Saturday, March 02, 2013
  The moral maturity of two year olds
Originally published in MuslimWakeUp.com, republished at hijabman.com.



The Moral Maturity of Two-Year Olds
(The first in a three part series)
By Pamela K. Taylor

The other day I got an email that ran something like this:

Subject: FW: Glad Tidings of Heaven for Pious Women!! 
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
---------------------------------

Glad tidings of Heaven for pious women in the light of hadith

1. When a husband comes home full of worries and the wife extends warm welcome to him and consoles him; she receives the reward of half a jihaad.

2. When a husband comes home to sleep and his wife gives him food to eat (not being involved in dishonesty with regard to herself and her husband belongings), Allah Taalah gives her the thawaab of 12 years of ibaadat.

3. When the wife presses the legs of her husband without him asking her to do so, she gets the sawaab of giving charity 7 ounce of gold, and if she presses his legs after he ask her to do so, she receives the sawaab of giving 7 ounce of silver in sadaqa.

4. Every night of an expectant mother (a woman who is carrying a baby in her womb) is counted as spent in ibaadat and every day as spent in fasting. 

5. A woman receives the sawaab of 70 years of namaaz and roza on giving birth to one child and the pain she suffered in every vein of her body while giving birth, for that she will receive the sawaab of one hajj.

6. A woman, who is deprived of sleep owing to her child crying at night, receives the sawaab of freeing 20 slaves.  Upon the child crying at night, if the mother feeds the child (gives milk to the child) without cursing, she receives the sawaab of performing namaaz for one year.

7. A breastfeeding woman gets one good deed for each drop of milk that is fed to the child.

8. A woman who is rendered restless owing to the illness of her baby and yet kept on striving to comfort the baby, Allahtalaah forgives all her sins and gives her the sawaab of 12 years accepted in ibaadat.


My first thought was “Woo-Hoo!!!  I never have to pray again or fast, or for that matter do any ibadaat because I've got credit for 6755 years of fasting and praying, several thousand hajjs, 24,000 freed slaves, several millions of good deeds, and I'm-not-telling how many tons worth of gold and silver in charity.”

Ok, I guess my attitude towards these things is pretty clear.  Saying "if I do x good deed, I'll get y reward from Allah" is the moral equivalent of letting ourselves be bribed by Allah.  It's like a mother saying to her child, “if you're good in the store, I'll give you a candy.”  Is that how you want to teach your children to behave?  NO!  Because the second you refuse to give the candy, the kids think they have the right to act up.  Also, if they decide they are really not in the mood for candy today, or they have enough stockpiled home under the bed so they don't need any more today, or they can always get more tomorrow, then there is no motivation.  Any half-way decent mother or wife, according to this email I got, has so many good deeds to her credit, she had no need to do any more.

Of course, in case our thirst for rewards is not insatiable, we have a handy repertoire of the unthinkable punishments Allah will mete out if we are less than ideal in our behavior (to be sent in email, part two).   This is, obviously, no better.  If the punishments are not fearful enough, or if we think we can cash in some of our good deeds to cancel out some of the bad ones, or that we have enough time tomorrow to make up for today’s lapses, there goes the motivation again.  Bribery isn’t a very effective tool.

Not to mention that it is essentially a selfish mode of thought, a what-can-I-get-out-of-this motive that rivals the worst CEO of Enron, Ted Turner, or Arab oil sheikh scenario, just differing in scale.  Focusing on the rewards of each and every good thing we do (or the punishments that we will incur if we do something less than ideal) teaches us to be self-centered, to focus on our own profit, and not to view the intrinsic value of the good deed.  It is relating to the world at the moral level of a two year old.

Not only does this "if you do x good deed you will get x reward" mentality represent a morally immature point of view, but it also threatens to destroy our relationships; in the case of this email, the mother/child relationship or the wife/husband relationship.  In light of this email, your child is no longer a delightful gift from God, a treasure and a trust and a miracle, who you care for because you love him or her more than you love your own self, your husband isn’t your life partner, friend, confidante, helpmeet, but rather a commodity, a means by which you can make your pile of candy grow.  What a horrible thing to do to the most beautiful, the most intimate of relationships! This is not only moral immaturity, but positive harm! How can we raise healthy, moral children is we feed them this moral pap and if we treat them like paths to our own spiritual fulfillment?

The sad part is that some Muslims (Most Muslims? Please say it's not true.) seem to take these email sheets very, very, very literally. How often have we heard a young mother telling about her oft-interrupted night with her newborn son or daughter saying very smugly how "I got up three times last night and never once got angry at my baby, so it's like I made three hajjs”?

That is so morally bankrupt, so ethically immature, it is small wonder that Muslims are in the state we are in. We should try to do what is right because it is the right thing to do, whether or not we receive rewards for it.  We should try to teach our children to do what is right because it is right, because it serves the greater good of mankind in general, of the community, the family.  Because doing right, makes us feel good.  Because we should do for others what we would like for others to do for us.  And, not only that, but it also pleases our Creator.

No wonder the ummah is in the state it is in! We keep ourselves morally at the age of two year olds and destroy relationships between one another with legalisms and literalisms and self-centeredness. And we wonder why our rulers are so bad?  We wonder why we can't get ahead, why Muslims don’t rule the world?  We wonder why the world doesn’t look to Islam for guidance.  It should be obvious.

(Look for the second installment in this series:  The Intellectual Thoroughness of Three Year Olds!)
 
Comments: Post a Comment



<< Home

My Photo
Name:
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, United States

Progressive Muslim, feminist, mom, writer, mystic, lover of the universe and Doug Schmidt, cellist, theologian and imam.


What I'm reading now



Cane River
An interesting exploration of the gradual whiting of a family through slavery to modern days.

To see an archive of all the books I've read (well the ones I've read and review since I started the blog) with comments, please click here

Causes Worth Supporting

This is just a short list -- a few of my favorites.

English Language Islamic Fiction. We need more of it. Lots more.
Pay a Teacher's Salary in Afghanistan. The Hunger site actually has a lot of worthwhile programs. You can find them all here .
Muslims for Progressive Values. My organization. We can always use donations, of time or money!
Human Rights Campaign for the glbt community
National Religious Campaign Against Torture
The ACLU I'm a card carrying member. Hope you'll become one too.
MoveOn.org. The organization that has done the most, as far as I can tell, to pull the countries progressive side together.
Network of Spiritual Progressives. Working to reclaim religion and morality for the religious left.

Blogs Worth Reading

Wanda Campbell also known as Nochipa A very gifted poet and a gentle, compassionate soul. Nochipa and I are on the same page on sooooo many things
Writeous Sister Aminah Hernandez, she's got some excellent latino pieces and always has good writing info on her blog.
Sister Scorpion aka Leila Montour - Leila is a fount of energy, quirky humor, and bad attitude. She's also a talented poet.
Muhajabah Very interesting commentary here. I don't always agree with her, but her pieces are always thought-provoking.
Georgie Dowdell Georgie is a great writer and a good friend.
Louise Marley Another great writer. I think Louise is one of the best sf writers exploring faith themes.
Ink in My Coffee Devon Ellington (who has numerous aliases) who is also the editor of Circadian Poems. A truly inspiring woman with a seemingly endless supply of energy.
Ethnically Incorrect With a name like that, isn't a given I'm going to enjoy this writer?
Freedom from the Mundane Colin Galbraith, another excellent writer, from Scotland.
The Scruffy Dog Review This is a new e-zine with an ecclectic mix of fiction, poetry, and non-fic, some really enjoyable pieces here.
Ramblings of a Suburban Soccer Mom Lara, another gentle soul, very thoughtful.
Circadian Poems A journal of poetry, new stuff up all the time.
Ye Olde Inkwell Michelle writes romance and is one of my writing buddies.
Muhammad Michael Knight The original punk Muslim writer. Like him or love him, Mike is always coming up with the unexpected.

Recent Posts
Archives

October 2005
November 2005
December 2005
January 2006
February 2006
March 2006
April 2006
May 2006
June 2006
July 2006
August 2006
September 2006
October 2006
November 2006
December 2006
January 2007
February 2007
March 2007
April 2007
May 2007
June 2007
July 2007
August 2007
September 2007
October 2007
November 2007
December 2007
January 2008
February 2008
July 2008
December 2008
January 2009
February 2009
March 2009
April 2009
May 2009
June 2009
July 2009
February 2013
March 2013
April 2013
July 2013


Categories