Foundations 01: Sunday Schooled Starts Over
I got off track. But it's okay. We're back.
When I started this Substack, it was to share the halaqa (basically, a class) I was leading for the kids, with occasional reflections on related matters, too. But there’s been very little halaqa since then—though there’s been plenty of other commentary. The latter isn’t bad, but it wasn’t ever the main point, either. I explain why I dropped the ball at the tail end of this post—though that’s only there if you’re really curious. The main takeaway: The ball was dropped and I’m sorry.
Here’s to trying again.
All my subsequent posts will now fall into five main categories:
The Foundations Halaqa:
Also known as why this Substack exists in the first place. The Foundations Halaqa is the one I started for all three kids, who are now 15 (F), 13 (Z), and 10 (R). It was designed and taught with one overarching ambition: It’s not enough to tell someone how to do things. You have to tell them why—and, as I learned, you equally have to tell them what they can hope to accomplish through doing it.
In other words, the way we do things matters. So, yes, kids should know how to pray. But they should also know why they’re praying. And they should also know what prayer is meant to bring about in their lives. As I stressed here and in the actual halaqa, that’s because I want them to be empowered Muslims. When they grow up, and have to decide their relationship to Islam, I want that to be an informed choice.
On a regular basis, this halaqa explains the beliefs behind the things we do, like fasting, going to the masjid, or esteeming kindness, generosity, and modesty. Starting today, and recurring regularly, I’ll serialize the Foundations Halaqa here, from what I taught to the vocabulary terms I asked the kids to memorize—all the way down to the quizzes and review sheets I gave them.
The Ummah Halaqa:
On a less frequent basis (just because we hold it less frequently), I’m going to share this halaqa here at Sunday Schooled, too. This was a halaqa my wife and I started for the girls, who’ll both be in high school next year (F will be a sophomore; Z will be a freshman). In this halaqa, they learn about the good and the bad of the ummah, the global Muslim community.
There’s ups and downs to belonging to a faith of two billion, after all. What we gain in breadth we sometimes lose in intimacy. Which is why the girls should know where they come from and who their co-religionists are; they should also have some background into the awesome diversity of the Cincinnati Muslim community, which seems to have come from everywhere in the world and made southwest Ohio home.
Jokingly, I sometimes call this the PG-13 halaqa, not only because the girls are both teenagers, but also because they’re old enough to handle more mature topics, including the ways the world, and the Muslim world, uplifts and disappoints. I think it’s important to be prepared for that in a caring, supportive, thoughtful environment. We must never romanticize Muslims—it’s naïve at best and dangerous at worst.
The Young Men’s Halaqa:
I always planned to lead this halaqa exclusively and especially for our ten year-old guy. And now, God willing, I’m going to start. Growing up, I never really had meaningful conversations about masculinity. I learned the hard way who to be and who not to be. While R is only ten, I think it’d be great for him to start thinking about what it means to grow into a man, so that he’s ready for the tougher topics as he gets older. I’ll be sharing the progress of those conversations here.
The Ramadan Halaqa:
Every Ramadan, we not only try to take our Muslim life up a notch, but subtly shift from learning to doing. In plain English: We try to talk less about Islam—and do more of the things Islam is actually built on. Not so much discussing the pros and cons of prayer, which is good of course, but instead praying more. In this category, I’ll post regular updates on how our Ramadan is going.
For Ramadan 1443 (2022), we’re hoping to focus as much as possible on the following:
(1) Maghrib together, as often as we can, followed by du’a (supplication).
(2) An Islamic contemplative exercise after prayer, if possible, but no more than twice a week. (Basically, muraqabah—more on this later.)
(3) A short video by a solid scholar—last year, we got a lot out of Yaqeen Institute and Imam Omar Suleiman’s Meeting Muhammad. (Open to recommendations for what to do this year!) Also twice a week at most, if feasible. And
(4) On Fridays and Saturdays, when the kids can stay up later, we’d like to stop by the Islamic Center of Greater Cincinnati for taraweeh prayers.
Is that too much? Possibly. Regardless, we’ll accommodate.
And I’ll share what transpires.
Sunday Schooled for Parents:
The final category of post isn’t about kids. Well, not directly. It’s about us—the parents, or the educators, caregivers, and community leaders who find these conversations important, interesting, or helpful. Here’s Sunday Schooled for Parents in a nutshell: I interview smart people who can help Muslim parents like me explain important subjects to the kids in our lives.
As I’ve found time and again, we parents rarely have all the answers, but our kids sometimes think we should—which of course led me to wonder: Where can I go to help me learn more? When I surveyed the landscape, though, looking for useful resources that could guide me through tough conversations, I found few that kept in mind the priorities of thoughtful Muslims (and others of faith).
If you can’t find it, and you need it, you have to build it. The subject changes week to week, and usually touches either on something that came up in a conversation with the kids, which I immediately recognized I needed to know more about, or it’s a hot-button and timely concern, which emerges unexpectedly, but which demands a response. These conversations help me be a better parent.
I hope they help you, too. That’s not to mention: It can’t hurt to model the lifelong commitment to learning that’s supposed to be at the heart of Islam.
Miscellaneous:
Finally, I’ll occasionally share reflections here on other, important matters, but only if they relate to the larger focus of this Substack—the adventures of a Muslim stepdad trying to help raise thriving kids who love and live their faith. Because sometimes something just needs to be shared. Like this Saturday.
I dropped F off at Northern Kentucky University for a soccer game, located a nearby Starbucks (where I could get work done), got there, got myself a seat, set out my laptop, and went up to order, deciding on a Grande English Breakfast tea. The barista took one look at me and said, “Has anyone ever told you you look like Stanley Tucci?”
I found that amusing because (1) no, nobody ever has; (2) when I did the whole genetic ancestry test thing, I came back 2% Italian (go figure); (3) I’ve been notoriously ethnically ambiguous all my life; and (4) I haven’t changed up my Starbucks name in a long time. But now I have cause. Also can you imagine how horrified the kids will be?
If I went to Starbucks and told them my name was Stanley? Not abstractly. But with the girls standing there. Hopefully in proximity of other young adolescents. Ideally who they know as acquaintances. Also, Stanley Tucci is over sixty years old. I’m not sure what to do with that, but my wife and I are also watching Star Trek: Picard.
And I love Patrick Stewart, so I choose to be flattered.
With that, let’s move on to how this Ramadan 1443 (2022) is going to launch.
The Foundations Halaqa 01: The Why Behind The Why
In two previous posts, I shared the reasoning behind the Foundations Halaqa as well as the first Foundations Halaqa itself. (Here’s the reasoning part and here’s the first lesson.) I’m not going to revisit those extensively right now, but I’m going to find a way for us as a family to review the material we previously covered before resuming the progress of the halaqa—while sharing that with my readers here.
I think it’s important to go over this with the kids, to see what sticks, but especially now, with Ramadan right around the corner.
The main point I established in the first Foundations Halaqas was tawheed.
This idea that there isn’t just one God, which of course is vital, but that God Himself is Oneness—Invisible, yes, and Invincible, but also Indivisible. This is a theme that’s stressed in Surat al-Ikhlas, the Chapter of Sincere, the 112th chapter of the Qur’an, which the blessed Prophet referred to on occasion as worth “one third of the Qur’an” (not literally, of course—he meant spiritually and religiously).
Ideally, on the first night of Ramadan, which should be Saturday evening, April 2nd, after we pray together, I’d like to make a reflection on how tawheed connects to intention, and why intention is so important, and why we should revisit intention, as an idea, throughout Ramadan. I want to lay a good groundwork not only for our experience of Ramadan, but for the forthcoming Foundations Halaqas, too.
When we try the muraqabah exercise—the Islamic contemplative exercise I described above, as part of the Ramadan Halaqas—I want the kids to understand it as a means of creating intentionality in their lives, including their religious life. And therefore to think of worship not just as something you do to move through a checklist, but as something you do to honor God, reconnect yourself to God, and purify yourself.
These are some questions I hope we get to talk about.
Why do we fast?
Why do you think God wants us to fast?
Should we do anything to prepare for fasting?
And how do we know if our fasting is meaningful?
There isn’t a single right answer here—and I’m not looking to drive one home. I’m really just trying to get the kids to think about the idea of God in their lives, the presence of God in their lives, and how we reflect that presence in deep ways. When we think of fasting, for example, we sometimes think of it as depriving ourselves of necessities to empathize with the less fortunate.
This is true—to an extent. But sometimes our formulations of Ramadan lack any robust consideration of God. What if another reason we fast, and perhaps one that includes but transcends the cultivation of empathy, is simply because God asked us to, as a way of being perpetually mindful of Him, and this mindfulness, this connectedness, is something we should always have?
And I’ll write back on how this conversation goes, on what I learned from it, and how it helps lay the groundwork for reviving the Foundations Halaqa and creating what is, God willing, a more beautiful and fulfilling Ramadan for each and every one of us. (That’s not to say the last one wasn’t—it really was so special, though it also lacked so much. That is, ours is a faith meant to include a strong community component.)
But before ending, I promised you an explanation.
Of why Sunday Schooled went off track.
What Happened to Sunday Schooled?: Course Correction
If you’re new to Sunday Schooled, the above material might be entirely new. But if you’ve been with me since the beginning, you know that this Substack started off with a clear mission: I was going to share what I was teaching the kids—because I hoped that what I was teaching could be a good resource for other Muslim parents too. Somewhere along the way, though, I got distracted.
I hope you don’t mind my honesty. And my inadequacy.
There’s many reasons why I lost focus, but much had to do with the massive challenge that is parenting, inflected by my particular status as a stepparent only one year into the role. Initially, you see, I was very excited to do the halaqa, and put a lot of energy into it. The problem was, I bit off way more than I could chew. I wildly underestimated how much effort the halaqa would take.
And wildly overestimated how much room we had for it in our lives.
Parents are busy. Kids are busy. And here’s the stepparent part: Because I was new to the kids, I became increasingly conscious, and increasingly self-conscious, that I was spending the precious little quality time we had together on theology, which made me feel like my primary relationship with the kids was going to be one of a Sunday school teacher. Which is fine. If, you know, your role is to be a Sunday school teacher.
That’s not to mention how full the kids’ lives often are. They have far more activities and obligations than my generation did growing up. Where is the space for them to be kids? Do we really want to block off the rare free time they have and impose lessons? What if they resent Islam as a result? These are hard questions. But then, when we pulled back, and let the halaqa slide, a new emotion surfaced.
Guilt.
That I was failing the kids. Denying them access to knowledge and wisdom that was vital. I’m trying to work all this out even as I write this. One idea—and I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me earlier—was to reduce the frequency of the halaqas. That we do the Foundation Halaqa once every few weeks. That we do the Ummah Halaqa and Young Men’s Halaqa once a month at best.
Because the kids already have Qur’an classes several times a week. And whenever we can manage it, which is many nights, we do maghrib together, followed by a du’a, and occasionally a very short reflection on something of spiritual importance. And it makes me immensely proud that they’re good with their prayers—that is to say, although they many times need to be reminded, they’re always happy to pray.
And isn’t doing Islam better than talking about Islam?
That’s a mistake I made in my life, a sin I’m guilty of—which doesn’t feel like a sin, because how can talking about Islam be bad, until you realize you’re replacing the actual hard work of surrendering yourself to God with the mildly narcissistic exercise of telling yourself why you know it’s important to surrender to God, which is a roundabout way of saying: My first Sunday Schooled for Parents will go here.
That’s the category I described above, where I’ll interview people who help Muslim parents explain important stuff to the kids in their lives.
Right in time for Ramadan, I’ll talk to a Christian leader who’s written a beautiful book about prayer—about actually praying, how he prepares himself for prayer, what makes it easier and harder, what he learns from it, and how it’s changed him, and I think it’s just the kind of conversation we should all be having, especially now. And until then, an early Ramadan Mubarak: May your month be blessed.
“O Humanity: We have created you from a male and a female and made you nations and tribes that you may know one another. The noblest of you in God’s sight is the most righteous of you. God Knows and Sees All.” - God. The Qur’an. Chapter 49, Verse 13.
