Arranging events in Ramadan to encourage children to memorize Quran and Hadeeth

10-7-2014 | IslamWeb

Question:

Salam Alaykum, There has come a new trend in the Muslim community called “Ramadan Calendar”. Muslim families with children have something called Ramadan calendar which means that for each day that goes in Ramadaan, they (children) get gifts or other chores like learning surahs or hadith until the day of EID. And when EID comes the children get the bigger gifts. This is inspired by the Christian tradition called “Advent calendar”, where Christian children get a gift for each day in the December month until the Christmas-day. Is it haram for us Muslims to have something like “Ramadan Calendar”?

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and messenger.

In principle, the idea is commendable as it involves encouraging children in a good way to memorize the Quran by offering them gifts and urging them to strive in carrying out good deeds. The Fatwa of the Permanent Committee for Islamic Research and Fataawa about the ruling on offering gifts of encouragement for memorizing the Quran reads, “We know of no harm in doing so because this is a means to meet a commendable and noble end; verily, the means take the same ruling as their ends.”

However, since Christians organize similar activity, the matter should be carefully investigated and it should be verified that organizing such an activity would not lead to imitating the Christians. We believe that this is not considered a prohibited imitation of the disbelievers because it does not pertain to a specific Christian ritual. The similarity lies only in the way of organizing the activity, and there is no harm in that. However, it would be better if the name of the program is changed, if possible.

Allaah Knows best.