How do Muslim parents in the West raise their children?

The main responsibility lies with the parents themselves, not with the school or the mosque. The more the surrounding society pulls at children, the more time, love and good example parents need to give.

Many Muslim parents in the West feel torn. Children spend half the day at school, then television and screens are waiting, and the values there often differ from those at home. It is tempting to think that the school, the Holy Qur’an teacher or the community should make up for it.

Islam sees it differently. Parents are the first stewards of their children, as the hadith above says. The more society demands of children, the more time parents must give themselves. That is hard, especially after a tiring day at work. But this time cannot be replaced by anyone else.

Good upbringing is not mainly a list of prohibitions. Forbidding alone often achieves the opposite. It is better to awaken a taste for what is good at an early age. The stories of the prophets in the Holy Qur’an are ideal for this, because children love stories and remember them all their lives.

Children listen carefully, but they watch even more carefully. They quickly sense what truly matters to their parents, and they follow the values that are lived, not just spoken. When a father and mother pray, are honest and treat each other kindly, children learn this without many words.

In Islam this upbringing even begins very early. Parents pray for their children before they are born, and the first words spoken into a newborn’s ear are the call to prayer. Children take in far more than we imagine. The verse above reminds us that what parents place in their children today is what they send ahead for tomorrow.