The Quranic Essence of Parenting
By Nouman Ali Khan | 2026-01-09T14:20:04.683395+00:00 | Topic: Iman
The Quranic Essence of Parenting
Khutbah by Nouman Ali Khan
Opening Supplication
O Allah, expand my chest, make my task easy for me, and untie the knot from my tongue so that they may understand my speech. O Allah, make us steadfast at the time of death upon "There is no god but Allah." O Allah, make us among those who believe and do righteous deeds and advise each other to truth and advise each other to patience. Ameen, O Lord of the worlds.
Introduction: Universal Parenting Struggles
I've had conversations with parents - and I've had these conversations with them here in the United States, here in our local community. I've had almost exactly the same conversations in different parts of Europe, also similarly different parts of the Muslim world, the Arab world, even in places like Sri Lanka or Malaysia. The conversations are somewhat different but overall they're exactly the same.
I wanted to take this opportunity in this khutbah to remind myself, because I'm a parent myself, to remind myself and to remind all the parents that are here of certain realities that Allah makes very, very clear. They're not easy realities, but they are clear realities.
This khutbah is dedicated to two audiences: it's dedicated on the one hand to parents, and it's also on the other hand dedicated to their children. So those of you that are listening as parents, also at the same time listen as offsprings of your parents.
Allah's Method: Case Studies Over Theory
Allah (عز وجل) describes in many places the relationship between parents and children by way of example. So instead of talking about the theory of parenting, Allah gives many, many case studies of parents and their children.
Case Study 1: Ibrahim and His Father Azer
You have some amazing examples. For instance, you have the case of Ibrahim (عليه السلام) whose father, and some argue uncle but linguistically it's still father, Azer builds idols. He's actually the source of a lot of the idol worship in his town, and his son grows up to be the great leader of the concept of tawheed and the iman in Allah (عز وجل) that all the faiths, all the monotheistic faiths attribute themselves to in one way or the other.
the religion of your father Ibrahim. So on the one hand you have a pretty messed up dad in simple language, and you have an amazing son.
It's not like the son had an amazing environment, a supportive environment where his iman fostered and things like that. It was a pretty corrupt environment. Everybody around him is worshipping idols. There's nobody who thinks like he does. As a matter of fact, he stands alone and he's considered kind of a rebel when he criticizes these idols, and he's kicked out of his house also.
Key Lesson: Individual Responsibility
The first thing that I wanted to highlight in this example is that one's iman, a young man's faith or a young woman's faith, according to Allah (عز وجل) isn't always only dependent on their environment. A lot of times we blame the environment: "Well what can we do? We're living in America. What can we do? They go to public school. What can we do? They're in a bad situation, so of course they're going to get impacted by that."
Yeah, that's true to an extent, but there's a reason Allah gave us these examples. This is the journey of Ibrahim (عليه السلام) before he became a prophet. Revelation is a later situation. First and foremost, he starts questioning and exploring and starts criticizing things that are happening around him.
What that tells us is Allah (عز وجل) enabled human beings, each and every one of them, regardless of what environment they're in, regardless of what situation or what society they're a part of, to think for themselves. If they choose to follow everybody else and never think for themselves, that's on them. They don't get to say, "Well what can I do? I was in a blinding environment." No, Allah gave you eyes. Allah gave you the ability to see for yourself.
Case Study 2: Yaqub and His Sons
But on the flip side of this, you also have other instances, and to me one of the most unique instances is the case of Yaqub (عليه السلام) who has, you could argue, two sets of children: good kids and bad kids. It's the same father.
Though some have tried to argue this, I think it's completely inappropriate to think that Yaqub (عليه السلام) is anything short of a great father. He's a prophet, and prophets are known for their fairness, for their goodness, for their ihsan to all people, especially their own family.
So it's unimaginable for us to think that he was a good father to Yusuf and maybe to Binyamin, the youngest one, and he was not such a good dad to the other sons. That doesn't make any sense. He's a father and he's doing his best to raise his children, and he's actually later on - if you study Surah Yusuf carefully - he's even giving good counsel and good advice to those sons that rebelled against him. So there's no reason to think he had a double standard.
The Paradox of Different Outcomes
The point I'm trying to make is he as a father and as a head of a household, as a parent, did everything he could to provide a good environment and a good education to his children, and yet the results that came are completely different. They're actually polar opposites.
What makes it even more interesting is that Yusuf (عليه السلام) was separated from him at a very early age, and so he no longer has a good influence. Yusuf (عليه السلام) no longer has a parental influence as he's becoming a young man, as he's growing up in a society. We learn Allah had given him good looks, Allah had given him intelligence, high intelligence, great character, but he's living in a corrupt society in the house of a politician, and he's basically a young servant who has no parental supervision. He could do whatever he wants in a sense within that sphere of his, and on top of that later on he was called to wrongdoing.
So he's in one bad environment, and by the way, from there he ends up even in a worse environment inside a prison. The people around you in prison aren't exactly the best of people, and so he's going from one bad environment to another bad environment. When people are in that kind of a bad environment for a really long time, you would imagine they're gonna come out messed up. Something's gonna happen to them. They're going to pick up the traits and the qualities of that sick environment that's around them.
Of course that didn't happen with him. He retained his pure character. But if you contrast that with his other siblings who are actually living in the household of a prophet - they live in the best possible environment. Can you imagine your father is a prophet? You couldn't possibly be parented and be offered a better opportunity to be guided and to be raised right. And yet his brothers scheme and they lie and they backbite and they do these things for many, many years, and they're actually disrespectful to their father as well, for no fault of the father himself.
Case Study 3: The Stories in Surat Al-Kahf
When you study the end of Surat Al-Kahf, you find some interesting case studies. First you find a story of young men who have a career, they make a living by fishing, by going out at sea. But after that, after talking about young men who are trying to earn an honest living, interestingly, there are two other stories and both of these stories are about young kids.
The Righteous Parents with a Rebellious Child
One young boy is killed, and the reason given later on is actually this child, when he grew up, he was going to be a terror and a horror to his parents. It's interesting that what we are told about his parents is:
His parents were both righteous, good believers.
So these were two good parents who were going to raise a child to the best of their ability, and he was going to be a horror for them. He was going to give them a really hard time in life. The Quran describes it as rebellion and disbelief - he's going to leave Islam and he's going to be a horrible rebel against his parents even though they did nothing wrong in raising him.
The Orphaned Boys with a Righteous Father
On the flip side of it, you have a couple of orphaned boys who we don't know anything about. Musa (عليه السلام) is told to build this wall. He has no idea why he's building it. Eventually when the rationale is offered to him, "Why did you build this wall?" it's actually about these boys whose:
Their father was a good man
who died a while ago. Now these kids are orphaned, they're being raised on the streets, and yet Allah wants them to have a good life down the road. He's securing their future down the road.
The Fundamental Truth: Responsibility vs. Control
What I'm trying to get at is that in this life, as far as our children are concerned, we have absolutely no control. We have responsibility but not control, and we have to understand the difference between those two things.
I have a responsibility to my parents. I cannot control my parents. I have a responsibility to my children until a certain age, until they reach the age where they are answerable to Allah for themselves, when they become baligh when they're considered adults by Allah. That means when they're standing in trial in front of Allah, Allah will not come and ask you first. He'll ask them directly because:
Everyone will come before Allah individually, all alone, nobody else.
So as we raise our kids, when they get to a certain point, our love for them doesn't go away, our concern for them doesn't go away, our duas for them don't go away, our desire for them to live a good life doesn't go away. But is Allah going to hold you responsible for the mistake they make? No. To the best of your ability you try to give advice, and then you have to back off.
The Prophet's Example with His Own Daughter
This is something even the messenger of Allah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) understood - the man who had the greatest qualities in every sense of the word: the greatest husband, the greatest leader, the greatest of all prophets, the greatest father. And what does he say to his daughter?
(Bukhari 2753)
"O Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, be cautious of Allah, for I have no authority to help you before Allah. You'll have to stand on your own."
"I know you're my daughter, but even that doesn't get you anywhere. Even that's not enough. You're gonna have to stand on your own merits in front of Allah."
This is an important teaching that we need to understand. We cannot change the environment of our children and expect that they're going to come out perfect. We cannot later on start getting frustrated with them when they make bad decisions, because a lot of our kids will make bad decisions like we made bad decisions. You and I made bad decisions too. We disappointed our parents too. They couldn't control everything we did also. We gave them a hard time too.
The Reality of Children as Amanah
So what Allah (عز وجل) does in the Quran is He describes a scenario, and these examples that I wanted to give you was first to help me remember and you remember that our children are simply an amanah from Allah, a trust given by Allah (عز وجل). How well did we try to raise them? Did we do our part? That's all.
Nuh (عليه السلام) is not questioned for how he raised his son, as messed up as his son was, as rebellious as his son was. He did his part as a father. He did what he could. The rest is between his son and Allah (عز وجل).
The Pain of Parental Struggle
But that doesn't mean that we don't love our kids. And like I told you, lots of conversations of especially mothers and sometimes fathers too who come in pain, in tears, telling me how they raised their children. They made them memorize the Quran. They sent them to a Sunday school. They put them in an Islamic school. They moved from one city to another, took a pay cut, sometimes even lost their business just so they can bring their children into a nicer Muslim community so they can have the environment.
Everything was great. This kid was so respectful, so loving, so kind, such a perfect kid. And all of a sudden something happened to him, and now he doesn't pray and he talks back to his parents and he stays out late at night. When you try to question them, they snap. "I don't know what to do. I can't even recognize if it's the same kid. Where do I go, what do I do?"
That's happening over and over and over again with hundreds, thousands, if not millions of families - children rebelling, out of control.
The Quranic Description of Rebellious Children
Now there are lots of reasons for that happening, but like I said, first and foremost this khutbah is directed at two audiences: parents and their kids. I want to share with you this scenario, this idea that children that were raised by good parents rebelling and then completely becoming different people like the parents can't even recognize: "I can't believe you're the same child."
I've seen cases where sons have hit their mothers, they've physically assaulted their mothers. I've seen cases where children have threatened their parents, cursed at their parents, stolen from their parents, all kinds of things. How did things get to this? Or come to them and say, "Yeah well you know I don't call you anymore because I don't believe in Islam. I don't pray, I don't really believe in religion anymore," etc. And those parents are completely shattered - not one, literally thousands of them.
The Divine Description
How does Allah describe this scenario? In a few words, Allah (عز وجل) says:
As for the one who said to both his parents, "Uff to both of you"
أُفٌ لَّكُمَا is not - I would not translate this as "woe unto you." It's the son who's listening to advice. The mother keeps telling him, "(صَلِّ، صَلِّ، صَلِّ، نَمَازٌ بَرْلُوا نَمَازُ بَرْلُوا نَمَازُ بَرْلُوا)" - "Pray just pray. Can you stop doing this? Can you stop doing that? Just come home earlier." She keeps giving him advice, advice, advice, and he's had it. He doesn't want to hear it anymore, so he just says, "Enough! Come on, stop it already. أُيِّ لَّكُمَا - both of you, I've had it."
"You keep promising me that I'm gonna come out of my grave, and so many people have died before - nobody comes back. Get over this whole hell, heaven thing. Let me live my life. I just wanna live my life. I just wanna be happy. Why are you guys always talking to me? Okay, fine, if I have to burn in hell, it's my problem. What do you have to do with it?"
And slams the door and walks out. This is the scene. It's not a new scene. This is happening for thousands of years.
The Parents' Desperate Response
So what do the parents do?
And they are both seeking help from Allah
The mother is crying at night, praying in tears: "Ya Allah, my child, my child, my son, my daughter, what do I do? She used to wear the hijab, she used to memorize the Quran. Now she's completely become a different person. I don't even know what she's up to, where she goes, who she hangs out with. I found drugs in her room, she smelled like alcohol the other day. Ya Allah, what do I do?"
(اِسْتِغَاثَة) actually means when a town is desperate, it hasn't had any rain and it's dying in drought, and people desperately turn to Allah for a miraculous rain. (يَسْتَغِيثَانِ الله) means they're asking for a miracle from God Himself: "Change something in my life, help me with this."
And then they turn to this boy and say:
"Curse you, believe!"
The parents have had it too. They can't keep giving soft, loving advice. وَيْلٌ is not a soft word to use. It's actually one of the names of one of the worst places in jahannam. But outside of that, in Arabic literature is used as a horrible, horrible curse against somebody. When they say وَيْلَكَ curse you" in a sense, "damn you," why are they saying that?
This child, this most beloved product of their love, this child that they raised with so much sacrifice and so much concern - you know, the ones you love the most can cause you the pain the most. This child has caused them so much pain that at this point, instead of making dua for them, the ugliest words come out of the parents' mouth. Even parents start saying horrible, horrible, horrible things out of frustration. Mothers have done it, fathers have done it. In the middle, in the heat of an argument with their children, just said some really terrible, terrible things.
The Quran captures it: آمِنْ وَيْلَكَ - "Believe, why don't you believe? Why can't you just be a normal kid? Why can't you be like Yusuf? Why do you have to be like this?"
The Child's Response
And this kid, by the way - it's remarkable that Allah captures reality not in idealistic terms. He captures it in pragmatic like exactly how things play out. He turns back and He says:
"This is nothing but old stories."
"Can you stop? Can you stop giving me the old stories?" The mother starts quoting an ayah from the Quran or telling him about this prophet or telling him about this hadith. He says, "Can you keep this old stuff to yourself? I don't need this anymore, thank you very much. I don't want none of this. You keep
these stories and you tell them to somebody who cares, tell them to somebody who's interested." (أَسَاطِيرُ الْأَوَّلِينَ)
Some of you, as you're listening to this, you've actually experienced something like this. You've lived it. Some of you are living in that horror in your homes. Every time the son walks in, there's an argument between the parents and the children.
Address to the Children
My first address is to the children: understand that when you're doing this and you think you're fighting for your happiness, you're in some unique situation that nobody understands you, Allah understands. And the crime you've committed against your parents isn't a small one. That is not a small crime.
Those are the people that the word - meaning the verdict of punishment - is rightfully deserved by those young people. This is the same story for all kinds of nations of jinn and human beings.
Rebellion has always been there, there have always been losers. You will not win in life. You will hurt your parents, you'll rebel against them, you'll run away from them, you'll do whatever you feel like doing thinking, "I'm just living my life, let me breathe." You'll never find happiness. You'll always be a loser. You'll always find yourself in loss because of the suffering you caused your parents.
It's okay for you to have doubts. It's okay for you to question why are we following this religion. That's fine. But the way in which you dealt with your parents was merciless. They gave you love, care and mercy, and you gave nothing but pain in return.
Different Degrees of Rebellion
And you may not be like the example that was just given. So what does Allah Himself do?
And for everybody is according to the degrees that they did.
In other words, some people are extremely rebellious, some people are somewhat rebellious, some people are not praying anymore or some people are doing some haram things in life and they're rebelling, some people have left Islam altogether and now are cursing Islam and cursing the Prophet and cursing the Quran - that's happening too. According to the degree of your crime, Allah will deal with you.
So even though Allah has given one scene in a sense, the worst case scenario, doesn't mean everybody fits in this scenario. Allah Himself acknowledges that and says they're going to be compensated fully for
what they did - they're not going to be the ones that are wronged.
Address to the Parents
But now I turn my attention, as I close, to the parents that may be going through this kind of suffering. May Allah protect all of our parents from ever having to see these difficult days.
But first and foremost, this is a reality that even Prophets were not spared. Nuh had to face it, Yaqub had to face it, Ibrahim was terrified of it. Even though he has fantastic sons, he was terrified of it. He made dua about it:
"Keep me and my children forever from ever falling into the worship of idols."
That's the dua of Ibrahim (عليه السلام). So it's not like we're ever going to be free from that concern.
Understanding Adult Responsibility
But I will tell you one thing. In the ayah there's an isharah, there's an indication: when your son is 18, 19, 20, 25, 28, 30, he's an adult - maybe a young adult, maybe a very immature adult, maybe one that makes horrible, terrible mistakes in life, but then again he's still an adult. When that child or that man or that woman is an adult and they're making mistakes in life, what is your role?
You and I have to remember: (رُفِعَ الْقَلَمُ) - the pen has been lifted as far as our responsibilities are concerned. Our job was to raise them to the point where they become adults. Once they are adults, they are directly responsible to Allah.
The more you try to control them at that age, the more you try to tell them what to do, the more you try to tell your 18-year-old, your 20-year-old, your 25-year-old to "Pray, pray, pray," the farther they will run from the prayer. The more annoyed they will become. They will actually distance themselves from you. They will want nothing to do with you.
They will see you, the mother who loves them, but as soon as they see you - you haven't even opened your mouth - "Here we go, mom's gonna start her lecture about prayer again. Mom's gonna give me a whole talk about how I need to make tawbah or how I need to stop talking to that girl or how I need to stop..." "Oh God, you know what, I'm not even coming over. I'm just gonna go out. I don't wanna deal with it."
The Mother's Dilemma
And the mom says, "I'm trying to do da'wah. What do you want me to do? Not do da'wah? Not invite my child? Not make them better?"
Well, actually, the way you're doing it is making things worse. The way you're doing it is making things worse.
Two Levels of Relationship
Understand that there are two levels of the relationship you have with your children, especially when they get older. There's a spiritual relationship in which you're trying to give them advice, nasiha, counsel - that's a spiritual relationship. And then there's an emotional relationship.
A mother is a mother. She loves her child no matter if he's the worst human being on the earth. She's still gonna love her child. And that child, that son, doesn't matter if he becomes 45, he still wants emotional support from his mom. He still turns to his mother for love and care. He still should feel like no matter who turns me away, my mother will never turn me away.
These two things - your role as a spiritual guide, a spiritual counselor, and your role as a mother or a father - are two separate things. You have to keep those two things separate.
Sometimes when our children rebel and go away from Allah, then they don't need you to be a da'i. They don't need you to give them spiritual advice because that will push them further away. They just need you to be a mom right now. Just make them food. Don't talk about deen for a while. Don't bring it up, because you know the last 10 times you brought it up what happened. You should learn from your own experience.
Practical Advice for Fathers
I advise the father: don't lose your cool, don't start complaining. The son comes home once in a month, and that one month the father says, "Oh, you finally show up!" And he says, "This is why I don't come, because you talk like this!" And he walks out again.
What did you gain? What did you gain?
The Example of Yaqub's Beautiful Patience
This is why you'll understand that when Yaqub (عليه السلام) was brought a shirt dirty with blood and he knew that his sons were lying - he knew it - he understood that right now I can do nothing about this situation. So the words that came out of his mouth are forever going to resonate for any parent who has adult children that are out of control:
"The only thing beautiful left now is patience."
He needs to demonstrate beautiful patience. There's such a thing as ugly patience, by the way, but he needs to demonstrate beautiful patience. He needs to keep a smile, maintain at least the emotional part
of the relationship. "How are you doing, son? Are you eating well? Is everything okay?" Don't bring up deen. Just maintain the relationship.
Why Maintain the Emotional Connection?
Why? Why am I saying that? Because Shaytan will come to that foolish young man or that foolish young woman and say to them, "Your parents hate you. They always criticize you. They're always nagging you. They're always lecturing you. Forget them. Live your life. Get away. They don't love you. If they loved you, would they talk to you like this?"
And he's gonna - he or she are gonna - go far and far and far away.
Your job as parents now, perhaps more difficult than the waking up in the middle of the night and changing their diapers and taking them to the hospital when their fever spikes at 2 in the morning and taking care of their school and getting them ready and all those exhausting years that you had - that was actually easier. What you're being asked to do now is much harder: to demonstrate beautiful patience and maybe to find other sources to give them advice. Not you. Maybe somebody else needs to talk to them.
The Problem with Forced Advice
The worst thing you can do, by the way - sometimes our children, they're programmed at a certain age, and you and I were like this too. You'll take advice from anyone except if it comes from your father. If it comes from your father, you're annoyed before he even opens his mouth. You're agitated.
Your mother says, "Watch this video, listen to this sheikh, listen to this..." "Oh God, here she goes again. I don't want..."
There are people who come up to me - "I hate you," they tell me. I'm like, "What did I do?" He goes, "Not you. My mom makes me watch your videos all the time. I can't stand you."
Please don't make your kids watch my videos. Please don't. I'm telling you, you're pushing them further away. It doesn't help. You can't shove religion down their throats. Just be a parent. Just be a parent.
As painful as it is, as rebellious as they've become, they need something else from you at this point.
The Example of Luqman's Strategic Parenting
And so I leave you with the following: even with Luqman, who's probably the longest passage on parenting in the Quran - there's no other place in the Quran that deals with the subject of parenting as exhaustively, and even that's brief - but the case of Luqman (رَضِيَ اللَّهُ عَنْهُ)
Look at how Allah (عز وجل) describes it, just one part of it:
"When at the very moment when Luqman said to his son while he was in a position to counsel him"
In other words, Luqman doesn't just give his son lecture after lecture after lecture. He finds the right time, the right opportunity. He thinks of a strategic opportunity and then brings up:
"My son, take Allah seriously, don't do shirk with Allah"
He doesn't just throw that lecture on his son constantly. There's actually a وَهُوَ يَعِظُهُ suggesting he was very strategic. If that opportunity presents itself, well then good. If it doesn't, then take your time, be patient.
Final Advice to Parents
Parents that are in this audience already know: you've already had many conflicting arguments and discussions, you've already had fights where somebody stormed out of the house or yelled and screamed or slammed the door. You already know that if you're going to have that conversation start again, it's gonna end up the same way. Be smart about it. Don't walk into that same trap again.
I never wanna be the kind of parent that has to say وَيْلَكَ مِنْ - to get to the point where I lose it and I start cursing and I start yelling and screaming at my children. And I never want to hear from my children, "This religion is nothing but old stories." And they're not saying it because they disbelieve in religion - they're saying it because they're annoyed with their parents. They can't take it anymore.
This conflict, this tension, needs to be brought down.
Closing Duas
May Allah (عز وجل) make us wiser parents and more obedient children. May Allah (عز وجل) soften the hearts of both parents and children towards Allah's deen. May Allah (عز وجل) ease the suffering of the families that are having problems with their children. And may Allah (عز وجل) give the children the sense and the guidance to come back and make tawbah.
Indeed, Allah and His angels send blessings on the Prophet. O you who believe! Send blessings on him and salute him with all respect.
Second Khutbah
Indeed, Allah orders justice and good conduct and giving to relatives and forbids immorality and bad conduct and oppression. He admonishes you that perhaps you will be reminded.
Establish prayer. Indeed, prayer has been decreed upon the believers a decree of specified times.
And Allah knows what you do, and the remembrance of Allah is greater.
عِبَادَ اللهِ رَحِمَكُمُ اللَّهُ اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ حَمِيدٌ مَجِيدٌ