All praises be to Allah, the Lord of the worlds, for all His blessings and
guidance. Peace and blessings on Muhammad, His servant and final Messenger.

Our vision should be to train students to be ambassadors for Islam, so that
wherever students may go in the world, they will go as devout practicing
Muslims and they will call other people to Islam by their words and by
their actions, by their lives. Why? Because we believe that Islam is the
best way, the right way, the only way for human beings to live at peace
with themselves, at peace with each other and at peace with their Creator.
We should make and mould children who are intelligent, articulate,
thoughtful, kind, polite, trustful, upright- who are good human beings,
because that is what being a Muslim is-being a good human being, the best
human being that one can be. We are human and we make many mistakes, all of
us, and we cannot always live up to our goal- but this is the goal in front
of us. But if we work together as a team, then there is a hope that we will
be successful Insha Allah.

I want to share a few pointers with you about an Islamic home. An Islamic
home should be Bait-e-Jannah my home, my paradise.

1. Our home should function as a masjid. The parents act as imam to lead
the children toward closeness to Allah. Everything that makes us forgetful
of Allah (SWT) or that draws us away from Him should be removed from our
home. It is very painful to us to find a small child in KG II or I who
already has learned about adult matters from watching Hindi cinema or
American television programmes. Please, if you really want an Islamic
upbringing for your child, then you must be willing to make the sacrifice-
be very careful about what you allow into your house- what kind of music,
what kind of television programme (the best kind is no kind really), what
kind of magazines, what kind of pictures, what kind of conversation, what
kind of guests. Remove everything that leads a person away from Allah. The
home should be full of the Quran- reciting the Quran, reading the Quran,
studying the Quran, talking about what the Quran teaches, what Allah tells
us in the Quran. The Quran is not a book to be put up on a shelf- the Quran
is a handbook, an instruction manual, a roadmap, to guide us through this
doonya, so let us use it. So the home should be like a masjid, a place of
worship.

2. The home should be a madrassah. It is a place where knowledge is found.
Watawaso bil huq watawao sawbis-sabr. Advising one another is truth,
advising one another in patience. The home is the place where the basic
teaching takes place, even before the child comes to school.

3. The home is a fort, a stronghold against the enemy, a place of refuge
and safety against all kinds of danger and corruption. Remember that our
children's minds are being attacked from all sides, from all kinds of
enemies, and the real enemy, Shaytn-ur-rajeem, is a very very clever and
cunning enemy. Our children are being attacked by the enemy through books,
magazines, television, computer, newspaper, foods, games. Unless we make
our children aware of who the enemies are and how to protect themselves
against the enemy, then we are failing them. How can someone protect
himself unless he knows what dangers there are? Look, these days many
people wear a face mask on the road - why? He knows that the air is full of
dirt and pollutants and dangerous chemicals. He can protect himself a
little bit because he knows what danger he is in. So, help your child to
know what dangers he will face in life. Our home should be a fort.

4. The home is a hospital. Yes, a hospital. It is the place where healing
of body and mind and soul takes place. The home must be the place where
every member of the family comes when he is sick or hurt. When any member
of the family is ailing, unwell, either physically or spiritually, the home
should be the first place he goes for treatment. The child should run to
the parents for a cure and wholeness. As your children get older, if you
find that they prefer to go somewhere else when they are sad or have
problems, then you should feel alarmed and anxious- something is wrong.
Every member of the family when troubled in mind, troubled in heart, should
first rush home to his parents, his family for treatment.

5. The home is a military academy. There is the place to produce
mujahideen, soldiers of Islam, ambassadors who will carry the flag of Islam
wherever they go in the world. The home should give training to produce
high-quality soldiers for Islam.

So- does it sound too difficult? Yes, it is very difficult indeed. Without
the help of Allah who is kind and merciful we will all fails, you, me, all
of us. So let us join hands in this great enterprise, let us help each
other to make truly Islamic homes and truly Islamic schools - not just one
Islamic school, but many, I believe that many many people in Bangladesh
wish for a truly Islamic school. So how can we achieve the goal of an
Islamic home?

First, intention. When a man and woman get married the niyat should be to
establish an Islamic home.

Second, method. The proper method is to follow the Quran and Sunnah.
Married people always have disagreements about many things, don't they? But
at the very beginning of the marriage, even before the children are born,
the husband and wife should agree on one thing - that is to follow the
Quran and Sunnah as well as they can. Then if there is a disagreement, it
can be handled nicely- you just say to each other, okay, we are disagreeing
about this, let us find out what Allah subhanawatala says about it. So that
means of course that we have to be willing to study the meaning of the
Quran and to study the hadith, to understand what Allah tells us, or else
how can we obey and follow?

So that brings me to the third step; we need planning and discipline. We
must read and study the Quran together, we must establish salat regularly
and properly in the home- that includes calling your childred to pray with
you when they are seven years old- don't wati till they grow up and then
wonder why they don't pray. We must memorize and help our children memorize
as much of the Quran as possible - this will safeguard us.

Fourthly, there must be a spirit of sacrifice- that is we must realize that
we are making jihad with our nafs, that we are declaring a war on our own
sinful soul which is the greater jihad.

Then inshallah if we do all of these things we can hope for victory, for
Allah's blessing and mercy in making 'sadiqun sawalehun' the ideal family,
the Quranic family. Society all around us is crying out for it, they are
waiting for it with hope and expectation, they themselves feel the
desperate need for a new kind of family and home to change the society.

So we ask for Allah's help and blessing in our endeavour. We ask for
Allah's help and blessing so that we will succeed in training up a new
generation of Muslim young people to be pleasing to Allah in this doonya
and to be successful in the akhirat, inshallah.

Jazakallah khayr and assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.

Dr. Mahmood Ahmad
Director, Research Department
Islami Bank Training and Research Academy
Dhaka, BANGLADESH

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