Reflection Summary
Ustadh Nouman Ali Khan
Before any teacher, mosque, or curriculum, a child’s first and deepest religious education comes from their parents.
Islamic education has focused heavily on how to pray, how to make wudu, what to say, and rarely on why any of it matters.
Ustadh Nouman observes that as children approach the preteen years, their questions often move beyond what Muslims do and how they do it toward why they believe and practice in the first place. He argues that without a strong foundation for the ‘why,’ young people may be poorly prepared when deeper questions about faith emerge.
A parent’s own clarity and passion about why they believe is what actually transfers to a child, not lectures alone.
Ustadh Nouman points to young people he has encountered in Muslim-majority countries who received extensive Islamic education yet still wanted to leave the faith, arguing that this is not uniquely a Western challenge.
Surah An-Nisa 4:135 commands standing up for justice even against your own parents or closest relatives, without twisting words or avoiding the conflict.
This answer comes from a live Q&A, where a father, expecting a daughter and already raising a son, asks two things: how to hold firm on family boundaries without cutting ties, and specifically how to raise children, especially daughters, in the West. Ustadh Nouman starts with Surah An-Nisa, ayah 4:135: stand up for justice, even against yourself, even against your own parents, even against your closest relatives, whether the other party is rich or poor. Injustice is named in two forms, twisting your words to manipulate a situation, or simply avoiding the conflict and staying silent. Justice comes first; feelings come after. This doesn’t cancel kindness toward parents or relatives, but it does mean not staying silent, and not manipulating language, to avoid a hard conversation.
On raising children, the core answer is this: the first school a child has is their parents, before any teacher, mosque, or curriculum. And the deepest thing parents owe their children is not instruction in what to do as a Muslim, but a real understanding of why. For too long, Islamic education has focused on the what and the how, how to make wudu, how to pray, how to recite, what dua to say, and children absorb that until about age ten, eleven, or twelve. After that, the questions change. Why do I pray? Why do I dress like this? Why can’t I be like everyone else? If a child was never given the why, they hit that wall with nothing to stand on, and some parents respond to that moment with disbelief, having assumed the what-and-how education was the whole job.
The deeper point is that a parent can only give a child what they themselves actually have. A parent’s own clarity and passion about why they believe is what transfers, not the lecture alone. The comparison offered is watching football, or cheering for a national cricket team: a parent never has to teach a child to be passionate about it, the child catches it because the passion is real and visible. Islam is meant to be passed down the same way, through a parent’s own conviction, not primarily through rules recited at a child.
Finally, this is framed as a global problem, not a uniquely Western one. Ustadh Nouman points to young people he has encountered in Muslim-majority countries, deeply trained in fiqh, aqidah, sharia, Quran, tafsir, and Arabic, who are also walking away from Islam, having never set foot in the West. The same internet, the same social media, the same music and culture now reach everywhere; a seven-year-old anywhere can speak perfect English learned from YouTube. The difference is only in how faith is being lost, not whether it’s at risk, which is why the why question has to sit at the center of Islamic and Quranic education, for parents as much as for children.
Before your next lesson or correction about faith, get clear yourself on why it matters, not just what the rule is.
Talk about a part of your faith you genuinely love, out loud, in front of your child, the way you’d talk about a favorite team.
Don’t wait for your preteen to ask why on their own; open the conversation yourself before the questions pile up unanswered.
The next time a family disagreement tempts you to stay quiet to keep the peace, weigh whether staying silent is actually protecting fairness.
There are no right or wrong answers here, just space to think about your own family.
Do I have a clear, deep why for my own faith, or mostly the what and the how?
When my child asks why about something in our faith, is my answer real, or do I fall back on because that’s how it’s done?
What am I visibly passionate about in front of my child, and is my faith one of those things?
Am I assuming my child is safer from losing their faith because of where we live or who we’re close to, rather than actually having the why conversation?
Is there a conflict in my family, with a parent, in-law, or relative, that I’ve been avoiding instead of addressing with honesty?
Every family is different. If you’ve tried something that made a difference in your family, we’d love to hear about it.
More reflections that may help you think about this from another angle.
