Children and mad people not allowed. Oh, and women too!

Like most other people with email addresses, I am swamped daily by junk mail that chews up my bandwidth and wastes my time as I hit the worn “delete” button. With all my spam filters, I still receive a few hundred spam mails a day in all my email boxes combined.

It is, therefore, quite amazing that my eye spotted a gem of an email in among the junk recently. I opened the attachment – curious at the subject line – and saw a bold headline. “Children and the Musjid,” it said. Since it was only four paragraphs long, I read it. Actually, I think I read it because I have a latent masochistic streak (and maybe because I sensed the possibility of material for my column).

Quoting a hadith, the author (a well-known “Hadhrat Maulana” from India) says that children and insane people should be kept away from the mosques “to safeguard the purity and sanctity of the Musjid”. He goes on: “Children as well as insane people are careless in regard to matters of tahaarat (purity). The possibility of them defiling the Musjid is strong.” The author adds a few sentences on the problem of mosque carpets being defiled by children and gives instructions on how such carpets must be cleaned (“remove the particular portion and wash it”).

Children also, according to the author, “create a disturbance distracting the attention of the musallis. The Shariah, therefore, does not permit bringing children to the Musjid.”

Of course, this is not new. We have heard it all before. But it irritates me each time I hear it.

The “defilement” argument, of course, seems to be most relevant and convincing of the need to keep children (and mad people) out of the masjid. But it is not consistent with the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad (s). Anas b. Malik narrated that a desert Arab stood in a corner of the [Prophet’s (s)] mosque and urinated there. The people shouted, but the Messenger of Allah (s) said: “Leave him alone.” When he had finished, the Messenger of Allah (s) ordered that a bucket (of water) should be brought and poured over it.

This was an adult man that deliberately urinated in the mosque. The Prophet’s response was one of compassion and understanding, not of hysteria, punishment and proscription for the “defiling” of the mosque. Yet Hadhrat Maulana wants children to be banned from mosques because there is “the possibility of them defiling the Musjid”.

But it is necessary to look at the broader picture too. The Prophet’s (s) attitude to children more generally and, in particular, his response to children in the mosque is crucial to examine. We know that, while he was praying salah, he picked up his grand daughter Umaymah. There are also reports of his grandson, Hasan, sitting on the minbar while the Prophet (s) was delivering a khutbah. And a report of an incident when he was leading the salah and, while in prostration, one of his grand children jumped on his back. The Prophet (s) stayed in prostration until the child got off. When people asked about the lengthened prostration, the Prophet (s) explained the reason. He did not then forbid the children from entering the mosque, complaining about their being a “distraction” to the worshippers or speak about “the possibility of their defiling” the mosque. His attitude towards children, in general, was one of compassion and love and he extended this to the mosque.

Yes, of course, little children will make a noise in the mosque – else they can’t be little children. I’m sure Hasan and Husain and Umaymah made a noise in the Prophet’s (s) mosque – else they couldn’t have been little children. Yet their grandfather’s response was an inviting, rather than a repelling one.

And that is a reflection not only of the compassion and love for children that the Prophet (s) had, but also of his wisdom. How could he, on the one hand, instruct people to pray their salah in the mosque and advise them to instruct their children to pray salah from age seven and, on the other hand, prohibit children from coming to the mosque. Where will they then pray? At home without their parents?

More importantly, how do we expect children to grow up feeling an attraction to the mosque and the activities in it if, when they are young, they are made to feel unwanted and like outsiders in that space? Such an attitude will either result in little Muslim schizophrenics or in those children extending their mosque exile into their adulthood. If we want adults to fill our mosques, we have to invite them in when they are kids.

The attitude of “kids and mad people out” is also reflective of a broader problem. Those who usually are most vocal about keeping children out of the mosque are also those who are most vocal about keeping women out of the mosque. What such people really want, it seems, is for mosques to be (in most places in South Africa, to remain) exclusive men’s clubs.

Perhaps we should also open little cigar rooms at the back of the mosque (or, perhaps, little argila / hooka rooms) so that the men can have quiet, undistracted, undefiled periods of prayer followed by good ol’ male bonding with smoky rituals.

I must add that I do think the notion of the sounds of children playing (and even crying) being regarded as “distractions” is not a savoury and, dare I say, “sunnatic” one. Children sounds should be consoling and comforting to our hearts, music to our ears and should, in fact, help to focus us on Allah’s presence through hearing the sounds of his miracles.

But I can understand that some among us would feel distracted by such sounds because we might think that these are the sounds that only women should hear, because only women should be caring for children. Again, it’s an attitude contrary to that of the Prophet (s).

I wonder how such people would have enjoyed their prayers in the Prophet’s (s) mosque – where children jumped onto the imam’s back while he was in sajda, where Bedouins urinated on the floor and where, according to a report in Bukhari, dogs (which had urinated) would even walk through the mosque. (Hamza bin ‘Abdullah narrated: “My father said. ‘During the lifetime of Allah’s Apostle, the dogs used to urinate, and pass through the mosques. Nevertheless they never used to sprinkle water on it.’”)

Such defilement! Such distraction! Almost makes one feel that it’s better to pray in the darkest corner of one’s house!