Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume I — Page 188
! ! 188 Thus , for a believer , praying before one goes to sleep is one of the most important practices in Islam. If children are made to memorize these prayers, one at a time, and are made to recite them before sleep, it will be ext remely beneficial. Have you seen how Christians do no t allow their children to sleep before having them say their religious pr ayer? The result being that when that person is grown , even if he becomes an atheist , his heart retains the fear and awe of the Christian commandments. Yet this is not the case among Muslims. I have explaine d that no matter how hard the parents try to keep their children safe from the influences of corrupt morals, their effort to improve their children’s morals will not be useful or effective un less their children are surrounded by good friends and company. Perhaps, good upbringing will instill positive thoughts in children to a certain degree, but if a child with good upbringing keeps company with bad friends, the result is that the bad friendship will weaken the influence of moral training , resulting in almost null i fying the effect of good moral training [of the parents]. Keeping b ad com pany in childhood cultivates such bad habits in a child , that it becomes impossible to neutralize them later in life. Within the heart of such a person, two opposing forces are established. On one hand, his parent’s good upbringing pulls him towards virtue; on the other hand , bad company causes him to gravitate towards vice and he will forever remain engaged in this struggle and will never attain freedom from the influence of Nafs - i - Lawwama [the natural state]. If parental training instills the fear of God in him, keeping bad company challenges it by undermining his resolve and determination. Thus, complete moral training can only be achieved when good upbringing is complemented with good company. However, as I have s aid earlier, the consequence s of for bidding children to meet anyone or keeping them impri soned at home is also damaging because this type of discipline not only leaves their training incomplete , but also stunts their physical growth. If a child is not given the chance to play with children of his own age , just so he is protected from bad influence s , he will always