2. Duties towards one’s Offspring.

 

 Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

(2) DUTIES TOWARDS ONE’S OFFSPRING

A. Social and Spiritual Status of the Child:

(1) The Holy Qur’an teaches that the child is a respectable being:

(a)   because of his humanity, concerning which it has been said: 

“Verily We have honored the Children of Adam …” (17:70).

(b)  because of his sinlessness, as it has been said:

“Assuredly We have created man in the goodliest constitution (i.e., pure and individually perfect).” (95:4).

“… Every soul draws the mead of its acts on none but itself: no bearer of burden can bear the burden of another …” (6:164).

Thus the child is born sinless, without inheriting the sins of his ancestors. And it is classed as innocent up to the age of discretion, as it has been said:

“On no soul does Allah place a responsibility but to the extent of its ability …” (2:286).

And its categorization as innocent makes it logically immune from receiving those punishments which are meant for adults in respect of commission of wrongs. 

(2) In its condemnation of infanticide, the Holy Qur’an teaches that the child is a ‘gift from God’—a ‘trust’* of God placed in the care of the child’s elders, and should, therefore, be treated with love, understanding and extreme care:

Lost are those who besottedly have murdered their children without knowledge, and forbidden (to themselves) that which Allah bestowed upon them (as gift), inventing a lie against Allah. They have indeed gone astray and heeded no guidance.” (6:140). 

* A Muslim holds everything—his life, property, position, children, etc—as trust from God. (9:111) 

g

 

B. Duties:

(1)  Duties of Omission:

Infanticide had been practised by different communities of the world, including the pagan Arabs, the Hindus, the Greeks and the Romans, in the pre-Qur’anic era of human history. When the Holy Qur’an came, it voiced its condemnation of that evil and inhuman practice in strong terms and forbade it totally, as we have seen in verse 6:140 quoted above, and as we find in the following:

(a)    Killing of offspring for fear of poverty—before their birth: in the form of abortion, or after their birth: in the form of murder—forbidden:

“Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you. Verily the killing of them is a great sin.” (17:31). (also in 6:151)

(b)    Killing of daughters for extra fear of dishonor specially condemned:

“When news is brought to one of them, of (the birth of) a female (child), his face darkens, and he is filled with inward grief! With shame does he hide himself from his people, because of the bad news he has had! Shall he retain it on (sufferance and) contempt, or bury it in the dust! Ah! What an evil (choice) they decide on!” (16:58-59).

“When the female (infant), buried alive, is questioned (by God on the Day of Judgment)—for what crime she was killed!” (81:8-9).

(c)  Infanticide with ‘religious’ motives condemned:

“Even so, in the eyes of most of the Pagans, their ‘partners’ made alluring the slaughter of their children, to lead them to their own destruction, and cause confusion in their religion. If Allah had willed, they would not have done so: But leave alone them and their inventions.” (6:137).

 

(2)  Duties of Commission

Condemning contempt for one’s children, forbidding their treatment as a burden, and teaching respect and love for them, the Holy Qur’an refers to their upbringing by their parents,—a function which all parents, including the animal parents, perform basically and naturally under the urge of the parental instinct, but wherein the outlook requires to be refined and enlightened in the interest of human well-being. In this connection:

(a)  The Holy Qur’an commands the safeguarding of the interest of the child, in the most delicate period of his life, in respect of suckling him, which is specially jeopardized in case the parents are unfortunately separated from each other through divorce:

“The mothers shall give suck to their offspring for two whole years, if the father desires to complete the term. But he shall bear the cost of their food and clothing on equitable terms …” (2:233).

(b) Then it refers to the unselfish upbringing of the child by the parents up to the time of his maturity* as a virtue, in the following prayer which Muslim children are taught to make for their parents:

“… and say: ‘My Lord bestow on them your Mercy even as they (tenderly) cherished me (when I was) young.” (17:24).

This verse refers to the fact that the parents have to look after the needs of the child until he is mature. It has been mentioned as a universal fact which occurs in a natural course,—namely, everyone whose outlook in respect of his children is rational and not perverted and whose circumstances do not force him to act against the true dictates of human nature,** is bound to do it. However, although natural, it should be treated as a specific duty in the light of the general command of “doing good to all” and “taking special care of those who are related to one in blood” (16:90), in the interest of the moral health of human society. 

* The obligation of maintenance of the offspring up to the age of maturity is borne out by the law laid down for transferring to the orphans living in one’s charge the administration of their properties. (See 4:6). 

** In case of adverse circumstances the Qur’anic social philosophy makes it the duty of the state to look after the proper upbringing and development of the child, as we shall see later.

(c)  The Holy Qur’an teaches prayers which are highly instructive in guiding us to the parents’ duties towards their children. The prayers are:

“… and be You good unto me in my progeny (O Lord !) (i.e., cause my progeny to be good and accomplished in every way) …” (46:15).

“… Our Lord! Grant unto us the comfort of our eyes from our wives and our offspring, and give us (the grace) to lead the righteous.” (25:74).

Now, for the offspring to be “comfort of one’s eyes” it is necessary that they should be good in every way; and they would not be normally so unless the parents exert to their full for building up their children in all aspects of their lives and to the highest stature possible. 

We know that mere yearning expressed in prayer and left at that means nothing more than sheer idiocy and insult to God. Hence this verse refers to the duty of doing everything in the power of the parents to bring up their children healthy and strong physically, intellectually, morally, spiritually and economically. Of course, that would mean sacrifice for the parents. But, according to the Holy Qur’an, self-sacrifice is an essential quality of Muslim character (59:9), and it becomes a duty in the case of one’s children.

          (d) Finally, the Holy Qur’an lays down the command:           

“O you who believe ! protect yourselves and your wives and children from a (spiritual) Fire whose fuel (unlike the fuel of physical fire) is human beings (who lead wrong lives) and stones (which have been worshipped as false deities by ancient communities) over which are (appointed) Angels stern (and) severe, who flinch not (from executing) the Commands they receive from Allah, but do (precisely) what they are commanded.” (66:6).

In order to understand the implications of the above command truly and comprehensively, it is necessary to grasp deeply the constitution of the human personality and the dynamics of human activity. The fact is that the different aspects of the human personality are interrelated and, according to the Qur’anic concept of tawhid, they form an organic unity,—their inter-relationship and inter-dependence being expressible as follows:

Sound mind resides in a sound body.

Sound morality is possible only for a person of sound mind.

Sound spirituality is attainable only by a person of sound morals.

Sound economic pursuit requires at least the soundness of body and mind both.

Thus, saving one’s children from the fire of Hell necessitates not only giving them formal teaching of certain religious beliefs and practices—which, if not integrated with other aspects of life, amounts for all practical purposes to a defective attempt—but taking all those steps which will make them good in every way, as taught by the Holy Qur’an and expounded in the present dissertation, in respect of human life, namely : physically, intellectually, morally, spiritually and economically : the comprehensive program and the manner in which the Holy Prophet (Peace be on him) built up the despicable pagan Arabs into a community of righteous and progressive super-humans.*

* Indeed, the Holy Prophet (Peace be on him) built up his followers in a most comprehensive way, as would be evident even from a perusal of the present dissertation. The same comprehensiveness should grace the program of the parents for their children. 

This means that the verse quoted above envisages the following rights of the child and their fulfillment:

1.       establishment of an atmosphere of love and understanding for the child’s proper growth;

2.       protection against all evils: neglect, cruelty and exploitation;

3.       provision of adequate nutrition, proper housing, recreation, and medical service;

4.       provision of opportunities and facilities for the child’s balanced development in freedom and dignity, according to the Qur’anic code of life;

5.       provision of the best available formal education, in keeping with the child’s aptitude and capabilities;

6.       provision of comprehensive moral education and training;

7.       Above all, and running through every phase of the child’s life, there should be the provision of spiritual education and training—of as high an order as possible—for making him truly God-fearing: which is the most basic and the highest virtue that a Muslim should possess.

g

Source

to be continued . . . . . 

Quranic Foundation & Structure Of Muslim Society In The End Times

 

MUHAMMAD’S PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER AND SIDELIGHTS ON SOME REFORM

  Quranic Foundations And Structure Of Muslim Society

Chapter 3

MUHAMMAD’S PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER AND SIDELIGHTS ON SOME REFORMS

 

PERSONALITY AND CHARACTER:

Mohammad was of middle height, rather thin but broad of shoulder, wide of chest, strong of bone and muscle. His head was massive, strongly developed. Dark hair, slightly curled, flowed in a dense mass almost to his shoulders; even in advanced age it was sprinkled with only about twenty grey hairs, produced by the agonies of his ‘Revelations’. His face was oval-shaped, slightly tawny of colour. Fine long arched eye-brows were divided by a vein, which throbbed visibly in moments of passion. Great black restless eyes shone out from under long heavy eyelashes. His nose was large, slightly acquiline. His teeth, upon which he bestowed great care, were well set, dazzling white. A full beard framed his manly face. His skin was clear and soft, his complexion ‘red and white’. His hands were as ‘silk and satin’, even as those of a woman. His step was quick and elastic, yet firm as that of one who steps ‘from a high to a low place’. In turning his face, he would also turn his whole body. His whole gait and presence was dignified and imposing. His countenance was mild and pensive. His laugh was rarely more than a smile.

 

“In his habits he was extremely simple, although he bestowed great care on his person. His eating and drinking, his dress and his furniture retained, even when he had reached the fullness of power, their almost primitive nature. The only luxuries he indulged in were arms, which he highly prized, and a pair of yellow boots, a present from the Negus of Abyssinia. Perfumes, however, he loved passionately, being most sensitive to smells. Strong drink he abhorred.

 

“… He was gifted with mighty powers of imagination, elevation of mind, delicacy and refinement of feeling.” ‘He is more modest than a virgin behind her curtain’, it was said of him. He was most indulgent to his inferiors, and would never allow his little page to be scolded whatever he did. ‘Ten years’, said Anas, his servant, ‘I was about the Prophet, and he never said as much as ‘uff’ to me’. He was very affectionate towards his family. One of his boys died on his breast in the smoky house of the nurse, a blacksmith’s wife. He was very fond of children; he would stop them in the streets and pat little heads. He never struck anyone in his life. The worst expression he ever made use of in conversation was, ‘What has come to him? May his forehead become darkened with mud!’ When asked to curse someone he replied, ‘I have not been sent to curse, but to be a mercy to mankind’. ‘He visited the sick, followed any bier he met, accepted the invitation of a slave to dinner, mended his own clothes, milked the goats, and waited upon himself,’ relates summarily another tradition. He never first withdrew his hand thus, out of another man’s palm, and turned not before the other had turned.

 

“He was the most faithful protector of those he protected, the sweetest and most agreeable in conversation. Those who saw him were suddenly filled with reverence; those who came near him loved him; they who described him would say, ‘I have never seen his like either before or after’. He was of great taciturnity, but when he spoke it was with emphasis and deliberation and no one could forget what he said.

 

“He lived with his wives in a row of humble cottages separated from one another by palm-branches, cemented together with mud. He would kindle the fire, sweep the floor, and milk the goats himself. The little food he had was always shared with those who dropped in to partake of it. Indeed outside the Prophet’s house was a bench or a gallery, on which were always found a number of poor who lived entirely upon his generosity, and were hence called ‘the people of the bench’. His ordinary food was dates and water, or barley bread; milk and honey were luxuries of which he was fond, but which he rarely allowed himself. The fare of the desert seemed most congenial to him even when he was sovereign of Arabia.

 

“There is something so tender and womanly, and withal so heroic, about the man, that one is in peril of finding the judgment unconsciously blinded by the feeling of reverence, and well-nigh love, that such a nature inspires. He who, standing alone, braved for years the hatred of his people, is the same who was never the first to withdraw his hand from another’s clasp; the beloved of children, who never passed a group of little ones without a smile from his wonderful eyes and kind word for them, sounding all the kinder in that sweet-toned voice. The frank friendship, the noble generosity, the dauntless courage and hope of the man, all tend to melt criticism into admiration.

 

“He was an enthusiast in that noblest sense when enthusiasm becomes the salt of the earth, the one thing that keep men from rotting whilst they live. Enthusiasm is often used despitefully, because it is joined to an unworthy cause, or falls upon barren ground and bears no fruit. So was it not with Muhammad. He was an enthusiast when enthusiasm was the one thing needed to set the world aflame, and his enthusiasm was noble for a noble cause. He was one of those happy few who have attained the supreme joy of making one great truth their very life-spring. He was the messenger of the one God, and never to his life’s end did he forget who he was or the message which was the marrow of his being. He brought his tidings to his people with a grand dignity sprung from the consciousness of his high office together with a most sweet humility …”^[1]

 

“His (i.e., Muhammad’s) politeness to the great, his affability to the humble, and his dignified bearing to the presumptuous, procured him respect, admiration and applause. His talents were equally fitted for persuasion or command. Deeply read in the volume of nature, though entirely ignorant of letters, his mind could expand into controversy with the acutest of his enemies, or contract itself to the apprehension of the meanest of his disciples. His simple eloquence, rendered impressive by the expression of a countenance wherein awfulness of majesty was tempered by an amiable sweetness, excited emotion of veneration and love; and he was gifted with the authoritative air of genius which alike influences the learned and commands the illiterate. As a friend and a parent, he exhibited the softest feelings of nature; but, while in possession of the kind and generous emotions of the heart, and engaged in the discharge of most of the social and domestic duties, he disgraced not his assumed title of an apostle of God. With all that simplicity which is so natural to a great mind, he performed the humblest offices whose homeliness it would be idle to conceal with pompuous diction, even while Lord of Arabia, he mended his own shoes and coarse woollen garments, milked the ewes, swept the hearth, and kindled the fire. Dates and water were his usual fare and milk and honey his luxuries. When he travelled he divided his morsel with his servant. The sincerity of his exhortations to benevolence was justified at his death by the exhausted state of his coffers.”^[2]

 

“Mohammed … despised grandeur, and lived on principle an extremely frugal life, though he was no ascetic… He is reputed to have behaved very simply, and there is no reason for not supposing that he did. He performed the most menial tasks with his own hands, and was essentially puritan, saying the Divine revelation forbade him to wear either gold or silk .”^[3]

 

“His deportment, in general, was calm and equable; he … was grave and dignified, though he is said to have possessed a smile of captivating sweetness. His complexion was more ruddy than is usual with Arabs, and in his excited and enthusiastic moments there was a glow and radiance in his countenance, which his disciples magnified into the supernatural light of prophecy.

 

“His intellectual qualities were undoubtedly of an extraordinary kind. He had a quick apprehension, a retentive memory, a vivid imagination and an inventive genius.

 

“He was sober and abstemious in his diet, and a rigorous observer of fasts. He indulged in no magnificence of apparel, the ostentation of a petty mind; neither was his simplicity in dress affected but a result of real disregard for distinction from so trivial a source.

 

“In his private dealings he was just. He treated friends and strangers, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, with equity, and was loved by the common people for the affability with which he received them, and listened to their complaints.

 

“His military triumphs awakened no pride nor vain glory, as they would have done had they been effected for selfish purposes. In the time of his greatest power he maintained the same simplicity of manners and appearance as in the days of his adversity. So far from affecting a regal state, he was displeased if, on entering a room, any unusual testimonials of respect were shown to him. If he aimed at universal dominion, it was the dominion of the faith, as to the temporal rule which grew up in his hands, as he used it without ostentation, so he took no step to perpetuate it in his family.”^[4]

 

“Mahomet himself, after all that can be said about him, was not a sensual man … His household was of the frugalest;  his common diet barley-bread and water; sometimes for months there was not a fire once lighted on his hearth. They record with just pride that he would mend his own shoes, patch his own cloak … careless of what vulgar men toil for … something better in him than hunger of any sort, or these wild Arab men, fighting and jostling three and twenty years at his hand, in close contact with him always, would not have reverenced him so! They were wild men, bursting ever and anon with quarrel, with all kinds of fierce sincerity; without right worth and manhood, no man could have commanded them … No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this man in a cloak of his own clouting. During three-and-twenty years of rough actual trial, I find something of a veritable hero necessary for that myself.”^[5][6]

 

“His (i.e., Muhammad’s) memory was capacious and retentive, his wit easy and social, his imagination sublime, his judgment clear, rapid and decisive. He possessed the courage of both thought and action; and … the first idea which he entertained of his divine mission bears the stamp of an original and superior genius.”^[7]

 

“Head of the State as well as of the Church”, remarks Bosworth Smith, “he was  Caesar and  Pope in one; but he was Pope without Pope’s pretensions, Caesar without the legions of Caesar. Without a standing army, without a body-guard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue, if ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by the right divine, it was Mohammad, for he had all the power without its instruments and without its supports. He rose superior to the title and ceremonies, the solemn trifling, and the proud humility of court etiquette. To hereditary kings, to princes born in the purple, these things are naturally enough as the breath of life; but those who ought to have known better, even self-made rulers, and those the foremost in the files of time—a Caesar, a Cromwell, a Napolean, have been unable to resist their tinsel attractions. Mohammad was content with the reality; he cared not for the dressings of power. The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life. ‘God’, says AlBokhari, ‘offered him the keys of the treasures of the earth, but he would not accept them’.”^[8]

 

“Never has a man set for himself, voluntarily or involuntarily, a more sublime aim, since this aim was superhuman: to subvert superstitions which had been interposed between man and his Creator; to render God unto man he and man unto God; to restore the rational and sacred idea of divinity amidst the chaos of the material and disfigured gods of idolatry, then existing. Never has a man undertaken a work so far beyond human power with so feeble means, for he (Muhammad) had in the conception as well as in the execution of such a great design no other instrument than himself, and no other aid, except a handful of men living in a corner of the desert. Finally, never has a man accomplished such a huge and lasting revolution in the world, because in less than two centuries after its appearance, Islam in faith and in arms, reigned over the whole of Arabia, conquered, in God’s name, Persia, Khorasan, Transoxania, Western India, Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia, all the known continent of Northern Africa, numerous islands of the Mediterranean, Spain, and a part of Gaul.

 

“If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad? The most famous men created arms, laws and empires only. They founded, if anything at all, no more than material powers which often crumbled away before their eyes. This man moved not only armies, legislations, empires, peoples and dynasties, but millions of men in one-third of the then inhabited world, and more than that, he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and the souls. 

On the basis of a Book, every letter of which has become law, he created a spiritual nationality which blended together peoples of every tongue and of every race. He has left for us as the indelible characteristic of this Muslim nationality the hatred of false gods and the passion for the One and Immaterial God. This avenging patriotism against the profanation of Heaven formed the virtue of the followers of Muhammad; the conquest of one-third of the earth to his dogma was his miracle, or rather it was not the miracle of a man but that of reason. The idea of the Unity of God, proclaimed amidst the exhaustion of fabulous theogonies, was in itself such a miracle that upon its utterance from his lips it destroyed all the ancient temples of idols and set on fire one-third of the world. 

His life, his meditations, his heroic revilings against the superstitions of his country, and his boldness in defying the furies of idolatry, his firmness in enduring them for fifteen years at Makka, his acceptance of the role of public scorn and almost of being a victim of his fellow countrymen; all these and, finally, his flight, his incessant preaching, his wars against odds, his faith in his success and his superhuman security in fortune, his forbearance in victory, his ambition, which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no manner striving for an empire; his endless prayers, his mystic conversations with God, his death and his triumph after death: all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction which gave him the power to restore a dogma. This dogma was two-fold, the unity of God and the immateriality of God; the former telling what God is, the latter telling what God is not; the one overthrowing false gods with the sword, the other starting an idea with the words.

 

“Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without images, the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is Muhammad. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?”^[9]

 

“… These Arabs, the man Mahomet and that one century,—is it not as if a spark had fallen, one spark, on a world of what seemed black unnoticeable sand; but lo! the sand proves explosive powder, blazes heaven-high from Delhi to Grenada; I said the Great Man was always as lightning out of heaven, the rest of the men waited for him like fuel, and then they too would aflame.”^[10]

 

“It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character of the great Prophet of Arabia, who knows how he taught and how he lived, to feel anything but reverence for that mighty Prophet, one of the great messengers of Supreme.”^[11]  

 

 

---

[1] Stanley Lane-Poole: The Speeches and Table-Talk of the Prophet Mohammad, Introduction, pp. 27-30.

[2] John Davenport: An Apology for Mohammad and the Koran, pp. 52-53.

[3] A. C. Bouquet: Comparative Religion, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1954, pp. 269-270.

[4] Washington Irving: Mahomet and his Successors, London 1909; pp. 192193, 199.

[5] Thomas, Carlyle: On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, p.

[6] .

[7] Edward Gibbon: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, London 1838, vol. V, P. 335.

[8] Bosworth Smith: Mohammad and Mohammadanism, p. 92.

[9] Lamartine: Histoire de la Turquie, Paris 1854, Vol. 2, pp. 276-277. (Italics are the present writer’s).

[10] Thomas Carlyle: op. cit., p. 311.

[11] Annie Besant: The Life and Teachings of Muhammad, Madras 1932, p. 4. 

Source

to be continued . . . . .