Wisdom from the Wise, Advice of Luqman 1930279086, 9781930279087

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~CHrL ADVICE OF LUQMAN O

Wisdom from the Wise: Advice of Luqman Written by Habeeb Quadri & Sa’ad Quadri

Copyright © 2011 HQEC Cover design by Ali Quadri

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be utilized, copied or reproduced in any way or form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including recording and photocopying, or by any retrieval system and information storage without written permission of HQEC. The only exception is a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Published and printed by Cedar Graphics, Inc. www.cedargraphicsinc.com

ISBN 1-930279-08-6, ISBN 978-1-930279-08-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011933236

Cedar Graphics, Inc.

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“Our Eord! Acceptfrom us (this act); indeed You are the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.” (2:127)

To ourparents and teachers: those who brought usfrom Heaven to this Tarth, and those who will help take us from this Earth to Heaven.

I

£ lA/Lse,: ADV

OF LU OMAN O

Habeeb Quadri & Sa’ad Quadri

HIGH QUALITY EDUCATION CONSULTING

CONTENTS Acknowledgements: Thank, You

Introduction: Why Luqman

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iii

Foreword: ^4 Statistical Analysis

V

1. Lessonsfrom Verse 12 Wisdom Being Grateful

1

2. Lessonsfrom Verse 13 Communicating with Our Children Teaching Our Children Tawheed and Loving Allah

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3. Lessonsfrom Verse 14 Respecting Parents (and Especially Mom) Respectful Disobedience Holding Firm to the Faith

13

4. Lessonsfrom Verse 15 Teaching the Attributes of Allah Allah is All-Aware Allah is All-Capable

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5. Lessonsfrom Verse 16

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6. Lessonsfrom Verse 17 Teaching the Importance of Prayer Encouraging Enjoining Good Supporting Forbidding Evil

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7. Lessonsfrom Verse 18 Avoiding Arrogance Instilling Humility

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8.

Lessonsfrom Verse 19 Being Humble Watching Over Our Tongues

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9.

The Story of Luqman

43

Afterword: Our Advice

59

About the Authors

61

Acknowledgements Thank You

Oh Allah how great and majestic You are. We will never be able to thank You. Even as we begin to thank those who have given us so much, we see that verily it was from Your mercy that You provided us the opportunity to meet such people. How can our flawed tongues ever give gratitude to the One who is perfect? We ask that You accept us despite our flaws, and we ask that You accept our gratitude despite its deficiency.

Our greatest example and the greatest example to all of mankind, the Beloved of Allah the Messenger of Allah the one whom both the animate and inanimate objects sought to serve. We thank him for all the sacrifices that he made by asking You, oh Allah $&, that You send upon him Your choicest prayers and blessings.

We would like to take this moment to thank those who have inspired, advised, and guided us beginning, as always, with our parents, who not only took us from a complacent state and showed us how to crawl and eventually walk physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. To Maulana Abulfattah Muniruzzaman, my teacher, a man of humility and impeccable etiquette, whose knowledge and character I regularly benefit from: I thank you with the sincerest of gratitude.

Thank You i

And to those who have inspired me throughout the years, Dr. Tasneema Ghazi, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, and Shaykh Abdullah Idris, may Allah bless you for all of your efforts and guidance. - Habeeb To Dr. Shaykh Husain Abdul Sattar, my teacher and guide, a man who selflessly accepted the impossible task of fashioning this hardened clay as if it were soft and fresh, and who met even the grossest breaches of etiquette with a smile: I can never thank you for what you have given me. And to all of my teachers of the sacred sciences, those from HE, Sacred Learning, and those who taught me outside of an institution, you chose to take in this faqir and share your wealth with him. May Allah accept you all and bestow His endless wealth upon you without any account.

-Sa'ad

ii Wisdom from the Wise: Advice of Luqman j&SI

Introduction Why Luqman 88®? Alhanidulillah (all praise is to Allah), through my travels we have had the opportunity, by Allah’s 3£ tawfiq (guidance) of speaking to thousands of youth and adults. What we continuously have noticed is that people ask for advice on one particular issue; youth speak to me about problems they are experiencing with their parents, and parents speak to me about issues relating to how to raise their children, both in this society and overseas. Through my experiences with our Muslim community we have noticed that at times fathers take a backseat in the development of their children. They only step in when they need to talk about grades, chores, respecting siblings, or other areas that may need to be corrected. The role of the father basically becomes one that is called upon when situations are serious or there is a need for discipline. The worst part is that we have almost made this cultural norm a part of our faith. However, if we look at our Islamic tradition we see the father played a vital role in the development of the children. Thus, I wanted this book to focus on the advice of one of the greatest fathers our rich religious history has to offer, the Luqman 3® to his son. This book is designed to address parents, future parents, and even children. However, we will be stressing the importance of the father throughout the book, and how his role in the life of our children is more relevant than ever before.

Communicating to children is an art that has been displayed and observed for generations. Both saying words of encouragement and words of admonishment have ways in which they are most affective. The process of listening also has methods through Why Luqman

iii

which our children can benefit most. This book aims to also impart these nuances through details found in the interaction of Luqman with his son.

Finally, this is not meant to be a scholarly analysis of the verses. Rather, these are some lessons that we felt were important that could be derived from a superficial reading of the verses. In previous publications we made sure to supplement each chapter with a section on practical solutions. We refrained from including such a section in this book, because we felt each chapter is basically a set of practical solutions and not necessarily reflections or commentary.

iv Wisdom from the Wise: Advice of Luqman

Foreword A Statistical Analysis To start, I wanted to merely put forth some statistics taken regarding children with fatherless homes. We might quickly become defensive and say that our children do have a father at home, but are the fathers doing more than living in the house? Are the fathers, myself included, acting as the living, guiding, modeling, teaching example that our children so greatly need. Below are excerpts taken from Wayne Parker on the statistics of fatherless children in America. Incarceration Rates: Young men who grow up in homes without fathers are twice as likely to end up in jail as those who come from traditional two-parent families...those boys whose fathers were absent from the household had double the odds of being incarcerated — even when other factors such as race, income, parent education and urban residence were held constant. (Cynthia Harper of the University of Pennsylvania and Sara S. McLanahan of Princeton University cited in “Father Absence and Youth Incarceration.” Journal of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004): 369-397.) Suicide: 63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Bureau of the Census)

Behavioral Disorders: 85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes (United States Center for Disease Control)

A Statistical Analysis v

High School Dropouts: 71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes (National Principals Association Report on the State of High Schools?)

Educational Attainment: Kids living in single-parent homes or in step-families report lower educational expectations on the part of their parents, less parental monitoring of school work, and less overall social supervision than children from intact families. (N.M. Astore and S. McLanahan, American Sociological Review, No. 56 (1991)

Juvenile Detention Rates: 70% of juveniles in state-operated institutions come from fatherless homes (U.S. Dept, of Justice, Special Report, Sept 1988) Confused Identities: Boys who grow up in father-absent homes are more likely that those in father-present homes to have trouble establishing appropriate sex roles and gender identity. (P.L. Adams, J.R. Milner, and N.A. Schrepf, Fatherless Children, New York, Wiley Press, 1984).

Aggression: In a longitudinal study of 1,197 fourth-grade students, researchers observed “greater levels of aggression in boys from mother-only households than from boys in mother-father households.” (N. Vaden-Kierman, N. lalongo, J. Pearson, and S. Kellam, “Household Family Structure and Children’s Aggressive Behavior: A Longitudinal Study of Urban Elementary School Children,” Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 23, no. 5 (1995)). Achievement: Children from low-income, two-parent families outperform students from high-income, single-parent homes. Almost twice as many high achievers come from two-parent vi Wisdom from die Wise: Advice of Luqman

homes as one-parent homes. (One-Parent Families and Their Children, Charles F. Kettering Foundation, 1990). Delinquency: Only 13 percent of juvenile delinquents come from families in which the biological mother and father are married to each other. By contract, 33 percent have parents who are either divorced or separated and 44 percent have parents who were never married. (Wisconsin Dept, of Health and Social Services, April 1994). Criminal Activity: The likelihood that a young male will engage in criminal activity doubles if he is raised without a father and triples if he lives in a neighborhood with a high concentration of single­ parent families. (A. Anne Hill, June O’Neill, Underclass Behaviors in the United States, CUNY, Baruch College. 1993)

r\ Statistical Analysis vii

viii Wisdom from the Wise: Advice of Luqman

Chapter I Verse XII

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