Peace be upon you, Huzoor. Peace be upon you, too. Huzoor, I’ve got a humble suggestion first. And that is, Huzoor, the need is felt for the publication of a book which to my knowledge is not available as yet, which could be used by mothers as bedtime stories for children. A two-story book for young generation and a course in the Ahmadiyya primary schools in the religious classes.
Just one single book or various small books on various subjects? Next sentence explains, Huzoor, what I mean. I mean a book giving in short the lives of prophets, at least of those mentioned in the Holy Quran. The size of the book in mind is just a pocket book and also essays should be as short as possible, giving their period in history and the important events in their lives. This work, I think, has already been undertaken while we were discussing the syllabus for an Ahmadiyya school for children, which we are going to start in Huddersfield.
This question came up and I instructed the committee to produce literature in this regard, at least belonging to the minimum standard of literature produced for Christian children all over the world. And I remember telling them about the various subjects which should be discussed. But it should not be one single book, it should be a series of children’s small books, beautifully published and written in the simplest possible language, covering a wide area apart from the stories of the prophets. Also it should tell them the persecution the followers of the prophets met and the short hints on their age and geography and all that.
So children can absorb a lot of information. Only we withhold information from them, unfortunately thinking ill of their capabilities and believing that we shouldn’t overload them with information. While the scientists tell us, who have investigated on the brain, that the age up to 12 is the most fertile age for the brain to receive messages and record them. And a child can even be taught six or seven languages and he can speak those languages like his mother tongue equally well. But it’s the fault of the parents not to provide them with such opportunities. In fact, the scientists tell us that that part of the brain which is situated, I think, on the right hemisphere of the brain, which is particularly specialised for languages, if it is not developed by 13 years, then it ceases to work altogether, then it will not receive any messages in future.
So those children, for instance, who have been brought up in complete lack of communication, in an atmosphere of complete lack of communication, for instance, some children were lost to jungles and they were retrieved later on, they were in fact looked after by some animals. And they were retrieved much later, at the age of 15 or 16, for instance. And also, some children who had some diseases, some misfortune, right at the time of birth, and they could not hear anything. But later on, their hearing was restored after the age of 13 years. Now, despite the fact that then they could hear, they could not learn any language, because that system was not activated before 13 years of age.
So that shows that we should try to teach our children much more than we do. Allah has provided them with so many things. This is why people who have not learnt a language during their childhood, it’s very difficult for them, really, at an advanced age, to speak like the people of that land speak the language. For instance, we from Pakistan and India, who have been not taught by Britishers, the Englishmen, it’s very difficult for us to acquire that style of language, that tempo of the language. You can learn the pronunciation, all right, but you can’t gain that tempo, that style.
You would always be immediately discovered by the people of that country to be foreigners. But our Pakistani children who have been brought up here, they speak English like the Englishmen, all right. So if you teach your children religion extensively, while they are children, over and above what they are taught in the schools, without any sacrifice on the part of the ordinary secular knowledge they are obtaining, they would still be getting useful religious information, and there will not be any point of sacrificing one for the sake of another. They can gain both at the same time. So this is what should be done.
They should be given information scientifically. And for instance, in the children’s book which we find in our country, a lot of information is not given at all. The geography of the country, the historical events and who else was there at that time, what was happening at that time in China when a prophet was born in Egypt, for instance. So all these relative information should be given so that a wider canvas is being painted in their minds. And when they grow up, they grow up with a larger vision.
Unfortunately again, this is the most unfortunate defect of our education system in the subcontinent, generally speaking, that generally, even with regards to secular teachings, they don’t broaden the canvas of the child’s information. So we grow up with that limited scope, that limited spectrum of knowledge. For instance, all of us who are sitting here, we would never think of Edam while the rest of the world did exist. The rest of the world is in total darkness as far as we are concerned. And when we speak of Jesus Christ, we don’t know what’s happening elsewhere. Most of us don’t know even what was happening in his own country. Only that channel of information that was revealed to us by the Holy Qur’an as a specialised subject.
We have been taught that much, but we have not been taught about the general phenomena, what was happening in the world, and so on and so forth. So a broader spectrum book or a series of books should be prepared for children and interestingly written, but in very simple, plain language. Lives of the prophets, lives of their important companions, and introduction to the opponents, and the general balance of powers at that time, how the odds were against them, and what were the odds against them, and where have they gone ultimately.
All these things should be deeply imprinted in the minds of the children right from the start. So thank you for pointing out and reminding me. I will find out whether such work has been undertaken or not. Also earlier I pointed out here that I should like to introduce such stories myself. And if I was reminded in time by the private secretary whom I had this point noted, I should like to give a demonstration of how the prophets should be introduced to children. And also, at the same time, I should like to give reference to the similar books written by non-Ahmadi scholars, so that the children are told from childhood, right from the beginning, what is the difference between Ahmadiyyat and non-Ahmadiyyat.
What they might have grown into if they had been born in non-Ahmadi houses. There is absolutely a difference of antipodes between the two approaches. So much so that my cousin Bhai Munir was telling me this morning that there was a series of programs on the lives of the prophets in Pakistan television, and the hocus-pocus that was being fed to the people, and the absurdities which were told, created such strong reaction from the masses, from the intelligentsia at least, not masses, but general public belonging to a slightly higher group of education, that the government had to stop that series.
Everything stupid and rotten was being said, and exaggerated claims about miracles, and everything was being distorted out of shape. So this is their concept of prophets. So to make it crisp and spicy, a few instances should be quoted here and there, that look here, this is as we infer from the Holy Qur’an, and this is what the non-Ahmadis believe, and for that there is no base. So that would inshallah help our children living in the Western societies in particular, to be well-guarded against future influences from secularism.
