The Greatest Gift We Can Give Our Children: Lessons from Ibn al-Qayyim on Raising a Human Being

There are gifts that delight a child for a day, gifts that provide comfort for a few years, and gifts whose influence may accompany a human being for an entire lifetime. More than seven centuries ago, the celebrated Muslim scholar Imam Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah turned his attention to perhaps the most precious trust entrusted to any generation: the raising of the next one. The result was Tuhfat al-Mawdūd bi-Aḥkām al-Mawlūd—often rendered as A Gift to the Beloved Concerning the Rules of the Newborn. It is an extraordinary work because Ibn al-Qayyim did not regard the birth of a child merely as the arrival of another member of a family. He saw it as the beginning of a human being's formation. A newborn arrives without wealth, ideology, prejudice, ambition, or social status. Yet within that fragile body lies a future personality—a person who may become compassionate or cruel, generous or selfish, truthful or deceptive, industrious or idle. The question Ibn al-Qayyim placed before parents was therefore much larger than:

How do we care for a child? 

It was, "What kind of human being are we helping this child become? That question remains as urgent today as it was seven centuries ago. The scholar behind the book was Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn Ayyūb al-Zurʿī al-Dimashqī, although history remembers him simply as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. Born in Damascus in 691 AH/1292 CE and dying there in 751 AH/1350 CE, he became an influential Hanbali jurist, theologian, and spiritual writer of the medieval Islamic world. He studied closely under Ibn Taymiyyah and shared some of his teacher's intellectual struggles and imprisonment. Among scholars influenced by or associated with his teaching were important figures of later Islamic scholarship, including Ibn Kathir and Ibn Rajab. Like virtually every major historical scholar, Ibn al-Qayyim has been debated and criticized, and his opinions should not be treated as beyond examination. Yet disagreement with portions of his theology or jurisprudence need not prevent us from recognizing the remarkable insight contained in his writings on human character. Tuhfat al-Mawdūd is particularly fascinating because it brings together religion, ethics, child development, health, education, and parental responsibility. Its most enduring message is simple: Children do not merely grow. They are formed. And the people who surround them participate in that formation.

Parenting Begins Before a Child Can Understand Words

Ibn al-Qayyim discusses a child's life from its earliest stages. Some of his recommendations reflect the medical assumptions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. He discusses breastfeeding, weaning, teething, crying, nutrition, speech, and physical development. His recommendations include breastfeeding for about two years, weaning gradually rather than abruptly, protecting infants from frightening noises and disturbing experiences, and gradually introducing food as the child develops. He cites the Qur'anic statement: “Mothers may breastfeed their children two complete years for whoever wishes to complete the nursing period.” Qur'an 2:233. But historical honesty requires an important distinction. Some medical suggestions attributed to Ibn al-Qayyim—such as delaying a mother's breastfeeding, giving honey to very young children, rubbing substances on an infant's gums, deliberately restricting food, or particular theories about the physiological benefits of crying—belong to medieval medicine, not modern pediatrics. They should be studied historically, not automatically practiced today. Modern parents should follow qualified contemporary medical advice regarding infant feeding, nutrition, sleep, development, and safety. Yet beneath these dated medical assumptions lies something remarkably modern: Ibn al-Qayyim understood that childhood experiences matter. What surrounds a child—the sounds, emotions, habits, examples, and relationships of the home—gradually becomes part of the child.

The Most Important Education Is Character

Here Ibn al-Qayyim moves from the body to the soul. And this is where his advice becomes especially powerful. He argues that one of a guardian's greatest responsibilities is the child's moral formation. A child repeatedly exposed to anger may learn anger. A child surrounded by greed may learn greed. A child permitted to lie may discover that dishonesty is useful. A child who constantly receives but rarely gives may learn entitlement rather than generosity. A child accustomed to laziness may eventually find discipline burdensome. Habits that appear insignificant in childhood, Ibn al-Qayyim warns, can become deeply rooted characteristics in adulthood. This insight deserves to be written above every nursery and classroom: We are not merely managing children's behavior today. We are helping construct the adults they will become tomorrow.

Teach the Child the Joy of Giving

One of Ibn al-Qayyim's most beautiful observations concerns generosity. He advises guardians not to allow children to develop the habit of always taking from others. Instead, when parents want to give charity or a gift, they should sometimes place it in the child's hand and let the child give it. Why? So that the child experiences the sweetness of giving. This is profound educational psychology. We often teach generosity by telling children: “Be generous.” Ibn al-Qayyim suggests something more powerful: Let them experience generosity. Let a child carry food to a hungry person. Let the child place a gift in another child's hands. Let the child visit the lonely. Let the child contribute from a small allowance. Let the child discover that happiness does not come only from receiving. A generous adult may begin with the memory of a small hand learning how to give.

Guard Truthfulness Like Life Itself

Ibn al-Qayyim uses exceptionally strong language concerning lying and betrayal. A child should be protected from them, he argues, almost as carefully as one would protect the child from poison. Why such severity? Because once dishonesty becomes useful, it can become habitual. A child lies once to escape punishment. If the lie succeeds, the child has learned something dangerous—not simply how to lie, but that lying works. Parents therefore teach honesty not merely by punishing falsehood but by creating homes in which truth is honored. And children watch adults carefully. We cannot demand truthfulness from children while allowing ourselves convenient lies. A father who deceives others but lectures his son about honesty is teaching two lessons. The child will eventually decide which one is real.

Do Not Raise Only a Consumer

Ibn al-Qayyim also warns against excessive ease, idleness, and indulgence. His language reflects the discipline-oriented culture of his era, and modern parents need not reproduce its severity. Children need rest, recreation, affection, and play. But his underlying warning has become even more relevant in an age of instant entertainment and constant consumption. A child who never waits, never works, never helps, never sacrifices, and never hears “no” may enter adulthood expecting life to satisfy every desire immediately. Resilience must therefore be cultivated. Give children responsibilities appropriate to their age. Let them make their beds. Let them help prepare meals. Let them care for something. Let them finish tasks. Let them discover books. Let them learn that achievement sometimes requires discomfort. Ibn al-Qayyim cites the saying attributed to Yahya ibn Abi Kathir: “Knowledge cannot be attained through bodily ease.” Great accomplishments usually require persistence.

Teach Children to Rise

Among his practical recommendations is developing the habit of rising early. The deeper lesson is not merely about the clock. It is about teaching a child that life has purpose. Morning should not always begin with passive consumption. A child can awaken to prayer, learning, exercise, nature, conversation, and responsibility. A purposeful morning can gradually help create a purposeful life.

Children Learn What We Are

Perhaps the greatest lesson we can draw from Ibn al-Qayyim is one he does not need to state explicitly: Children imitate before they analyze. If we want compassionate children, they must witness compassion. If we want truthful children, they must hear us tell the truth. If we want generous children, they must see us give. If we want children who respect women, minorities, neighbors, and people of other faiths, they must see that respect practiced at home. If we want peaceful children, they cannot constantly hear us glorifying hatred. If we want children who control anger, they must see adults struggling honestly to control their own. A thousand lectures on character cannot compete with a parent's daily example.

The Child Is an Amanah

Islam describes human responsibility through the powerful idea of amanah—a trust. Perhaps no worldly trust is more delicate than a child's. The child does not choose the home into which he or she is born. The child does not choose the first language heard, the first attitudes encountered, the first prejudices absorbed, or the first understanding of God received. Adults provide these things. That should humble every parent, teacher, and religious leader. When we humiliate a child, something may remain. When we encourage a child, something may remain. When children watch us serve another human being, something may remain. When they hear us insult another race, religion, or community, that too may remain. We are planting seeds constantly. The frightening truth is that we may not live long enough to see all their fruit.

The Gift That Outlives the Parent

Ibn al-Qayyim's book ultimately reminds us that the greatest inheritance parents leave their children may not appear in a will. Houses will change owners. Money will be spent. Clothes will disappear. Possessions will scatter. But character travels with a person everywhere.

Teach a child compassion, and compassion may someday reach a stranger you will never meet.

Teach a child generosity, and someone may someday eat because of what you planted decades earlier.

Teach a child honesty, and people yet unborn may benefit from a decision that child makes as an adult.

Teach a child to recognize the dignity of every human being, and perhaps one less person will suffer humiliation.

That is the extraordinary power of parenting. We are raising children today who will become tomorrow's parents, teachers, physicians, businesspeople, journalists, judges, religious leaders, and citizens. They will inherit a wounded world. The question is whether we will also give them the character required to heal it. Seven centuries after Ibn al-Qayyim wrote about raising children, his most enduring gift may not be any particular medieval medical prescription. It is the question his work leaves with every generation: What kind of human being are you raising? And perhaps an even more difficult question: Are you becoming the kind of human being you want your child to imitate?