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Fitrah: The Inherent Nature - Hamza Yusuf – Transcript
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- During the first seven years of life, the responsibility to nurture the child falls entirely upon the parents with absolutely no responsibility on the child.
- Every child is born on fitra, which represents the inherent aboriginal nature of the human being that is believed in Islam to be good in nature.
- Physical violence and abuse of any kind are strictly prohibited in Sharia for any situation, whether involving adults or children.
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So once the uh the the child comes out it comes into the next stage of dunya. So dunya has five stages. The first stage is one through he says five and there's another one that goes with seven which is consistent with the western tradition. You could either go 1:7 or 1 to 15.
If you go 1 to7 which is also considered a classical Islamic uh category during these first seven years it's the responsibility of the parents to nurture the child. This is a time that there is absolutely no responsibility none. It's prohibited to uh to have any physical discipline
during this time even up till 10. Physical discipline is is not permitted uh in in in uh in Sharia uh other than uh the scholars say like twisting the ear right um grabbing the stomach you know pinching the stomach giving them pinches any type of physical violent force is prohibited uh in any situation
whether it's male adult female adult or child is prohibited for any uh violent physical physical abuse that is haram in Sharia absolutely and there's no proof or justification for it and we we're going to look at the verse that a lot of people misunderstand including unfortunately uh some Muslims um about that but it's it's well known
in the uh Islamic uh Sharia that it is prohibited uh to physically uh strike uh anyone with violence. Mhm. Um I just question about the embryology.
Was that from the Quran or the No, that's Quran. That's Quran. Yeah, it's uh there's several verses that deal with that actually, but the one I gave you was 225. Now in 225, uh it continues and it says, "Afterward, we bring you forth as infants."
The word in Arabic this stage is called the now means in Arabic is a parasite. The is somebody that cannot live on its own. It it needs a host.
So the child needs the parents and this is the responsibility of the parents to nurture the child. Now the prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that every child is born on fra and this is an important concept in Islam.
FRA is the inherent nature of the human being. It's his aboriginal nature. It is believed in Islam that human beings are good in their nature.
And it is it is diseased societies that will uh affect the the the the the nature in a in a diseased way. Now this obviously does is not congruous with the traditional Christian belief of the corrupt nature. But there is a similarity between the Islamic and the Christian belief in that there is a
hadith that says that every child is born with a black seed in the heart and this is similar but not the same as as the understanding of original sin.
How would you describe the let's call it crack babies in their mind? Yeah. And this is going to be uh the ch the actions of the parents affect their children and there are like in the Bible the idea of visiting on seven generations which is you know it's a lot you're dealing with 64 parents.
Uh there is that concept in Islam that your actions do affect your offspring but there is no accountability of the offspring.
In other words, nobody bears the burden of you do not like in some of the Chinese traditions you have the idea of inherited curses. you know that a family gets cursed for doing wrong in one generation and their offspring will suffer the fate of that curse.
But there is a belief in Islam that righteousness will affect your offspring and also wrongs will affect your offspring. We don't you don't think that it has anything to bear upon the the concept of of inherent nature because a crack baby in a sense is a starts out with a an addiction an addiction right and the mother is responsible for that not the
baby. So the mother has has affected the and that's we have that ability to completely destroy the fra the parents can do that to the child they can ruin it I mean that's what happens fra is not you know children will not be uh if if they are nurtured properly now
there is bad seed there is a concept of bad seed in Islam there's definitely a concept In other words, there is a belief that there are ins which are demonic uh humans and this results uh one that demons will actually part partake in the insemination that there's hadith that indicate that people that are like in
fornication in and it's interesting because Islam accepts marriage in every tradition you know even though it it doesn't accept accept uh the the the Buddhist as a people of the book.
Um that, you know, they're accepted as a uh as a tradition in that they can pay the the the Jizia tax according to Imam Madik, but their their their books are not accepted as uh revealed books.
They're not rejected, but they're not accepted. it it's not in the articles of faith like the the Bible and the gospel. But Buddhist marriage is accepted. If if two Buddhists become Muslim, their marriage is valid. They don't have to renew that marriage because marriage is believed to be a divine institution that it was through revelation that marriage came about. So marriage in any tradition
is accepted and therefore children that are born of legitimate marriage in any tradition uh those children have the protection of the the sanctity of the of the union. Children born out of wedlock do not have that protection and there can be effects on the children because of that. And one of the things that the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said is beware the wrath of bastard children.
Beware the wrath of bastard children. That if you do that to children they will be angry and their wrath will come back to you. And he said if illegitimacy spreads amongst a people then they are spreading the wrath of God amongst themselves.
And the wrath is in the children because that was a right that you have deprived them of. They have a right to legitimacy. And if you do not give them that, you have oppressed them. And oppression engenders anger.
And they are often they don't know why they're angry, right? They don't know why they're angry, but they're angry. and and for our country when you're looking at 70% illegitimacy rates amongst uh certain communities, right? And and the dominant community, it's it's it's in the 40 percentile range, right? That which a lot of you
grew up in an age where, you know, girls disappeared in high school, right? I mean, it's really amazing how much has changed in in in our generation, right? I mean, in in 1968, a woman was kicked out of Vassor for living with a man in an apartment.
68. And it's it's really interesting how how that's happened in this culture. So this fitra nature is this inherent nature and it is that the potential for good and evil exist but the inclination is to to good if it's nurtured but the seed of evil can be nurtured also and if
that's done then you get people that that will they're inclined to doing bad stuff not good stuff. Another question is Sharia then and say in a Muslim country are parents responsible for misdeeds of children? Absolutely.
Absolutely. And there is no responsibility until puberty of the child. It all falls on the parents. After puberty according to the hadith the parents are taken to account in the next life but not in this life. Once the child, you know, like if you've got ch uh children that were raised brutalized, right, by their father, you know, or a crack cocaine mother who
doesn't do anything for her child. These type things. The responsibility. This is why you can't judge people in this world in any absolute sense. The prophet said, "I was commanded to judge outwardly but not inwardly." We we do not have the authority to make inward judgments against people. We can only judge
outwardly. And those outward judgments in Sharia are related to transgressions. But you cannot condemn people to hell. You can't none of that. That's all inward judgment. And we have no authority in that realm.