Al-Ghazali on Disciplining the Soul & on Breaking the Two Desires

Al-Ghazali on Childrearing
Translated by: T.J.Winter (Abdal Hakim Murad)

KNOW that the way in which young children are disciplined is one of the most important of all matters. A child is a trust in the care of his parents, for his pure heart is a precious uncut jewel devoid of any form or carving, which will accept being cut into any shape, and will be disposed according to the guidance it receives from others. If it is habituated to and instructed in goodness then this will be its practice when it grows up, and it will attain to felicity in this world and the next; its parents too, and all its teachers and preceptors, will share in its reward. Similarly, should it be habituated to evil and neglected as though it were an animal, then misery and perdition will be its lot, and the responsibility for this will be borne by its guardian and supervisor. For God (Exalted is He!) has said, Ward off from yourselves and your families a Fire. A father may strive to protect his son from fire in this world, but yet it is of far greater urgency that he protect him from the fires which exist in the Afterlife. This he should do by giving him discipline, teaching him and refining his character, and by preserving him from bad company, and by not suffering him to acquire the custom of self-indulgence, or to love finery and luxury, in the quest for which he might well squander his life when older and thus perish forever. Rather should he watch over him diligently from his earliest days, and permit none but a woman of virtue and religion to nurse and raise him; her diet should be of permitted things, for there is no blessing [baraka] in milk which originates in forbidden food, which, should a child be nourished on it, will knead his native disposition in such a way as to incline his temperament to wrongdoing.

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Provisions

As parents who are educating their children, how do we reconcile the reality that our life in this world is transitory, and that true realization will be accompanied by understanding when the veil has been lifted (i.e. when we depart from this world)?

No sensible individual would avail themselves to the dangers of travel without provisions and preparation, so why then do we (as the responsible agents of our children) repeatedly send them forth unprepared to the appointed meeting with their Creator?

Indeed, secular knowledge has its benefits; there is no disputing this point. But we must contemplate the following question: “are we preparing our children with the provisions required for the journey that is infinitely more important than their present travels”?

Every individual bares a Divinely legislated responsibility, as made clear by the following Prophetic tradition: Ibn Umar (may God be pleased with him) said that the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace) said: "Each of you is a guardian, and each of you will be asked about your guardian-ship. The leader is a guardian, and the man is a guardian over the people of his house, and the woman is a guardian over her husband's house and children. So each of you is a guardian, and each of you will be asked about your guardianship". (Bukhari, Muslim)

As parents we need to transcend the myopic approach of adhering strictly to academic issues and testing based solely upon compulsory educational standards. With regard to our children it is imperative that we return to the primary objective of education-- providing the tools and opportunity for students to develop into complete human beings who can engage the world with integrity, virtue and compassion, and who will be well informed and comprehend the transitory nature of this abode.

Thus, I remind myself of this timeless advice: “the knowledge which secures salvation and felicity in the Hereafter is immeasurably more significant and useful than any science whose purpose is mere immediate physical well-being”. “Knowledge, then, used appropriately becomes wisdom…wisdom is the force of penetration and discernment of the mind, the ability to place everything in its precisely appropriate location, in the precisely appropriate manner, at the precisely appropriate time. It is also the ability to put first things first, never to allow the ephemeral to obscure the path to the eternal, nor the contingent to take priority over the essential”. [1]

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[1] Badawi, Mostafa, trans. [Fusul al-‘Ilmiyah wa-al-usul al hikmiyah], Knowledge and Wisdom. Chicago: The Starlatch Press, 2001

Spelling Review

When I began homeschooling our daughter this fall, I chose to commit three days per week to spelling. We have been using seven words per spelling lesson from the "Explode the Code" book series. The progression in the books has been very appropriate for our daughter, and she really enjoys the work.

An important point that should be mentioned is this: anytime you feel that a younger child--typically before the age of seven indicates (whether physically or verbally), that they are no longer interested in studying, you should respond to their feelings and end the lesson. Trying to push through it will only have negative affects, in that, disdain begins to grow in the child with regard to studying. Once this happens, it is as if a trust has been violated and then studying becomes a chore rather then an activity which they enjoy.

At the age of five, after five months our daughter is producing work like this (i.e. the above scanned page) consistently. A main point for us has been to listen to what our daughter is telling us. And most of the time we know when she has reached her limit--by observing her actions--not by her telling us.

Built upon the success that we have found pertaining to this spelling process, I have been inclined to try some short sentence dictation with her. In the next post I will--In sha Allah--scan a page of that work.

wa salam.

Dictation

I have been homeschooling my daughter (5 yrs. old) using a series in English--(spelling and writing)--named "Explode the Code". It has been fantastic! After four months of daily "spelling reviews" and short sentence writing, I wanted to try some dictation work with her. The above notebook page was her dictation for today.

Witnessing her development has been, and still is, completely therapeutic. I encourage every parent to become pro-active with regard to their child's education.

The rewards are beyond description!!! The love that is born out of this parent-child relationship is something that we are all in need of.

Information and Knowledge

The difference between information and knowledge is the application of those facts, or discerning reality from conjecture. Truly effective education develops the minds of thinking and articulate students who are able to process facts into arguments and communicate those arguments clearly and persuasively. Therefore, for education to be effective, it must go beyond merely conveying facts.