Status of Children in Islam

Islam brought respect for children, especially for the girls. And our Prophet used to call maximum respect for children, especially for girls. I would like to mention a few examples and then make a comment that I think would be relevant to our world today.

One incident which is very beautiful, is: our Prophet used to show lots of love to his children and grandchildren. For example, he used to kiss his grandchildren. In that society, it was a sign of weakness for a man to kiss his children. You should keep your emotions inside. It was not a sign of strength. So one of the people who was there, he said to the Prophet, I never kissed my children. He was surprised how Rasul Allah kisses his grandchildren. And Rasul Allah said, "ma la yarham, la yurham". If you don't show mercy, you will not receive mercy. You have to show mercy to children, so that God would show mercy to you.

In another incident, which may happen more than once, we find that the Prophet, when he was going to prostrate in Sajida, as we call it, in prayer sometime, his grandchildren, Imam Hasan and Imam Husayn, were going on [the] back of the Prophet and he was taking time. This is congregational prayer and many many people are in that prayer. But the Prophet had so much of love for his grandchildren that he was prolonging his prostration so that they come out of his back and then he stands up.

In one incident that made a history, once, when Prophet was going to start his prayer, as you know, we start with Takbirat ul-Ihram, we say God is greater. So Imam Husayn, his grandson, who was very little kid, he was in the prayer and he was not able to say Allahu Akbar. And the Prophet was asked by God to repeat. He repeated seven times so that this young child can also say properly God is great. So this shows that love for children is a sense of religion and a sense of indeed, humanity.

We have a beautiful hadith from Prophet Muhammad that I think can summarize many things. He said, Ahibbu as-subiyan, love children. As much as you can, you should show love and your affection to children, "wa 'rhamuhum", and should have mercy on children. Mercy, in my understanding, is when you show love by giving without expectation. When I give and I expect something, this is not Rahma. Rahma is to love, but by giving, not justloving, giving, but without expecting.

And also the Prophet said whenever you promise children, you must keep your promise. Sometimes, some of us may say: when I promise an adult, I should keep my promise, but maybe children forget, so I can promise something and later I may not be able to do it, but just to make them happy for the moment, I give a promise. But this is not right. The Prophet said: "idha a'wattumuhum, fa fulahum". When you promise children, you should keep your promise. And then he said something which I think [is] a great lesson. He said, your children look at you as your sustainers as if you are the Lord. You should never disappoint the people who look at you as your lord.

So what I want to say is we, whether it is our children or any children, we should look at them as if we are responsible. Because they look at us as their lord. They look at us as their sustainers. And one of the worst things that can happen is when an innocent child has put his or her trust in us, adults. If we mistreat them, if we abuse them. Our 7th Imam, Imam Kadhim said: God never gets angry as when He gets angry when women or children are abused. "Inna Allah la yaghdadu li shay'in ka qadabhi li 'n-nisa'i wa as-subiyan". So, when children are abused, God is most unhappy with us.

So my request is, of course I don't think anyone here would be in need of this advice. But we have to work together to spread this message, that we work together to offer all children of the world, which are all innocent, and which are all gifts of God. And in Islamic tradition we believe all children, even miscarried babies, they go to heaven. Even we have hadiths, that a miscarried baby, when God says go to heaven, says I don't go to heaven unless my parents join me. So all babies, all children, these are innocent, these are angels, and they go to heaven. Our responsibility is to make sure that as much as possible, we make the world safe. But not only safe, a warm and welcoming place for them.