GD/1 – Teaching your child Surat’l-Fātiḥa 

I start with this particular deed because there is a major hack here that I wish I realised before my wife overtook me and taught this surah to our children before I even knew what was happening!

Surat’l-Fātiḥah, known as the ‘mother of the Qur’ān’, is considered to be the greatest surah according to the majority of scholars. Now, this deed is like a continuous charity in that if you teach your child this surah, then every time they recite it going forwards, a reward lies with their teacher. 

The Prophet (saws) mentioned in a ḥadīth:

مَنْ قَرَأَ حَرْفًا مِنْ كِتَابِ اللَّهِ فَلَهُ بِهِ حَسَنَةٌ وَالْحَسَنَةُ بِعَشْرِ أَمْثَالِهَا

“Whoever recites a letter from the Book of Allah, he will receive one good deed as ten good deeds like it” (Tirmidhi).

If we took this ḥadīth on face value that a letter means an alphabetic letter (which is a strong opinion) then imagine someone reciting this regularly for the rest of their life? I won’t do the maths as we cannot guarantee anything, but it’s clear there are inshaAllah major rewards to be gained for the reciter and their teacher!

Therefore, my humble advice would be to try to share in the reward of teaching your children or anybody, this beautiful surah.