Is Religion a Side Dish?

If you had all your priorities on a plate, where would religion be? Not where you want it to be, but where does it actually fit? For many, it is a side dish at best… maybe a dessert, or even a once in a while treat. Is religion your ice cream that you binge on when you’ve had a bad day? Or the meat and potatoes of your existence?

For myself, my heart has Allah (God) for the main course, side, dessert, and the drink… but my every day life looks different. I’m the first to admit I have a vast expanse of improvements I can make. If my deen (religion/way of life) is a side – nutritious and valuable, but not what I look forward to – this needs to change. Telling ourselves that, “at least it is better than so-and-so” isn’t going to help us any. On the Last Day when we meet our Creator, is it going to be enough that we can say we enjoyed His way when it was convenient for us, but something else (family, money, career path) was the main focus?

How does this translate to our homeschool? Yes, we need to cover a multitude of secular studies, but it is up to us to translate those to how we live in our deen each day. After all, Allah tells us in the Qur’an:

And He has subjected to you, as from Him, all that is in the heavens and on earth: behold in that are Signs indeed for those who reflect. [Qur’an 45:13]

Some subjects are easier for each of us to incorporate Islam than others. Logic is my favorite subject to talk about Islam alongside our normal studies, while for someone else it may be the beauty we see in art, or world history, or the signs and order we see in science. Pick your favorite and make sure your kids see Islam as something more than what they see at Jummah prayer on Friday, and their 15 minute lesson several days a week. Islam is a way of life, and deserves to be given the attention as such.

Insha’Allah if Islam is not the focus of our lives, we can at least instill in our children the beauty of Islam so it can be their main course, and not just an occasional dessert.