so it acts as a kind of initial coaching in the rites of Islam at the very moment he enters this world, just as the declaration of monotheism is prompted to him when he is leaving it. Nor is it far-fetched that the call to prayer should reach his heart and affect him even though he is unaware of it, and so on.)
Perhaps modern psychology lends support to the idea that even an infant in the cradle is influenced by what he hears and sees. I seem to recall having read a useful study on this subject by one of the writers, but I can no longer remember who he was nor in which book it appeared.
As for older children, their susceptibility to such influences is obviously acknowledged. However, if some of them play and run about in the mosques, their fathers and guardians must discipline and train them; otherwise, the caretaker or attendant should expel them. This conforms to what al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Kathīr relates:
“ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allah be pleased with him, whenever he saw boys playing in the mosque, would strike them with the light whip—that is, the durrāʾ—and he used to inspect the mosque after the night prayer and leave no one inside.”
As for the ḥadith, “Keep your children away from your mosques,” it is weak according to Ibn Ḥajar, Ibn Kathīr, and others, and therefore cannot stand against the aforementioned reports. Its documentation has already been discussed under the first section of “Etiquette of the Mosques.”
- Bringing the deceased into the mosque so that the funeral prayer may be offered over him, for the Prophet ﷺ did not pray over Suhayl ibn Bayḍāʾ—in another wording: over the two sons of Bayḍāʾ, Suhayl and his brother—except inside the mosque.