Raising Children with Deen and Dunya

By Hina Khan-Mukhtar
I still vividly remember the first night I spent by myself in the hospital after delivering my eldest son Shaan.  The guests were gone for the day, the hallway lights were dimmed, the nurses were speaking outside my room in muted tones.
“Knock, knock!” came a cheerful voice from the doorway.  “Someone's hungry and wants his mommy!”

du'a, du'a, du'a

“None of this is from us,” insists one mother of three UC Berkeley graduates who have never voluntarily missed a single prayer.  “Everything begins and ends with du'a.  It is only by His generosity that we have been blessed with believing children; we had nothing to do with it.  Now that we have it, we try to hold onto it by showing gratitude and not taking it for granted.”
Every single family I have “interviewed” about raising children in this day and age inevitably began by reminding me about the power of supplication.  “Every success I have seen in my family's life, I can remember having prayed for it first,” admits one grandmother of three huffadh (memorizers of Qur'an).   “If my du'a doesn't come true in this world, I have faith that it will in the next one, so I have patience.”
Another mother of four tells me, “I recited Surah Maryam every single day of my pregnancy.  I want pious children above all else — it's all that matters.”
A convert friend of mine suggests that couples who are about to embark on the path of parenthood should ask themselves, “Why do we even want children?”  She believes in renewing one's intentions on a daily basis.  “Who are we doing this for?”  When she gets embarrassed by something her children say or do, she questions herself, “Why am I upset?  Is it because I'm afraid that they're doing something displeasing to Allah?  Or is it because I'm afraid that they're displeasing people?”
Her unwavering du'a is that her children live their lives seeking only His pleasure.
Many families shared with me their reliance on salah-ul-Istikhaara (Prayer for Guidance) before making any major life-altering decisions and salah-ul-Haajah (Prayer for Need) when desiring something they felt was crucial for their children's well-being.  Whenever a blessing appeared in their lives, they were quick to pray salah-ul-Shukr (Prayer of Gratitude) as well.
“All that I have is due to my mother's duas,” believes one mother of five children.  “She was the one who was always praying for us, even when we forgot to.”