As long as a mother carries her baby child in her arms she will be attending to all its needs, but once the child begins to move about on its own it becomes the duty of the mother to orientate the child with its environment.  If she forsakes her duty in this respect the result will be detrimental to the child whom she loves so dearly.  To put it in plain word the mother should acquaint the things of the environment and the things of reach, to the child with regard to their harmfulness and harmlessness in handling them.  If this is not done the child may out of curiosity touch its excreta and smear over its body and clothings or grasp a knife and get cut in the hand or touch the embers of fire and get its hands burnt or climb up or down a ladder or staircase and fatally fall down or sip drops of kerosene from a bottle and ruin its health.  It is also the mother’s duty to keep all harmful things away from the reach of the child.  This is perfectly in keeping with the tenets of Islam.

When the child grows up a bit, i.e. when it reaches the age of three or four it should be orientated again with its behaviour towards other members of the family, to respect the elders and earn their love and affection, to respect relatives and other friendly visitors and with eating, drinking, sleeping and cleansing habits.  It should be taught to emulate, the good habits and shun the bad ones.  This should be done in accordance with the teachings of Islam.

When the child gets older and reaches the age of seven the boy or girl begins to move in his or her immediate society consisting of neighbours, relatives, teachers, visitors and fellow pupils of the primary school.  Now the child needs a further orientation without which the child might not grow up to be a thorough bred lad or lass.  This orientation is in respect of respecting teachers and elders among relatives and visitors or guests, being kind to those who are younger than him or her, getting used to finish up whatever job he or she is assigned with, in time, whether in school or at home, avoiding bad company, mixing with good company, being polite to all those in his or her society and cultivating good habits and characters governed by the Islamic teachings.

When these children grow up older still reaching the age of twelve their environment and the society they move in incur a change because now they are pupils of the secondary schools and as such they come across a more complex and well organised system of education and begin to mix with more qualified teachers.  This is the stage when a child begins to realize the presence of sexual urges though at times vaguely.  This necessitates in the child’s being orientated once again in modesty, respect, politeness, devotion to studies, obedience to teachers, loyalty to country, service to fellow beings and tolerance, good will and understanding towards members of other denominations while being steadfast and uncompromising in regard to modes of conduct, manners and characters taught by Islam.

 When such children grow up to be young men and young women and pursue their studies in colleges or universities they come across a completely new environment with scholars, professors and intellectuals of varying fields of knowledge and their follow students of equally varying aspirations.  Such places are mini universes populated fully with intellectuals alone and therefore, a new-comer there needs a kind of orientation which will enable him to make the most out of their company in acquiring intellectual and academic attainments and in attaining high standard. of moral and etiquette in a way so as to ensure his usefulness to the society, country and the world and to command popular confidence in him when he comes out after completing the course ho pursues.  Never should such persons compromise any of the moral values with the urges of temptation and irrational appeals.

From what has been elucidated so far it is evident that the types of orientation differ from stage to stage progressively depending on the physical growth, mental development, the environment in which one moves and the expectation of one’s parents, society, country and the world.

Now let us make a study of the term ‘Orientation’.  This term was originally intended to denote the piecing or arrangement of anything so as to face the East, especially to build a church with the longer axis due east and west and the chancel or chief altar at the east end. However, this term latter began to be used to indicate on the action of ascertaining or fact of knowing the relative position of anything or of oneself.  It is also figuratively used to indicate on the determination of one’s bearings in relation to circumstances and ideas.  When we take the term to indicate on the last of the three meanings given just now you will observe that it is perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the foregoing elucidation of the various stages of orientation.  This is what orientations ought to be.  Nowadays it is strange to hear that in some colleges and universities this orientation has developed into a number of ceremonies and get-togethers in which all the known moral and ethical norms and etiquettes are flouted and which turn out to be the licentiation ceremony for the students to become licentious in drunkenness and sex behaviours.  There is also another curse known as ragging introduced amidst the students of such colleges or universities when a new batch of high school leavers are admitted there.  This is done in order that those new-comers are either discouraged from pursuing their courses of study or to give in to the moral depravity prevalent among some other students.  It is rather painful to know that this type of things are carried on with the indirect blessings of the colleges or universities concerned.

This may be due to the realization of the students of those collages that they are the future hope of the country and their baseless imagination that they are going to be the cream of the society in their country and as such they must celebrate it and enjoy life in the colleges and universities.  It is true that the nation’s hope rests on them provided that they turn out to be good citizen of service, devotion, dedication and loyalty.  But who can guarantee under the prevailing circumstances of moral depravity in the universities and colleges that they will turn out to be so.

Every father says that his hope for the future lies in his baby boy but who can say for a surety that the boy will grow up to the expectation of the father?  The father when he makes such statements only takes things for granted.  Taking this as a rule and guarantee the child cannot try to be unruly and adamant because of his importance.  In the same way certain national leaders express that the students in the universities and colleges are the country’s hope for the future.  The students should not take those inadvertent statements as sureties and begin to think that they are the only important and intellectually gifted people in the nation and all others are fools.  They should rather do some arithmetical calculation to know the true state of affairs. In order to do that they should ask themselves and give their own answers for the following questions:

Since when the country began to have colleges or universities? How many colleges or universities are there in that country?  What is the total number her of graduates so far produced by all the colleges and universities?  What is the present number of undergrads in the college or university where one studies?  Whether there are more graduates out side the campus or inside the campus?  What percentage do the present undergrads form when compared to the total number of graduates, scholars and professors in the country? Once they do this kind of calculation they know the real weight their importance in the country and whether the people out side the campus are just fools.  Without this sometimes they begin to overestimate their importance and unnecessarily get involved in matters of administration of the country and indulge in all sorts of strikes thinking that there are no better or equal thinkers outside, making wrong use of  liberty offered to them within the campus.  In Singapore we have comparatively very little such instances,  however it is worth warning our would be university students about this.

When a Muslim student encounters such problems he should concentrate more on his studies and be aloof from such bad elements.  Because our Noble Prophet has said: "whoever indulges in things which do not concern him will loose things of his concern." Therefore, he should stand by the moral conducts and manners taught by Islam without trying to compromise them with any immoral conducts and manners.  This is simply because the moral conducts and manners taught by Islam are rationally most sound and through which a Muslim is distinguished from others.

As far as Islam is concerned taking in of intoxicants is a sin of the major category and dancing of mixed sexes is also a prohibited act which will lead one to many other major sins.  Dance of mixed sexes is not foreign only to Islam and Muslims, but it is also equally foreign to any established culture of the east.  Whoever violates the Islamic law concerning these is doubtless a  sinner in the eyes of Islam.  Some of us may say as an excuse: "in Egypt, a Muslim country, belly dancing is very popular and the national leaders there are very proudly entertaining foreign dignitaries with such dancing."  The answer to them is that we Muslims are required to follow the Prophet and those who followed his foot steps and we as Muslims are not duty bound to follow Egyptians, Libyans, Pakistanis or Indians. Whoever violates the principles of Islam, indiscriminately of whether he is an Arab, Indian or Malay, is a sinner in the eyes of Islam.

Some others also say another excuse and that is "We are Muslim students studying in schools where non-Muslims are a predominant majority and when there is a get-together among students and teachers we are invited to a mixed dance what shall we do? We cannot turn down their invitation because to turn down their invitation would create misunderstanding."  The answer for this is that by their invitation to participate in mixed dancing, drinking of intoxicants and eating of Islamically unlawful food they are very innocently exhibiting the lack of laws governing those aspects in their religion and their sincerity in being friendly with you.  What you should do in order that you do not dishearten them and at the same time you do not violate your religious principles is to mix with them to the extant your religion allows you and to inform them thankfully and politely that you will not be able to participate in things which are against your religious principles without criticizing them.  This will increase their respect for you because they will know that you are a man of principles and that you will not compromise your principles with anything however tempting it may be.  This will increase their confidence in you in all other matters.  On the other hand if you compromise with those things and they happen to know about your religious principles they will scoff at you in their hearts and will have no respect for you simply because they know that you are ready to compromise even the principles of the religion you so boastfully profess with such petty, trifling temptations.  As a result none of them will have any confidence or trust in you.