Children, according to Islam, are entitled to various rights. The
first and foremost of these rights is the right to be properly brought up,
raised and educated. This means that children should be given suitable,
sufficient, sound and adequate religious, ethical and moral guidance to last
them for their entire lives. They should be engraved with true values, the
meaning of right and wrong, true and false, correct and incorrect, appropriate
and inappropriate and so forth and so on. Allah, the Almighty stated in the
Glorious Qur’an:
"O ye who believe! Save yourselves and your families from a
Fire whose fuel is Men and Stones." (66:6)
Allah’s Apostle, PBUH also said: "Every
one of you (people) is a shepherd. And every one is responsible for whatever
falls under his responsibility. A man is like a shepherd of his own family, and
he is responsible for them." This
Hadith is reported by both Bukhari and Muslim.
Moreover, Allah's Apostle, PBUH said in Hadiths that :
"A father gives his child nothing better than a good
education." - Hadith collected
by Tirmidhi and Al-Bayhaqi
"Be fair and just in terms
of the gifts you offer your children. If I was to give preference to any
(gender over the other) I would have preferred females over males (in terms of
giving gifts)." – A tradition of Prophet Muhammed (SAW).
"Upon
death, man's deeds will (definitely) stop except for three deeds, namely: a
continuous charitable fund, endowment or goodwill; knowledge left for people to
benefit from; and pious righteous and God-fearing child who continuously prays
Allah, the Almighty, for the soul of his parents." This Hadith is reported by Muslim.
In addition, one day a man came
to Umar ibn al-Khattab to complain of a disobedient son. So Umar had brought
the boy to him and he blamed him for his disobedience. Then the boy addressed
Umar by saying "O Commander of the faithful: Are there no rights for a boy
against his father?". Umar said "Yes". Then the boy said
"What are these rights O Commander of the Faithful?" Umar said,
"To choose a good mother for him, to select a good name to him and to
teach him the Quran" Then the boy said: "O Commander of the faithful;
my father has not accomplished any of these rights. As for my mother, she was a
black slave for a Magian; As for my name, he has named me Jual (beetle); and he
has not taught me even one letter from the Quran". Then Umar turned round
to the man and said "You came to me complaining disobedience on the part
of your son, whereas you have not given him his rights. So you have made
mistakes against him before he has made mistakes against you".
Children, therefore are a trust given to the parents. Parents will
be responsible for this trust on the Day of Judgement. Parents are essentially
responsible for the moral, ethical and the basic and essential religious
teachings of their children. If parents fulfill this responsibility, they will be free of the
consequences on the Day of Judgement. The children will become better citizens
and a pleasure to the eyes of their parents, first in this life, and in the
hereafter.
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