Muslim Children Challenging the Religion of their Parents in the USA

Muslim Children

Challenging

the Religion

of

their

Parents

It was 3:00 a.m. I had just returned home from my trip to the United States and was

between frustration and exhaustion due to jet lag and my 3-year-old daughter’s

somewhat miraculous desire to be up and about in the middle of the night. While sitting

with her in my living room, watching her play with an astounding level of energy (following a

19-hour flight), she suddenly asked me, “Daddy, can I make

salah

?”

Half asleep, I pulled out the prayer mat and watched as she proceeded to go through the

prayer motions. Not that I hadn’t seen her do it before. Like most 3-year-olds, she loves to

mimic her parents in many of the things we do in our daily lives, including prayer. For some

reason, however, watching my daughter on that particular morning prompted me to think

deeply about the important role we parents have as role models in the education of our

children, and how we can be more effective at it, particularly against the backdrop of a world

of changing assumptions about religious attachments and choices.

Research from the field of the psychology of religion tells us that the nature of parents’

relationships with their children is a major determinant of children’s religious attachments in

their future lives. More recent efforts indicate that Islam is no exception to this, though most of

the overall research has been conducted with Christian populations. The bottom line is that

when children are thrust into this world, the individuals that provide them with their first and

most influential indoctrination and orientation to life in this realm of existence are usually the

parents or those adults charged with raising them.

It is the parents who provide the children with the initial and most influential experiences,

which will eventually develop into a foundational understanding of life and human

relations.

When parents and children have what can be considered strong and healthy

relationships, children’s attachments to their religion tends to be stronger in their formative

years.

Religious Freedom

The phenomenon of children “opting out” of Islam is virtually unheard of in most

Muslim countries, for obvious reasons relating to the societal and cultural norms of

those countries. However, for Muslim parents in the West, the threat of children choosing not

to follow their religion is real. As one father struggling with this dilemma put it, “In Canada we

are free to practice our faith. It’s a wonderful place to grow up as a Muslim. However, my 13-

year-old son has had problems living in this great country. My son has decided Islam is not for

him, that he has discovered too many flaws in the faith.” This is just one brave example of the

very real challenges Muslim parents are facing in the West in regard to their children growing

up with a sense of religious freedom.

Many parents who were born in Muslim lands and who did not grow up with a sense of choice

in regard to religion are living in the West and raising children who often find it difficult to strike

a balance between the culture of their parents’ native lands and that of their own countries.

Both parents and children are learning that in the West, the freedom to choose one’s faith is

somewhat of a cultural assumption: an assumption that people—all people—are free to

choose their religious path.

The resulting struggle between the youth and their parents often turns into a trying experience

for both and is completely foreign to parents who were raised with completely different

assumptions. Thus, many are unsure of how to respond to their children’s questioning—and

often direct challenging—of what most of us consider to be the self-evident truths of Islam.

Often, the parents’ reaction is hostile: submit or else! Others, however, choose the

lenient/liberal approach and just let their children do as they wish, for perhaps Islam is not that

important to them anyway. Most, however, are probably somewhere in between, very

confused, and unsure of how to respond.

When youth—whose divine gift to the adults of the world is the “sword of truth”—come to us

with questions that target our own beliefs, we had better know what we are talking about. This

means not only knowing the core knowledge of Islam, but also knowing what we ourselves

believe. When the child asks, for example, “Who is Allah?” or “Why must I pray?” we had

better be able to answer them in a way that not only makes sense to them and applies to their

world, but is what we truly believe. The “sword of truth” that children bring into this world is

one that forces us to inspect and assess ourselves and our deepest beliefs. If we are not

honest with our children, they will know it. Perhaps this is Allah’s reason for allowing children

to question their faith to begin with—to force their parents to question themselves and

ultimately acquire a deeper level of knowledge and greater certainty of Islam.

Nurturing Belief

One of the challenges of growing up in a particular religious tradition is to be able

to come to the light of faith on one’s own.

Belief cannot be handed down; it

must take root and reside in the heart of each individual.

The seeds of belief can be

planted, but the actualization of belief can only come about through nurturance, knowledge,

experience, contemplation, guidance, and constant reminding.
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