How to educate our youth to call to Allah in the optimal way
From the book:
Indeed, calling to Allah is the mission of Messengers, from whom the scholars inherited. Nowadays, it is the duty of faithful scholars. In fact, calling to Allah is the duty of a specific group of people (i.e., people of insight). Allah says,
Say (O Muhammad): “This is my way; I invite unto Allah with sure knowledge, I and whosoever follows me with sure knowledge. And Glorified and Exalted be Allah) above all that they associate as partners with Him). And I am not of the Mushrikun.” [Surah Yusuf 12:108]
And,
“Invite (mankind, O Muhammad) to the Way of your Lord (i.e., Islam) with wisdom (i.e., with the Divine Revelation and the Qur’an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better.” [Surah an-Nahl 16:125]
The verse refers to those qualified to argue with people in the best way. They are qualified to preach and call to Allah with insight and firm knowledge, free of any doubt. Their knowledge is taken from the Qur’an and Sunnah. They are faithful scholars who know how to educate the youth. In fact, the best thing the righteous scholars can offer the youth is beneficial knowledge and urging them to put whatever they learned into practice. They teach them the elementary stages of knowledge before jumping into the more complex stages of it. They instruct the youths to memorise Mutun, which are considered the right gate towards knowledge and the approach that was followed by earlier generations.
In this context, education means caring for the affairs of the youth and paying attention to teaching then and instilling beneficial knowledge in their spirits. It also means that when starting with beginners, one begins elementary issues of knowledge and gradually advances to the more complex issues. This is the true meaning of education. The first step a seeker of knowledge must take is memorizing the Qur’an, or as much of it as possible. Next, they should memorize one or two of the Mutun of Hadith, such as Al-Arba’in An-Nawawiyyah (The Forty Hadith collected by An-Nawawi) and ‘Umdat Al-Ahkam (The Basic Rulings).
