WHEN ALLAH CHOOSES OUR CHILDREN

Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem

By Ummumar copyright 2007

Or do you think that you will enter the Garden of bliss without such trials as came to those who passed away before you? They encountered suffering and adversity, and were so shaken in Spirit that even the Messenger and those of faith who were with him cried: “When will come the help of Allah.” Ah! Verily, the help of Allah is always near!
(Quran 2:214)

When Allah chooses us to serve Him, we can be called to a certain profession, like a Muslimah  never wanting to be anything but a doctor; or He can divert us from one profession to another, like a Muslimah starting out to be an accountant and ending up as a teacher; or He can let us go through some difficult period in life that will prepare us to later help others go through similar experiences as many addiction counselors and rape counselors are persons who have undergone their own personal sagas before coming  to help others faced with such situations.

In reading Quran or hadith, it is not difficult to see that the first Muslim community underwent terrible trials and hardships, in part because their lives were meant to be examples for Muslims for all time. Allah set the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings be upon him) the task of guiding them and of receiving revelation directly in regard to his own circumstances, the lives of his family, the companions, their allies, helpers and enemies.  

Throughout the centuries, Muslims who are called upon by Allah to be examples to others have a more difficult path, because Allah has called them to undergo some great difficulty and come out the other side of it prepared to serve Him through that experience. Some undergo hardship voluntarily—those who chose a life of study or a career that requires years of sacrifice on their part.  Some choose to become defenders of their ummah, and are willing to forgo ties to family and friends at the cost of their own lives, if need be.  There are others who do not choose, and who are not even old enough to choose, but are chosen by Allah to serve His purpose for the good of others in their infancy or youth.

There are Muslim children who live with disabilities or terminal illness.  There are Muslim children who are victims of physical or sexual abuse.  There are Muslim children who, from a young age, are the caretakers of other family members.  There are Muslim children who face violence, war, starvation or privation of all sorts.

We never know how Allah is going to use us or our children.  Parenting involves more than just loving and raising a child.  As Muslims, parenting has to be fisabil Allah–in service to Allah–if we are going to be able  to come up with the correct responses to the events that may take place in the lives of our children.  We never know when Allah will call on us to be the parent of a child whose life will become an example to others.  We never know when Allah will call or in what way Allah will call one of us to be an example to our children. Yet the combination of undergoing great difficulty and learning to be of service to others as a result of that difficulty may, if Allah chooses, bring us closer to Him in this life and in the hereafter.

The other side of it is those who, when faced with great tests, or whose children are subject to great tests, turn away from Allah with questions of “Why me?” or “Where was Allah when I needed Him?”  or “How could Allah let such evil touch the life of an innocent child?”  The parent who understands fisabil Allah and is trying to strive in the path of Allah will have the answers to those questions:  Allah test us all.  Allah is always there.  Allah is just, and nothing is forgotten by Him.

For instance, there are women today who, after having suffered abuse in their lives, turn away from Islam and become champions of those who fight against Islam.  Then there are other women, also victims of abuse, who become champions of Muslim women like themselves and struggle to enjoin good and forbid evil within the Muslim community. We can’t place the blame or the success of these women upon their parents; each soul is accountable for itself.  But we can look at such women and realize that if there is anything we, as parents, could do to help our children choose one path or the other, then we are obligated before Allah to do so.

Parents who do not understand fisabil Allah, striving in the path of Allah, may let anger, despair, grief, guilt or shame destroy them and destroy their children.  We should instead be supporting our children by helping them understand and by letting them see in our own responses that the difficulty Allah has set forth in their lives is a sign that Allah wants them and us to strive to be among those who are near to Him.  The parents may, in fact, look into their own lives and see how Allah has already prepared them in some way to guide such children.

Furthermore, we have to teach our children that it is not just the actual disaster or the difficulty that is the test, it is also how we respond after the fact that will determine our success or failure in this life and in the hereafter.
Fatimah (May Allah be pleased with her) was growing up during the time of the siege and embargo against the Muslims in Mecca. Her growth and health were permanently affected by the privation.  The hardships of all the adults at that time must have been amplified by the suffering of the children under their care.  Yet when those years were over, and Fatimah, as a young, married woman of uncertain health approached her father for one of the captives to be a given as a servant to her, the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) looked not to ease her hardships in this life, but to gift her with the greatest possible reward in the hereafter.

Volume 7, Book 64, Number 274:
Narrated Ali:
Fatima went to the Prophet complaining about the bad effect of the stone hand-mill on her hand. She heard that the Prophet had received a few slave girls. But (when she came there) she did not find him, so she mentioned her problem to ‘Aisha. When the Prophet came, ‘Aisha informed him about that. ‘Ali added, “So the Prophet came to us when we had gone to bed. We wanted to get up (on his arrival) but he said, ‘Stay where you are.” Then he came and sat between me and her and I felt the coldness of his feet on my abdomen. He said, “Shall I direct you to something better than what you have requested? When you go to bed say ‘Subhan Allah’ thirty-three times, ‘Alhamdulillah’ thirty three times, and Allahu Akbar’ thirty four times, for that is better for you than a servant.” (Bukhari)
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/064.sbt.html#007.064.273

The hadith is a reminder of our role as parents; to help us help our children learn gratitude to Allah in hardship and to remember that their lives and ours belong to Allah.  The relationship between Fatimah (May Allah be pleased with her) and her father, the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is an example to all of us parents when we have children whose lives serve as an example to others.

We don’t, sometimes as parents, always have the faith, the foresight or the understanding to direct our children to that which is better for them in the next life.  We want to see all ease and comfort and safety for our children in this life, and indeed it is our responsibility to provide all of these things for them at all times to the best of our ability. We are obligated to seek help—to go for treatment, to get counseling, to find refuge, to emigrate if necessary. But if our faith is not strong enough, then we need to spend a lot of time in prayer for ourselves as well; because when Allah sets our children on a path of difficulty, then we as Muslim parents have to remember that our children belong not to us, but to Allah. If we don’t help them to learn gratitude toward Allah and to serve Allah, our love and our sacrifices for them in this life will have come to nothing. We will have failed our children, and we will have failed in our own duty to Allah.

If Allah helps you, none can overcome you: If He forsakes you, who is there, after that, that can help you? In Allah, then, Let believers put their trust.  (Quran 3:160)

References:

http://quran.eyesalve.org/
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/hadithsunnah/bukhari/064.sbt.html#007.064.273