Friday khutbah \u2013 28 August 2026 (15 Rab\u012b\u02bf al-Awwal 1448 AH)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our Children and the New School Year: Knowledge, Identity, and Upbringing in the Digital Age<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n All praise is due to Allah. We worship Him, seek His help, and ask for His guidance. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) is His servant and Messenger. Allah Almighty says: \u201cO you who believe! Fear Allah and speak words of appropriate justice. He will amend for you your deeds and forgive you your sins. And whoever obeys Allah and His Messenger has certainly attained a great triumph.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With the beginning of the new school year in the Czech Republic, our sons and daughters return to their schools and universities and enter a new stage of learning, effort, and personal growth. It is a time filled with hopes and ambitions, but also with responsibilities and challenges that require Muslim families to provide care, guidance, and support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Islam is a religion that places great value on knowledge and learning. The first words revealed from the Noble Qur\u2019an were the words of Allah Almighty:\u201cRead in the name of your Lord who created\u2026\u201d<\/strong> (96:1)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Islam, education is not merely a means of obtaining a diploma or securing employment. It is also a path to personal development, to benefiting others, and to contributing positively to society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We want our sons and daughters to excel in their studies, to be beneficial members of the societies in which they live, and to become shining examples of Muslims who combine faith with knowledge, good character with achievement, and pride in their identity with active and positive participation in society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Servants of Allah,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Muslim children growing up outside Muslim-majority societies are surrounded by different cultures, ideas, and influences. This places a great responsibility upon the family. Schools certainly play an important role in education, but the family remains the first and most important school when it comes to developing faith, moral values, and identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The responsibility of parents is not limited to providing school supplies or asking about grades. We must also ask ourselves: How are our children doing with their prayers? Who are their friends? What ideas and influences are reaching them? How do they spend their free time? What are they watching on their phones and screens?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Allah Almighty says:\u201cO you who believe! Protect yourselves and your families from a Fire\u2026\u201d<\/strong> (66:6)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fathers and mothers,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Raising children is not simply about giving commands and setting prohibitions. It is also about love, communication, attention, setting a good example, and making sincere supplication for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stay close to your children. Listen to them, try to understand their concerns, and make your home a place where they find safety, trust, understanding, and open dialogue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teach them that being proud of their Islamic identity does not mean isolating themselves from society, just as positive integration into society does not mean abandoning their faith and values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We want our sons and daughters to respect their teachers and classmates, to contribute positively to the society in which they live, while at the same time remaining committed to their prayers and to the moral principles of their faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teach them that a Muslim should be known for sincerity, honesty, good manners, responsibility, and diligence. A successful Muslim student with excellent character conveys an important message about Islam through his or her behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And do not forget your children in your supplications. True guidance is in the hands of Allah Almighty. Praying for one’s children was the way of the Prophets, peace be upon them. Ibrahim (Abraham), peace be upon him, said:\u201cMy Lord, grant me a child from among the righteous.\u201d<\/strong> (37:100) And he said: \u201cMy Lord, make me an establisher of prayer, and many from my descendants. Our Lord, and accept my supplication.\u201d<\/strong> (14:40)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, combine proper upbringing with a good example and frequent supplication, especially at a time when temptations and distractions are so widespread.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among the greatest challenges facing our children today are mobile phones, screens, and social media. These technologies can be valuable tools for education, communication, and acquiring knowledge. The danger begins, however, when they consume our children’s time, control their attention, and become substitutes for family, study, and real social interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How many hours are lost through endless scrolling? How many students see their academic performance decline because of excessive phone use? And how many families sit together in the same room while each person is absorbed in the separate world of their own screen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where setting an example becomes more important than simply imposing control. It is difficult to ask our children to put their phones away if we ourselves are constantly looking at ours. Therefore, begin with yourselves. Reflect on your own relationship with technology before monitoring your children’s use of it. Be a role model before becoming a supervisor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Families should establish reasonable and balanced rules for the use of electronic devices. There should be appropriate times for using mobile phones. Phones should be kept away from the dining table, and children should avoid them while studying and before going to sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Encourage your children to exercise, read, develop useful interests, and participate in social activities. At the same time, wisely supervise the content they consume. Do not spy on them in a way that destroys trust, but do not neglect them either and leave them alone to face the risks of an unrestricted digital world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Teach them to protect their privacy, to be cautious when communicating with strangers, and to avoid sharing personal information or photographs carelessly. Most importantly, teach them that if they face a problem, they can turn to their parents. Asking for help is always better than hiding a problem out of fear of punishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sons and daughters,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A new school year is beginning. Make it a new beginning in your lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do not neglect your prayers. Work diligently in your studies, manage your time wisely, choose good friends, and respect your teachers and classmates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Be good examples in your schools through your character, diligence, and perseverance. Through your behaviour and actions, you represent Islam, and through you, others may come to know its values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your good character, sincerity, and honesty may encourage someone to appreciate and learn more about your faith. Perhaps Allah may guide someone through your good example, bringing you goodness in this world and reward in the Hereafter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Show your teachers and classmates the Islamic virtues of sincerity, honesty, respect, cooperation, kindness, and willingness to help others. Combine excellent character with excellent academic achievement so that you become examples of successful Muslims who make a positive contribution to society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do not allow mobile phones, games, and social media to steal your time and your future. Use technology, but do not allow technology to control you. And do not allow mobile phones or artificial intelligence tools to become substitutes for reading, thinking, research, learning, and hard work. Allah Almighty says: \u201c\u2026and that there is not for man except that for which he strives, and that his effort is going to be seen\u2026\u201d<\/strong> (53:39\u201340)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Servants of Allah,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our children are a trust placed in our care, and they are the future of our families and societies. Among the greatest gifts we can give them are faith that protects them, knowledge that benefits them, good character that guides them, a strong identity that gives them stability and confidence, and a loving family that supports them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us make this school year an opportunity to grow closer to our children, to help them succeed while preserving their faith and identity, and to raise them to become righteous, successful, responsible, and beneficial members of the societies in which they live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We ask Allah to protect our sons and daughters, to open for them the doors of knowledge and understanding, to keep them firm in their faith, and to protect them from temptation and harmful influences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We ask Allah to make them righteous and beneficial people, to grant them success in their studies and in their lives, and to make them a source of goodness and benefit to themselves, their families, and the societies in which they live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u0100m\u012bn.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Friday khutbah \u2013 28 August 2026 (15 Rab\u012b\u02bf al-Awwal 1448 AH) Our Children and the New School Year: Knowledge, Identity, and Upbringing in the Digital Age All praise is due to Allah. We worship Him, seek His help, and ask for His guidance. I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-friday-khutbah","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":604,"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions\/604"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/islam.cz\/mosque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}