# Can I hit my children if they don't pray?

*Hitting children who do not pray misunderstands the Prophet*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/kwmtt2tqao0/s/13/
- Date: 2020-08-24 · Kind: question · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Monday Nights with Mufti #179 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth (46:48–48:47)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWmtt2TQAO0&t=2808s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/kwmtt2tqao0/

**Topics:** Raising children; Individual hadith explained; Prayer

**Question as asked:** Is it forbidden to hit your children if they don't pray?

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Yes: he says hitting children over prayer misreads the hadith, and that children should be drawn to prayer by example and love, not fear.

**Checked position (checked by two independent reviews, not by the channel):** Mufti Abu Layth says that if you take the hadith on hitting children who do not pray literally, you have misunderstood the Prophet.

**Evidence, his words at 46:48:** “i would say that this hadith if you're taking if you try to take that hadith literally you have misunderstood the prophet” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWmtt2TQAO0&t=2808s)

## Longer summary

A question asks whether it is forbidden to hit your children if they do not pray. Mufti Abu Layth says that anyone who takes that hadith literally has misunderstood the Prophet, and that attacking one's own child because of one's faith is absurd and the antithesis of faith. He says the teaching was meant to inculcate passion and love for prayer, that children emulate parents who pray, and that they want to please their parents, so prayer should be shown as something dear; scaring them into it is, ironically, childish.

## Sources and names cited

- report: command your children to pray at seven discipline them at ten and separate them in their beds
- salah

## Transcript (machine tier, 46:48–48:47)

[46:10] sunday markets wednesday so in that part of town they used to have a special like a wednesday markets market kind of day or like we have sunday markets here so he used to say that and you just go around wow bang boy the stick would break give me another stick bang bang bang whoa it was crazy man and it's categorically haram these things all right so what is going on

[46:48] is it forbidden to hit your children if they don't pray you see i would say that this hadith if you're taking if you try to take that hadith literally you have misunderstood the prophet sallallahu alaihi um and i find that very disappointing that a person over faith would attack their own child that's to me so absurd it is the antithesis of faith to attack your child because of your iman [Laughter]

[47:29] since god had given you so much iman if he gave you a little bit of akal as well intellect that would have helped so that's ridiculous if your faith makes you beat up your own child you see these things were just trying to teach you the the kind of important something hard that you would inculcate the the hopefully the passion for something the love for something

[48:08] that they will children emulate their appearance anyway you know when parents pray children pray they do stuff and if they don't they don't they will start praying later on you know and if they do but to teach them through look this is what we do to express gratitude is the way to encourage to show it's dear to you because children especially when they're young they want to the parents to be pleased with them and they like what the parents like so but to to kind of scare them into that i think it's it's ironically so childish

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment KWmtt2TQAO0/s/13. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/kwmtt2tqao0/s/13/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.