by Rached Zantout

At an elementary school in Syria, a teacher took his class on a trip. They passed a church. The nuns welcomed the children warmly, gave them sweets, showed them around. Then the class walked to the town mosque. The moment they stepped inside, the caretaker screamed at them and drove them out: "This is a Masjid, not a children's playground."

Rached Zantout, posting to soc.religion.islam in May 1991, used that anecdote to close a careful argument drawn from hadith. The Prophet, he shows, did the opposite: he cut short a prayer because he heard a child crying. He held a granddaughter in his arms during sujud. He stepped down from the minbar mid-sermon to pick up two grandsons who had stumbled in their shirts. The mosque was built as the center of communal life, not as a sanctuary from it — and its children were always part of it.

The Masjid in Islam serves as the most beloved place for Allah. It is the fortress of belief and good manners, the first school that a Muslim graduates from. It is the house of those who fear Allah, the place where Muslims meet every day, the center of their consultations and deliberations, the place where they make friends and help each other to do good. From the Masjid, Muslim armies went out and opened the East and the West. To it the traveler first comes when he returns to his town. From it the Ulama graduated; in it the injured were given help. In it people used to judge and be judged; caliphs used to be asked about their deeds. In summary, the Masjid is the place where the Ummah meets, makes Shurah (consultation), and learns. The Masjid is not only a place where someone makes salaat.

The children are the men and women of the future, so it is forbidden to lead them astray or prevent them from the blessings of coming to the Masjid. The Masjid, the house of Allah, is also the nest of the believers and the school of the Muslims.

Islam places great importance on caring for the children and raising them according to the Islamic way and the manners of the Quran. The Prophet said: "Order your children to pray when they get to the age of seven, and if they do not pray at the age of ten, discipline them. And when boys and girls reach the age of ten, do not let them sleep together in the same bed."

The right school to teach prayer is the Masjid. The companions of the Prophet used to hang in the Masjid parts of palm trees full of dates, so that children and others might eat from them. They did this to encourage children to come to the Masjid in order to learn Islam from its sources.

The child that is raised according to a certain way will follow it all his life. That is why the hadith specifies that one of the seven categories who will be shaded by the shade of Allah on the day when there is no other shade is a youngster who grew up in obedience to Allah (Bukhari and Muslim).

Parents should bring their children with them to the Masjid so that the children will be raised obedient to Allah. At the Prophet's time, children used to come to the Masjid, and the Prophet used to personally care for them and be kind to them.

The Prophet once was giving the Khutbah on the Minbar when he saw his grandsons Hassan and Hussein walking and stumbling in their shirts. He stopped, descended, and carried them in his hands, saying what can be translated as: "Allah tells the Truth: 'Your possessions and your progeny are but a trial.' I looked at those two children walking and stumbling, and I could not continue my talk — so I stopped and picked them up."

Another time the Prophet was prostrating in sujud, leading the Muslims in prayer. He remained in sujud so long that those praying behind him feared he had died. The reason was that one of his grandchildren had climbed onto his back, and he waited in place until the child came down.

Once the Prophet did not prolong the fajr prayer. When asked why, he replied: "I heard a child crying, and I thought that his mother was praying with us, so I did not want the child to wait long for her."

He also said: "I begin the prayer with the intention to make it long — but when I hear a child crying, I make my prayer short, because I know that his mother is hurting because of his crying."

Abu Qatada narrated that he saw the Prophet leading the prayer while holding Umamah, the daughter of Abi al-As. When the Prophet went to ruku, he put her down; when he rose from sujud, he picked her up again.

This is how the Prophet used to treat children in the Masjid. It is forbidden to be harsh with the children — even with words — or to expel them from the Masjid. Such harshness grows in their hearts a hatred for prayer, for the Masjid, and for Islam itself, a hatred that will grow with them until they become the founders of the next generation. As for the hadith which appears to prevent small children and the mentally unfit from coming to the mosque — it is a weak hadith, with no sound basis (la asla lahu), according to Shawkani, al-Albani, and many others.

One of the elementary school teachers in Syria once took the children of his class on a trip. On their way they passed a church, where the nuns welcomed them warmly, gave them sweets, and took them on a tour of the church, explaining its history and answering all their questions. Their next stop was the town mosque. The teacher took the children in to offer prayer. The moment they set foot inside, the man who cares for the mosque screamed at them and drove them out, claiming: "This is a Masjid, not a children's playground." This man did not know that preventing children from coming to the Masjid is Bid'a — an innovation in religion — because it contradicts what the Prophet used to do.

Posted to soc.religion.islam on May 7, 1991. Author: Rached Zantout, The Ohio State University, Department of Electrical Engineering. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

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