Every year, International Children's Day is celebrated, and we see everyone, including the media, focusing on the fact that this celebration came about because the world finally agreed to give children their rights, as it approved the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This is likely to send false notions to Muslim children, to the effect that Muslim children have not been given their rights like children around the world, and that their rights were only recognized through the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
This has always bothered me and made me anxious, so I thought hard about doing something that would let children know how much their Prophet loved them and how the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, gave them all their rights, including moral rights such as respect, love, and care. He even cared for them before they were born by recommending that they choose a righteous mother, and after their birth by choosing a beautiful, appropriate name for the newborn. How subtle, profound, and deeply affecting this is on the psyche and personality, and yet it has not been met by modern human rights agreements. This was more than 1,445 years ago.
The rights of the child have been proven in Islam and acknowledged with the Sunnah of our Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace. We learned from him how to treat our children with mercy, and there are many positions and hadiths that prove this. Indeed, the rights of the child in Islam are superior to what was approved by the modern Convention on the Rights of the Child, not to mention the innate deviations and legal violations that began to be included within the rights of the child, which were approved recently. There is also another matter. It is true that the focus every year is on educating the child about his rights, which is a matter of great importance. However, no one has ever spoken about the duty versus the right, despite the importance of the child learning his duties in exchange for taking his rights. In order for the child to learn what he is entitled to, he must know directly what he is required to do, a right that is given and a duty that is imposed in order for the thought and direction to be straightened and the emotion to be stable. So I wrote down the most important agreed-upon rights of the child, and I searched the fragrant biography of the Prophet for situations that confirm them, and I wrote them in a way that included some ambiguity that would invite the child to search the biography to know the details of the situation and its characters so that the focus would be on the right as an essential topic. When I presented the first right, I said: “I promised my father and those who raise me great rewards. May God bless you and grant you peace,” without saying Islam gave you this right or your Prophet directly approved this. I made sure that the situation was written in a way that would make the child think, and for each right, I wrote a duty for the child to fulfill, for example, “It is my right to live in a loving and supportive environment, and it is my duty to offer love to those around me and take care of them.”
To make the rights and duties easy to repeat and memorize, I contacted my dear friend Jiker Khorshid and we discussed the subject. I was pleased with his support and admiration for the idea, so I asked him to write a text that could be put to music so I could attach it to the situation I had written about. He was creative and wrote a beautiful poem that began with, “Teach me, O Father, my religion; Islam is a fortress that protects me.” The first right is for the child to know who his Lord is and what his religion is, and the duty is to apply what he has learned. So the first line says: “I recite the verses of the Quran, I worship my Lord, the Most Merciful.” Then came the turn of the composition, as the creative Lina Zaibaq composed the verses and sang them with her sweet voice. She placed the anthem in a symbol at the end of the book to make it easy to scan and listen to. How beautiful is her voice as she repeats: “My right pleases and satisfies me, and duty always protects me...” After the singing and composition, the search began for a new idea for directing that would make this work an interactive book. With an attractive and eye-catching production, the scenes were drawn by the brush of the dear Suhair Kharboutli, who added an Islamic spirit to the book with her distinctive brush in a modern and beautiful way. I didn't stop there, I wanted it to be a complete work, so I designed worksheets for twenty rights and duties for the child to solve and understand how to apply the right or duty, and I collected them in a separate activity book. The rights and duties were presented on cards to be a ready tool in the hands of the educator through which he can talk to his children about them and explain them to them so that they take their time to think about them and discuss them with their families. Finally, my book "How Much I Love You" came to fruition. At the end of it, you will find instructions for adults on the importance of teaching rights and duties and their psychological effects on the child's personality. I put the symbols of the songs, twenty cards of rights and duties, and an activity book, and collected them all in one bag called "The Rights and Duties Bag"
By the grace of God, the Rights and Duties Kit was published and displayed for the first time at the Riyadh International Book Fair, where it received positive feedback. The Rights and Duties Kit is valuable and precious for children, as it teaches them their rights and, in turn, their duties toward those rights.
If I receive love, I must give it back. This is where the idea for the book “How Much I Love You” came from. The poet Mustafa Makram wrote us a beautiful poem about our Prophet Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, entitled “I Love You, O Messenger of God.” These two books are considered important publications by “Al-Tarbiyoun” in partnership with Dar Al-Maaref, under the management of Professor Maher Mahyou, who in turn contributed to the success of this idea.
It is worth noting that the Rights and Duties Kit includes more than 22 activities through which the child can complete the activity on rights and duties, thus consolidating in his mind the right and how to perform the duty.
I ask God Almighty to accept my work and bless it, and to make it sincere for His sake, God willing. I am proud of myself because God has granted me success and we at “Al-Tarbiyoun” have undertaken this authentic and distinguished work to highlight the rights of the child as our Prophet Muhammad reminded us.