On Monday my aunt had invited members of the family to an iftar - dinner hosted in the honour of her two sons who experienced fasting for Allah for the first time in their lives. It was such a beautifull event and my two little cousins looked so excited and happy more so, when the elders appreciated them and presented them with gifts. Both seemed to feel like flying in the clouds by becoming so special and the center of attention of all those present there.
This drove me to make a realization that children are particularly more enthusiastic about prayers and answering to the call of God than us shameless adults. Those two young fellows called up in the morning that day to tell that they were fasting. They felt so happy about it and there was so much energy and enthusiasm. On the other hand, we shameless adults seek to shirk every possible duty towards religion. We want to skip Salat; we want to "save" money by cutting back on Zakat; we feel ill by keeping fasts and while we don't spare a single moment about the importance of following the Qur'an and the Sunnah, yet the Holy Book remains wrapped up in one corner of the house for the whole year round.
We adults are so hypocrites. Small children are so better than us. But, weren't we, when we were children, as enthusiastic about religion as other children are? Yes we were. I remember myself as a child and I see children all around me. I'm getting amazed that as we grow up, we're supposed to get mature and develop our habits into our personalities. But what actually happens is the opposite. As we grow up, the lines between good and bad keeps getting blurred in our minds and we continue to accept bad as good. Small children have something serious to teach us!!
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4 comments:
Kids are clever. They know they will be showered with appreciation and gifts for doing this! ;)
clever or not, I agree with Syed Sibghatullah. I used to say namaz five times a day at a mosque when I was six. If I might say so, I think it has been at least a dozen years since I've even attempted to do that. Hell, other than Ramadan, its been a while since five prayers have been said in any given day.
Now that you know how much of a practising Muslim I am, back to the point. Good post! We need to bring out the childhood feelings, when we were not concerned about work, studies, friends, tv, money, etc etc. Now everything else takes precedence over God.
That's something I have been thinking about myself for a while now. Hoping to soon learn to implement it on self.
Lovely post. I remember when my elder daughter kept her first fast, at the age of 7.
We got together all her friends, and she got tons of gifts. The ceremony known as "ROZA KUSHAI", was almost like a ritual into growing up. The following year she completed her Quran and once again, another ceremony took place with yummy food and lots of gifts.
It is nice to see th little ones so excited about their first "fast", and to enrichen the experience, as a reward they get their favourite treats. All her aunties/uncles called from all over the world, and it even though they could not be physically with us , everyone's prayers and good wishes came.
Such appreciation and gifts, I think, are meant to encourage the children upon their path to religion, to encourage their devotion towards good, an encouragement to abstain from bad and a material display of rewards for good deeds. But this again comes from us adults who fail to implement tenets of religion in our own lives in toto.
As children, we keep a fear that doing bad may cause Divine Displeasure and thus, God keeps priority with us. But as we move on and "grow up", other things start taking precedence to God. It's so bad, it's so shameful. Yet we never fail to strive to teach our young ones about religion, although our young ones remain more enthusiastic religion than us.
At this, I agree with you, boo!
@kaya:
Yes, this too was a Roza - Kushai. All the good wishes come and everyone showers children with gifts and stuff and wishes, but again, the "everyone", is us grown ups who fail the test of all we teach to the young.
@clayfuture:
Kids are indeed more clever than us :) .
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