who their children look up to,
as the new district have the biggest impact on the child's understanding and practice of Islam.
If we look at the early generation of parents
in mind, Mr. Malik Rahim Allah
before he was Mr. balik, he was a little boy by the name of Moloch. Indianness and his mother and father were both from a scholarly background.
And they wanted the children to become scholars. So Mr. Murray's elder brother used to spend a lot of time studying Islam. But even Mali he was a youngster as a child more interested in songs in singing, and in playing with pigeons.
And his parents were very worried about him.
So what did these parents do? They say no, is a child let him do as he pleases? when he grows older, maybe we'll talk to him about being a good Muslim. No, they did not. His father called him and his brother together and gave them a little quiz about Islam.
And his brother was able to answer questions more than he was. So all his father told him was the pigeons have distracted you.
That's what he told him. He wasn't harsh to him. He wasn't mean to him. He just trolling the pigeons have distracted you.
But this hit him on Malik's heart. And he immediately realize that he's wasting time and he needs to spend more time studying Islam. He was a child at this time he wasn't. It wasn't even a teenager yet. He was still a child.
He did in another generation is mentioned he told his mother that
I want to be a singer.
His mother, in order to discourage him from becoming a singer told him that you don't have the looks to be a singer.
A very handsome man. But his mother told him this to discourage him from becoming a singer. So now the singing aspect was discouraged. And the aspect of playing all the time was discouraged. Mr. Malik, now himself, made up his mind to study Islam. Look at the methodology of his parents. They weren't harsh. They never forced him to study Islam. In either beating,
the number condemning
or to the wisdom, they try to indicate to him that they wanted him to study Islam.
And so Mr. Malik Rahim, Allah began his studies of Islam. When he began the study of Islam. It was his parents who chose his primary teachers. It was his mother who chooses teachers. And his mother told him to go to Southern teachers. And he told me she told you to study the character. Before he studies the epic. As to she would dress him up and tie established for him as a young boy as a child, and send him off to the circles of knowledge to study Islam. And it was because of parents like that, that this youngster became Mr. Malik Rahim Allah. That's the kind of parent we need to be. That's the kind of parent that will create and shape a new generation of Islamic scholarship.
mmamoloko not the only one to have such a mother. Even a sharpie Rahim Allah. He was often at a young age. His father passed away when he was a child. And he was living in Gaza. But his mother, now a single mother came to Makkah, and she moved from Gaza to Makkah for what reason? So her son can study Islam.
And when they wish,
they did not have enough money to pay the Islamic teachers. But she wanted her son to study Islam. She made a deal with the teacher. That Sharpie would serve the teacher and do some of the work for him. In exchange for him teaching for teaching a sharpie
Obviously I just tell you without knowing that the mama Sharpie with a child, by the name of Muhammad,
so this young child Mohamad,
he showed great intellect, and he memorized the Quran in a very short period of time.
And he even memorized the motto of Mr. Malik by the age of nine.
And his teachers recognized his potential, and his mother recognized his potential. And now he said that he wants to move to Medina to study under Mr. Malik
is still a child. But because of the training his mother had given him, and the environment, he put him in, he was looking for the best of teachers so he can study Islam.
And so they moved to Medina, and he began studying under Mr. Malik, while he was still a child. And he became a mama Shafi Rahim Allah.
People played a very important role in that. Number one was his mother, and the good parenting that she had given him. Number two was the teachers that were chosen for him, the teacher that his mother chose in Makkah, and the teacher that he chose for himself in family.
So for the younger generation, to gain a clearer understanding of Islam, it is really important that the appearance for your primary role, and that the teachers are people of high upstanding character, and also that they are people who have the correct knowledge and who the children can look up to and want to be like.
Likewise, Mr. Bahari, his mother played a very important role in his life,
in Makuhari,
at one point in time as a child, he was blinded, he could not see any longer, but his mother would cry at night and make to offer him until ally granted him a miracle. In a dream, she had seen that his eyesight was restored. And when she woke up, and when he woke up, indeed, in Malibu, Holly as a child, his eyesight was restored, not just restored. But he saw to such a level, that even at night, he did not need lights, he could read under the moonlight.
This was the table I said, Allah has given him this was a miracle from Allah, given to him, because of a righteous mother, a righteous mother, who was concerned about her son,
to the parents out there. If you want your child to be a good Muslim, you need to be a role model, you need to be a good Muslim you need to make to offer them because the dwarf parents always accepted, you need to mold them and shape them the right direction, without being harsh, without being mean, without being judgmental. But to show them the right way, like how our body experienced it, and to guide them onto the correct way of studying Islam. And then we come to the teachers.
Nowadays, there are many Muslim schools, who do not have a syllabus.
In terms of goals, they may have a syllabus of study for grade one, grade two, grade three, grade four, but there's no glue at the end of the day away, they want the children to reach what must is knowledge taken towards? in many of these schools, Islamic Studies is being taught just as a subject like every other subject. And so the students studied to pass the examination. And when the examination is over, they have forgotten what they have studied.
Because the higher purpose is not there.
Those of you who are running schools, or teaching in schools, or who are in charge of the curriculum of schools, you need to work out your goals. What do we want to accomplish with the children who are being sent to our school?
What level of Islam and Eman Do we want them to have at the end of the road. And accordingly, you need to set your syllabus. If you want students who have to create Akira. Akira must be taught in the syllabus. If you want students to have collect a quality character, then the teachers need to have good character at all times. And the students need to be taught this in a structured manner. Because many schools always tell the students have good o'clock have good character have other
but how and the methodology is not taught. I mean your time is not even shown by the teachers themselves.
I have been to schools where even the Islamic Studies character teachers had such character that they used words I cannot see you on video.
And the solution is teachers would sit outside to the students and smoke cigarettes and they would use vulgar
Language and students are the school without much better. And when you try speaking to the students to become good Muslims, what would they say? But our Shere Khan Medina also does this
show to do the few who are teachers in Islamic schools realized your responsibility.
You are the role model to the students. If you are smoking cigarettes, which is completely prohibited, if you study the evidences. I know some people say they're not true, but the evidence is indicated it is prohibited. Even if you don't accrue, an Islamic Studies teacher should not do so.
Because you represent the deen.
So you need to realize your responsibility. As a teacher of Islam. People watch our every move.
They learn more from what we do than for what we say.
And we need to be role models to our students. We need to be careful what we speak to them about the type of language that we use, and the type of things we do with them. Because we are representing the deen and we want them to see to see a clean and clear concept of the deen so that when they look at us, they want to be good Muslims.
many youngsters have said that the thing that chased them away from Islam is that the Islamic studies teachers are not role models. The teacher will teach them one thing in school and practice something else. And the students will look at it as hypocrisy. And they will see that the my teacher is like this.
What kind of religion is this?
what hope do I will be a good Muslim. So teachers primarily need to become the role models, just like parents, the teachers need to become the role models. So whatever position you have any summer school, don't take it lightly. increase your knowledge of the dean increase your practice of the dean, and be a role model to your students.
Now, when it comes to the syllabus,
what should Muslims focus on an Islamic syllabus?
I feel there are six things in every Islamic syllabus needs to have. Number one, it needs to promote the correct inauthentic aqeedah of Islam.
Every school, every madrasa, every institute that is teaching Islam to youngsters and teenagers and children needs to promote the correct understanding the correct aqeedah of Islam.
And in order to do this, we need to have the correct aqeedah ourselves. So books need to be developed according to the level of the students. Obviously, if you are teaching grade one and grade two, you cannot teach them how we need to
get hold of books that are on their level. And if that would not exist, somebody needs to take up the initiative to write such books aqeedah for grade one student aqeedah for 10 year olds, right according to the labels, such books need to come in to come into play, we need to have them in our Institute's books of aqeedah according to the age group and level understanding of the students.
So number one, our priority should be aqeedah.
Secondly,
we need to focus a lot on o'clock and adapt on the character and values of the students.
This should be taught in various ways. Number one, by the teachers themselves being good Muslims ensuring Good luck at all times. Number two, having a structured syllabus about it was practical more than the examples.
And number three, to take the students out into public places and to show them the impact of good character that when you are interacting with people with good character, how it brings people closer to you give them a practical reason to have good character. It shouldn't just be that you need to have a clock for the sake of having a clock or you need to have a clock because Islam says oh no, a clock and other checks people's hearts towards you. When you have good character, people want to be like you.
People want to know you. People want to be in your company. This needs to be taught to the students. So they are doing it ritually not studying in ritually, but they know this is something which will benefit them in both worlds. And so now they will absorb the information that
the third thing that needs to be taken into consideration or teaching students in schools is that they need to be taught the correct approach to
meaning the type of students are taught in school should not be one of rigidity and blind following that this is the opinion of all must help. There's no way any other opinion can be like you have to follow this. Or this is the opinion of the teacher and you have to follow what the teacher says rather students
Need to overtime be taught how to deal with big issues. They need to be taught that they are differences of opinion. This is the opinion that we are teaching and we follow. But you need to be able to respect authority people have other opinions. Too often the schools, a focus on the opinions in such a way that the students now become harsh, at times even violent to those who have a different understanding.
And as I have mentioned in a separate lecture, this is not the correct approach to fake. Students need to be taught tolerance, they need to be taught mercy, they need to be taught how to deal with big issues, they need to be done right. When it comes to figures, not just enough to teach them the rituals and the halogen harems. Students need to be taught Why? To give you the practical implementation in their life? Why do we pray? Why do we fast? Why should we help with a clock? Why are the laws all of this is found in the books of Islam?
It might not be available in the textbooks used in school. If it is a new life, it is not as somebody again needs to take up the initiative to write such books. But this needs to be taught to the students from the perspective of why.
Number four students of Islamic schools need to be taught education of this world as well. There are many standing Institute's who believe that this worldly knowledge the waste of time, they believe that studying mathematics and science and algebra and Business Economics is not beneficial and surely try to focus on the students only learning Islamic knowledge.
The problem with this is that your child is now unable to fend for himself in the world. He is unable to contribute to society, he's unable to take it to the next level. Because the oma as a whole is in need of righteous doctors and engineers and media men and IT specialists in every field you can think of we are in need of people in each of these fields are righteous and have the correct Akita.
We need them if you want to revive the oma, if you want to reach a level with the oma is now independent. And we have people in every field. This can't be done if you are stopping children from studying the dunya knowledge. They need to be taught to knowledge of this world. But from an Islamic perspective.
They need to be taught English, but in Islamic manner. They need to be taught Business Economics. But Islam is manner how, for example, in Business Economics, the issue of interest comes in the issue of mortgages comes in, the issues of instruments comes in and each of these things that shouldn't need to be taught the Islamic perspective as well. So this knowledge should not be ignored, but it should be taught in an Islamic manner. So what we produce a generation of Muslims, who are specialists in every field, choose to get into, but there are righteous practicing Muslims, and they are now shaping their field and moving it into a hologram.
It is only because we lack Muslims who are righteous and involved in Business Economics, to a large extent that the oma has fallen into a state where we have to rely on banks to deal with interest, but hamdulillah in previous generations, we now find Muslims who have studied these issues. They studied finance, they've studied business, they have studied banking, and they have studied Islam, they have studied the correct aqeedah and approach to fic. And now we have Islamic banking systems, Islamic investments, Islamic insurance all coming about because we have had people study these fields. If you stop children from studying these fields, what will happen, Omar will not progress at
all. So just as it is important to teach them to pick an either it is equally important to teach them the worldly knowledge and we can help them to progress.
The first area where the studies of Islamic education need to focus on is the Quran. And yet the various aspects of the Quran. The students need to be taught that you need proper pronunciation of the letters of the Quran. And the various touch with laws
in every student should become accardi. It doesn't mean every student should be taught the various different recitations but the basic that you need so that they do not make mistakes in the Salah. This should be taught to every student.
With the jury they should be called Arabic.
Arabic is a must for any institute that calls themselves an Islamic school. One Islamic madrasa. A lot of emphasis must be placed in Arabic
to devise the language of the sooner the language of the Quran. This needs to be done.
What will happen once your students have gained a good level and a good understanding of Arabic, then now they will be able to understand the Quran better.
Which takes me to the third level that the Quran in school should not just be taught for the Dewey and memorization. Both of these are important, but also from the perspective of understanding. Whenever students are taught to the students in school, they need to learn the property to read, they need to learn and memorize the surah. With that they need to understand what is the sutra mean? How does it impact my life, and what lessons can take from it. All of this is equally important. So the Quran needs to be taught from all these angles.
When it comes to Arabic, unfortunately, I have seen many Muslim schools, they don't teach Arabic. And I've seen Muslim schools that teach Arabic, but in such a manner that is taught in a beauty, by the way, kind of manner, that we just teaching it for the sake of teaching Arabic, and the amount of Arabic They teach the students in 10 years in the school, literally do the first who study Islam. in universities, we've studied the same amount of Arabic in one year.
So the syllabus is not effective.
It's not done to the best of the students potential.
We need to develop or get hold of those syllabus which are more in keeping with the potential of the students so that by the time they finish school, they should have a firm grasp on the language or at least a decent grasp of the language. In many attempts to find it by time the students finish school is literally only know about 20 or 30 words in Arabic.
And this, if they've been taught Arabic for 10 years in school, this is wrong. This means there's something wrong with our methodology. So Arabic teachers need to find the most effective methodology and syllabus for teaching Arabic so that they can get the most out of this class. It should not just be taught for the sake of teaching it. But at once again, higher purpose higher goals must be there.
And finally, be focused on aqeedah. luck, o'clock, pick Koran, and worldly knowledge. The other area that must be focused on is how these students need to be taught how do they need to be taught, number one, the importance of IDs. And
in order to stop them from being misled by the modernists and the other groups like the Quran, you we need to teach them why this is important, how it was preserved. And the various arguments raised by these groups need to be answered so that students of Islamic schools and institutes understand very well, that Hadees is one of our primary sources of Islamic law. It is a source of Revelation. And it is something which we cannot ignore. This needs to be taught to the students, they need to be taught Hadees from a perspective of understanding those ideas that are important to them, and memorizing the ideas in Arabic as well. So perhaps Heidi's books taking on those 40 Hadees. These
type of books should be taught to the students, you should memorize the Hadees understand them, and be told to practice them in their lives. So these are six fields that need to be focused on in any Islamic Institute, in their children, or teenagers or young Muslims.
Obviously, this is not the only things we should focus on. They should be they are the areas of Islam.
But I feel that if we do this much if we at least focus on these six things, we will at least within produce well rounded Muslim youth will be able to lead the next generation forward as practicing Muslims.
There are various resources that are available for parents you will find that hamdulillah in recent times, many forms of Islamic media have been produced for children. So you can get hold of for example, one Islam productions that produces Yaki cartoons, per Valley has produced some videos for children psdb s some t television programs for children.
There are many resources out there. If you go out and search you'll find many of these resources which are entertaining. But if you're feeding at the same time, and you'll find for your youngest children, these can be the primary source of learning Islam. Likewise, there are many Islamic books for children so in bookshops, parents should get hold of them into at night. sylvanian storybooks like the terrier Riding Hood Cinderella, we should read for their stories from the Quran stories from the ideas they have. There are many books published, showing the stories in a way that is simple for students, for children to understand and to benefit from to get hold of these children
books and teach them to your children. for teachers in schools, there are many different syllabus being produced. We have for example in English to teach the students English is the mind reading series by Dr. Bilal Philips we have when it comes to Islamic studies.
Delta publications has published an Islamic Studies syllabus by Maulvi Abdul Aziz. And iph has published a high school syllabus on Islamic studies by Dr. abominable Phillips, to these are being developed.
These are good starting points. And you will find that they might deal with certain grades, or we're certain of the issue that I have discussed. But not everything. there's still room for expansion is, For more, we still need to develop Islamic syllabus for schools, when it comes to business, economics and social studies, these various issues, we still need to develop these resources when it comes to other grades that might not be covered in the syllabus. So there is room for expansion, you can get hold of these resources, but we should try and develop according to our place and time, resources that are not suitable. Sometimes, for example, what syllabus might be produced for Saudi
Arabia, while different things need to be taught in USA or in the UK in certain issues. So accordingly, the syllabus will be modified. So this is something that should be an ongoing thing amongst teachers. We shouldn't students and teachers, that we continue to develop our syllabus, revise them, and improve upon them over time.
We should not just become stagnant and feel that we have Islamic Studies in our school. We have Arabic in our school, that's enough that the teachers teach it and carry on with life. No, the syllabus will be continued continuously revised, continuously reassessed and built upon and improved. This will keep this field alive. And
again, the teachers and parents need to realize the importance of the role they play in the lives of the children, we need to be role models, we need to be educated ourselves, and we need to be able to lead the next generation forward. So with that, I would like to conclude an update Allah subhana wa Taala that he makes each and every one of us
rightly guided and a means of guidance for others, and he makes our generation the next generation, a source of revival for the ummah. Through education, we can revive the nation.
We ask Allah subhanaw taala to add this skill of good deeds on the last day, Baka da Juana and hamdulillah alameen wa Salam alaykum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh