Why is a positive environment in the home important in raising righteous children?

We should provide a peaceful and loving home. There should be no screaming between husband and wife because of their disagreement. Keep them away from them. Husband and wife should be in agreement in how they will raise their children.

The household in the home should also be Islamic. It doesn’t mean that we should put Ayat Kursi in the wall. It doesn’t come from the Sunnah of Rasoolullah sal Allahu alayhi wa sallam. We should have, in our home, Islamic books and other forms of educational material, which are easily accessible by our children. We shouldn’t keep anything unislamic in our home.

Many young people today are raised by the television. Parents let their children watch television all day long. There are so many haram things in television unless you can control that instrument. It is better that you don’t have television at all in your houses. Non-Muslims put away the television from their home because they understand the danger of the television. We are Muslim; we understand that television is a great threat. My advice is, if you don’t have complete control of your television, it is much better to not have television at all at your home.

Even cartoon, most people think that it is innocent, but it can be dangerous for our children. There is a cartoon, called “The Roadrunner”, a story of a bird that can run very fast, running away from a wolf. The wolf always fails to catch the bird in the story. The study said that the amount of violence act done by the bird to the wolf is five times greater than the violence appearing in “the Terminator” movie.

Leaving our children to access Internet without limit, is highly dangerous. This is really asking for destruction. Internet has to be very carefully controlled. If you have an Internet at your home, instead of using Google, you should setup alwahy.com (it is not accessible now, 2014 edition). Internet can allow children to access haram things and it will affect the development of their mental as well as their character.

Rasoolullah (ﷺ) also said that every newborn child is born in a state of fitra. Then his parents make him a Jew, a Christian or a Magian, just as an animal is born intact. It means that environment is a very important thing that we should provide to our children so that they can properly grow as a believer.