Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Q&A How to Teach Our Children to Be Happy

What advice would you give our young daughters who really love

the glitz and glamour of the world around them, but also want to be

good Muslims? Is there a balance? Secondary school age? So firstly,

I think I would look at this more holistically is that where is this

coming from? And where do you think it's coming from, it's

probably coming because the people that they're associating with

classmates and so on, I mean, it could only come from two places or

three places, right? One is the either comes from the, the home

environments themselves, maybe the parents are like that. So of

course, we have to try to identify, so it could be from

parents or family members. So you've got cousins who are like

this, or uncles and aunts who are like this, that's very tough,

right? That's a very difficult one, because you can't isolate

yourself from your relatives, right. And there's no doubt about

this human beings, there's no doubt about it. When it comes to

glimpse of the world, we are definitely influenced outside of

ourselves, I'm constantly said, or he said, that whenever it comes to

worldly things, always look at people below you. So you can at

least feel content with what you do have. That's why my doll is to

Allah is Allah, you've given us more than so many others in this

world.

If you start looking at some people have more than you, because

there will always be somebody who has a bit more than you, then

you're going to want that. So that's why you're only supposed to

look at people have more than you in terms of the dean and closest

to Allah, because that's an encouragement. This is how human

psyche psyche works.

So,

for example, I mean, I had no interest in buying a watch, right?

My watch has been going on for 1015 years, and he kind of works

has lost its waterproofing. But then once I was with another

scholar, and he had this really beautiful Rado watch, and that

just created in me a desire, man, I need one of those as well.

Alright, I saw that about over a year ago. So haven't got one so

far. Right? But it does. I mean, it's a natural thing that you see

somebody else with something you feel like you want to know

everything, you know, you have to just so now that's the one place

number two, it could be classmates and other people that interact

with other friends. Because one person gets something, we've had

this with adults. So for example, once in America while I was there,

one husband bought his wife, a Mercedes SUV, right. So all the

other women started wanting that. So their husbands had to buy for

them as well. There's a lot of this that happens in our career,

not just among women, it happens among men as well.

So it's appears number three, maybe it's not none of that. It's

just they've got this thing that they look online, and they want

these things. So I think the way to the way to balance that is that

the few things that you have yet we have to teach piano, which

means contentment and satisfaction with what Allah what Allah has

given us. And then after that, anything that is needed, not

purely for Glitz purposes, we need to try to sift that, distinguished

between that, that whatever we need that's needed. Let's do that,

that's fine, let's do that. Let's not scrimp on that, whatever we

don't need, then we don't do that. So it's about trying to develop

contentment and satisfaction. And there's lots of verses. And lots

of that written in like in the books of Imam Ghazali and other

Maharaja Valley, Tonry, Rama, Mala all of them that talk about how

one can learn about satisfaction in this team. And once you start

looking at it from that perspective, hopefully our

children will pick that up as well. Just showing satisfaction,

showing sugar on what we already have. And hopefully that will

help. Right that hopefully that will help. I really, I think it

needs to be a training from an early age. This needs to be

focused on that our children and not from young age going in a

different direction. So when they do get higher, when they do get

older, it may be too late, because we've taught them to already love

the dunya so much.

And of course at the same time, we try to ask Allah subhanaw taala

for assistance, So minimizing interaction with people who are

too indulgent, like that, number two, to understand the nature of

things, to understand the nature of something that this is good or

bad in itself and what it's doing to you and what our real focus

should be for that they need a good conversation. But we need to

understand what the Prophet sallallahu sallam said about this

and hopefully that should help as well. And of course along with

this, we try to make as much dua to Allah subhanaw taala as

possible and May Allah help us all in that regard.