Fazl-e-Umar — Page 23
Fazle Umar 23 subtle. He generally persuaded him to accept things with gentle and loving words and expressions of good expectations where the methods of harsh words or physical harsh- ness mostly fail. At times a child picks up more food than necessary and the parents scold him and become offended. They even try to take it away but instead of agreeing the child continues to increase in his insistence and is defiant. On such occasions the method of the Promised Messiah [as] was entirely different and the outcome was also completely different. For instance, Hadhrat Syed Fazal Shah [ra] – a sincere disciple of the Promised Messiah [as] states: “One day the Promised Messiah [as] was sat in the upper storey courtyard with almonds in front of him. I was shelling the almonds when Hadhrat Mian Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad who was 4 or 5 years of age at the time, came and took all the almonds and put them into his lap. Observing this Huzur said, ‘Mian is very good; he will not take too many. He will only take one or two. He will put all the rest back. ’ When Huzur said this, Mian sahib quickly put all the almonds in front of me and only took one or two for himself. ” An extremely important cause for the flaw in children’s character is that consid- ering them ignorant, the parents do not deal with them with the same honesty, trust and sincerity that they expect from them. For instance, even when the parents have a sincere desire that the children should not develop a habit of telling lies, they lie to them either as a joke or to shake them off for the time being. The faults and weaknesses of parents are never hidden from the children. The result is that the admonitions of such parents never influence the children whose words do not match their deeds. There was never a question of any type of moral lapse on the part of the Promised Messiah [as]. His children’s temperaments were definitely affected by the harmony between his words and his deeds in his everyday life. He did not just deem this sufficient but gave extraordinary attention to this aspect for the sake of training children.