CHILDREN AND SALAAT
Q. According to the Hadith, children should be induced to perform Salaat from the age of seven years. How do we introduce them to Salaat. Should we tell them to perform one Namaaz daily and gradually increase till they perform all five by 10 years?
A. A child in a Muslim home – in a home where parents perform Salaat punctually and regularly – is introduced to Salaat long before – years before he/she reaches seven years. When children are six years of age they are sent to secular school. How do you introduce them to this cold life outside the home where they are alienated from parental love and Deeni tarbiyat? Do you ‘gradually’ get them accustomed to leave home at 7 in the morning whether it is cold or hot or raining? Do they attend and absent themselves from secular school at whim and fancy and gradually get into the rut of regular school attendance? Six year old boys and girls are sent to secular school – many of them crying. They are rudely plucked out from their homes of affection and warmth and forcibly sent into cold schools into morally hostile and spiritually destructive environments where they are drilled in fisq and fujoor, and alienated from their parents. Parents, aiding in the moral and spiritual ruin of their six year old children, ensure that the kids settle immediately into the new rut which kufr society has ordained for them. The question of ‘gradually’ getting them accustomed to school and remaining in the secular prisons for six hours or more every day, does not develop in the minds of parents. They unquestionably submit to the commands and indoctrination of secularism. But when Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) ordered that the child be introduced to Salaat at the age of seven years, there develops a conundrum which shaitaan portrays as being insoluble. A variety of ‘rational’ arguments is presented to prevent the child from performing the 5 daily Salaat regularly and punctually. All of this rationalism is satanism.
In the Muslim home, the three year old child of its own accord imitates his/her parents and playfully executes the postures of Salaat. By the time the Muslim child is five or six years old, he/she performs Salaat with reasonable aptitude. By the age of seven the child is a regular performer of the five daily Salaat. The question of introducing the child to Salaat, and that too once a day, at the age of seven does not arise at all. By the age of seven your school-going child dressed kufr-smartly in uniform and carrying ‘academic’ text books MUST be in the habit of performing the five daily Salaat. There is no excuse for any shortcoming in this regard. The moment the child returns home, it is the Waajib duty of the parents to ensure that the child first performs Zuhr Salaat, then do whatever has to be done.
When the mother performs Salaat, she must ensure that her children are with her. Alternatively, after she has completed her Salaat, then more important than engagement in other household activity, is that she supervises her children’s Salaat. She should instruct them to perform Salaat and keep them under observation for the duration of the Salaat, all the time correcting their errors. The age of ten years is the dangerous limit. If by this age the child does not voluntarily perform Salaat five times a day of his/her own accord, then he/she is under shaitaan’s spell, hence Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) ordered beating to break the satanic spell.
