Umm Jamaal ud-Din – Raising Children of the Quran
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
We'll now move on to our first guest
speaker,
a sheikha Jamaluddin,
who is,
a sheikha in the community who has engaged
the sciences of the Quran for many years.
She's an example for for someone that who
despite not being born into a Muslim family,
she found Islam but also the time to
memorize the entire Quran and dedicate herself to
it and to raise a family of children
who did the same.
Thank you.
First of all, my dear sisters and brothers,
I wanted to first of all thank the
organizers of tonight,
for inviting me here to speak to you
inshallah
and I just wanna also take this opportunity
to ask Allah
to shower his mercy upon
the beloved father of
sheikh Yasir and his brother and
subhanAllah,
he is so blessed,
you know, to leave this life
with, you know, with the legacy of the
likes of, you know, Sheikhi Assur and his
brother,
to make dua for him insha'Allah.
You know, and this is what we all
hope for.
So dearest sisters and brothers,
one of the reasons that I was particularly
grateful to speak to you tonight
is, you know, I've attended many ceremonies for
the Quran over the years,
and so many times the ones who are
asked to come up and speak, you know,
it's usually the hofahed themselves
or it's the teachers,
but I've rarely seen parents,
you know, being asked to come up on
the stage.
And
that's why I'm particularly grateful to be here
tonight, Insha'Allah, to
just, you know, share a bit of the
perspective
of a parent raising hafaz,
Bismillah,
and and to share share some tips with
you on how we can keep our children
motivated
on this path.
Now just a very brief background because we
have very little time.
You know, a brief background about myself as
a parent.
Alhamdulillah, I'm a mother of 5 children
and I'm extremely blessed to have had all
my children, alhamdulillah, complete memorizing the Quran.
Now
some of my children, like the the 3
oldest ones in particular,
they did that more or less
through, you know, us establishing
a focused routine of memorization
from when they were young. Right? So we've
got them because you know, as much as
you any mothers here or even fathers will
know,
When you've got your first couple of children,
it's a lot easier to do a lot
more with them.
So we got them in that routine from
when they were small and then by
the time they were teenagers,
they 1 by 1 were able to finish
memorizing.
With my last two children,
what happened was that they
they pretty much
when they, you know, they pretty much followed
on, we didn't establish that routine,
but both my husband and I were pretty
tired by then. So what actually happened was
that they
after the help of Allah went on to
complete memorizing the Quran on their own. They
took the initiative
and were very determined to finish the Quran
on their own.
So I've got a few tips for you,
just got 3 tips really to share with
you tonight.
The first one is, this is what we're
looking at, how to keep our children
focused and
motivated.
The first one is really to examine your
why you want your child to memorize the
Quran. I think this is really, really important.
Sometimes
you can get caught up in the idea
of, you know,
your kids memorizing in order to bring some
sort of honor or prestige to your family
for example, right?
So
for myself,
what was the primary reason for why I
wanted my children to memorize the Quran?
I just wanted the Quran to be in
their heart in order to help them, you
know, in order to help protect them from
the fitna of this life. You know when
I saw my young innocent children,
and I was thinking about all that they're
gonna be exposed to from the fitna of
this world, right,
I just wanted to fill their
their,
heart with the Quran in order to sort
of be a major protector inshallah from that
fitna.
And I truly believe that if the Quran
was in their heart
then it would be it would strengthen them
from within and keep them steadfast upon the
Surat and Mustaqim insha'Allah.
As Allahu Ta'ala says
says in the Quran, Right? Allah tells us
that this Quran
guides to everything that is upright.
Upright
in your beliefs,
upright in your character, upright in your actions,
right?
The other thing too was that as a
revert myself, you know, as an Australian revert
to Islam,
and not having been brought up
with, you know, with Arabic at all, right?
Not coming from an Arabic background
and never being exposed to the Quran from
when I was young even, right?
And then going on to learn the quran
myself and then going on to even memorize
the quran myself alhamdulillah.
I knew how hard it was as an
adult. It's so much harder. Like anyone who's
tried to memorize the Quran as an adult,
you could you know the struggle that that
is there and how long it's gonna take
you to memorize the Quran. Right? Then just
imagine if you don't have Arabic,
just imagine if you never even heard the
Quran when you're young. So that that's gonna
all have an impact on your struggles. Right?
So I, myself, did not want that for
my children. I wanted
my children
to, you know, grow up with the Quran
in their hearts so that all they have
to do as an adult is just spend
the rest of their lives revising the Quran.
Alright? So that was my primary focus.
So the second point the second point now
for how to motivate your children, inshallah,
is focus
on the benefit of the journey more than
the outcome.
Okay? So focus on the
benefit benefit of the journey more than the
outcome.
As you may be aware, and it could
be even yourself,
a lot of parents
are in a big hurry to have their
children memorise. You know, they want their child
to memorise by 7 or 8 or 9,
you know.
But what's far more important, my dear sisters
and brothers,
is to build a genuine love in your
child's heart for the Quran. That is far
more important than your child finishing early.
Alright?
The idea, the main idea you should have
in your mind
is you want your child to grow up
loving the Quran and not wanting to ever
be away from revising and reciting it.
Right? Due to the habit that you established
with them for when they were small
and also due to the strong emotional attachment
that, alhamdulillah, you've tried to, you know, build
for them between them and and the book
of Allah.
Now, you know, my my husband and I,
we tried our best to make our household
one in which the Quran was central to
our family
and you know, a house in which the
Quran was made a priority.
Right? The Quran, where we try to get
the children for example to memorize the Quran
first thing after they have had their breakfast
and stuff like that, they do it first
thing so then they can just spend the
rest of their day doing what they wanna
do. Right?
The other thing that's I feel is very
important is the children going up hearing their
own parents reciting the Quran. Like if your
children go up and they they're being exposed
to their their own parents, their own mother,
their own father,
hearing their voices in, you know, reciting the
Quran in their house,
then this is something that
gives them a great love for the Quran
insha'Allah.
And also obviously we tried our best to
be from those who not only recite the
Quran,
but we try to we, you know, we
strive to try to live by the Quran
and live up to the Quran.
And that's very paramone paramount because as you
know, one of the things that can cause
someone to have
like, have some doubts, you know, about their
path with the Quran later on is if
there's contradictions,
you know, between the family life and them
memorizing the Quran. This is something we do
we definitely don't want for our kids, right?
And the other thing obviously as well
is
you have to make this path something enjoyable
for your child too. Like, yes, there's a
bit of time of doing a bit of
seriousness,
but then you have to also give them
reward for that. You know, you let you
need to let
them, you know, get something, you know, of,
that that they enjoy after they've done done
their memorization.
Right? And give them different rewards
throughout their journey with the Quran.
The last thing I wanna say is
don't give up hope with your children. You
may have a number of children, you might
find, you know, one that is easy to
he's it he finds it easy to memorize
for example.
And you have another one who you feel
like, is this kid ever gonna memorize anything
from the Quran, right? So I just wanna
say don't give up on your children,
keep on making dua for your children, inshallah,
and remind yourself that, you know, your children
have different abilities, they have different temperaments.
Like I can tell you the story, this
is to be to me this was a
mind blowing personal experience that I had.
Like,
as I said I had, you know, worked,
you know, to try
to bring my first three children up, you
know, with the Quran.
But then and then my daughter was
just
she was just herself
really motivated so she was a lot easier
to help her to memorize. But then came
my last
son. And this was the son that my
husband and I,
we got to the point where we just
said,
halas,
we can't do this anymore. This is just
so hard, you know, like,
and I just thought, you know what? I
made duat for this child,
and I have, you know, I've I've set
that foundation for him as much as I
could as a young child, so insha'Allah,
I hope that bi'idnila as an adult, you
know, he will by himself come back to
it and keep memorizing.
Then what happened,
this was just
I can't even get over it until now.
During COVID, we had the lockdown.
And by himself, of course, it's all from
the guidance of Allah, right,
but by himself, during the COVID lockdown,
he secretly went and began
diligently
memorizing the Quran, like he's 15,
and he went diligently
memorizing the Quran on his own. Took him
about 3 months.
And then we was gathered in the holidays,
we were gathered and he just said everyone
sit down, I wanna tell you something.
And he just said,
alhamdulillah min fodillah, I have finished memorizing the
Quran.
And we were just like, honestly, I can't
explain, it was like a dream. It was
like an absolute dream for me. I was
like, this can't be true. This child of
all children actually
actually did this, you know.
And,
that was it was just something phenomenal for
me and, you know, for for my family,
I ask Allah to give you that sweetness
inshallah in your own lives, be it in
Allah.
But I just wanna quickly share with you
what he what he told me, because like
a teenage boy, you know, it's not that
easy for them to do something like that.
But
I asked him, what was the main thing
that motivated you to go and do that
on your own, right? He said number 1,
it was reading the epigraphies
of our scholars of Islam
and thinking about how much they made use
of their time and how much they achieved.
And the other thing he told me is
he kept on imagining himself
ascending in different levels of jannah with every
ayah that he was memorizing.
That when he kept thinking about that, that's
why made him feel like, that's it, I've
got to do this, you know?
So my final advice to everyone here tonight,
for keeping motivated with the Quran,
is to never forget that this Quran
is as Allah described
it,
This Quran
is the most honored book that's been sent
to us from Allah
due to it being the literal words of
Allah to barakatala. Right?
And that's why my dear sisters and brothers,
whoever memorizes this book with sincerity,
right? Whoever memorizes this book with sincerity,
then Allahu taqaba wa ta'ala
will cause them to be honored both in
this dunya and in the alhira.
So my dearest sisters and brothers,
in this life,
you will see how Allahu Ta'ala
will raise you in status and honor
by keeping your heart and mind focused on
Allah in the akhirah. This is how Allah
honors you in this life through this book
of Allah. Right? And in the next life,
you'll see how Allahu Ta'ala
will honor
you when you find yourself being raised
in your levels of jannah with every single
ayah that you used to you used to
recite in this dunya.
I ask allahu to
fill our hearts
and homes
with the light and love for the Quran.
I ask Allahu Ta'ala to fill our children's
hearts
with the love for the Quran and make
us from Ahlul Quran
and may the Quran be a witness for
us in your Maquiyama and not not a
witness against us.