– Syed Azharuddin
In every society, the raising of children often focuses on behaviour, obedience, and achievement. But in the example of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, parenting is more than manners; it’s a lifelong project in forming character, leadership, moral judgement, responsibility, and spiritual integrity. Early biographers such as Ibn Ishaq (via Ibn Hisham), Ibn Saʿd in Tabaqāt, and classical hadith collections show that from the time infants were entrusted to foster mothers (like Halīmah al-Saʿdiyyah), through childhood, youth, and into maturity, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ taught by example, through speech, and through carefully structured practices. In this way he created not just followers, but people capable of thought, service, justice, scholarship – and leadership in every field they later entered.
The life of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ offers not only a guide to worship and governance but also a living philosophy of parenting. Far beyond techniques of discipline or affection, his model shapes children into moral agents and future leaders. Preserved in the rigorously authenticated ḥadīth collections and early sīrah literature, his teachings unite mercy with structure, truth with justice, and play with purposeful formation. At a time when the Muslim world often feels fractured, this Prophetic pedagogy remains a blueprint for raising a generation capable of renewing faith and civilization.
Foundations of a Prophetic Vision
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ began with a profound anthropology: every child is born with a natural orientation to truth and goodness. He said, “Every newborn is born upon the fiṭrah; then his parents make him a Jew, a Christian, or a Magian.” (Sahih al-Bukhārī 1385; Sahih Muslim 2658). Parenting, therefore, is not the creation of virtue from nothing but the careful safeguarding of an innate moral capacity. Early transmitters of this ḥadīth highlighted the parent’s environment, example, and truthful speech as the primary protectors of that fitrah.
Mercy is the ethic that animates every act. When the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ kissed his grandsons al-Hasan and al-Ḥusayn, a Bedouin named al-Aqraʿ ibn Ḥābis boasted that he never kissed his ten children. Muhammad ﷺ replied, “Whoever does not show mercy will not be shown mercy.” (Sahih al-Bukhārī 5997; Sahih Muslim 2318). Ibn Ḥajar, in Fatḥ al-Bārī, calls this narration a rebuttal to the pre-Islamic idea that tenderness is weakness, affirming instead that affection is an act of faith.
Justice and Truth as Daily Curriculum
If mercy is the atmosphere, justice is the structure. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ insisted on absolute fairness among siblings. The celebrated incident of Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr records that when Nuʿmān’s father brought him to receive a special gift, the Muhammad ﷺ asked, “Have you given all your children the same?” When the answer was no, he said: “Fear Allah and be just with your children. I will not bear witness to injustice.” (Sahih al-Bukhārī 2587; Sahih Muslim 1623).
Imām al-Nawawī derived from this that equal treatment is a religious obligation unless clear need requires otherwise. Al-Qurṭubī extended the principle to time, attention, and affection, warning that favouritism breeds long-term resentment.
Truthfulness was demanded even in playful promises. ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿĀmir remembered that his mother once called him, “Come, I will give you something,” while the Muhammad ﷺ sat in their home. He asked her, “What did you intend to give him?” She replied, “A date.” The Prophet said, “If you had not given him something, it would have been recorded against you as a lie.” (Sunan Abī Dāwūd 4991, graded ḥasan).
Imam al-Ghazālī later warned in Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn that a child who hears empty promises “learns falsehood before he learns prayer.” Parental speech itself is the first school of integrity.
Companions absorbed these lessons. ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, famed for stern justice, insisted on equal gifts even of simple food. ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib’s celebrated letter to his son al-Ḥasan (preserved in Nahj al-Balāghah) urges him to study history, seek wisdom, and embody justice, a paternal counsel clearly echoing the Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ own method of shaping future leaders.
Presence, Play, and Worship
For the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, children were not an interruption to devotion but a natural part of it. He shortened congregational prayers when he heard an infant cry, explaining that he feared distress for the mother (Sahih al-Bukhārī 709). He carried his granddaughter Umāmah during prayer, setting her down for prostration and lifting her again (Sahih al-Bukhārī 516). He once prolonged his prostration because a child climbed onto his back, later reassuring the companions that nothing was amiss.
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ greeted children first, gave them affectionate nicknames, and played races with them. When a young boy named Abū ʿUmair lost his pet bird, the Muhammad ﷺ comforted him with gentle humour: “O Abū ʿUmair, what did the little bird do?”(Sahih al-Bukhārī 6203). Early biographers such as Ibn Saʿd preserved these moments to demonstrate that dignified worship and child-centred compassion are not opposites but complements.
Education by Stages, Discipline by Mercy
Jurists from Mālik to al-Shāfiʿī read this as a pedagogy of stages: modelling and gentle instruction first, habit formation next, and only then bounded correction. Striking a child out of anger was unknown in his Sunnah; Ibn Ḥajar notes that any physical discipline mentioned in juristic manuals is restricted to symbolic, non-harmful gestures tied to learning, never humiliation.
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ also set distinct stages for moral and spiritual training, balanced with care and mercy. In the hadith narrated by Abu Daud and others: “Command your children to pray when they are seven, and discipline them for it when they are ten, and separate them in beds.” (Reported by Abu Dawud; graded hasan by scholars like At-Tirmidhi, etc.). This isn’t mere ritualism. It reflects a phased pedagogy: at early age, learning by example; then gradual habituation; then accountability. The separation in beds signals awareness of modesty and appropriate privacy developing with age. Early jurists use this to mark that discipline must be gradual, proportionate, age-appropriate – and always rooted in moral goals.
A Civilizational Project
Parenting in this Prophetic frame is not merely the nurturing of polite households – it is the cultivation of a society. “The best of you are those who are best to their families, and I am the best of you to my family,” he declared (Sunan al-Tirmidhī 3895). Al-Ṭabarī comments that this ḥadīth links family virtue to communal leadership: excellence in public life begins with justice and mercy at home.
Companions carried this ethic outward. ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar said he would rather lose wealth than fail to keep a promise made to a child. Anas ibn Mālik, who served the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ from age ten, testified that “He never said to me ‘Why did you do that?’ for something I did, nor ‘Why did you not do that?’ for something I neglected” (Sahih Muslim 2309) – a testimony to patient mentorship rather than authoritarian control.
The aim of these teachings was not just good Muslims, but people who would be scholars, jurists, traders, community builders, statesmen, teachers – in all fields. Many of the companions raised under this model rose to positions of authority in law, governance, scholarship. For example, Ali ibn Abi Talib, who was raised in the Prophet’s household, became not just a warrior but a brilliant jurist; Zayd ibn Thabit became an expert in divine revelation and inheritance; others became ambassadors, diplomats, governors. The parenting model gave them moral grounding, intellectual curiosity, emotional resilience, readiness to serve.
Parenting for a Time of Challenge
We raise our children today in what many scholars describe as a maftūḥ – a fractured or “failed” – Ummah, where colonisation, political weakness, and cultural doubt have sapped collective confidence. Yet the Qur’an reminds us: “You are the best nation raised up for mankind: you enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah.”
(Āl ʿImrān 3:110)
Our children belong not to a defeated community but to the Ummah of Fath (Victory) whose destiny is renewal. To awaken that destiny, parents must instil life-purpose and social responsibility from the earliest years: that worship and work, scholarship and service, family life and public service are all paths of ʿibādah. When a father keeps a small promise, when a mother models mercy and fairness, when both nurture curiosity and courage, they are forming the scientists, jurists, reformers, and leaders who will heal the fractures of their age.
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ taught that raising a child is an amānah – a sacred trust. His example weaves mercy, justice, truthfulness, and patient formation into a single fabric. By safeguarding the fitrah, modelling integrity, and preparing children to serve God and society, parents participate in the very renewal of the Ummah. Though we live in an era of apparent decline, we are in fact heirs to a victorious tradition. Our task is to raise sons and daughters who know their purpose, who carry themselves with the dignity of servants of Allah, and who will lead humanity with knowledge and compassion. In the Prophetic way of parenting lies not only the salvation of individual families but the seed of a confident, future-making generation.
