Children: Praying For Birth of a Son or a Daughter

May I ask whether it is permissible to seek medical advice and assistance in order to get a baby son. My wife and I differ on this issue, to the extent that she says it is not necessary to pray to God to give us a son. Her argument is that God knows what is best for us, and He will give us what is best

Your wife's attitude suggests total acceptance of whatever God determines. This reflects a high degree of faith, on which she must be complemented. A person who accepts whatever comes from God is a good believer. May God make us all such good believers.

Having said that, I should add that there is nothing wrong with praying God to accomplish whatever purpose we have, provided that it does not constitute disobedience to God. Indeed, the Prophet, peace be upon him, describes praying to God to accomplish what we wish, desire or need as 'the essence of worship.' This is due to the fact that when we supplicate, seeking God's help in achieving our purpose, we acknowledge our weakness and His power. Therefore, He has promised to answer all sincere prayers. However, He either answers a prayer as it is, or by giving us something better for us, or He may defer granting our wish until the Day of Judgment when He gives us much more. He says in the Qur'an: "Your Lord says, 'Pray Me and I will answer your prayers'." (40: 60)

This means there is nothing wrong with praying God to give us a son, or a daughter, or whatever else we wish and desire, provided always that we do not pray Him to give us anything He has forbidden. Nor is there anything wrong with taking measures to accomplish any legitimate purpose. Indeed, part of the system God has established in this life is to make effects attendant on their causes. He has made this as part of accomplishing His will. So, when we take measures to heat our home on a cold day, the effect that results from such measures, i.e. heating the house, is done by God's will, even though it is we who took the necessary measures, without which the house would have remained cold. If we give a newborn child the full course of vaccinations recommended by the health authorities, we give the child immunity against childhood diseases. This is done by God's will, although it is the mother who took the baby to the health center for vaccination, and a nurse gave him the necessary shots.

What we have to understand is that God's will is free, and although He has established the law of cause and effect, He is able to suspend it, or bring about some other law that influences the results of any particular cause. Whether He chooses to do so or not is entirely up to Him.

To relate this principle to the reader's question we say that it is perfectly permissible to take measures to have another child, and to increase the chances of making that child a boy, if such measures exist, provided that they do not contravene Islamic principles, teachings and values. However, to the best of my knowledge, no technique has been established to be effective in predestine the sex of any pregnancy that takes place naturally. Genetic engineering scientists continue to work on perfecting different techniques in the field of human reproduction, but predetermining the sex of a pregnancy is still a long way away. Besides there are many ethical issues involved. Hence, a Muslim is advised not to resort to such techniques until sufficient information is known about them so as to enable scholars to give them a ruling of permissibility or otherwise. In the meantime, my advice to my reader is to accept what God has given him. If he wants more children, he may certainly pray to God to give him as many as he wants, and of the sex he wishes, but apart from this he is advised to do nothing.

Children: Priorities in Educating Children

I have been working in this country for several years and am preparing to leave. One thought which was always in my mind when I offered Friday prayer was the fact that I could not understand the Khutbah because I had not learned Arabic and did not receive Qur'anic education. It seems that our parents are prepared to send us to school for fifteen years or more to learn worldly things. Why do they not make us spend a year or two to learn Qur'an, and Arabic.

You have pinpointed a very important problem to which many of us pay very little attention, despite its seriousness. The roots of this problem are complex and its solution requires thoughtful action on the part of parents and communities.

Most parents realize that it is their responsibility to provide their children with a reasonable or good standard of education. It is true that some parents feel that formal schooling may not be particularly important, because they themselves did not have proper education. They take their children out of school in order to put them to work so that their wages will contribute to the finances of the family. We are not dealing with this aspect of the problem now. We are simply looking at the education of children who have spent many years at school until they go to university. These are the majority of our young generation, especially in Third World countries.

Most parents agree that the best thing they can get to their children in order to enable them face life problems without difficulty is good education. It is through education that their children can hopefully secure good jobs and make their mark in life. Parents try to choose the best school for their children, even if that would mean spending a substantial portion of the family income. In a country where the standards of education are notably high in non-government school, one mother was giving herself and her family an added burden by choosing to a private school, which charged high fees. In explanation she told me: "You can't do anything better with your money than spending it on your children's education. Let us face it, it is better to spend the money on their education than to leave it to them when you die." I do not dispute the validity of her argument. I am only giving this example to emphasize how important many of us see our children's education.

As you have said, most children spend at school twelve years or more to reach the university level. During this time, they are net spenders of the family income. Some of them may work during the summer holidays, but what they earn constitutes only a very small fraction of the family income. They also spend it on themselves. If they go to university, they are likely to spend three or four more years before they start to work. Some of them go even further in order to have a higher education.
Many families happily go through the arrangements and consider every time a child passes an examination an occasion to celebrate. If a child is successful in his education, he is considered to have secured his future. But has he?

However, if we look at school curricula in the majority of Arab [world] and [other] Islamic countries, we find that little attention is paid to religious education. While some respects of the faith of Islam are taught and selective readings of the Qur'an, may form part of the curriculum, there is little else to make the young identify themselves with Islam as a faith or with history of the Islamic nation. It is not unusual that school children are not required to sit an exam in religious education. When school children consider what is required of them to pass their exams, it is not surprising that they should concentrate on mathematics, science or languages and neglect religious education. Moreover, what is taught of religion is approached in a purely academic way. School children cannot even associate what they are taught about religion with their practical lives. More often than not, it is merely the aspects of worship that are taught in addition, perhaps, to a few more values. That sort of religious education has miserably failed in giving school children any insight into their faith.
Much of this sad state of affairs is due to the fact that after Muslim countries have gained their independence, they continued to implement the methods of education that they inherited from the colonial period. Modification has certainly been introduced especially with regard to how the history of the colonial era is taught. There may be more emphasis on nationalism. But the colonial rulers of Muslim countries were determined to weaken the sense of faith among Muslim population in the areas that they ruled. They realized that Islam nurtures a strong sense of opposition to un-Islamic colonial rule and they had to suppress it if they wanted their rule to continue as long as possible, and their interests to be realized after their departure.

That is indeed what is happening in the majority of Muslim countries. National rulers that were educated in the colonial tradition feel that the stability of the system of government, over which they preside can only be ensured if the same values are perpetuated. Therefore, they continued to reduce religious education to a very secondary degree. The result is that the new generations are not better informed about their Islamic faith than their fathers who were taught by the colonial rulers.
Islamic scholars have tried to counter this trend by organizing study circles in mosques to which they attract the young. Where such circles have been allowed to flourish, they made a great impact and their contribution was substantial. It is often the case that these circles do not provide religious education and teach Arabic language, but they also arrange for supplementary education in other subjects which are taught at government schools. In this way, children who attend these study circles have invariably fared much better even in their formal education than their classmates have. But in some Muslim countries, which writhe under dictatorial regimes, this type of supplementary education was not allowed to continue. As a result, the young have no proper means to know their religioun well.

This state of affairs adds to the responsibility of parents. God will indeed question them about not providing their children with good religious education. Indeed, they should know better. If they are prepared to make sacrifices for their children's education so that they secure a good future, should they not look after their children's future life? Governments in Muslim countries must be made to feel the need to modify their educational system so as to cater properly for the religious needs. When children learn about their faith and receive at their schools a good standard of religious education, as it is the case in this county of ours, they grow up as better people. If this cannot be achieved easily, then parents should look for ways and means of supplementing their children's education either by taking it upon themselves to teach them their faith, or by providing private tuition. I realize that this may not be easy for all people, but all parents have their responsibility to prepare their children for their future life by helping them to grow up as good Muslims.

You prepare for the Hereafter by fulfilling your religious duties. Unless you know these duties well, you cannot fulfill them. When you do know them, you may be lax in their observation. But as years go by, you may tend to think more of the Hereafter. It is then when you should be very conscious of your religious duties and add to the fulfillment of what is obligatory something of the same nature, which is voluntary. Thus when you have offered your five daily obligatory prayers, you add to each one the Sunnah, which is prescribed by the Prophet. In addition, you may spend some of your time in night worship. When you have fasted the month of Ramadhan, you may add to it a few days which you fast voluntary during the year. If you have done your pilgrimage, you may consider adding a voluntary pilgrimage or Umrah. You also spend voluntarily in charity as much as you can. Furthermore, try to remain conscious of God in all situations. Be kind to others and discharge your duties toward your parents, neighbors and community. When you have done that, you have nothing to fear, your future life will be a happy one, God willing.

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