Educating Our Children
By Bilal Philips | 2026-01-15T17:09:59.897289+00:00 | Topic: Iman
Educating Our Children
Dr. Bilal Philips
Opening
Introduction: The Right of Islamic Education
Brothers and sisters, continuing on from my previous khutbah on teaching children salah, it's the general concept of educating our children as a general principle. That it is the right of our children that they be raised, educated, Islamically.
And if we don't fulfill that right, we will be held accountable. As the Prophet had said:
Hadith on Responsibility:
(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 893)
"Each and every one of you is a shepherd, responsible for his or her flock."
So, we have to consider the education of our children as being our primary responsibility.
The Problem of Early Institutional Dumping
We are living in a time where people generally try to dump their children into educational institutions from the earliest age. And it's literally dump. We drop them off, and we pick them up.
And if we have buses, we don't even bother to drop them off. So we get rid of them as early as possible. And we feel that this is giving them a head start, because in those institutions, called kindergartens, preschool, crèches, there are different names for them.
They are taught some things, nursery rhymes, some hadith, or portions of the Quran, or words which have maybe Islamic connotations. And of course, most of us are not so concerned about whether it's Islamic or not.
It's just, you're in a Muslim country, for example, here, then you put them in and just assume everything is okay.
So even the crèche doesn't have to have an Islamic name in its title. It's just preparing them for education in the future. And actually in places like Japan, people even spend time preparing their little children, who have to do entrance examinations to get into kindergarten.
I mean, they've made it such a high-powered, pressure-filled process, that even from preschool, people are fighting to get into particular preschools, because they know in that preschool leads you to the next school, and to certain universities. So imagine that, your three-year-olds are preparing for entrance examinations into preschool. Is that where they need to be? This is the question.
The Modern Family Structure vs Traditional Child Rearing
Do they really need to be there? These preschools, etc., are products of people working as a family. The husband and wife both work outside of the home. And this is not a norm.
It's become a norm, but it's not a norm for proper family rearing. That the man is outside the home, providing, no doubt, that is a reality. But that the woman is outside also, working and providing, this is a product of this particular century that we're in.
Prior to that, it wasn't like that. Around the world, even in America, Europe, it wasn't like that. Women were at home, raising the children.
Because this is where they will get the best rearing. Because no matter how good a school may be, they cannot replace the love, the concern, that parents would show in the educational process of their own children. They may be professional, those people, but it's just a job.
The Missing Love in Professional Child Care
It's just a job. And the love that should be in the early education of the children will be missing. There are some exceptional early child rearers, who have that big heart that can handle everybody.
But mostly, for most people, it's just a job. So, our children will be missing certain key characteristics, which later on in life will come back to haunt us. Because a very important aspect of that child rearing is building a bond between yourselves and your children.
So when the children spend those early years, so much of the time away from you, they become bonded to those people that are in the preschools or a nanny. So much so that in the child's mind, they will think that the nanny is really the mother. You want to take your child and the child doesn't want to come.
The child is more attached to that teacher in the school or the nanny in the home than with the child's own mother and father. So you have to know that there is a consequence to that.
Personality Formation in Early Years
Because personality is built, according to the child psychologist, personality is built from those early years.
So if you have a personality that's being built, that is not attached to its own parents, then what do you expect later on in life? When you now are in need of care. You are in need of care. And your own children don't care.
This is happening more and more. I receive emails from people from all over the world. Parents.
Complaining about their children's lack of care for them. Busy with their own lives, don't have time for their parents. And these are Muslims.
Western Model of Family Breakdown
In the West, this was a norm. It is the norm in the West. When children grow up, they don't have anything to do with their parents.
The system there is that you kick the kids out of the home by the time they're able to, you know, fend for themselves, 15, 16, out. So when the kids grow up, they don't have any kind of care for their parents, that's normal. In fact, usually children will blame their parents for all the things that have gone wrong in their lives.
It's your fault. You didn't do this, you didn't do that, you didn't do the other. And when the parents can't take care of themselves, those who have some little bit of care, they'll just put them in an old people's home.
Just as you put them in the kindergarten and the preschool, they put you now in the old school. In the old people's home. Somebody has to look after you.
Maybe they might show up once a year to visit you. That's it. That's a norm in the West.
Islamic Teaching on Honoring Parents
But for us, who have been raised with the concept that our parents, we are supposed to love them, to serve them, to be with them, to honor them, that this is ibadah for us. So many places in the Quran where Allah talks about the fundamentals of Islam. He speaks about worshiping Allah alone and then He says:
Quran on Parents:
"And being good to your parents."
Reference: Quran 2:83
That this is a part of faith. Being good to your parents. So that has to be nurtured.
The foundations for that has to be nurtured. It's not something that will just happen automatically. It won't.
If we don't raise them with that consciousness, then we lose them. So, it is very important.
The Prophet's Guidance on Teaching Children
Remember, as we said in the previous khutbah, the Prophet told us to teach our children salah by the time they're seven.
That's 1,400 years ago. That's the time when things need to be now in a system. So they go to school, they leave your home to be taught around the age of seven.
That's the time. Prior to that, we should teach them at home. That's the proper way.
To teach them at home. Keep our children at home until finally, okay, they reach that stage, they've been given a good foundation, then we now put them into the schooling system. This is the proper way.
And this is the way to ensure that our children will be raised correctly. And they will love us when we can no longer take care of ourselves. They will be around us.
They will not want to be far away from us. Because we have built that foundation of love. I ask Allah to help us get back on the path to properly raising our children.
Dua for Parents and Children
As part of our faith, I ask Allah to help us to be conscientious in this. To take time, make the effort to raise our children correctly. I ask Allah to forgive us for our negligence in this matter.
To forgive our errors. To protect our children from the harm of our ignorance. And to forgive our parents for their negligence with regards to ourselves.
Being Righteous Parents
For us to be, as parents, conscious of this responsibility, we have to be ourselves righteous parents. If we want our children to be blessed in how they are reared, that they would be righteous children when they grow up. And
that is more important than highly educated and highly skilled.
Most important is righteous children, righteous young people, righteous adults. Then, we ourselves need to know the religion. We need to have chosen our spouses on the basis of the religion.
We need to break that cycle which has become commonplace in our countries where people are marrying for the wrong reasons. What the Prophet told us to get married for, we don't even consider. It's a last afterthought.
The Prophet had said, marry the righteous, the pious. This is an afterthought. We are more concerned with money, position, family, status and all these other things than righteousness.
Oh, she prays? He prays also? Okay, good. That's good. That's nice.
That's an afterthought.
Making Dua for Children
Also, we have to make dua for our children. The Prophet gave us duas.
There are duas in the Quran. Even before we can produce the children, he gave us dua. That when the husband and wife come together, he told us to make the dua:
Hadith - Dua Before Relations:
(Sahih al-Bukhari, Hadith 141)
"Oh Allah, keep Satan away from us. And keep Satan away from whatever you grant us from this relationship."
Whatever children, offspring that come, keep Satan away from them. How many of us actually even knew this dua? Most people, when I mention this, they say, there's dua? For non-Muslims, it's quite a something, wow.
I mean, before you have relations with your husband, make prayers? Wow, mashallah, impressive. The Prophet taught us. But, do we use it?
Being the Example for Our Children
And then, we have to be the example for our children.
Because they will follow us. We talked in the previous khutbah about the child standing up to pray, when we stand up to pray. And they do that for everything.
The girl's imitating the mom. The boy's imitating the father. It's normal.
It's natural. And we should use it in our educating and rearing the children at home. And among the best examples that we can give them, is how we as parents interact.
Avoiding Conflict in Front of Children
It's very important that when we have our differences, as husbands and wives will have differences, that we don't argue it out in front of our children. The wife is throwing the frying pan at you. Her daughter, your daughter, will do the same thing to her husband.
Or the man is angry and he's, Allah says, you can beat your wife. Beating them up. When that son grows up, he'll do the same thing to his wife.
It's a cycle. We learn from our father. Our wives learn from their mothers.
So, if we show them bad examples, then that's what we reap. As they say, you reap what you sow. So, very important for us, if we have differences, as we will, do it behind closed doors.
Discuss those things when the children are asleep. Don't let them see you, you know, all angry till you're raising your hands. Just don't let them see that.
It's not that you're hiding them from reality, no. They just don't need to see that. They will know when they grow up, when they get married, that that kind of behavior is not good.
My parents never did that. They will get angry and so and so, but the same thing they know, do it somewhere so the children don't see. We need to break that cycle.
Creating a Clean Home Environment
And, in the educational process, we have to consider the environment of the home. Since the early education, most of it is being done there in the home. So, we have to look at our home environment.
Is it a clean, pleasing environment? Would you feel proud to invite Rasulullah to come and sit in your home? Or, if he was coming, you have to cover up certain pictures you have on the wall, you have to move this away, you have to cover this and change that. You couldn't invite him in, you feel ashamed. Because you know you have all these things, whether it's radio or TV or videos or whatever, which you know are not pleasing to Allah.
So, all those things that you wouldn't want Rasulullah to see in your home if he came to visit, take them out. Take them out. You don't need them.
They are only harming you and your family. So, we need to have a clean environment. If you pour milk into a dirty glass, you get dirty milk.
It's common sense. You need to clean that glass out. You want pure milk out when you pour it? Then you need a clean glass.
Same way the home should be clean. That whatever you have in it are things which remind you of Allah, are pleasing to Allah, or are just acceptable. They may not have any religious value, etc. but they are halal. You don't feel shy about any of those things. Environment is very, very important.
Choosing Good Companions for Children
And also the children who your children play with. Because when you are doing all of that, if you are visiting your neighbors or your friends, and their children are allowed to do anything and everything, then much of what you are trying to raise them with will be undermined. So you have to choose, as you should choose your friends well, friends who remind you of Allah.
Similarly for your children, you should try to help them in finding good companions, good friends to play with, to grow up with. It's important. It doesn't mean that you isolate yourself from society.
But you control as much as you can, the environment that your children are raised in. Whether inside the home or outside the home when they socialize.
Discipline: Beyond the Stick
And also it is important that we give the children a good and consistent system of discipline.
Discipline. That the children will learn from and it will correct their behavior. We discipline them.
And usually when people hear discipline, it means the stick. We have a big stick. There is even some references that are attributed to Rasulullah that says that you should hang the stick on the wall.
So people are reminded the stick. But this is not the way of education. It might be necessary as a last resort.
It is not your primary method of education. We all know from the life of Rasulullah, he raised children. And we don't have any record of him beating his children.
So he was the best of examples. And we should consider our child rearing techniques if all we do is the stick. We come home, a wife tells us, get me the belt.
That is the first thing. And the last thing that we do. It is known in the family, the father is the man who does the punishing.
The mother will threaten the child. If you do this, I am going to tell your father, you know what is going to happen to you. This is the norm.
And men, you don't want to be really known as that. If that is what all the children know you for, you think about it. Your parents, your father, mother.
If all you can think of your father is just the beatings he used to give you. Then something is wrong. It has gone wrong.
Love Over Fear
The love takes precedence over fear. We love Allah and we fear His displeasure. The fear of His displeasure is a product of our love for Him.
It is not just pure fear. So similarly, we want that relationship to be good with our children. We need to learn.
If we don't know anything else but the belt and the stick. Then we need to learn. Go online.
Now we have online, you can go on child-rearing, discipline. Very easy. Google, they will give you all kinds of other methods that can be used for disciplining children.
Which don't require you to beat them to death.
Taking Responsibility Seriously
So, we have to take this responsibility of rearing our children seriously. They are the future of the ummah.
We are creating the future of the ummah today. We will be held responsible. We will be asked.
We will be judged. So I ask Allah to make this responsibility serious in our minds and in our hearts. For us to feel remorse, sadness about what has passed.
Because we can't change the future unless we are sad about what is wrong of the past. We ask Allah to give us the time and the energy to seek knowledge of how to raise our children well. And to prioritize our rearing, focusing on raising righteous children.
Closing Dua
I ask Allah to give us righteous children in the future. From now until they die. That they would be among those under the shade of Allah's throne on the day when there is no shade except the shade of His throne.
Hadith on Seven Under Allah's Shade:
(Sahih al-Bukhari)
"Seven will be shaded by Allah on the day when there is no shade except His shade..."
We ask Allah to protect the ummah from the evil that is befalling them. Whether in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Burma, wherever Muslims are suffering, we ask Allah to lift that suffering from them. We ask Allah to bring the ummah together to help them as they deserve to be helped.
And we ask Allah to forgive and to bless our parents, those who have passed from our family. To make their graves graves from the gardens of paradise. And we ask Allah to give us a good end.
That we die doing deeds which are pleasing to Him.
End of Khutbah