Thread by @TheOblongata

THREAD: “Who is responsible for raising a child?”🧐

1: The best case scenario for a child-male or female- is the active participation of both parents in his/her upbringing.

But what if we were dealing with situations that are far from ideal, like our current lives?

2: Yesterday, @Abdulrahmanleme asked a rather rhetoric question which got me thinking about this issue. The knee jerk answer is that in our society, a child’s upbringing is the primary responsibility of “the mother”. But is that truly the answer from an islamic perspective?

3: In a vibrant happy islamic family, aside from the fact that the man bears the financial responsibilities of the family, roles are very fluid and mutually cooperative; they are infact hardly discussed in the Quran & Sunnah,

4: ..the expectation being that with Mawadda (love) & Rahma (compassion), a good couple will figure out their mutual Sukoon (tranquility).

When it comes to kids, the sunnah teaches that good islamic upbringing is one of the rights of the child, but even then, Quran & Sunnah..

5: ..do not place this responsibility squarely on the mother. Father and mother are expected to ACTIVELY participate in a child's upbringing and in building the child’s character together.

6:🤔(Minor digression) Have you noticed that when the Quran enjoins extra kindness to our mothers, it does not cite upbringing as the reason? Instead, the Quran unfailingly cites the ordeal of pregnancy as the reason why mothers have earned a lifetime of our respect & kindness.

7: Now in the less ideal situation involving a young divorced family, rules & regulations crystallize. The 4 madhabs ~ agreed that if the kids are younger than 7yrs, then the mother gets custody while the father continues to fully provide for the financial needs of the kids.

8: The madhabs differed about custody after age 7; gender mattered. Father gets custody of a son ~ age 7 (Shafi’i, Hanafi , Hanbali) or when he can talk/express himself clearly (Maliki). For girls, ~7y (Shafi’i & Hanbali), ~puberty in hanafi fiqh, or until she marries (maliki)

9: In other words, all 4 fiqh schools vouched for transferring the upbringing of a son to the father ~7yrs. We know that kids continue to grow after age 7; guys actually mature at a slower rate than girls & the peri-pubertal time is a critical formative phase in male development.

10: Clearly, father-son bonding and upbringing is super important in Islam.

There’s a scriptural reason.

Contrary to popular, traditional thought which places emphasis on the upbringing of girls (indeed, SAW was a father of 4 girls who lived to adulthood)..

11: ..the Quran instead focuses on the importance of raising good sons. In several verses, the Quran showcases father-son relationships & discussions: Ibrahim & his sons, Israel & his sons, Dawud & Sulaiman as well as Luqman & his son.

12: 🤔Think about Luqman for a minute. He was not a Prophet, yet he has a whole surah named after him for his wise upbringing of his son; indeed, the story of Luqman in the Quran involve only a few verses capturing a beautiful father-son moment.

13: Profound isnt it, that Allah decreed that the father-son interaction between Luqman and his son, and the advice given is so important that He snapshot it and included it as part of the timeless guidance of the Quran - for us.

14: In each father-son scenario, the Quran underscores the father's (not the mother's) active & direct participation in the upbringing for young males. We find the father giving religious & moral advice to the son(s): be God-fearing, good, modest, gentle etc.

15: Crucially, when the Quran cites these father-son conversations, it does so in the larger context of teaching us how to preserve generations of the ummah on the faith.

[🤔Perhaps, because it is a “societal given”, there is no similar parent-daughter snaptshot in the Quran]

16: Basically, the Quran teaches us that if we want a solid ummah that remains faithful to the tenets of Islam for generations, then not only does the ummah need to raise God fearing sons but that their fathers need to play a MAJOR, ACTIVE, and DIRECT role in their upbringing.

17: So when you think of it, Arewa society fails young men majorly. The model Arewa family has clear & rather rigid roles in which a father's main job is to financially provide (May Allah bless their struggle)...but he is hardly home or has time for his kids; he hardly helps..

18: ..with chores; he hardly mingles with the family. The model wife in our society is responsible for upbringing & housechores (+\- with househelps). And as long as husband & wife are faithful to these defined roles, our society considers them exemplars of a good marriage.

19: 🤔Really, what we consider a model family in typical Arewa society is actually the worst case family scenario in Islam; our model family mirrors a divorced islamic family, the only difference being that in one, the family lives together & in the other, separately.

Tragic.

20: In our society, sons are generally neglected precisely when they need the active participation of the fathers in their lives. An adolescent male needs vibrant interaction with a father figure. In our society, that role is unfortunately filled by a circle of young friends.

21: For those young adult males whose fathers are alive (May Allah grant Rahma to those who have passed), the norm in our society is a father-son relationship which is almost 100% financial, +\- running errands. Fathers rarely participate in their kids’ schooling activities,

22: ..they hardly talk deep personal talk, they hardly mingle in a sustained manner to a point that would positively impact a son's character & shape their moral compass. Many fathers in our society are absent in the lives of their young sons, outsourcing their roles to others.

23: If you take a survey today, you will be shocked that many guys cannot claim having more than 3 one-hour personal chats with their fathers in the past year.

Here's another problem with our ummah : our society does not generally subscribe to parents & kids sharing a meal.

24: The father is usually served separetely/privately, so that crucial father-son bonding time is lost. I bet you many young guys have never eaten at the same place & time with their fathers, and many others can count how many times they've done so.

25: Heck, the father-son disconnection in our ummah is so profound that many probably dont have a single picture of themselves with their father.

So you see, unlike the Quranic model which teaches a clear, direct, active upbringing relationship between fathers and sons..

26: ..our society fails woefully in that category. Infact, the minority that follow the Quranic model are perceived as being westernized rather than being Islamic. So considering that the Quran emphasizes that the foundations of a good ummah require that young males are raised..

27:.. with active, sustained, nurturing participation of their fathers (a role that transcends fulfilling financial needs), are you surprised that our ummah has gone so awry?

May Allah, bless all parents & ease parenting for them.

28: 🤔🤔🤔🤔

Our ummah clearly needs major transformation in gender and family dynamics. We must rise above the weight of “culture” that even hinders the fulfillment of islamic duties.

Work to do.

PART II: Brainstorming constructive solutions for Arewa (coming soon😉)