Building Children

As a life coach, I frequently encounter parents who seek my guidance for their troubled children.

It is evident that they are grappling with immense distress as they navigate their children‘s education, relationships, behavior, societal expectations, and adherence to Islamic ethics. However, through this experience, I have come to a sad realization: They are unintentionally focusing on building various aspects of their children‘s lives while neglecting the essential task of building the children themselves. To summarize, they are building everything but the children!

Allama Iqbal has pointed out how we sometimes we ignore the essence while

رگوں میں وہ لہو باقی نہیں ہے
وہ دل وہ آرزو باقی نہیں ہے

نماز و روزہ و قربانی و حج
یہ سب باقی ہیں تو باقی نہیں ہے

“The blood no longer flows in the veins, neither the heart nor the longing remain. Prayer, fasting, sacrifice, and pilgrimage, are there, but you are absent.”

When I say building the child, I mean building the core of the child which includes his set of beliefs (Ideology), a clear sense of why he or she has been created (Ultimate Purpose), a very powerful, correct and long term picture of the future that he or she wants to create (Ultimate Vision) and a clear and evidence based reason for this vision (Purpose of the Vision).

Without this Core a child is in a state of disbelief. He lacks purpose, direction and an internal compass. Without a compelling vision, there is nothing to struggle for, to sacrifice for. One after the other teenagers describe this in one sentence: ‘Sir, I am lost!’

My parents were in Sana‘a, Yemen. My father was in Citibank. He was a wonderful person but unfortunately Citibankers were a secular lot. We would pray Jumuah and fast in Ramadan but that was about it. There were summer vacations in Europe, lots of picnics, dinners. There were lots of movies and music.

We were in an American school and I must admit that there was a lot of fun with learning. We were not allowed to take books home as the school believed in no homework. Most of the kids were Americans or Europeans. Looking back, this life of extended fun was dumbing me to the fact that I was lost.

The fact that I was lost started to dawn upon me when sent to Abbottabad Public School, a boarding school in Abbottabad. Before I knew, I was stuck with one of the worst company in school and with the associate life style. It was as if I was in a raging river with poor swimming skills. I was thrashing around and the fear of drowning was making things worse.

Allah (SWT) was kind. A traumatic event unfolded. I was fifteen. I went to the masjid to look for any book that I can read. I wanted direction. Fortunately there was not a single book. The shelves had Quran only. I was dismayed. As I stood there, a lost teenager, thousands of miles away from home, I saw a Quran with a translation. I opened it and started to read the translation for the first time in my life.

I remember I was all alone in the masjid. As I started to read the Quran, I was immediately seized with this powerful feeling: a feeling that Allah (SWT) is speaking to me.
I would reading the Quran verse by verse. First I would read the Arabic, then read the translation and then read the Arabic again. I was reflecting upon each word. The progress was painstakingly slow.
The words of Allah (SWT) are impactful even if you understand them but when the words are couple with meanings, they hit your heart with unimaginable force.

The first day I broke down and wept. It was sheer awe of Allah (SWT) and the power of His (SWT) speech. Within a year, I had read the Quran cover to cover. My life was transformed. Like Alice in Wonderland, I was suddenly transported into a new life of vision, purpose and meaning. I had done nothing to deserve it. It was a blessing from Allah (SWT).

Looking back at my earlier life, I realized that myself and people around me were living with that horrible void in their lives but just like morphine would dull your physical and psychological pain, the pleasures of life was our morphine. Just like when morphine wears off, the pain reappears the pain of being lost would come and go.

Unfortunately, there was a lot of music in our life. Whenever we will drive with the family music would be heard. I don‘t know why I use to pay very close attention to the lyrics and sometimes I would find some meaningful sentences which I would reflect later on.

کچھ پاکر کھونا ہے، کچھ کھو کر پانا ہے
جیون کا مطلب تو آنا اور جانا ہے

دوپل کے جیون سے اک عمر چُرانی ہے
زندگی اور کچھ بھی نہیں تیری میری کہانی ہے

طوفان تو آنا ہے، آکر چلے جانا ہے
بادل ہے یہ کچھ پل کا، چھا کر ڈھل جانا ہے

پرچھائیاں رہ جاتی ہیں، رہ جاتی ہیں نشانی ہے
زندگی اور کچھ بھی نہیں تیری میری کہانی ہے

To gain something, you must lose something.
The meaning of life is to come and go.
From the moments of existence, we have to steal a lifetime.
Life is nothing but your and my story.
The storm must come, and then it must pass.
These clouds are just for a few moments; they will scatter and fade away.
The shadows and marks of our journey shall remain.
Life is nothing but your and my story.

دلِ بینا بھی کر خدا سے طلب
آنکھ کا نور دل کا نور نہیں

کیا غضب ہے کہ اس زمانے میں
ایک بھی صاحبِ سرور نہیں

ناصبوری ہے زندگی دل کی
آہ وہ دل کہ ناصبور نہیں