“My grandchildren, I recommend the Qur’an to you in Ramadan” is the sentence that Haji Muhammad Salih (73 years old) kept repeating to the family’s children, including the children of his daughters and sons, during the meeting that the family got used to on the first day of the blessed month of Ramadan.

On the first of the holy month, the grandfather officially announced the start of a competition for memorizing and reading it among his grandchildren. He considers that those who persevere in this are heroes.

The grandfather officially announces, on the first of the holy month, the start of a competition for preservation and reading among his grandchildren (Al-Jazeera)

Grandchildren meet in a circle with their grandfather in the center, listening to "the sermon he gives to them", discussing questions, and no effort is in turn spared in answering them.

Even when he is holding his youngest granddaughter Dina - who has not exceeded two years and has yet to pronounce only some words - he tries to teach her some sentences from the Qur’an and a number of prayers that are difficult to pronounce, and he enters into the atmosphere of competition, which began to show her enthusiasm immediately after the announcement of its launch.

The big brother in the family teaches the youngster to read and memorize the Qur’an (Al Jazeera)

Reward race

Haji Muhammad Salih - the head of the Rashidiu family - calls this competition a "race of reward", indicating in his speech to Al-Jazeera that "the devotion of some good habits will only be at a young age, and this is our role that we are working on."

He says, "We cannot urge a young adult to recite the Qur’an or practice the recommended rituals during the holy month if he did not nurse it from his mother’s breast or received it as a child. Rituals are habits that we acquire, and whenever we bequeath them to our grandchildren at a young age, it implies that they will not disappear with time.

The competition for memorizing the Qur’an is considered a Ramadan habit in the Algerian family (Al-Jazeera)

Home School

The voices of the grandchildren rise in the middle of the popular neighborhood in the Ould Fayette area in the western suburb of the Algerian capital, reading the Qur’an, and the race starts from the first moment when the grandfather announces that, so that the house turns into a Qur’anic school in which the little old is memorized, and the little one is recited in it.

With his tired voice, the tone of enthusiasm, and eyes that have been tired of years, Grandfather Muhammad Saleh tries to draw the attention of his grandchildren so that they do not lose sight of what he says for a while, he tries to use motivational methods, and he distributes juice and sweets to those exempt from fasting so that they do not get out of the circle.

The great-granddaughter reads the short Quranic surahs on the younger granddaughter to make it easier for her to memorize (Al-Jazeera)

Grandfather Muhammad Salih says that correct religious education begins at home, indicating that “we must not leave our children raw in the hands of society or any cleric before we have instilled in them the principles of tolerance, humanity, love and respect for others, and the lofty meanings that Islam carries.”

"The child does not differentiate with the reasoning of soft tenderness between what is true and what may be contrary to the straight path, so here lies the role of the family in placing its children in a healthy religious environment," as Haj Saleh asserts.

Grandchildren gather around their grandfather and consider the sweetness of the month to lie in the family meeting (Al-Jazeera)

Quran memorization

Many Algerian families adhere to memorizing the Qur’an for their children and make sure to read it to them, especially during the holy month. Some consider this habit as one of the values ​​that formed a "good immunity" for the children of the new generation of these families against any extremist or militant ideas that might be marketed to them from another environment.