AbdelRahman Murphy – I am Bored!

			Oh
		

			hello will hamdu Lillah wa salatu salam ala rasulillah
		

			he was asked to be He, woman to be our home be sending ILA Yeoman Dean, along with john lemon, whom
I mean, everyone say I mean,
		

			we always begin by praising Allah subhanho wa Taala. We always begin by thanking him for the
blessings that we are just completely unaware of, you know, the word hamdulillah is so remarkable
because it makes up for our forgetfulness. Because we say 100 Allah, and it's a word that is so
comprehensive, that you are not the one who is responsible to remember every single thing that Allah
has given you, because that's, quite frankly impossible. So we always begin by saying and
hamdulillah
		

			this session is probably going to be the one that I am most passionate about. It's because my wife
and I had our first child 11 weeks ago today hamdulillah baby Moosa, who I miss a lot.
		

			And the weight and the responsibility, and the reality of these sessions, talking about building a
family and refining the relationship between parent and child, to me before these 11 weeks has
always been theory, and I've studied it, and I lived it, I grew up a child to parents, so I
understood it from certain capacities. But as with everything in life, the more experience you gain,
the more wisdom you gain. And the more mature your knowledge becomes. And so now that I sit here, a
young father, able to look into the face in the eyes of my son, all of these topics about how to
have a relationship with your child in a way that preserves their emaan their relationship with
		

			Allah and their relationship with you, all these topics have become a lot more heavy. And I asked
all of you to make the offer my son and my wife in sha Allah.
		

			But I wanted to give a couple pointers, and mostly to the parents, and I can talk to the youngsters
inshallah towards the end. But
		

			in this lecture alone, references to look man, Hakeem, it'll be a lot more on someone who is a
lighthouse. He's a bastion of guidance for us in the field and about parenting and the relationship
between parent and child. references to look man have been made numerous times. And whenever someone
references Look, man, it's always in the construct of trying to tell children, Look, listen, this is
what Allah is telling us through the Quran, about how you have to be with us. I just did a family
night session in my community in Dallas, Texas, about actually this chapter, this passage from sewer
lock man, where he's advising his son, and you should have seen miraculously, all these parents with
		

			their teenagers met magically showed up, the ones who never show up. And they made all their
teenagers sit front row. And every time I mentioned something about respecting parents, they would
look at their child and just nod their head slowly. Right and kind of it Yes, exactly. But what's
interesting, and I'm going to be very honest with you, is that as I was researching the topic, as I
was reading the different, tough, I see it in different explanations and different understandings.
There is something that we skip.
		

			There is something that we gloss over, we quickly mention it, and then we go to all of what we
consider to be the good stuff, the meat and potatoes. And that is that Allah subhanaw taala mentions
two very interesting characteristics, not about how look man's son should be with his parents. But
he mentioned two characteristics about how look man approached his son.
		

			So he says, a last wrong thought. I says to us two phrases. The first is he says, and remember when
look man said to his son, what Who are you are either Who? And he was and the translation is kind of
bad. But it's and he was admonishing him. He was reminding him he was preaching to him. If you look
up the word wise, wild law in the Arabic language, it has the meaning not of preaching, but of being
so concerned out of love for somebody's goodness and their safety.
		

			And their well being, that your love sort of spills over, out of your heart and into your tongue.
Like your love is so you can't contain it that your love is so strong that you just have to say
something.
		

			Notice here that Allah subhanaw taala doesn't tell us that Look, man wants his son and he was angry
at him. He was disappointed in him. He was trying to rectify him. No, he says that he went to him.
And he went to him in this state of such love, that his love was unable to be contained. And then he
spoke to his son and these words were filled with love so much so that instead of saying your Ebony,
which as growing up as an Egyptian, yeah, it means you're in trouble. Right? You get Habibi and you
get Ebony Ebony means you're gonna get in trouble. Hi baby means inshallah, you're gonna get some
Hallo Rice Krispie treats, right or something nice. Okay. And instead of saying get Ebony, which is
		

			the literal translation for my son, he says, Yeah, boo.
		

			Yeah, boo, boo nay in the Arabic language, it also means my son. But why choose Yabu? And a over?
Yeah. Because Yeah, boo ne has the meaning of love and adoration built into it.
		

			So before we talk about all of the advices that look man gave to his son rhodiola. Ron, before we
tell our children, look, read this chapter, tell me what you've learned. We need to ask ourselves as
parents and I can say that out loud.
		

			How many of us, when we approach our children to remind them, we do it number one, in the same way
that look man did where his heart was filled with love. And number two, where that love was so
strong, that our words became super soft, and easily receivable. Ask yourself honestly, the last
time that you critiqued your child, that you tried to change their behavior, that you tried to
remind them of something that was good for them. And I'm not doubting that you want good for them.
Every parent wants good for their children. And this is something that children need to understand
that your parents are not trying to make your life. Horrible. You know, one time I said that in the
		

			Holocaust. I said, You know, I said teens, I was talking to my teenagers. I said your parents don't
hate you and one girl goes really?
		

			I said, Yes. Your parents don't hate you. She goes prove it.
		

			I said, Well, you're here right now. You know how difficult it is to get you from here to hear you
know how many diapers there are from here to here.
		

			said your parents love you. But the fact that she had to challenge that notion shows me something
that sometimes the love that we have gets lost on the way from our heart to our tongue, and it ends
up coming out instead of roses like daggers. And the words that we use, they stick and they make
young people feel
		

			irrelevant. They make them feel not worthy. They make them feel not sufficient. Not good enough. I
once had a young child who said to me, you know, some analog. If I ever get like a 98 or 99% all of
my other friends, their parents, hug them and compliment them. My dad says Where did the other 1%
go?
		

			And you're laughing now. But how many of you are like yes, where did it go? Right? You're asking
like you're sympathizing with the dad. The reality is that these words, we think that they're small,
and we move on, we quickly forget them. Because the democra ghost is cooking, we have to go make
sure it's done right. But the kids remember this not for minutes, not for days or weeks or months,
but for years. And it changes them for their eternity for their lifetime. And the cycle repeats
itself. So we're going to talk about how to raise amazing young Muslim children, we have to
understand something that the plant is only as healthy as the soil that it came from.
		

			That if you look at your child, and this is a middle closer to him a lot. He's so powerful. When he
talks about communal change, or a family change or any kind of change. He always says go and look at
the mirror. Go and look at yourself. You see your child being a certain way ask yourself, What am I
doing and how can I change this in myself?
		

			You know the topic that was given to me the subtopic was addressing our children. Whenever they say
the phrase, I'm bored.
		

			Any parents in here your children have ever said that to you. I'm bored.
		

			Anybody Raise your hand if you're
		

			Children have ever been bored. While Mashallah you are boring people and I'm juggling.
		

			So I wanted to speak a little bit more broadly because I think that this is saying I'm bored is more
of a symptom. It's not the disease, right? It's like if you went to the doctor and you're like, you
know, he, the doctor says to you, hey, you have the flu, you're like, yeah, just take care of this
runny nose. And the doctor says, No, no, no, we have to take care of the disease, not the symptom.
And you're like, No, no, no, just the runny nose, I'll be fine. Thank you. That's not how we work.
If your children ever feel bored, or they ever feel, let's say disconnected, we have to first
understand something very, very important. And that is, Mashallah, may Allah reward her Dr. Susie
		

			smile, who is a pioneer, Mashallah for women's education and women's empowerment in the community.
For as long as I can remember coming to these conferences, she mentioned something very, very
beautiful. And that is that every generation is going to have that tension with the older
generation. Every single generation, I'll be honest with you, when I was younger, when I was
younger, I used to have that tension. And I always said to myself, I said, Man, you're never going
to have this sort of disconnect with your children, or with youth, you're always going to be up to
date, you're always going to know everything.
		

			And then Snapchat came out and I was like, What is happening?
		

			Or I go to my thoughts, and the kids are telling me about little Yachty and Drake's new album. And
I'm like, who's a little Yachty. And I have no idea what's going on. And I just look and nod and
say, yes, have some more Krispy kremes. Right? I don't know what to do. So I'm experiencing that
disconnect as well. But I'll tell you something. That's amazing. Dr. Susie mentioned a couple of
really awesome points, like picking up on the language, understanding what they're saying, but I'll
tell you something that's really really gonna empower everybody in this room. You know, what
connects people better than language? You know, what will connect you with your children better than
		

			the ability to say, Wow, Mashallah Daughter, your hijab is on fleek today, right? Or a son,
Mashallah your beard is lit, right? Instead of saying those things to connect to your children, you
know, what connects universally across time, across place doesn't matter where you live, what you
are
		

			smiling.
		

			When you smile at your children,
		

			the prophet Mohammed Saul Sutton was described by many companions, but in particular, the young ones
as we never saw him, except that he was smiling. Now, I want you to think for a second, when you
read the Hadith literature, you and I both know that there were times when the prophet SAW Selim was
not smiling. We know this for a fact. We there were times we know where he was crying. There are
times we know where his face was very serious. There are times we know where he was even frustrated
a little bit. So we know that the prophet SAW sent him was not always smiling. So how is it the case
then? that so many people can come and say that this man sallallahu alayhi wa sallam always smiles?
		

			It is because that is his default. That is his hustle. If I were to ask your children today, what is
your parents default face? What face Do you think they would make to me?
		

			You tell me.
		

			And by the way, we use this even in the English language. Some people spend so much time at the
library, we say things like, Man, it's like you live there.
		

			You live at the library. People spend so much time at the gym. Do you sleep at the gym, too? We use
levels of hyperbole to communicate what is a person's default? What is their norm? What are they
always doing? And so the Prophet Muhammad SAW some of them did not, in fact, always smile. But he
was smiling so constantly, that when people thought back to their memories about him on a sort of
salon, they could not remember a face other than one that was smiling.
		

			This is a challenge that we have to live to. That when we think of our parents, I want every parent
in this room Make this your goal. And I know that this is going to get a little bit heavy, but at
your janaza
		

			at your janazah you want your children shedding tears, remembering your face as one that's smiling.
		

			At my janazah I want my child to remember me as a father who smiled, not one who had his finger like
this, and a brow that was furrowed and lips that were pursed, making him feel insufficient as a son.
		

			That's not going to produce anything that we want in this life for the next. So the Prophet Muhammad
SAW Selim was someone that was always
		

			In a state a mood, that was good.
		

			And you know the difference when you show up to work or show up at home and your co workers or your
boss or your spouse, when they're in a good mood versus a bad mood, you know how that makes you
feel? So try to apply that to yourself. The second thing that the Prophet Mohammed Sol Salaam did,
that connected him, where he was always relevant with young people. And by the way, we're talking
about a father who was in his 40s and 50s. You know, a lot of you are thinking Oh, yeah, you know,
you young fathers and young mothers, you guys are all Mashallah connected, but it's tough when
you're old. He was older, Elise lots of Salah.
		

			You know, there's a beautiful story of the Prophet Muhammad SAW Salaam and many of you have heard it
but I want to tell it to you with this specific lens
		

			where the Prophet Mohammed Al Salaam, one of the younger companions
		

			you know, the Prophet Muhammad SAW Selim, they had a couldn't yet for him the younger companions
because he didn't have a child. He had a bird. You know, normally when someone has a child, they
earn a Konya in the Arabic language it means like a nickname. So for me, my son's name is Mustafa.
So what's my Konya?
		

			Abu Musa very good, right. Thank you for the three people who got it. Mashallah.
		

			So Abu Musa is my Konya. So this young child obviously doesn't have a child of their own. They have
a bird, and the birds name is innovative.
		

			And New Haven,
		

			and this child's name was Ahmed.
		

			So one time the Prophet Muhammad SAW said him walked by and notice that this child was crying.
		

			And he said to him, instead of walking by and saying, Okay, I have better stuff to do. He said to
him, yeah, I made a map for Ireland know
		

			what happened to your bird. And if you notice, it was like a beautiful little couplet. It was like a
rhyming couplet.
		

			And the child looked up at the Prophet Muhammad SAW Selim with tears in his eyes. And he said my
bird and he passed away he died.
		

			And the Prophet Mohammed soliciting them at that point, could have taken one of two paths. He could
have said kulu, Manali have fun.
		

			Everything will die.
		

			Worry about your fetcher? What's wrong with you? Why are you crying over a bird? There are people
there that are dying and starving, he could have made him feel worthless. But what did he do it sort
of salon. He took this young boy and he proverbially put his arm around his shoulder. And he
actually took the bird, and they buried the bird. And they gave the bird a burial, like a janazah
for a bird.
		

			And that made this young boy feel what feel like he was worth something to the Bahamas. Awesome.
		

			The question I have for my parents here tonight, how interested Are you in the things that your
children are interested in?
		

			How many of you go to your kids, athletic competitions? How many of you go to your children's parent
teacher conferences? How many of you go to your children's?
		

			Anything that they do? How many of you make time to go to those things and make sure that you know
what's going on to make them feel like they are worth it? Or how many of us, it's just something
that they do and we're not connected? You see, if you want to solve the problem of boredom, you
actually have to solve the problem of disconnectedness. That's what causes people to be bored. It's
not about young versus old. I've been in a room with lots of people before and become bored, because
they were talking about Pakistani politics, and I have no idea what's going on.
		

			Right? I became bored because I was disconnected. So what should a person do if they notice that
people are bored with them is they should become connected with them. So the Prophet Mohammed Al
Selim sees this boy crying about his pet, and instead of saying, it's a pet, get over it, he goes to
him, and he connects with him.
		

			This is prophetic parenting. And you cannot replace these moments I sort of said on.
		

			The last thing I'll say about giving advice because we're running a little bit short on time,
		

			is the third advice that I'll give about how to solve this problem of disconnectedness is you have
to actually have a conversation with your child. That's the first step. And conversation does not
mean you give them an address that you talk to them. Don't be like President Donald Trump, where he
has a presence
		

			conference and doesn't take questions.
		

			Right? You go to your kitchen, you say, this is the menu for dinner. This is what we're having for
dessert. Thank you very much and you walk away, right? No.
		

			Prophet Ibrahim Ali is set on an incredible story, so many lessons from his relationship with his
father. And this is really remarkable. By the way, if you look at Ibrahim his relationship with his
father, what do you see? You see a son, who is trying to talk to his father, who's trying to level
with his father, and his father in return, does not listen to his son.
		

			He rejects his son, he rejects his son's ideas as being far fetched, elementary, childish, get away
from me. I don't want to hear what you have to say. Now, what we don't realize and this is actually
something that happens in counseling. It's called transference. What happens to us? subconsciously,
we reproduce that for other people. So I once was counseling a young sister, and she was telling me
about how her father will never ever say yes to her ever. Her father always says no. So she said,
What can I do? And I said, let me give you some advice, some suggestions. She goes, Oh, none of them
will work.
		

			I said, Okay, well, listen, hear me out. So I gave her suggestion. Number one, she goes, No, it's
not gonna work. suggestion number two, no, it's not gonna work. suggestion number three, haha, lol,
no, it's not gonna work. I said to her, do you see what you're doing to me? She said, What? I said,
What did you complain that your father does to you all the time? He always says no. I said, I just
gave you three suggestions that you've never tried. And you're just saying no.
		

			So there is something that happens to us as human beings, where we almost have no choice, but to
redo what we've seen what we've experienced, unless we understand what happened to us, and we change
it.
		

			So when Ibrahim alayhis salaam is telling his father, oh, my father don't follow the footsteps of
shaved on his father says to him Get out of here. You don't know what you're talking about. Now fast
forward to when Ibrahim has his own son. And Allah has told Ibrahim in a dream that you have to
sacrifice your son
		

			and the biochar. I have to slaughter you. Then he says to his son, something very interesting. And a
lot of times we overlook this, right? We jump right to the part where a smile says, Yeah, Betty, if
I mess up mode, oh, my father, do what you've been commanded. We look at our teenage son, we say,
Why don't you talk to me like it's my I'll talk to Ibrahim worthless, but that means child, right?
		

			Look at what Ibrahim did first, though. See, this is the problem. When you read Quranic narrative,
you can't skip parts. You have to read all of it. Ibrahim says to his son, what fun loaded math
taught Ah,
		

			tell me what you think.
		

			And he's not saying this, like because people are watching. And he wants people to think that he's
having a conversation with his son. And he's not yelling or demanding. He's talking to him. He's
telling him and by the way, there is no choice in this situation. If Allah has commanded it, there
is no negotiation, there is no altering, there's no plan B, there just is. But he wants his son to
know that even though Allah has commanded me to do this thing that I have to do,
		

			and I want you guys to understand something, he didn't know that Allah was going to send an animal
as a replacement. Abraham did not know that it was all going to end up, quote, unquote, okay. He
thought that in just a few moments, he was going to have his son sacrificed on the top of a
mountain. Imagine, I can't even I can't even process those words, being a new father myself. It's
too painful.
		

			And even though he knows that there's no choice in the matter, he turns to his son lovingly, and
says, fun Lord matter Torah, I want you to tell me what you think. Literally, the word taught means
Tell me what you see.
		

			Give me your perspective. How are you looking at the situation? Even though we can't change it, I
want you to know that your thoughts matter to me.
		

			And so you might have moments where your children, maybe the situation is unchangeable. Maybe it's
static. Maybe it is what it is. A lot of times in life things are what they are. That's it, but that
doesn't mean that you can't listen.
		

			To your children when they talk to you, and not only listen, but ask them, What do you think? Your
your opinions, your thoughts, your ideas, they are like gold and silver to my heart. So let me know
what's going on. Brothers and sisters, parenting is probably the most important relationship, after
a person's relationship with their Lord is their relationship with their children.
		

			Because and that's why a lot of Allah says, to worship Him alone. And then immediately afterwards,
what Bill Wiley dainius, Anna, that being good to your parents, that relationship is so so
important. And part of the reason why is because the relationship that we have with our children
will dictate their relationship in their faith with Allah. And so as we gather in this conference
today, I feel very heavy that I have to communicate to everybody, please, please, please, if you've
come here this weekend, with anything between you and your children, please rectify it, please
change it. Please fix it. And the last thing I'll leave you with before I conclude as I've gone over
		

			my time,
		

			is be very, very, very careful not to use religion, as a way of making your child feel insufficient.
Be very careful using religion to critique your child. And don't use religion to be the scapegoat of
things that you want your child to do. I'll give you an example. Like young Muslim men, young
Muslim, teenage boys and men can stay out until fudger. But young Muslim teenage girls, do you ever
notice why girls always have to do brunch with their friends?
		

			Because they have to come home before the hood.
		

			But the young boys can come home like three days later. And we're like, okay, you're alive. Okay,
good. hamdulillah go shower and clean your room.
		

			And what's interesting is that the sisters, the young girls, they come to me and they say, we want
to have a lunch. We want to have a dinner. We want to have something at our friend's house. And my
parents say no, because it's against Islam. But I look at my brother, and he's out as long as he
wants to be. Is there like a gender? Like they say that shaitan comes out at Mugler but the
Shakedown only chase women
		

			that literally they're like asking these questions and they're not joking. They're being serious.
Because when I want to go out and answer time, my mom says no, because she thought is gonna come up
and my my brother wants to go out and Muslim and lay in the driveway. My mom says Go ahead.
Bismillah.
		

			And this is very dangerous to use religion, as the as the mount for which you make your children
feel insufficient and disciplined. That's not the way to do it. If you as a parent, have a value,
have a belief, your culture tells you something Bismillah by all means it's your relationship. But
do not use Islam to take the blame off of you or the pressure off of you because that
		

			tension with Islam will stay with them for very long.
		

			I ask and pray to Allah Spano, tala to give us beautiful relationships at home. I asked him pray to
Allah Spano Tata to rectify our hearts and to rectify our Amen. And I asked him pray to Allah, that
anyone who has come here this weekend or anywhere who is having challenging struggles with their
children or their parents, I asked a lot to shower mercy upon them, and I asked a lot to remove any
ill will or grudge between the hearts and I asked a lot to make our relationship with our children
like that of the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Sallam with his children like that a Prophet Ibrahim
with his son, and the best of people with the best of families Amira Malala mean to Xochimilco
		

			hidden everybody. So panic alone will be hectic natural though in la isla Hilah. And that's still
critical not to be like a salaam aleikum wa