Is every child born with a pure nature?

Yes. According to the Holy Qur’an and the Holy Prophet Muhammad (saw), every child comes into the world with a pure, God given nature. It is only later that its surroundings, above all its parents, shape it in one direction or another.

Islam does not see a newborn child as someone already weighed down by guilt. Every child begins life with a pure nature. This nature is given by God, and it inclines towards goodness and towards belief in the One God.

The Holy Qur’an calls this nature fitrah. The verse above says that God has created all people with it and that there is no altering His creation. The second verse adds that every soul has an inner sense of what is right and what is wrong. It is like a compass that every person carries from birth.

The hadith above makes this clear with an image from everyday life. An animal gives birth to a perfectly sound young one. If it is later found injured, that harm was done after its birth. In the same way, every child comes into the world unharmed. What it later believes and how it lives, it learns mainly from its parents and its surroundings.

Two things follow from this. First, parents can look at their child with trust, because goodness is already within it. Second, they carry a great responsibility, because it is they who either protect this nature or bury it. A child is most likely to follow what it experiences at home.

This pure nature is never completely lost. Even when a person has moved far away from it, the inner compass remains. That is why anyone, at any time, can find their way back to what is good.