{Quick Reflections 5} The Why!

With time and experience I realized the true meaning of the main principle my father used to teach me throughout my childhood and since I was less than 4 years old. Being the most mischeivous and disobedient child in kindergartin and at home and after all forms of persuasive and punitive attempts at correction failed to tame me my father adapted a new strategy. He kept repeating to me the fact that, "If I and your teacher and principal at school are not watching you at one point or another ALLAAH (SWT) is up there all the time watching you". Now that statement was very pivotal in my life as a child. When ever i wanted to do anything that i know no one will approve of i used to hide but then look up to the sky and think, "Hmmm, Dad told me that ALLAAH is up there and can see me where ever i go and i cannot hide from Him. He (AWJ) can even see through walls and ceilings, so now what? It is useless hiding and lying because He is there all the time and everywhere. So now if i want to do whatever i have in mind I have to do it in the open and without lying or twisting facts and face the consequences in the here and now which will usually be a punishment." However as i was very good at hiding and fabricating water-proof stories it was very tempting to go on with my mischieve behind the human authorities back!
However as the years went by and my father kept repeating that principle to me i finally got fed up and tired of evading humans especially in the light of understanding and seeing for myself what is death all about and how there is no way to evade it or evade being judged by ALLAAH.
As a teenager that idea evolved even further to the following one. Since ALLAAH knows not only what i am doing but even what i am thinking then what really maters is not what i am doing or how, which can be known by humans, but rather why. ALLAAH (SWT) is the only One Who knows why i am doing whatever i am doing while no human can know that. Accordingly the pivotal question in my life became why rather than what. Why am i doing whatever i am doing? Why was i created? Why is there good and bad? Why is the Qur'aan a miracle? Why is the best human Prophet Muhammad (SAWS)? Why is Islaam the only true religion? Why did Prophet Muhammad (SAWS) say so and so and not so and so? A continuous stream of why.
Regarding my inner self the answer to the why tells me about my true intentions. On the other hand regarding every other thing in life, religous or worldly, the answer to the why tells me about the wisdom and reason behind everything. True power lies in wisdom more than in just factual knowledge. As ALLAAH (SWT) says, "waman yu'taa al-hikmata faqad 'utiya khayran katheera".

To sum up i believe in raising our children we should focus on making them understand and know the answer to the why what is right is right, for which they are appraised, and what is wrong is wrong, for which they are punished rather than the blunt appraisal and punishment.