In the name of Allah (swt), the All-Merciful, the All-Compassionate
(Wait! Have you read Part 1 of Bāyad Barkhāst? Read it here)
The family is Islam’s first classroom; it is where tawḥīd moves from doctrine into habit and where grief either becomes paralysis or purpose. The funeral of the Grand Āyatullāh who was recently killed invites families to turn mourning into moral formation, teaching children what a life of dignity, service, and courage looks like in a world that often rewards compromise. Remembering him as a scholar and servant of the Ahlul Bayt (ʿa) is useful only if families translate that memory into homes where tawḥīd governs speech, work, and every single day choices.
The Family Unit: The First Classroom
Islam does not relegate faith to ritual hours; it places the worship of God alongside honoring parents and nurturing children as part of the same moral economy, which makes the family the natural place for forming conscience and worldview. Parents who shape a home around tawḥīd show children that believing in one God means living under one moral horizon — where speech, work, and relationships are all accountable to the Divine. That orientation prevents the dangerous split between “private piety” and “public life” that leaves children unsure which values truly matter.
When families speak about our great leader, they should emphasize example over title: he is to be recalled as a scholar, teacher, and servant — someone whose life attempted to integrate knowledge, humility, and public responsibility — rather than only as a holder of power. This matters because children learn more from character than from positions, and they will imitate the kinds of integrity they see modeled at home.
Grief: A Movement
In the Islamic understanding, grief need not be the endpoint of feeling but rather the beginning of moral renewal. The Noble Qurʾān’s repeated command to act and its insistence that God sees every deed means that sorrow must be a spur to better living, not a retreat into bitter passivity. The slogan “Bāyad Barkhāst — We Must Rise” reframes mourning as an ethical summons: rise in patience, rise in knowledge, rise in service, rise in courage, ultimately, to rise towards tawḥīd.
In practice, families can do this by naming the moral lessons they draw from loss rather than rehearsing only emotions. When parents explain that mourning sharpens commitment to justice, mercy, and prayer, children begin to see sorrow as a responsibility that directs their future choices — in study, in friendships, and in future careers. That shift transforms public grief into household formation.
Why Was He Killed?
Talking to children about violence and martyrdom requires honesty calibrated to age, accompanied by spiritual grounding and moral clarity. Very young children need reassurance: teach them that Allah (swt) sees everything, that unjust acts are wrong, and that the correct Muslim response is patience, prayer, and principled action rather than hatred. Older children can gradually handle more detail about political complexity and should be supported in asking questions and thinking through just and moral responses (from an Islamic perspective).
A helpful framing for families is this: The Grand Āyatullāh was a teacher and servant who insisted that Islam be lived publicly and justly; some opposed that message because it demanded responsibility and a departure from power and greed. Children can be told that while we celebrate martyrdom, we remember and learn from lives that modeled sacrifice for truth. Importantly, parents must distinguish between hatred of people and rejection of injustice; teach children to hate oppression (ẓulm) and to love justice and mercy. This protects moral imagination from hatred and channels grief into constructive action.
Building Tawḥīd at Home
Holistic tawḥīd is taught by actions, not by slogans. Children internalize tawḥīd when prayer, charity, speech, everyday actions, and work are connected and consistent — when parents apologize for mistakes, forgive readily, avoid hypocrisy, and show that being God-conscious affects everyday choices.
Families can adopt small but meaningful behaviors that reinforce tawḥīd as a worldview:
– Read a few verses from the Noble Qurʾān after prayer and ask children what Allah (swt) is encouraging them to do/think
– Choose one character trait to practice each week (patience, honesty, modesty) and name moments when family members embody it.
– Create a home habit of explaining choices (food, media, purchases) in moral language so children see consumer life as a field of ethical judgment.
The call to “rise” becomes meaningful when it is translated into everyday choices — at work, at school, and in the marketplace. Below are concrete, realistic practices families and individuals can adopt to live a dignified, tawḥīd-centered life in Western contexts.
1. Mindful career choices and workplace ethics
– Choose employers and roles intentionally: prioritize careers and companies whose mission does not enable oppression or moral degradation, and prefer work that contributes to human flourishing. Our careers and employers are arenas that will occupy a majority of our lives; if we do not think critically about what and where we spend our time, we can inevitably be leading ourselves farther from our ultimate purpose – proximity to Allah (swt).
– Classes, careers, and companies that might outwardly sound and behave as if they are morally conscious or sound, still have the potential to lead us further from tawḥīd. This happens when employers and careers employ words such as “justice, fairness, equity, humanity, moral, social service”; however, these words are used as slogans without divine instruction and guidance for what that looks like in an Islamic society, and can instead push people, systems, and communities away from Allah (swt)
– Vet employers for ethics: research company supply chains, labor practices, and environmental impact before accepting a job; ask about worker treatment and corporate values during interviews. Choosing a workplace that respects human dignity is itself a form of moral courage.
– Refuse morally compromising assignments: if tasked with work that harms people — deceptive advertising, exploitative algorithms, surveillance tools, or projects that violate human dignity — seek reassignment or decline, and propose ethical alternatives when possible. This steady refusal is a practical way to live tawḥīd under pressure.
2. Ethical Purchasing and Consumer Activism
– Use purchasing power deliberately: prefer products that are healthy, sustainably produced, and manufactured under fair labor conditions; avoid goods and brands linked to environmental harm and worker exploitation. Consumer choice becomes an act of solidarity and a way to resist systems that profit from injustice.
– Practice targeted boycotts and communal economic strategies: when firms are clearly complicit in oppression, organized boycotts and community purchasing alternatives can pressure change and express collective conscience. Use cooperative buying, local co-ops, or Muslim-owned ethical businesses to amplify impact.
3. Dignity in Social and Public Life
– Live visibly respectful faith: pray on time, seek accommodation respectfully when needed, and maintain modest dress and speech without apology. Such practices build quiet resilience and teach children that dignity is rooted in God, not in public approval.
– Speak up consistently for justice: condemn oppression wherever it occurs — racism, xenophobia, economic injustice — because tawḥīd demands moral consistency beyond sectarian lines. Public courage that defends the weak is a hallmark of a mature Islamic conscience.
– Resist cynicism and shame: reject narratives that portray faith as embarrassing or outdated; instead, cultivate confident, principled engagement with the broader society. This posture helps youth remain rooted and constructive.
4. Parenting Practices that Teach Economic and Moral Discernment
– Involve children in ethical choices: have age-appropriate conversations about where food, clothes, and electronics come from, read labels together, and explain why some purchases align with tawḥīd while others do not. Practical involvement trains discernment.
– Model integrity in money and promises: keep household commitments, avoid deceptive bargains, and show children that financial decisions reflect priorities and values. Such modeling is more formative than any lecture.
– Teach patience and progressive improvement: set realistic steps toward ethical living — prioritize high-impact choices (career decisions, major purchases) first, then shift regular consumer habits over time. This avoids paralysis while remaining faithful to the Qurʾānic call to act.
Home Rituals That Make Grief Instructive
Transform public mourning into family formation through brief, repeatable rituals: set aside an evening to read a Qurʾānic passage about accountability and ask children to name one concrete way they will practice it that week; invite them to identify a leaderly quality they admire in the Grand Āyatullāh and practice it; or pick one household purchase to examine for ethical sourcing together. These rituals turn vague sentiment into steady habits of conscience.
When families recall the Grand Āyatullāh as a leader, let them tell stories about his scholarship, his relationship to the Ahlul Bayt (ʿa), and his attempt to integrate knowledge with public responsibility. Such stories help children map what principled leadership looks like: humility, patient endurance, and a refusal to reduce faith to mere ritual. That is the image that turns mourning into an inheritance of character rather than of grievance.
The funeral of a great leader should therefore be read not only as an ending, but as a test of inheritance. If he is remembered as a scholar and servant of the Ahlul Bayt (ʿa), then the question becomes whether Muslim families will produce children who live with the same seriousness: seeing prayer, work, money, and public life through the lens of tawḥīd.
This is why “We Must Rise” is so powerful. It does not simply ask people to feel something; it asks them to become something. It asks families to raise children who know that their choices matter, that their bodies and livelihoods matter, and that every action can move them either toward God or away from Him.
A Muslim family in the West can answer this call in very practical ways: choosing ethical careers, rejecting exploitative brands, speaking to children honestly but gently about oppression, and building a home where God is not compartmentalized into ritual alone. When these habits are taken seriously, grief becomes education, and education becomes courage.
That is the deeper meaning of tawḥīd in daily life. It is not only belief in one God, but living as if God is truly the center of everything — our prayers, our purchases, our professions, our parenting, and our response to loss. When this becomes the shape of a Muslim home, mourning no longer marks an ending; it becomes the beginning of a life lived consciously for Allah (swt).