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"We were hit and we turned out fine."
Hamein to maar parhi. Hum to bilkul sahi hain. Gen Z is too soft. Maarna to pyar ki nishani hai. Allah ne permission di hai.
Okay. Let's open that permission letter together. Because I want you to read what it actually says.
THE HADITH PARENTS QUOTE TO DEFEND HITTING.
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:
"Command your children to pray when they become seven years old, and beat them for it when they become ten years old; and arrange their beds separately." (Sunan Abu Dawud 495 — graded Hasan)
Now let's stay in the text. Because the text has been misread for generations.
It says command at seven. Not hit. Command, teach, encourage. For three full years. Patience first. Always.
It says at ten there is a permission. One permission. For one thing. Prayer. Not talking back. Not spilling juice. Not embarrassing you in front of your mother-in-law. Not being too loud. Not being soft. Prayer. That's it.
And even then classical scholars set conditions so strict that most of us fail them before we raise our hand.
According to the scholarly tradition:
It must be a last resort — after everything else has been tried.
It must be occasional. Not a habit.
It must be done in private — to protect the child's dignity.
It must not be on the face. Ever.
It must not leave a mark.
It must be done without anger.
And it must be done with mercy in the heart. Not frustration. Not ego. Not because your day was hard.
Ask yourself honestly: when you hit your child, which of these conditions did you meet?
Now let me ask you something else.
What did you think parenting was?
Because the classical scholars of Islam had a very clear answer. And it looks nothing like what most of us are doing.
Al-Ghazali said the child's heart is like a pure unmarked jewel. It has no inscription on it yet. No bitterness. No fear. No rage. It accepts whatever you press into it. Whatever you press in first goes deepest. Whatever goes deepest stays longest.
You are not the owner of that jewel. You are its custodian.
Ibn al-Qayyim said it even more directly in Tuhfat al-Mawdud:
"Whoever pays no attention to teaching his child that which will benefit him and leaves him to waste away without care — he is extremely sinful. Most children are corrupted due to their parents."
This is not poetry. This is what our scholars said about your responsibility before Allah.
The word is Amanah. A trust.
Allah gave you this child the same way someone gives you their most precious possession to look after. You did not earn it. You do not own it. You are responsible for returning it in the best condition you can.
And the condition He cares about is not whether the child is obedient in front of guests. It is the fitrah.
Every child is born with fitrah. A natural inclination toward goodness, toward truth, toward Allah. The Prophet ﷺ said this. It is in Bukhari and Muslim both. The fitrah is already there when the child arrives. Your job as a parent is to protect it. Water it. Not crush it.
What crushes fitrah?
Fear that is bigger than love.
A child who obeys because they are scared is not a child whose fitrah is growing. They are a child who has learned to survive you. That is not tarbiyah. That is damage with a religious label on it.
Tarbiyah literally comes from the root raba. To grow. To nurture. To raise gently toward its full form.
It was never about control. It was always about cultivation.
NOW LET'S TALK ABOUT WHAT HE ﷺ ACTUALLY DID.
Aisha (RA) said in her own words in Sahih Muslim 2328:
"Allah's Messenger never beat anyone with his hand, neither a woman nor a servant, but only in the case when he had been fighting in the cause of Allah."
HAZRAT ANAS (RA). TEN YEARS.
Anas ibn Malik (RA) was given to the Prophet ﷺ as a young boy. He served him for ten years. Daily tasks. Daily life. Under the weight of prophethood itself. And this is what he said about those ten years. Sahih al-Bukhari 6038:
"I served the Prophet ﷺ for ten years, and he never said to me 'Uf' — not once. He never said 'why did you do this?' or 'why didn't you do that?'"
Ten years. Not one uff.
The man fasting, leading wars, receiving revelation, running an entire community. Never lost patience with a child in ten years.
And we lose it in ten minutes. And then we call it love.
HOW HE ﷺ TREATED CHILDREN.
He carried his granddaughter during salah. He shortened his prayer when he heard a baby cry because he did not want the mother's heart to break. (Sahih al-Bukhari)
We tell children to sit still. To be quiet. To not disturb adults. To disappear when grown ups are talking.
He reorganised his salah around them.
This is the man you are claiming religious authority from when you raise your hand.
THE BEDOUIN WHO DIDN'T KISS HIS CHILDREN.
A man came to the Prophet ﷺ and said: you kiss your children? We don't kiss ours.
The Prophet ﷺ looked at him and said:
"Can I put mercy in your hearts after Allah has removed it from them?"
Mercy with children is not an option!
THE QUESTION THAT MATTERS.
This child in your home was never yours.
They are an amanah. A trust. Given to you to protect, shape and return.
On the Day of Judgment Allah will not ask whether your child was obedient enough or tough enough. He will ask how you treated the trust He gave you.
Hum theek hain is not evidence. We carry wounds we have never named. We pass down things we never questioned. We call trauma tradition and call cruelty love.
The religion came to break exactly that cycle.
Read it again. All of it. Not the one phrase you needed.
All of it.
And I can talk more and more on the role of teachers too. But that is for another time.
Source: received through WhatsApp common forwards. Not verified, taken as it is.