Over twenty years ago I converted to Islam with a group of Sufis in California with whom I shared many spiritual practices. We prayed together, fasted Ramadan together, and recited together which is called dhikr. There is certainly no shortage of spiritual traditions to choose from in Islam. You can read about the life of the Prophet Muhammad, called the sira. You can read and recite the Quran, a daily spiritual practice for some Muslims. You can wake in the middle of the night for supererogatory prayers, called tahajjud. You can pray together as a family just before sunrise, called fajr. I have had lovely experiences with all of these traditions and so I had some difficulty choosing just one to share.
When I became a mother, I felt a great motivation to find gentle and creative ways to share Islamic spiritual traditions with my children. As beautiful as Islamic traditions, art, music, and practices are, they are often not really adapted for children very well. They can be austere and dry for the young. Islam has not always been as iconoclastic as it is now. Decades of extreme rhetoric from unauthorized and sour sects have frightened many Muslims into avoiding color, figurative art, and music. As a student of art history, I knew that the scope of Islamic art was, and is, much broader than some would have you believe and so when I approached the spiritual traditions with my own children, I resolved to be bold and unafraid to share that history and creativity with my children and not to force puritanical doctrine upon them in any way.
Many traditional Muslims all over the world recite from a book of poetic praise for the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, on Fridays after the community prayer called Jumma. This book is called the Dala’il al Khayrat. Extremists say that expressing praises upon the Prophet is inappropriate because he was just a man. Sufis believe that the Prophet is our intercessor, the one who is praying for us and helping us and so out of great appreciation we have an overflowing praise for Him. As a Sufi parent I wanted to find a way to share this spiritual tradition of reading the Dala’il al Kharyat together as a family and a community with my children.
My children have a basic (but not fluent) level of Arabic language, so I decided to use a translation of my favorite verses from the Dala’il al Khayrat to share with my sons. I also decided to construct a story for each verse that would help them to understand it because children learn best with stories. Finally, we made an illustration for each verse because representative visual art helps children to conceptualize the verse and to remember it.
As a parent, my spiritual practices have transformed because I needed to find ways to include my children. In Islam we say that marriage is half the religion and that heaven is under the feet of the mothers. I feel that this is partly because of the great responsibility we undertake with the religious education of our children. At this time in my journey I feel the need to adapt my favorite spiritual practices to include my children in creative ways. This makes me feel closer to the traditions because I have to think about the meaning and importance of each practice in a new way.
The Dala’il al Khayrat seemed like a great place to start because the verses are beautiful but short, as is the attention span of children. There is a bit of mystery about the origin of the book; children are always intrigued by mystery. The Dala’il al Khayrat is said to contain a secret and powerful verse with special powers and so the novelty of finding the secret verse is also exciting for children. When I approached this project, I decided to give each verse as much context as I could rather than just reciting them. I also strive to understand the verses and their context. I do believe that recitation is beautiful, but I also believe that contemplation is very valuable, especially when it comes to sacred text. I believe that the contemplation of sacred text can be a process and that discussion of that process can help the believer to grow in understanding. I believe that this process is interrupted by a strict and singular understanding of sacred text, and so I use these little art projects as an opportunity to discuss spiritual concepts with my children.
As a spiritual practice, reading and contemplating the Dala’il al Kharat has become much more important to me by finding a way to share it with my children. I have come to realize that raising children to become believers with sincere love and conviction is in and of itself a spiritual practice that can enhance our own spiritual journey if we are willing to find a way.
