Islamic Self Help and Izzah Academy present a brand new course from Shaykh Ismail Kamdar: Fundamentals of Islamic Parenting.
You asked for it and we delivered! A comprehensive 20 module course on parenting, covering a variety of topics including:
The role of fathers in parenting
The role of mothers in parenting
The importance of stay-at-home mums
Character building and resilience building in children
Raising your children into capable adults
The case for homeschooling
Who is this course for:
Young Muslims seeking authentic guidance regarding parenting
Young couples looking to raise their children according to the Qur’an and Sunnah
Parents who are struggling to cope with contemporary issues looking for an Islamic parenting solution
Learn practical solutions to the following problems and more:
Raising righteous children in the modern world
Understanding Islamic gender roles related to parenting
Dealing with contemporary parenting challenges like dealing with immorality and liberalism
Losing faith in the education system and seeking workable solutions
Don’t let parenting be a source of stress and frustration. Invest in yourself today and start building a strong foundation for a lifetime of love and happiness. Enroll in our online course on the fundamentals of Islamic parenting now!
Why You’ll Love This Course
This course offers the kind of one-stop learning environment that benefits you both during and after the completion of the course in a multitude of ways:
Solid Learning with dedicated help, support, motivation and accountability
Self-Paced Online Learning – you can study anytime and learn from anywhere, according to your daily routine.
Lifetime Access to Learning Materials for continued Referencing, Knowledge, Development and Inspiration
Whether it’s work, academia, family or other constraints, the course allows you the flexibility to learn at your own pace without pressure.
This course includes all the following modules:
Introduction to Islamic Parenting
Considerations before having children
Developmental Phases of Childhood
The Role of Mothers in Parenting
The Role of Fathers in Parenting
The Case for the Stay-At-Home mum
The Case for Homeschooling
Raising Daughters
Raising Sons
Parenting during the Early Years
Designing Your Home Environment
Building Character in Children
Building Resilience in Children
Religious Education Priorities
Raising children for independence
Islamic Sexual Education
Puberty & Accountability
Preparing them for adult life
Cultural Considerations
Navigating Modern Technology
When children go astray
When children grow up
Unmissable bonuses!
Sign up today and receive the following FREE bonus resources:
1) BONUS PDF: Homeschooling 101 ebook 2) BONUS VIDEO: Raising Resilient Children 3) BONUS VIDEO: The Art of Parenting 4) BONUS VIDEO: Homeschooling & the future of education
COVID-19 has caused a lot of problems. For parents and children, it has made schooling rather difficult. As a response, thousands of parents around the world are exploring the idea of homeschooling. Homeschooling is a viable solution to the problems of our time.
To assist parents in their homeschooling journey, Islamic Self Help is offering their $250 How to Homeschool like a Pro course for only $25 for September only. We hope that this course will help parents make the transition to homeschooling smoothly and ensure the best results for their children.
What is learning anyway? When people say they learned something, is it the same as getting a degree or completing a formal class? I believe that there is a huge difference between learning and education and that learning is far more important than ‘formal education’.
Learning, is psychology, is defined as a permanent change in behavior. Education is generally defined as completing a formal study program. Sometimes the two occur together, but often they do not. An example of this is running a business. Someone could complete a degree in business studies, yet still, be clueless on how to successfully start and run a business. Someone else, having never been to business school, but growing up working in his father’s shop may know exactly what is needed to make a business thrive. The first has an education, the second learned how to do business. The first has a degree, the second has the experience that permanently changed the way he does business.
The Problem with Education
There is an overemphasis on formal education today. Far too many people are taught that in order to succeed in life, they need a degree. Reality is that just as many people succeed in life without a formal education, as those who do. Perhaps even more. Education today has become a business revolving around memorization, regurgitation, accolades, and bureaucracy. Whether in school or university, it is very easy to pass by simply memorizing, remembering a few points for the tests, scoring some awards, and pleasing the right people.
This doesn’t make a person ready for the real world, or truly indicate that they have learned anything. The school system doesn’t take into account things like different learning styles, evolving technologies, real-world life skills, or shaping the behavior of students in a positive way. For too many young people, school and university are simply a game of survival and ‘passing the test’. There is no motivation to learn, grow or improve through the experience, except for a few exceptional students.
The School of Life
Young people can learn a lot more by living their lives outside of these institutes than they do in them. They can choose a learning style that suits them like reading, listening, doing or asking questions to an expert. They can choose fields they are interested in and pursue those entirely. Most importantly, they can experience life, make mistakes, and learn through all of this.
So someone who learns well through reading and wants to be a computer specialist would benefit more from sitting at home reading coding books all day. A potential athlete would benefit more from spending his prime learning years practicing, instead of sitting in a classroom. A future chef would be successful far quicker if she spent her educational years with a mentor, instead of learning history and algebra. And a future inventor would benefit more from tinkering in his home lab (like Einstein did) then from going to school.
Life is where the real learning happens. It is outside the classroom in the workplace, the home, books, online courses, mentoring, practicing, and exploring. These are the places were true learning thrives and happens. Schools have simply become babysitters to keep children out of the parents’ way, rather than actual places of learning.
Its time to do away with school altogether
That may sound like a radical thought. Maybe it is. But every day more and more people are thinking about it. The world is changing. Knowledge is available online in almost any field. As I write this, two of my children are attending online courses, while the other two are using YouTube to explore their interests. All of them spend more time reading books than attending formal classes. And each of them enjoys learning and loves the entire system we have developed for them.
The world is changing. We have the technology. We have the internet. We have the resources at home. We no longer need an outdated industrial-era system of education. Either we revamp it completely or throw it out the window. The longer society takes to make this decision, the more people will waste a large portion of their lives thinking they are learning while doing nothing more than simply receiving an education.
A few alternatives to school and university
But school and university are the only paths to success, right? Not anymore, here are a few alternatives: 1. Homeschooling 2. Online Learning 3. Self Education 4. Starting a Business 5. Finding a mentor 6. Interning 7. Unschooling 8. Traveling 9. Reading 10. Spending time with people who have succeeded in your field of interest
All of these methods are far more beneficial than wasting a large portion of one’s life in a classroom. Find a method that works for you and start today, even if it is for just an hour a day after school.
NOTE: I am NOT anti-education. I am simply writing this to get people thinking about alternatives. School isn’t working, it is outdated and needs a revamp. Until we do so, there is no harm in exploring alternative forms of education. We shouldn’t deceive ourselves into thinking that passing tests and receiving accolades is real learning. Furthermore, formal education is still necessary for certain career paths like medicine and psychology, so we can’t do away with it altogether. It is important, but not as important as real learning, that is where life happens.
Ready to begin your life of self-learning? Check out our starter bundle here to begin.
I sat with my children looking at the Islamic Studies curriculum for their ages. My children browsed through the textbooks and commented, “We already studied all this year. We want to learn something new.” I agreed with them. I had the same experience when I was their age. I found the Islamic Studies curriculum going around in circles, teaching the exact same topics: Imaan, Salah, Zakah, Sawm, Wudu, Seerah, Tajweed, every single year for almost a decade.
After a while, it grew tedious and boring for me as a student. I found myself looking for new sources of knowledge of Islam and eventually found it outside the curriculum. So for my own children, I decided to do the same. I put aside the national curriculum and decided to formulate my own based on their interests.
Over the next two years in Islamic Studies, we studied; a brief history of the Muslim world, the Muslim Golden Ages, comparative religion, refutations of Atheism, purification of the soul, the wisdom behind the various acts of worship, Islamic manners and character, Tafseer of various Surahs, and explanation of several hadiths.
It is safe to say that my children, despite being only 10 and 11 years old, each of them have a much deeper understanding of Islam than the average child their age. But this got me wondering? Why isn’t all of the above taught adequately in most Islamic schools and madrassas? Why instead do we go around in circles teaching the same subjects every year?
A Proposed New Curriculum
This is my proposal for a revamped Islamic Studies Curriculum for children and what it should include. I have categorized it according to age group, rather than grades.
Ages 5-7: 1) Basic Aqeedah 2) Memorization of Surahs & Duas 3) How to pray and do wudu 4) 5 Pillars of Islam 5) Basic Tajweed 6) Islamic character and manners
Ages 8-10: 1) Basic Fiqh 2) Core Islamic beliefs 3) Introduction to other world religions 4) Tafseer of short Surahs 5) Explanation of important Hadiths 6) Seerah of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and other prophets
Ages 11-13: 1) Puberty, sex, being responsible for one’s actions and related topics 2) Detailed History of Islam 3) Muslim Golden Ages: Scientific Accomplishments 4) Purification of the soul 5) The wisdom behind various acts of worship 6) Deeper Tafseer and explanation of Hadith
Ages 14-16: 1) Fiqh of Marriage, Sexual Relations, and Parenting 2) Fiqh of Business, and Islamic work ethic 3) Introduction to Usool of Fiqh, Tafseer, and Hadith 4) Contemporary Issues related to Islam and the modern world (Atheism, Feminism, Liberalism) 5) How to deal with temptation and the traps of Shaytaan 6) Studies of the biographies of contemporary Muslim heroes
Scholars need to work on this
The above are just suggestions. I’m sure the scholars of our time can look at this list, get some ideas, and refine the list into actual subjects, textbooks, etc. The point I am trying to make is that we cannot rely on an Islamic Studies curriculum developed ages ago in the modern.
We need to be constantly updated the curriculum according to challenges of the time we are living in. I believe that if scholars work together, we can come up with much more comprehensive Islamic Studies curriculums that will have a far deeper impact on the hearts and minds of our students.
Learn more about the Islamic Golden Age by clicking here.
5 Ways Education was better in the Muslim Golden Age
It is no secret that I am a critic of the modern school system. An experiment that started just over one hundred years ago, the current system is already outdated and failing millions of children. However, education wasn’t always like this. During the Muslim Golden Age, education thrived through a system of Madrassas, universities and private tutorship that produced some of the greatest minds of that era.
NOTE: Madrassa (in this article) is used to refer to the ancient schooling system that covered all subjects ranging from Math to science to religious studies. It does NOT refer to the modern secularized version that separates and focuses only on religious studies.
As we move forward and try to fix our current system, we can look back and draw important lessons from systems that worked in the past. Here are five lessons we can take from this ancient education system and apply to our times.
1. It focused on individual strengths
The Madrassa system of the Muslim Golden Age did not have a one-size-fits-all approach to education. As young as seven years old, a student would be categorized according to his strengths and assigned studies accordingly. As a result, time wasn’t wasted teaching students things they were not going to use in life.
Think about it? Why would a language expert need to study High School Math? Or a Math whiz need to study grammar in depth? Why should a history buff need to memorize science facts to pass a test? Or a budding scientist need to memorized the dates and names of various wars?
When a student recognizes his/her area of expertise early, they can choose their subjects accordingly. This led to the second benefit of this ancient system.
2. Students would graduate earlier.
By starting early, time wasn’t wasted with a 13 year common education program, before deciding what to specialize in. As a result, in the Muslim Golden Age many great scientists and doctors graduated and started practicing at incredibly young ages.
Ibn Batutta graduated as a judge (Qadhi) at the young age of 21. And Ibn Sina was already treating patients when he was 18 years old. In fact, Ibn Khaldun was already a graduate in Islamic Studies by the age of 17!
This shows the benefit of a system that focuses on strengths. Each of these individuals went on to become legends in their fields dedicating their lives to mastering and developing their areas of expertise.
Imagine today if we can have people discover their strengths at a younger age, graduate younger, and start working on their legacy at a younger age. A large part of people’s lives that is usually wasted\ could become the most productive time of their life with such a system.
3. There were many education systems
A single system of education does not benefit everybody. People learn in different ways, and so there should be various systems on offer. So each student can choose to study in a way that suits their study style best.
We see this in the earlier periods of the Muslim Golden Age. Some great scientists went through the madrassa system, while others studied books at home. Some experimented in their labs, while others sat at the feet of mentors and learned from them. And some even combined all of these at different stages of their lives.
So education to be relevant again. We need to stop thinking that one system suits all. We need more variety. If someone is a voracious reader, then let them stay home and consume as many books as possible. If someone learns better through experiments, take them out of school and give them a lab to experiment in. (Which is what Einstein’s parents did)
The world needs a more flexible system of education. So that readers are not stuck attending lectures, and physical learners are not stuck sitting quietly in class. We need to find ways to make this happen in the modern world, and the internet makes it more possible than ever before.
4. They did not separate subjects into Islamic and Secular
The separation of school and Madrassa in the modern world is a result of colonialism, and has had a terrible effect on the minds of Muslims. Entire generations of Muslims were raised thinking that math, science and language have nothing to do with Islam. And that Islam is just something you study in the afternoon, but the ‘secular subjects’ are your priority.
The reality is that Islam teaches us to actively pursue all beneficial knowledge. This includes knowledge of beliefs, Islamic law, history, math, science, business, personal development and everything else that benefits us.
During the Muslim Golden Age, this was the norm. Al-Khawaarizmi invented Algebra to solve complex Islamic inheritance law issues. Ibn Sina pursued medicine because the Prophet (peace be upon him) taught us that every illness has a cure. Ibn Khaldun analysed history because the Quran teaches us to take lessons from history. It was all intertwined. we need to return to this system of education that does not separate between subjects into religious and secular. All that matters is beneficial knowledge.
5. It served a higher purpose
In the Muslim Golden Age, education was not primarily about the pursuit of wealth, fame and status. (Although such individuals did exist) The primary purpose of the Madrassa system was to raise citizens who would serve God and take care of God’s Creation.
Education was for the sake of community, not self. It was for God, not desire. And it was for making the world a better place, not just lining one’s pockets. This is why during the Muslim Golden Age, we find the existence of free healthcare (even for animals), free education, entire systems dedicated to charity work, and overall increase in happiness for the average person.
An education system that focuses on selfish materialistic success is doomed to fail. Such a system produces narcissists and selfish individuals. It makes us lose focus on what is most important: pleasing the Creator through caring for His creation.
