Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – #parenting Bringing Up Teenage Daughters
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Nigeria will for Colonial Hamid what will Why did they need Santa
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come now. So the Kola Glavine
Dear brothers, sisters, our friends,
you've probably worked out what I want to speak about today.
The verse which I read what Bill Why did any son which basically
means obedience to parents, this is the Quran encouragement, for
obedience to parents, I can see the parents getting very excited.
I'm glad my children are here today. So they will be able to
listen to this. But actually, that's not what I want to speak
about directly. I want to speak about it the other way around,
which is the next verse that I recited that oh, people who
believe protect yourself.
And full circle Well, Alikum and your family from the Hellfire
not going to speak about Hellfire in particular. So don't get
scared. I'm going to speak about the challenges that we have today
in bringing up children. And what is the responsibility of the
Father, specifically, I have fathers in front of me or
potential fathers in front of me other sisters listening.
Our main conversation is with men today. And the reason for that is
that men play a very significant role in the upbringing of their
children. And there is a concept called the absent father syndrome.
When the father is not present, when it's a fatherless family, or
an absent father family, whichever one sounds better, are more
appropriate. There are actually there's an effect of that on the
rest of the family.
Firstly, just to backtrack a bit, let us try to understand first all
the places from where children learn what they learn, and thus
they grow up being that. So what are the different environments
from where we learn as we're growing up, through which we
develop our worldview, our understanding our behavior.
First and foremost, we have the home environment.
Whatever we see at home, as with when we're children, as we're
growing up the things we observe at home interaction between
parents, siblings, relatives, and so on. This is how we this is some
of the things that we imbibe within ourselves. The second
environment from which we learn is generally the school most people
generally at least in developed countries and in other countries,
they go to school, madrasa, they go to schools, generally, you had
one mother assigned Muslim communities, which was both the
secular education, Islamic education. In the UK, in the
Western countries, we have two schools, we have the secular
school in the morning, two, which our children spend several hours
every day learning all sorts of things. And then we have the
mucked up, or the mothers are in the evening for one or two hours,
however long it is, in which they learned that mother, the mother
assigned for me, the Islamic education. So that is, now we have
three environments from which children are learning. The last
environment, or the fourth environment, rather, is the
society outside. As soon as you step outside your house, you're
going to be interacting with people, there'll be neighbors,
you'll go to the shops, the stores, you'll go shopping,
there'll be friends outside, there'll be other people outside
strangers outside, and so on the billboards that you see outside
people speaking around you, all of that is going to affect the child.
So now we have four environments. Traditionally, that was the case
until about 2030 years ago, if you wanted to protect your children,
you sent him to a good school that you had full trust on mother's
side, etc. And then you kept them in the house, if you kept them in
the house. Not saying that that's the healthiest way to do it. But
if you did keep your child children in the house, without a
TV, you are pretty safe.
I mean, maybe the child would have died out of boredom, or maybe
crossed the throw beer or whatever else it is right. But generally,
you would stay you could protect yourself to a certain degree.
Right now, in this last 10 years or so, this last decade. There is
another environment we could say in our situation, a fifth
environment, which is very powerful.
What is that environment?
That is social media.
It is hardly possible now to not allow your children to have
a mobile phone after a certain age one person kept, didn't give his
daughter a mobile didn't allow her to have a cell phone mobile phone
until she was about 16. But then she went and bought one secretly.
And eventually here, they realized their mistake that he pushed it a
bit too much, because every single friend of hers had a mobile phone.
And she just felt like the odd one out. And that's a very bad place
to be in. So now,
with the mobile phone, the social media and so on, you will
understand the kind of
influences that are coming through there. So it's very, it's become
much more difficult. So it's become difficult, but that doesn't
mean that it's a lost game. As long as we're aware of the
situation, what happens the reality out there, then Insha
Allah, we ask Allah subhanaw taala for help. First, let me ask you a
question. Out of the four traditional environments, which
one do you think was the is the most powerful and most important?
Environment out of the four original environments, which one
do you think should be the most important one?
The home, I mean, there's no doubt about it, why the home, because if
in the home, we can teach them in the right way how to process
information that they will be receiving from everywhere else,
including in school, including outside in the society, then that
will be a successful child, if that child can come home, after
seeing something outside, after hearing something from a friend,
after listening to a certain class in school, and come home and have
that discussion about it and to have an understanding of what to
take and what not to take from the that could be a healthy situation.
See, because we can't govern our children wherever they go, because
we can't be with them all the time. But what is our
responsibility, eventually, our children is going to have to leave
us because they're going to get older, we need to give them the
tools, the understanding the mental framework, psychological
way of looking at these things to filter the information. This is
good, this is bad. No, this is this is not right. This is against
values. This is against my principles. This is against
morality. This is beyond the value system that I have inculcated that
we live by, that needs to be very powerful, that needs to be done in
a very particular way. That's why the home environment is very
important. But as I said before, you could have that environment at
home, protect them, and not let them go outside or what or be very
careful about who you let them go to. But now that's become very
difficult, because as soon as you have the phone, there's a lot of
things that are going to come from there.
So now we have these challenges. What is the antidote? Well, first
and foremost, they say that there are three A's,
three A's, that are very important to create that kind of
relationship with our children, by which they will inshallah stand by
what we teach them. As long as they have these three things, they
won't look for them elsewhere. If you can have your children enjoy
more at home, than always wanting to be outside, unless they want to
go out to play and so on, that's completely fine. But if they would
rather be at a friend's house for more hours, than they will be at
home, then that means it's a failure.
That means a home environment is not a very comfortable
environment. It's not a very friendly and welcoming
environment.
If we can get our children to feel at home at home, rather than
somewhere else, that isn't enough of a success, and as long as we're
doing the right thing. There are three A's if we give them these
three A's in sha Allah, the children will be ours. What are
the three A's, these three A's. Number one is affection. A for
affection, affection is basically that they need to know that we
love them.
I know that sometimes some of us are from certain cultures, we're
expressing love in a particular way. It's very difficult. We have
our own ways of expressing love.
When you tell somebody else we obviously love our children,
that's why we tell them off. Otherwise, if we don't tell our
children off, they're gonna grow up like weeds if you don't look
after your garden. If you want a nice looking garden, nice pruned,
nicely cultured garden, you need to prune it, you need to cultivate
it in a certain way. Otherwise, you get weeds. If people want
their children to grow up, like weeds all over the place and just
be anywhere then that's a different story. But clearly, if
you care for something, you want to culture them, you want to
civilize it, you want to prune it, you want to help it so telling the
children off for in the right way from certain things is nurturing
them.
But that is part of love, but the children don't understand that to
be loved. That's the problem. So you have to actually tell them
that I love you.
This is very difficult for some of
cultures, I don't think it exists to say that in some cultures,
Allahu Allah
there was a friend of mine is a chaplain in a prison, a young
offenders prison. So what he told us is that he was speaking to some
of the inmates, they're young guys, but 1920 They already in
prison? Right? You don't want to be there doing right?
This one kid he spoke to he was saying that he blames his mother
for being in prison.
He blames his mother that he thinks he's in prison because of
his mother. Why? Because now if the children who are here if you
listen to me,
when you go to somebody's house, when you visit your somebody's
house, your cousin's house or somebody's house, and you start
playing with their toys, right?
Do you do that? Or you don't do that?
Obviously, you better do. I'm just wondering, where do you go the
nostril Quran or something? Which will be wonderful. But umbrella,
what do you do you play with toys, your cousin's toys, or something?
Yeah. What your cousin's toys are generally more exciting because
you've gotten bored of your own toys, even if you've got hundreds
of them at home. Right? What happens when you're about to leave
the house? What that toy? Would you do with that toy? When you're
about to leave your cousin's house? What do you do with it?
What do you what would you like to do with it?
You want to take it home, right?
I want to take it home. And what does the host family tell you?
You know, the host family the cousin the Auntie, what did they
say? What did they say when just take it now? I don't know if they
really mean that. Or they just say that? Because it sounds like the
right thing to say. You can't say no, you can't take it. But what do
the parents say?
They say no, you can't. But you better say that. Right? And no,
you can't take it. That's what you say no, you think why is my parent
not letting me take this? My auntie saying take it my collar is
taking take this and my parent is saying don't take it. I'll tell
you why. This, this youth, this young man who's in prison now, he
says when I was young, and I used to go to somebody's house, my
mother used to not have a problem with me taking something. The host
family say yeah, take it. So I used to take it. So I started
becoming feeling an entitlement that I'm deserving of this. I can
take whatever I want. Slowly, slowly, I started stealing from a
shop, the corner shop. I got my sister involved. I'm not giving
ideas here. But I got my sister involved. He said, she used to
stand watch for me while I went and stole. Eventually stealing,
you have to get caught. It doesn't last forever. In everything.
Eventually you get caught. May Allah protect us from even getting
into these things in the first place. Eventually he stole from a
mall. And that's when he got caught. And now he's ended up in
prison. His mother was the best mother in the world until now.
Because she used to let him take everything.
But now she he understands now he thinks now that his mother is to
blame. Because she now he realizes. So that is also love to
do it in the right way. But we actually need to tell them that we
love them.
That's why affection to show affection. Give him a hug. Give
him a kiss.
You know, do these things. This is important.
Number two,
affirmation. The second eight is affirmation. So the first one was
affection. Second one is affirmation. Affirmation means to
basically acknowledge and show that we value them whenever they
do anything good.
Many times our attitude is that if they do well, well, they should do
well. There's no need for you to compliment. But if they do bad,
then they're in trouble. Why did you get less marks? Why did you
get a low grade, but if you got a decent grade, well, you should be
getting a decent grade anyways to get decent grades. So you
shouldn't be getting decent grades we need to
very important here is that we need to show positive
reinforcement of all the good things they do. If they've made
the bed in the morning, they bet they've cleaned up the room that
should be complimented. I know it's a duty, but it should be
complimented. If they woken up early. If they've gotten ready
early for school, for example, if they've helped the mother out in
the kitchen, if they've helped the father out if whatever, if they've
done anything, they need to be complimented. But don't overdo the
compliment so that it looks fake. Everything they do Oh excellent.
That's a wonderful. I mean, kids are eventually going to think man
Come on, man, that's hypocrisy can't be excellent all the time.
Like I can't like not do any wrong at all anytime, you know. So it
needs to be balanced, give credit where it's due, give the
compliment because that is what you call positive reinforcement.
You know, if you're doing something and you're valued for
it, people do more of it. They know this. That's why you get
awards, in businesses in schools, organizations that give award
So what is an award, it's a recognition for something somebody
has done psychologically, it wants you to do more of that it makes
you feel good about it. And we need to do it with our children
more than anybody else. So second one was affirmation. The third
one.
The third A is the most probably the hardest one, which is
attention.
Children need a lot of attention. Plants need a lot of attention, to
grow, well to be watered to be pruned to be looked after.
Children need a lot of attention. That is probably one of the most
important presence we can give in the world to our children
attention. Now here, this is where I speak to the fathers. Because
generally, mothers are much more closely interacting with the
children. So they do their part. A lot of the time. I know today,
there's challenges of WhatsApp on the side, right where you're
cooking, and there's whatsapp on the side. And, you know, all of
these other challenges are there today. The so you know, the
dramas. I mean, when you had the sole province of EastEnders, and
the neighbors and all that, that was once a week or twice a week, I
don't know how long it was. But now the WhatsApp is 24/7. So it's
a bigger challenge today, both for men and for women. So you do have
these challenges, but generally speaking, the mothers are more
involved, and there's something that we as a Muslim community need
to celebrate.
You see, if you look around the world, and you hear the horror
stories, the stories of turbulence and oppression and subjugation
around the world, the Ummah is broken, many aspects are broken, I
mean, it's a reality. Right? There's a book that we'll be
publishing soon inshallah by Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed of
Jordan, called the thinking Person's Guide to our times, when
it comes down, inshallah you should read it tonight opener, he
basically assesses the situation of the past the current, and he
gives some predictions and projections of the future of where
the Muslim ummah will be. But the one thing Alhamdulillah that we
still have, which is envied, right by many other people, which we
should hold on to very fast is family. Family is Alhamdulillah,
something we still have, the parents don't want to let the
children go, even after they've been married and have three
children, and they've got two children in the house with three
children each, and they've got a three bedroom house, they still
want to keep them in there, even though they're eating each other's
brains, right? They don't want to let them go. We don't throw our
children at the age of 18. When they go to university, now you go
and do it for yourself, you know, Alhamdulillah, we eat together, we
have correspondence like this, and that needs needs to be maintained.
Because that is very healthy, because that's natural. That's
fitrah.
That is fitrah. That's natural. Allah subhanaw taala made
procreation, right? To use that term, father and mother and then
children. And when you have that structure, it's good. That's why
when you have an absent father or an absent mother, a single parent
family, for example, they are, there's an imbalance. And there's
turbulence in that, in fact.
Now in the modern world, we're living with two mother families.
Right, that's the new idea. But recently, there was an interview
that I watched with a woman who was brought up by two mothers.
Right, which obviously, is not the Islamic way of doing it at all.
She's saying that she's saying this from experience, right? She's
saying this from experience from homophobia, as they say, this,
she's saying this from experience that it was not the ideal
unhealthy situation, because humans need a father and a mother.
So yes, to mothers, as good as they may be, as individuals or
care or compassion or whatever, you can't replace a father. And
likewise, if you have just the father in the house, you don't
have a mother, you just can't replace that these are natural
contributors to a healthy setup. That's why it's very important.
That's why it's very important to have that balance. And the father
needs to be present. Now what we have, unfortunately, is that in
some professions, like if you're a taxi driver, or Uber, these are
very greedy, that they're very lucrative, but very greedy. They
they take up a lot of your time, because the more you work, the
more money you make. And the more weird hours you work, the more
money you make, right? I mean, you know the speed, right? So for
example, keep children who are in absent father homes, they tend to
have not always but I've seen when teaching that they tend to have
issues sometimes not all of them, but some of them tend to have
issues. There was one kid decent kid, but kept having issues. So we
call his father and it was maybe a Wednesday or Thursday that we
called him in. And basically this was the first time this week his
father had met his son since the weekend because he says I'm a taxi
driver. So basically, in the evening when the child comes back
for Mother's lunch, dinner time and so on, I'm out working in the
morning I'm sleeping because I Oh, you know because I'm working at
night so I sleep in when they wake up in the morning. You only sees
them in the room.
You can now, Marsha we had a special meeting for them in the
Mother Teresa like beat your son. Right? So generally, right now
there's another girl we're dealing with. She's being brought up by
her auntie because they've got separate parents have been
separated in some confusion complication. So Auntie is
bringing it up. Nice girl, everything potential intelligent
everything. But she doesn't like to talk to everybody, she just
needs attention.
She just needs attention is willing to talk to anybody, boys,
whatever, it doesn't matter, right and gets in trouble because of
that. So that's why these are very important aspects. They say that
the
let me get back to another point. These three things affirmation,
attention, affection, affirmation and attention are very important
when the children know that we communicate to them, we are
attending to them, we relate to them, we speak to them. And for
that you need to have a home in which everything is allowed to be
spoken about. It should be no taboo subject, any decent subject,
any reasonable topic should be allowed to be discussed at home.
For example, if children come home, and they want to discuss
gender fluidity because they're being exposed to this, even at the
ages of eight, and nine, because somebody else in their class may
or may have some kind of dysphoria, they think, right? I'm
speaking in builtins, because we have a lot of children here. But
you know what I'm saying you should be eight, they should be
able to your 10 year old 11, you should be able to come and have
that discussion at home about homosexuality and so on. Because
they're learning about this. Even if you pull your children out of
SRE, they actually say that the next day they learn everything
from their friends will be
right. So at the end of the day, we need to be able to have that
discussion. Unfortunately, some homes are so stifling, so
restrictive, that he can't discuss any women girls can't even reveal
that they own menstruation. It's a natural idea that father should
know this from his wife anyway. But the girl is told to say to her
that he she's sick or something she's not allowed to bring. She's
not it's not it should not be mentioned. We're not saying you
speak about it every day. But we're saying that it should not be
a taboo subject to make. For example, if it's in Ramadan, and
the mother or the older sister is not fasting or not praying, the
other children will figure this out. How come you didn't pray
today? I didn't see you pray today. You're gonna miss your
pray. You didn't pray, look, everybody prayed. You're not
fasting today? How can we see you eating? What's the answer they
give?
I'm sick. They're not sick. menstruation is not a sickness,
man. Just say that this is a holiday that Allah gives women
when they get older, once a month. Simple. Basically, women get a
holiday once they get older, that they don't have to pray for those
days. And they don't have to fast they just fast later on. And the
details of that a technicality you will understand when you grow up.
Simple. It should not be a taboo subject in that sense, right? That
people don't feel like I could not have that conversation in the
house.
So we need to be careful that it shouldn't be so embarrassing, but
at the same time, we shouldn't you know, you don't want to start
discussing things that that should not be discussed either. There
needs to be balanced with these things. Now, let us get to the
main point of today's discussion.
specifically related to girls, it is difficult enough to bring up
boys and teenagers there are so many challenges out there. And you
know, we know everybody as we grow up, there are challenges because
there's various different paradigms that we're living
through. But to bring up girls is even more difficult. Why why? I
read a report in the BBC just a few weeks ago, and sorry a few
months ago, which said, and it shocked me when I first read it. I
looked at it in disbelief. It said that 25% of girls have a mental
health problem.
Growing up 25% of girls have a mental health problem. I was like,
this is an exaggeration. What are they saying? What do you mean by a
mental health problem? When you say mental health, we obviously
don't mean that they're crazy. You know, like generally, the idea of
mentors. There's somebody who's doing some crazy things, not not
necessarily psychological problems, or is speaking about
depression. All of this is classified as mental health
problems today. Why do they have a man? Why do 25% In fact, some
states probably even more, I spoke to a pharmacist recently he says,
You're absolutely right. He says we are dispensing some crazy
stuff, some really weird stuff to teenagers because of what they're
going through.
Right? Why do they have a problem? Now this is very important. I'm
going to give you six points. Before I get to those six points.
The famous six points is not those six points.
Basically from an early age, right society, impresses on girls that
their most redeeming quality is how they look
Here's how they look, and not how they are, not what they have as
capabilities and qualities is just how they look. Girls see how women
are judged daily based on superficial ideas.
They see women excelling in the world just based on their looks,
women who achieved fame by just their looks, highest Twitter,
following Instagram following is with such models just based on
looks. Right.
So now, researchers have found that the TV and the media, social
media in general, provides bombards, rather, teenage girls
with the following six ideas. You can't escape them, you can tell me
afterwards, if you disagree with this, even as as guys will
understand this, right. And if the sisters are listening, they can
tell me if they disagree with this idea. But girls from a young age,
when they expose to media, there's going to be six things that
they're getting six messages, constant bombardment of six
messages from people around them, from advertisements, commercials,
media, movies, programs, dramas, etc, etc.
Number one, Your looks are the most important thing about you.
That is one message that Your looks are the most important thing
about you how you look.
Alright, so think of this as one message, my looks at the most
important, I need to look the best. This is what the reaction to
this is going to be. Number two
your physical characteristics, which are your looks, basically
shape? Well, they're never ever going to be good enough. On the
one hand, it's telling us that your looks, what are the most
important thing about you? But the second point it gives us the
second idea that comes about is you're never going to be good
enough though.
Can you believe it? Can you see? What kind of pressure that
creates? What it means by A? Why would it be that you are never
going to be good enough? Your physical characteristics are never
going to be good and what are physical characteristics? Now tell
me if you can relate to this number one shape.
I mean, look at for shape, what's going on out there, you know,
liposuction, all sorts of, you know, various different things
that you can do pay and you can do it. Wait.
skin,
hair, teeth, color, Smell, smell perfumes, advertisement of
perfumes of color, right? Whether it be hair color, or I mean, I was
in Sri Lanka, a few months ago, several months ago, and then India
and people in Sri Lanka, generally darker complexion, that's the
beauty is in their darker complexion. But all the billboards
have lighter skinned people. Are there what's wrong with you guys?
How come there's a lighter skinned people up there is that like your
idea or something?
And then I go to India. And so you get this. I mean, people may know
about this thing called Fair and Lovely.
Right? I don't know if you get that in Bangladesh.
But basically that it promises you fair a skin because they glorify
the they've glorified fairness, as though there's something wrong
with darkness, as such, you know, a dark complexion. So you create a
construct, you create an idea. And then you sell people, you know,
products based on that. And they're basically laughing all the
way to the bank. So now I go to a friend's house. And I went to two
bathrooms got big house two bathrooms. Each one of these
bathroom had several fair and handsome products.
So forget Fair and Lovely. These are the boys bathroom. So fair and
handsome.
One of my companions was it means a bit dark. He even went then went
out and bought some to bring back. Because at the end of the day,
when
you think you have an issue, and something is promising you even if
you believe it's a gimmick, you're still going to try it. Right
Subhanallah SubhanAllah. So the point I'm trying to make is that
in terms of your hair, you know,
the reason why this is such an important point is this. In the
first point, you're saying they're being told that your looks at the
most important thing about you. But then the second point, they're
being told that you're never going to be good enough. How are they
being told you're not going to be good enough?
The way they told us this the way we're told is this is the majority
of people are average looking
They're decent, in terms of handsomeness of beauty, men and
women, you get the few who are exceptional. That's why everybody
looks at them. Right? Then you have the other end of the
spectrum. But let's just focus on this. And right, you have the few
exceptional, very beautiful, very attractive people, they become the
models, they're the ones who are chosen by companies to represent
them, what they do is they put makeup on them, right? The most
professional makeup artists are brought in to do so already. They
look unnatural. They already beyond just the God given nature.
Then what they do is they take the photo shoot, they do the photo
shoot, they shoot the footage, then they use computer
Manipulation Program software to make it even better.
Right, that's a bit out of proportion.
Right? Take that blemish away, right? The thing which even the
makeup couldn't hide, the software can hide this. What you're seeing
out there is not natural.
So when you see that you want to be like that. You try you spend
money, you make an effort. You buy the makeup, you buy the hair
products, you buy the skin products, you buy the fragrance.
But you can't be like that. Can you see the conundrum in your
mind? Can you see the tension, cognitive dissonance. So I need to
be the best, but I can't be the best. That is the best. That is
not ideal. I go when I go to Costco, I see these TV screens
being sold those 4k And I don't know what the latest one is. And
the color on there is out of the world literally what I mean by out
of the word is literally speaking. It is not even realist, they're
saying that represent reality. When you go outside, you don't see
that kind of color unless it's a very good day.
And here you're seeing these vivid colors. And then this is fake.
It's just the next thing up because I mean I've lost ideas now
to what else to do is flat is waiting for the roll ups now,
right roll up screens, but basically they just have to sell
you something new our knifes once it they know that we like new
things.
This is the second message that girls are getting, you will never
be good enough. Can you imagine now the depression they're going
to be going through every morning when they wake up, they have to
worry about how they look how people are going to judge them,
girls judge each other. And men do too. That's a massive pressure on
our girls to be judged like that every day to have to spend so much
time to look a certain way.
Hola. And then to have to put your picture up on Instagram and other
places to be liked to have an idea of you know,
self dignity, self validation. It's a massive problem.
Number three, I'm going to say this one fast.
The third point is a totally different point. But the third
point is that * is primarily a currency that you exchange for
love and attention are for power. That concept, that idea? I'm just
using the word quickly, right?
It's the whole idea of it is that it is only a currency in this
world today. If you want power, you want to fit in. You want to
gain influence. You want to have people after you then you use it
for that. It's no longer what it's supposed to be from an Islamic
pastor and we need to correct this perspective. Because even Muslims
think it's a dirty thing. Yes, it's not something you openly
speak about. But it is a very pure act. It's a religious act. Imam
Hassan Ali and others Rahim Allah he says, in his GitHub, in his
book on castle chahatein. He says the benefits of procreation of
copulation, husband, wife relationship, marital relationship
is number one procreation. To continue the human race. This is
the system of Allah that he provided, how can that be a bad
thing?
Number two, it is a it is a sneak peek into paradise, the pleasures
of paradise because it provides one of the greatest levels of
experience of pleasure in this world. And by that way our mind
should be going is that the paradise pleasure of paradise
should be even greater. That's why for some people this is actually a
way to get even closer to Allah by understanding the pleasures that
are awaiting for us in the hereafter. So it's not a dirty
that's why it was called *.
right until you know we start using dirty words for it and
considering it a bad idea. Right. So now the Our girls are being
told that this is a currency.
You understand? We're being told that it is a currency.
Then number five, sorry number four now.
Then it's it's from now
But free, it's it carries on that it's normal to have this with
people you don't even know. Or that you don't even care for. Why?
Because it's a currency. So to fit in, you're going to have to do
things, if you want to
somebody to be with you just like you're all friends have you don't
have, you're gonna have to send pictures of yourself, you're gonna
have to do certain acts, because everybody else is doing it. So
you're gonna have to do the same thing.
How can they have decent marriages afterwards, when this has been the
behavior, the approach and the experience when growing up.
They regret it for the rest of their life afterwards. Sometimes
it's so damaging. And for some people, they've actually committed
suicide because a picture was leaked. A picture is only yours
until you have it. But as soon as you give it this, cyberspace is
merciless. It never forgets it's us.
And even if you think that it's only, they'll only see it for two
seconds or 10 seconds. I mean, there's ways of capturing that.
One has to be just totally avoiding this thing. It's
completely haram to do this kind of stuff anyway. But even from a
non religious perspective, it's it's ridiculous. Right? Number
five, as though that's not enough. Now. Number five, this world,
they're being told that this world is a very scary, lonely,
dangerous, and very competitive place.
Because everybody's selfish, everybody to themselves.
And then they sit and then the message is, you better get going,
though, because you're going to lose the race otherwise. Now
that's worse with girls. Because
with girls or with women in general, they feel that they have
a certain age after which they don't look as attractive anymore.
Right? It's just about the nature of it. Of all of that is very
subjective, obviously. But that's what they feel. So it's a race
against time that there's an expiry date, do whatever you can,
however, you can, by hook or crook, just fit in, be accepted,
self validating these ideas are all modern ideas, basically,
of these knifes.
And finally, the last one, number six, is the answer to all of
life's problems is to go and buy something,
to shop, to spend some money, online shopping, offline shopping,
going to the malls, just go and buy something that will you know,
to be honest today, the way people are living their lives in a source
of in a in a state of intoxication almost as long as people feel that
as long as they've got Amazon Prime, so they can literally order
things to arrive the next day or even the same day sometimes. And
number two, you've got a Net Flix account. And hence, you can just
watch and entertain yourself to death. As soon as one thing
finishes, the other one comes up, and it's endless binging you got
nothing else to worry about in this world. Who cares about God
who cares about afterlife who cares about anything? Who cares
about the faith? Who cares about earning even spend on the credit
cards, and then keep transferring from one to the next. There's ways
to do all of this. That's basically the last message now
obviously, some of these messages shared with the guys, right and
hence you have an increase of men's hairdressers now, they call
them barbers, though, they still call them barbers, right? But now
if you look on the high streets, I mean, they've suddenly you used to
get one. And now you get I mean on the street that I go past. Every
fourth or fifth shop is the Turkish hub hairdresser. Right?
hamdulillah but you know what I mean? It's
the basically, this narrative of these six points is being
perpetrated by the media, by TV by the YouTube clips you watch
whether you watch you know, proper TV or not. This is the all these
six ideas what they're getting. Right? So money making behind it,
much of it is capitalism, because it's all big companies, they
create a product and then they
engender a desire. Using the best psychologists psychoanalysis to
understand how the human knifes works the masters of the human
knifes, right? The Sufis are masters in the human knifes in
trying to reform them. And these guys are masters in knifes
corruption, literally, right?
So, the emotional attachment to the characters they see online who
are basically propagating these ideas sub
If not directly, indirectly, right. That's why
it is important for us as Muslims to enhance the family environment
at home to make this the most powerful, and the most important
environment, the most comfortable environment, most friendly
environment, most welcoming environment that requires parents
to be above the curve. They should know what's going on, they can
have these discussions, right, they can show that balance of
friendliness. They're not just overly strict, but they're also
not overly lenient. They need to create that in the home. And the
final point I want to make is that since our daughters and our women
of our community and our families are going through such a stress of
looking for this validation elsewhere, that validation needs
to come from home.
And that's why
mothers but more specifically, fathers should actually tell their
daughters that you are beautiful. Mashallah, you look very beautiful
today.
That's an acknowledgement. So that if they don't hear it from it,
there's a lot of Tom Dick And Harry's outside, who are just more
than willing to praise them to say, Hey, you look so pretty
today. And if that's the first time you're being told about
something like anything like yeah, man, you know, I need to do
something with this. When girls even come out of Islamic school,
and they go into college, and mixed college unit, it's havoc for
them. Because left, right and center, they're being told man,
you so pretty whatever, just for ulterior motives.
Right? It's ulterior motive. That's why girls and boys need to
feel accomplished at home satisfied at home, they don't need
it outside.
So tell your daughters and your sons, but tell your daughters,
you're pretty. But every time you acknowledge the beauty, this is
where you have to use the 124 rule. Very important. What is the
124 rule? Every time you tell them you're pretty, which you should do
three times as much three times in addition, so four times
acknowledge another quality of this. If they've been kind,
acknowledge their kindness, if they've been compassionate,
acknowledge their compassion, if they've been helpful, if they've
been generous, if they've been loving, if they've been caring if
they have basically helped out if they have read something, if
they've worked hard, they acknowledge all of that. So every
time you say that pretty say four times there's something else as
well.
That means that they will understand psychologically that
you see, because when you get praised about something,
you think that's the most important thing about you. But if
you're getting praised about one thing once and other things more
times, than you can imagine that psychologically, you'll start
believing that these other things are more important as they are
more important.
Because other qualities will endure. Generosity doesn't end.
prettiness does unfortunately. And if you no longer have that
quality, then you're going to be in big trouble. But generosity,
kindness, care, goodness, all of that will endure. So we need to
acknowledge that let's start doing that today. So we ask Allah
subhanaw taala during this month of Ramadan when he is at his Most
Generous, I would assume, because can you see how people are so
generous during this month, giving so much than he imagined what
Allah is? It says that the prophets Allah was the most
generous in the month of Ramadan, when he would be reciting his
Quran with Gibidi larae Salam, that is when he had the greatest
level of generosity.
We see people are very generous prophets, Allah was most generous
in Ramadan, there's something about Ramadan, Allah must be the
most generous. So this is the time we're going to ask him that Allah
help us to understand these statistics are useful. These
pointers are useful. There's a lot more that we can learn. There's a
lot of good work out there even by you know, some non Muslims, right?
A lot by non Muslims that have good moral values to them, and
they've done a lot of research on this. May Allah subhanaw taala
allow us to benefit but above all, Allah subhanaw taala allow us to
preserve ourselves and our children. Yeah, you have Latina
Manu, cool and for second, what Ali Canara we're Kudu? Hannahs
Well, hey, Jarrod Ali, Mala ecotone Raela on shuddered La
Jolla Soon Allah humma Amara who wait for Aluna my Yamato and
that's a very important responsibility we have Allah allow
us to fulfill it in this world and be accomplished and be successful
in this regard working with that one on hamdu Lillahi Rabbil
Alameen Allahu Mantis Allah Monica salaam wa theologian, everybody
from love me or hate you yoga, yoga, rock medical mysteries,
Allahumma, Yohanna, Yamuna, Illa Illa And subhanAllah. In couldn't
know me nobody mean just Allah Who and Mohammed Amma Hua Hello. Oh
Allah we are in this beautiful month of Ramadan. Oh Allah, we ask
you for your special graces. We asked you for your generosity.
While we asked
You for Your Mercy of Allah we ask you for your benevolence of Allah
we ask you for your special attention of Allah we ask you for
your blessings of Allah do not make us of the deprived ones of
Allah. This is a month in which so much is given and spent so much
generosity is expressed. Oh Allah your Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam was the most generous during this month of Allah from
this we can understand how generous you are, you've closed
the doors of hellfire, you've opened the doors of paradise,
you've locked up the shayateen of Allah you have descended so much
mercy and so much Rama that you've you've increased the reward of
every form 70 times and for every optional to every optional worship
to that of an obligation of Allah that's why we ask that you give us
a share of this today. Oh Allah during this month Oh Allah make
this Ramadan month better than any Ramadan we spent before it. Our
Allah make us closer to you during this month than we've ever been
before. Oh ALLAH forgive all of our sins, those we remember those
that we have forgotten those that have now become part of our life
and no longer do we consider them sins anymore. Oh Allah grant us
understanding and discernment and beneficial knowledge of Allah
protect us from wasting our time and being distracted. Oh Allah,
remove these pressures, oh Allah allow us to be immune to these
pressures that we've just discussed, especially our young
brother, our young daughters and our young sons, oh Allah allow our
Ummah to thrive, oh Allah removed the oppression and the subjugation
that the OMA is feeding around the world. Oh Allah bring back
humanity to the human being, Oh Allah, make us of those who are
keys to goodness, rather than being keys to any evil of Allah We
ask that you accept our doors that you accept from those who have
established his massage and then monarchies and these
establishments in these organizations and institutes. And
oh Allah that you ask you allow us to be aware of the challenges and
to deal with them. Oh Allah empower us of Allah strengthen our
weaknesses. And finally, Oh Allah, we ask that you send your abundant
blessings on our messenger Muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam and that you grant us his company in the hereafter. So when
our big urbanicity IOC Fonasa when Alamo Solomon