It is widely recognized that adolescence is the most dangerous and tumultuous period in the life of an individual. If the child passes this period safely, it is hoped that he will have a happy and successful life later. For this reason, Islam prescribes on every parent whose child approaches adolescence to guard him against anything that might arouse his sexual desire, and this should begin when the child is around ten.
The responsibility of the parents rests in two main areas: supervision inside the house, and supervision outside it.
The parents should supervise their child by making sure that he/she behaves Islamically and is aware of the Islamic rules that protect him/her from sexual arousal. These rules are summarizes as follows:
· Asking permission to enter the parent’s room
· When the boy is ten years or older, he should not enter a place where women are gathered, especially if they are wearing their beautiful attires and have adorned themselves with make up and jewelry. The Prophet (SAW) said,
"Beware of entering where women are!" (Related by Al-Bukhari and Muslim)
· Children ten years and older should not share the same bed even if they are of the same sex, as the Prophet (SAW) advised, saying:
"Enjoin your children to perform prayer when they are seven years, and spank them for it when they are ten years, and let them sleep in separate beds." (Related by Al-Hakim and Abu Dawud)
· Adolescent boys should at this age be familiar with the etiquette of looking at the opposite sex, and apply its rules.
· The child must be supervised s to what he watches on television. Better yet, television should be avoided all together. Nobody in his right mind can deny the overwhelming presence of sex in all television programs, including cartoons, news and documentaries. Bringing a television set into one’s house is like bringing a fox into the chicken coop. There is no excuse for the Muslim parents to let his child watch such debasing programs, which the disbelievers themselves criticize, while there are good substitutes in the ever growing number of Islamic videotapes. The child who knows that the Shariah enjoins him to lower his gaze will realize that it is almost impossible to watch television and at the same time observe that divine order of lowering one’s gaze, and that watching television will undoubtedly arouse his desire to commit sins.
· The child should be supervised concerning the material he reads, such as books and magazines. Moreover the books the child gets from, or that are assigned to him/her by the school should be closely monitored. Parents should not hesitate to enter the child’s room - after asking permission - in order to make sure that the child’s does not turn it into a hiding place for forbidden materials.
· Finally, by the age of ten, the child should not be allowed to befriend anyone from the opposite sex, whether a relative or a neighbor, not even for the excuse of studying or competing. This is a dangerous slip that might lead the child to fornication.
Guarding the child from sexual arousal while he is outside the house has become such a tremendous if not impossible task. A child leaving the home is like a soldier going to the battlefield, and just like the soldier, the child should be armed to ward of the dangers waiting outside. These dangers are so numerous that it is difficult to cite them all, but here are some of the most prominent:
· The danger of cinema and theater, who base their products almost entirely on sex, and their belief is that ‘sex sells."
· The danger of women’s clothing where the woman’s dress is ever shrinking in length to the point that a long T-shirt is now called a ‘T-dress.’
· The dangers of the prostitutes are obvious. Needless to say that there are diseases that have become a feature in almost all societies, and hence the child should at any price be protected from them.
· The dangers of indecent pictures intended to raise the sexual appetite, and exposed everywhere in the streets.
· The danger of befriending other children who might have a bad influence on the child. The Prophet (SAW) warned against befriending bad people saying:
"A man is of the same faith as his bosom friend, so make sure whom you take as a bosom friend." (Related by Ibn Hibban)
· The danger of intermingling the two sexes is also another source of deviation. It may appear that the mixing of young boys and girls in school presents no harm, but in fact the child becomes so accustomed to being mixed with the opposite sex that the idea of segregating himself from the opposite sex becomes strange to him later.
In the face of all these dangers, supervision outside the house becomes impossible, and in fact may not even be a good strategy, considering the more mature personality of the child at this age. A more positive attitude is to help the child regulate his own sexual desire, and correct himself. Some of the ways in which this could be done include:
1. Educating and enlightening the child about the dangers outside the home: The child should realize that some of these diseases of the society are not part of his Islamic heritage. Rather, they are the result of foreign ideologies and philosophies, ranging from the Freudian theory which bases everything on sex; to the Marxist and Communist theories which deny the existence of the Creator and make man his own god; to the Hippies and the sexual revolution, etc. The child should be educated about his own Islamic heritage and should know that Islam preaches decency and chastity, and that what the child sees in the streets is the result of the deviation from the true religion: Islam.
2. Cautioning the child about the dangerous consequences of fornication: No sinful act has greater repercussion on the person’s life, and the society as a whole, than the act of fornication. Parents should explicitly caution their child about these dangers as soon as they sense that he/she is mature enough to understand them. Some of these harmful consequences include:
· Repercussion on the child’s health: Many children and young men are unaware that sexually promiscuity leads to many sexually transmitted diseases or (STD). One such disease is AIDS, a deadly disease which has become the plague of sexually promiscuous societies. One single sexual act may ruin the child’s health forever. This danger alone is an incentive strong enough to caution the child against the sin of fornication and any path that lead to it.
· Repercussion on the society. Any society in which sexual rules are relaxed suffers from many illnesses such as an increasing number of unwed mothers, children born out of wedlock, an increasing number of rapists, and finally the gradual destruction of the nuclear family.
· Repercussion on the economy: No doubt that the wave of fatherless children resulting from the plague of fornication, constitutes an economic burden on the society. On the other hand, a man who commits such acts acquires a sense of irresponsibility, which will no doubt reflect on his work, and on the society as a whole.
· Repercussion on the Hereafter: It is very important that the child should fear Allah’s (SWT) punishment if he commits this abominable sin. Allah (SWT) says:
"And those who invoke not any other ilah (god) along with Allah, nor kill such life as Allah has forbidden, except for just cause, nor commit illegal sexual intercourse - and whoever does this shall receive the punishment. The torment will be doubled to him on the Day of Resurrection, and he will abide therein in disgrace." (Al-Furqan 25:68-69)
3. Connecting the child to his religious roots: Parents should teach their children Islamic culture and history. The child should also know the norms within a Muslim community and the way social activities (gathering, sports, hobbies, etc.) are performed according to the Islamic Shariah. Parents should encourage - even insist - that the child chooses his friends among the well behaved Muslim children.
NO SINFUL ACT HAS GREATER REPERCUSSION ON THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE SOCIETY THAN THE ACT OF FORNICATION
Information from Al-Jumuah Magazine Issue 5, Sha’baan 1416, Pages 10 & 11