Forming faith: Women in Jordan shape kids’ spiritual formation
Jeanette Pinkston, Jun 1, 2009
PHOTOS BY DOUG NYSTROM
Muslim woman with children in Rihab, site of oldest Christian church.
By Jeanette Pinkston Special Contributor
Editor’s note: In 2008, Jeanette Pinkston traveled to Amman, Jordan with a group of 20 U.S. journalists from the Associated Church Press, Evangelical Press Association and the Catholic Press Association. Having just covered an interfaith panel on faith formation during the joint Preaching from the Center and Christian Educators Fellowship conferences in Albuquerque last fall, she was led to explore the role of Jordanian women in the faith formation of their children.
AMMAN, JORDAN—The role of Jordanian women in the faith formation of their children is remarkably similar to that of women in other faith traditions. Across the board, women are typically more influential in shaping the religious practice of children; Jordanian women are no different.
Lorain Rezeq works in the business center of a local hotel in Amman, Jordan. “Women are very influential in shaping the religious life of their children,” says Ms. Rezeq. “Because they are so close to their moms, moms influence their children from ages 1 to 10. The children follow their mothers everywhere. They are so close to them. When you hear a mother saying her prayer, you say ‘I am going to repeat it.’”
Hasan Abu Nimah, a former ambassador to the United Nations, agrees. Mr. Abu Nimah, director of the Royal Institute for Inter-faith Studies, says a child will normally be more influenced by his mother than by his father because of the physical proximity to the mother.
“If a child is born to a Moslem mother and a Moslem father, the child will be Moslem,” Mr. Abu Nimah said. “If the child is born to a Christian mother and Moslem father, (we have a lot of cross marriages here), that depends on the family itself. Sometimes they agree what the children will be when they have children. Sometimes they leave it to chance.”
While Muslims are asked to practice their beliefs by performing certain acts of worship, actually doing so is a matter of choice, as in other religions. Some people are very strict in adhering to the religious practices of their faith, while others are not.
Ihab El-Kady of the Islamic Center and University of New Mexico told a gathering of over 600 Methodist educators, lay and clergy, that women shape the faith of their young and actually have a bigger hand in faith formation than male members of that faith.
“I think it is safe to say that regardless of one’s faith or background, perhaps the most influential person or one of the two most influential, in the minimum, is the mother,” says Dr. El-Kady. “On her shoulders, reality says [rests] the core of faith formation for the offspring—at least in the very first few years or stages of that person’s life.”
In Muslim and Christian communities throughout Jordan, women have a strong influence in the family, workplace, religion and society in general.
Dr. El-Kady says it is important for those who are foreign to Islam or who are not Muslim to separate what is cultural from what is Islamic when viewing people who are practicing faith from a cultural perspective like those in the Gulf region or in North Africa. “One needs to ask himself—or ask those who know Islam—what of these practices is actually cultural and what of these practices is actually Islamic?” said Dr. El-Kady.
Young children are trained in the rituals of Islam, Dr. El-Kady says, but Islam is not just the ritual; it is the faithful belief itself.
“Although we teach our children how to pray at the age of 7 and start teaching them how to fast at the age of 10, we don’t go through the entire day. We go through segments of the day and a little longer as the child grows older. Then the length of the fasting actually extends until hopefully, when they reach puberty, they can actually fast the entire month of Ramadan.
“But the training for the ritual itself is only the surface. What lies in his heart is completely different. Nobody can tell what lies in your heart but yourself.”
Ms. Pinkston is the director of media relations for the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship.
PHOTOS BY DOUG NYSTROM
Hasan Abu Nimah, a former ambassador to the United Nations, agrees. Mr. Abu Nimah, director of the Royal Institute for Inter-faith Studies, says a child will normally be more influenced by his mother than by his father because of the physical proximity to the mother. 
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