There is a general awareness in Muslim society about the rights of parents and their violation is also considered bad, even though in many families there is a lack of practice despite the awareness. This lack of practice sometimes takes the form of oppression and abuse. But there is a general lack of understanding and awareness in the society regarding the rights of children. This is either the result of ignorance of Islamic teachings or characteristic of worldliness.
Therefore, for the prevalence of Islam at the family level, on the one hand, fulfilment of the rights of parents in Muslim society is essential, but the real task is not the knowledge of parental rights but how to instil in children a spirit of action and strong motivation. And for this purpose, children must know the horrors of worldly and otherworldly consequences of violating the parental rights. On the other hand, awakening the sense of fulfilling the rights of children is also required, but the real task is to spread the true knowledge of these rights rather than to awaken the spirit of action in parents.
From the Islamic point of view, what are the rights of children that parents are required to know as a matter of their responsibility for which they will be held accountable? Due to the materialistic tendency, parents usually strive, even beyond their means, for their children’s material needs, modern secular education and career building only. In this respect, their efforts and concerns for children are not negated but these are only one aspect of the issue. As a result of this one-sided attention, the other most important rights of children are either completely neglected or unconsciously become mere adherence to family traditions in which the spirit that is required from the Islamic point of view is not found.
As far as the spirit and significance of these rights from an Islamic point of view are concerned, most of the parents spend their whole life in a state of ignorance. The heavy price that a Muslim family has to pay for this ignorance and negligence may be observed in many Muslim families around us, but parents usually seem oblivious to the root cause of the malaise. They seldom find out their faults. They remain perplexed as to when and how they faltered?
From the Islamic point of view, some of the following rights of children are, of course, found in most Muslim families, but with ignorance of their wisdom and significance; some of the rights of children are not known at all, and some are overshadowed by worldly orientation and interests.
RIGHT TO LIFE AND PROTECTION
The first and foremost right of a child is that the basic things he/she needs in order to survive should be fulfilled as much as possible and his/her existence should be protected. Newborns are at the mercy of the family. It is the family’s responsibility to ensure that the newborn is not neglected and should not be taken as a burden. He/she is properly cared for to the best possible extent as per the capacity of parents.
Fear of financial hardship or disruption of one’s personal comfort should not lead parents to throw away their child before or after birth. Admonishing on killing the newborn baby, Allah has declared such deeds as a grave sin. And specifically pointing to girls, it is strongly condemned that in the Hereafter, when people will stand before God with their heads bowed down for accountability, they will be asked about the girls who were buried alive and for what guilt they were buried. The current trend of girls being considered a burden and killed in the womb and sometimes even after birth is a matter of grave concern. Whether it is a boy or girl, the right to life is their first right and protecting their life is the first responsibility of parents.
RIGHT TO ISLAMIC IDENTITY
The names of children are their age long identities. They do not name themselves but they get their name from their parents/guardians. Names, denoting their Islamic identity and not some rubbish or contrary to Islamic identity, are their right as members of a Muslim family. The Holy Prophet ﷺ exhorted the Ummah: “On the Day of Resurrection you will be called by the names of yourself and your fathers, so have good names.” (Musnad Ahmad) The Holy Prophet ﷺ changed the names of many Companions so that by converting to Islam, their identity is reflected in the meanings of the names and blessings would be added and they would be transformed into Islamic mould. Name of a companion of the Prophet was changed from Al-Jabbar (the oppressor) to Abdul Jabbar (Jabbar’s servant). Abu Bakr Siddiq’s name was changed from Abdul Ka’bah (servant of Ka’bah) to Abdullah (servant of Allah). The famous Companion Abu Hurayrah was named from Abdul Shams (Shams’ servant) to Abdul Rahman (Rahman’s servant). Good names, if given consciously, are not just names but also make parents conscious of their meanings and they are expected to try to make their children accordingly.
RIGHT TO PURIFICATION
Parents are also obliged to have their children’s birth hair trimmed as a symbol of purification and to offer animal sacrifice on their behalf in the Allah with a sense of thanksgiving. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Every child is mortgaged until his aqeeqah. On the seventh day animal should be slaughtered on his/her behalf, on that day his/her name should be given and his/her head should be shaved.” (Tirmidhi)
RIGHT TO LOVE AND COMPASSION
The attention and love of parents is an indispensable need of children; without it their proper upbringing, protection and development cannot be imagined. Therefore, the affection and love of parents is their basic right. On one occasion the Prophet ﷺ kissed Syedna Hasan. There was a man Aqra bin Habis (a Bedouin chief) sitting there. He said he had ten sons but had never kissed any of them till today, “I had not expressed any lovely gesture to any of them.” What is the point of a Sardar to love children? The Prophet ﷺ looked up and said: “Look! If you do not show mercy, you will not be shown mercy. Kindness is bestowed on the one who himself is a kind person.” (Bukhari) Hazrat Anas said: I have not seen anyone more kind to his family than the Prophet ﷺ. (Muslim)
RIGHT TO EQUAL TREATMENT AND NON-DISCRIMINATION
The right of children to be treated equally without discrimination is also the most important aspect of Islamic family system. No child should be preferred to other children because of pampering, nor should any child be ignored because of one’s personal likes and dislikes. The Holy Prophet ﷺ said: Fear Allah and be just to your children. A Companion narrated to the Holy Prophet that he had given a slave to one of his sons. The Prophet ﷺ asked if he had given it to other sons, but he denied. Then, according to a narration (Bukhari & Muslim), the Holy Prophet said: “Then do not make me a witness. I cannot be a witness to injustice.” In the same way, giving preference to a son over a daughter or giving preference to a daughter over a son is a sign of discrimination and a violation of equal treatment between children and contrary to Islamic teachings in the light of the above warning.
RIGHT TO TARBIYAH
One of the prominent rights of children in a Muslim family is their Islamic and moral upbringing. The primary responsibility of parents is to educate their children in Islamic morals and etiquette and to inculcate in them a sense of responsibility for the Hereafter. The Prophet ﷺ said: “No one has given his children a better gift than good manners.” (Tirmidhi)
On another occasion, the Prophet ﷺ said: Not only the children will have to suffer the consequences of neglecting the training, but also the parents. (Ibn Majah) Allah Almighty has enjoined: “O you who believe! Save yourselves and your families from the Fire.” (The Qur’ān – 66:6)
The Prophet ﷺ has warned: Every one of you is a guardian and each one is responsible for his/her subject and is responsible for his/her house. Further said, the result of paying this right better will be better for both of them. Allah Almighty has given the good news: “We shall unite the believers with those descendants of theirs who followed them in their faith and shall not deny them any part of the reward of their good deeds. Every person is pledged to what he did.” (The Qur’ān – 52:21) And the Noble Prophet ﷺ said: When a person dies, he/she continues getting the reward in case of righteous children who keep praying for him/her.
RIGHT TO PROPER EDUCATION
The right to education is of fundamental importance in the rights of children. Generally, there are two major trends in the Muslim society in this regard: One is that of religious education which is considered to have the only obligatory status for which parents are responsible. Only for this type of education, virtues have been mentioned in the Qur’ān and Hadith. This thinking is ingrained in the Muslim society at the theoretical level.
The other trend that is practically prevalent in the Muslim society is limited to the modern secular education of children. Both of these trends are reflection of the one-sidedness that does not conform to the teachings of the Qur’ān and Sunnah, nor does the Muslim history support it. Both of these trends are the product of our decline, during which, on the one hand, education was limited to traditional religious education in response to external cultural influences.
On the other hand, fascinated by the scientific development and scientific progress of the Western nations, in the Muslim society, modern secular education became practically a priority. From the Islamic point of view, the prevailing religious and secular division of education is the result of our all-round decline.
In the Qur’ān, Allah Almighty has revealed not only the verses related to correct beliefs and morals, and the purification of the soul and the rules of the Shari’ah, but also the verses that describe the scientific details regarding the cosmic phenomena and human creation.
Religious and secular duality does not matter in education. For centuries, the Muslim society had been practising a holistic concept of knowledge rather than the division of religious and secular education. Under this holistic trend and unitary concept of education, the Muslim society produced students specialising in some specific field of knowledge as well as having knowledge of the Qur’ān and Sunnah, jurisprudence and literature and medicine, engineering, science, history, philosophy, sociology and other sciences. Some of them excelled in many disciplines and some others attained the position of Ijtihad in one of them.
In view of these facts, it is important to equip children with education and skills that will enable them to fulfil their family’s financial responsibilities as well as to teach them the Qur’ān and Sunnah so that they can practise and adapt life to God’s will. Furthermore, at an early age when education orients their mental faculties, they must be educated in both religious and modern education so that in later periods they may contribute to the ever expanding knowledge in science, social sciences and other fields of knowledge with an Islamic perspective.
In order to better fulfil their responsibility towards the basic rights of children, it is necessary for parents to be aware of the multifaceted nature of the rights. If they remain enslaved to their traditional inclination or fascination, the rights of children in Islamic perspective will remain a far cry.