My Wayward Son is My Life's Project

Peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah

Introduction: Types of Fathers

He neglects his family, and the most important thing to him is that people do not discover the deviation or disbelief of his son so that his reputation is not affected. No, these are not our subject, but our subject is the influential fathers, the sincere ones, who are keen on their children.

Influential Fathers and Self-Accountability

If one of their sons deviates or disbelieves, he starts to say to himself: "There is no doubt that I fell short in raising my son," meaning he holds himself accountable. He says to himself: "How can I call people while my son has left Islam and disbelieved?" He does not want to be contradictory.

He says: "The project of my life is for my son to return to Islam." When this father or mother comes to command good or forbid evil, he will feel hypocrisy, he will feel that he is fake. He tries to reform his son and in many cases he does not succeed, so he feels failure. And over time, the feeling of falsity, failure, and frustration increases.

Entrances of Satan

But pay attention, people, Satan has entered you through the door of truth and self-accountability. And pay attention, one of you believes in the saying of Allah the Almighty: {Indeed, [O Muhammad], you do not guide whom you love, but Allah guides whom He wills.} Convinced of this verse with intellectual conviction, but one of them does not imagine and does not accept and completely rejects the idea that this son of yours may be one of those whom Allah did not will to guide.

When your son deviates or disbelieves, then yes, it is true that you must review yourself and think: what made him deviate or apostatize? What are the reasons, I wonder? And you strive to fix your situation and make up for what has been missed as much as possible, especially with the rest of your children.

Reasons for the Deviation of Children

There are many reasons for the deviation and disbelief of the children of callers and influencers, including:

• The father may raise his children on the creed and memorization of the Quran, but with little communication with them and little concern for their problems, or he may be violent and harsh.
• There may be family problems.
• This father may have been exposed, for the sake of Allah, to harassment and deprivation of some worldly pleasures, and deprivation of some opportunities, and his children were affected by this and were not raised on patience, or he tried to raise them but Satan and the evil soul overcame them.

The reasons are many.

The Danger of Stopping the Call

The important thing is that yes, it is not right for you to feel hypocrisy and stop your call and commanding people to good and forbidding them from evil. Imagine when an influencer whom people are guided by, Satan tempts his son and he leaves the call to people, what joy for Satan with the success of the plan! A great way for Satan to destroy the call of the influencers.

But this feeling of failure and depression weakens your ability as a father to deal with this stray son, and you will no longer be able to dialogue with him, influence him, and contain him in the appropriate way.

Again, people, the problem is not only that this father who was influential, a caller, and a reformer in his environment, in his society, in his circle, not only that he will leave his call and sit and focus on himself and try to reform his son, but if he feels failure, depression, tension, and frustration, all of this will weaken his ability to deal with this stray son and influence him.

Pay attention to what I say with ease and praise be to Allah and with confidence because this did not happen with my children, praise be to Allah, none of them went astray or apostatized, and they are all children, and my daughter, may Allah have mercy on her, died in faith as we believe. But I say this because I am saddened by the reality of some fathers whom I consider sincere, I know some cases and have heard about some cases.

Advice to Fathers

Yes, do not stop and blame yourself or stop and hang on to lamenting the past, but rather come closer to Allah by calling people to Him, asking Him to guide your son, submitting to the reality that you do not guide whom you love.

"The return of my son to Islam is the project of my life," I do not see this as a correct statement, because you tie your success to a goal that is not in your hands and may be contrary to what Allah has decreed before the creation of creatures. Rather, make the call of your son one of the most important projects of your life, and this call will bring out the best in you because you have a burning desire, pain, and concern for him, and this will benefit you in your religion and in your call to others, by the permission of Allah.

But if your son does not respond, do not feel failure and frustration and do not stop calling people and reforming your society and supporting your religion. And remember that Nuh, peace be upon him, one of the resolute messengers, willed that his son would not be guided.

Conclusion and Supplication

I ask Allah the Great to guide the stray sons of the Muslims and return them to His religion in a beautiful return, and to close the entrances of Satan to our hearts. And peace be upon you and the mercy of Allah.