All parents want the best for their children. They sacrifice themselves – their time, their money, their health – for the enjoyment and well-being of their kids. And so they send them off to school, because they know that that is in their best interests. If the children had any say in the matter, they would just laze about at home all day, playing games and watching TV. But their parents force them to go to school, despite all their loudest protests. They do this, for they know better than their children what is good for them.
So see how we have been deluded. For twelve, fifteen, eighteen years, we pack our kids off to school, college and university. And for what? For the dunya… so that they can enjoy the good things of this life… so that they will have a good job, earning lots of money and gaining the material things of this world. But what about their aakhirah? What about their Islamic education? That is discarded and neglected; a mere afterthought. At most, maybe they are sent to madrasah in the afternoons after school for a few short years. Then the workload of school becomes too much and even that little bit falls by the wayside. Then perhaps the only Islamic knowledge gained would be through the odd halaqah or lecture here and there, and the Jumu’ah khutbah.
We have been blinded by the dazzling beauty of this dunya, so that we see only it and nothing else. The narrations of the life to come, of the Garden and the Fire, are just words to us. We have not come to the true realisation of it, so that it penetrates and affects our hearts. That is why we prefer for our children this temporary existence over that which is everlasting. We chase after it, yet it is like a mirage. You keep on striving for it, but never really get there. It is only a few short years yet we struggle so hard for it. The aakhirah is millennia upon millennia – time we cannot even imagine! – yet we do hardly anything for it in comparison.
So do what is best for your children and teach them the Qur’an. Make that decision for them, even though they protest. They are too young and cannot or will not want to take that step themselves. If you do it, on the Day of Resurrection you will be made to wear a crown of light, brighter than the sun. [1] On that Day, your children will recite the Qur’an, and they will ascend the ranks of Paradise. [2] What more could you want for them, and what better good could you do for them?
Make your children huffaz. It is the best thing you could do for them.
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[1] Mentioned in a hadith reported in Sunan Abu Dawud. Two of the people in the chain of this hadith are classified as weak.
[2] Mentioned in a hadith reported in Sunan al-Tirmidhi.