Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – Toxic Masculinity
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I was very distraught to hear of somebody's experience just some
days ago. This is a teacher who teaches some religious classes to
teenage girls. When I say teenage I mean,
up are teenagers not Not, not young teenagers, but upper
teenagers, and women, girls who can be married very soon within
the next few years they could be married. And what was really
interesting is that they were the majority of the those girls in
that class, were saying that we don't want to get married.
So the teacher asked, Why don't you want to get married? What's
the issue? Why don't you want to get married? Because people, you
know, always historically wanted to be married and settled down.
Why don't you want to be married? So most of these girls, they say,
We don't trust men.
We don't trust men. What's the issue with men? Why can't you
trust men? Are they all liars? They will deceive us. I don't know
how I'm, I mean, I put in front of men. Now, I don't know how you
feel about that. Right? If that's a representation, a correct
representation? Or do you feel a front? fronted by that? Do you
feel bad about that? Or do you think that's a that's a true
reflection? And that is a reality. So they probably did a bit more,
they asked a few more questions. What is the issue? Said they're
all liars. And as this person is telling me, this, they explaining
to me the other few things about this, they said that some of the
girls were saying we're not going to marry anybody who's got who's
online, who's on social media. So then this teacher asked them onto
on social media, yes, I am on social media. But I'm going to get
off, I'm going to, I'm going to delete my profile very soon,
meaning I'm going to delete my profile.
Now, there's a lot of things that are built into this. And I think
what they were talking about is toxic masculinity.
That's what they were complaining about. That men, we can't trust
them. They're liars. There's a lot of cultural baggage that comes
through, they don't know how to treat women. There's a lot of that
discussion that's going on. So when I was being told this, I was
shocked that you've got the majority of a single class, saying
that, that then reminded me that there's somebody who's telling me
that he's got within five or six houses around his house where he
lives. There are three women who are over 40 years old, and they're
not married yet. So this is quite a big idea. This is quite an issue
that people don't want to get married. I asked men, I asked a
class of men just yesterday or the day before, I said, How do you
guys feel they were and they all wanted to get married. So it seems
like men want to get married, but the girls don't want to get
married. And I'm not saying this is across the board everywhere.
But for one whole class to say this and then other people to to
agree with this idea. It is very disconcerting, disconcerting,
very, very worrying. Because what's going to happen, you guys
will not have any women to marry. Right? If the if the if that trend
is carried carries on, but what can we do about it? What is the
real reason? My question to this teacher was? How can these girls
say this? How can they say this? Because I've had many phone calls,
consultations, once an individual called me and he says, I don't
want to get married a man a man said, I don't want to get married.
I said, Why don't you want to get married.
Eventually, I discovered that the reason is I want to get married as
he's seen his parents life, their interaction, their conflicts,
their problems, their animosity,
going at one another's throats, I happened to be with 10 other
people that day. It was a it was an invitation I was at. So I said
to him that look, I'm that you call me at this point in time,
I've taken your call. And I'm just going to mention to you that the
way you're thinking is very wrong, because you're only going by what
you've seen in your immediate family. It doesn't have to be like
that people aren't all like this. And I'll give you an example right
now with the 10 people that I am with that I am around. So I happen
to be with 10 people and I said the 10 people here. I didn't I
didn't design this. I did not arrange this. These are the 10
people, right random 10 people here. I can tell you about all of
them that one of them is not married. He's been through
divorces. He's not married and he's single right now. Another one
of them out of the 10 he was married first then he got
divorced. No children got divorced very soon and then found another
wife and now mashallah, he's got five or six children. So he's
completely happy married and all the other eights. They're
completely Married with Children mashallah, you know, happy
marriages. That's a random collection of 10 people out of
which the majority are happily married. And there's one or two
that have some small problems as that look at that rather than just
look at what you're looking at. So Mike
Question to this teacher who had spoken to these girls is, don't
they have anybody in their family that can
give them a better idea of what it means to be a man. Give them some
assurance, and some trust and some satisfaction about what men are
supposed to be regardless of what they see online on social media.
Social media usually brings out the worst in everybody. Usually,
not always. But usually. So why are they judging men according to
what they see on social media? She said, No, a lot of them were
complaining about their own parents, about their own fathers
about their own brothers. What was the complaint about their fathers
and brothers. So one of them, one of them complained my father just
beat some my mom all the time. She's been he's been beating her
up for the last 20 years.
And she, she hates my father, but they just do these weird things
just to carry on living life, but otherwise just beats her up. And
it's almost like she's used to the beating up. So this should be this
should be
reported to the police. There's no way this is going to end unless
some police come into this unless somebody else interviews.
That is really, really messed up.
That is really, really messed up.
Then I asked a number of other people, I was shocked by this,
like when something needs to happen, because as Muslim leaders
and Imams, we need to worry about the community, that if girls don't
want to get married anymore.
We have to find this because what we're going to have Zina then
we already have Zina, we're going to have Zina. We're gonna have
fornication going on, because humans have needs, you don't want
to do it the proper way, you're going to do the Haram way. So it
doesn't bode well at all for our communities.
So then I said,
What is the reason? So there's multiple reasons, we're not saying
girls are not to blame at all. There is definitely a feminist
agenda out there, which has convinced a lot of women that men
are men are basically expendable, you don't need men. And there is
that that's an extreme, though, that is an extreme. I don't think
the majority, I would, I wouldn't say that the majority of Muslim
women are brought full sail in, you know, into that narrative,
that they just hate men for that reason. But there must be a
contribution of that. No doubt about that. But we have to say
that there are issues so for example, there's a lot of
favoritism. When it comes in our families, the girls are expected
to do lot more at home than boys are expected to. Now look,
traditionally girls didn't used to study they used to do homework
housework. Men used to be forced to go out and work in the fields
and go and bring an income in from you know, when they left school,
if they even went to school, they young boys even you know, I mean,
not talking about chat. I'm not promoting child labor here. But
that's what the way it used to be girls knew what they had to do,
they were going to have children, they were going to bring up
children, they were going to make the food, get together with the,
you know, the local women of the area and seats and make, you know
different things and have a good chat. That was their job. But now
women are in university, many times I go to talk to him in a
university, two thirds, two thirds, like Muslim women and 1/3
of Muslim men.
So now they're going to university, whether that's a good
thing, or a bad thing is a different subject. They're going
there, the parents want them to go there, they want them to get a
good job. But then when it comes to exam times, well, the boys they
get to do no work. I mean, forget about exam times in other times
that girls still have to do a lot of the homework not saying that
they shouldn't do, or nobody should do. When I when I when I
when I discuss and teach.
Regarding the theory of children bringing up children, I speak
about that particular age when they're close to marriage in the
upper teens. My encouragement is that we need to teach our children
especially our, our our boys, as well as our girls. So while girls
need to know how to cook and iron and clean all the rest of it. Boys
should know how to make their bed as well.
Why does a sister need to go on a Why does the mother continue to
have to make the bed of the sun and he's 1617 years old, and he
wants to take over the world. He wants to be a big CEO of a major
company. Now he's got dreams, but he can't make his own bed.
He doesn't know how to welcome a guest at home. If somebody comes
the father's friend does or he doesn't know what to say to them.
He's like, Yeah, I don't know. I'm not sure in my eyes, you know, he
has no idea what to say somebody come How are you, uncle? You know,
really nice of you to hear my father. I'll just call him or I'm
not sure he's not here today. But would you like to come in? You
know, they have no sense of that. They don't know how to tighten a
screw. Something leaking. They have no idea. They don't know how
to pay a bill because the mum and dad pay their bill. The father
pays their bill.
They don't know how to do shopping. You give them a list and
they'll go shopping and pick up the first brand. They see whether
it's the most expensive brand or whichever brand they have no idea
because we don't teach them that people aren't teaching their sons
they think
They just have to make money as long as they doing good at school,
if that's something that people worry about. That's cool. That's
enough.
So this kind of mollycoddling behavior, right? To boys or girls
is that, but then if you're doing it just to just for the boys and
not for the girls,
and that's even worse, because that's seen as discrimination.
Subhan Allah, I mean, what do I tell you? Somebody just yesterday,
while I was mentioning this, he brought up the idea he said, in
the local community in London, I think it was, he said that
somebody was parents brought the daughter to the Imam or the
scholar and said that she wants to change her agenda. A Muslim girl
wants to change her agenda to become a male. So he asked her,
like, what's the reason he got you know, what, what is the reason?
Why do you feel that way? Why do you feel confused about all of
this? And why would you Why are you considering changing your
agenda? Allahu Akbar, you know, what I what she said, completely
ties in with what we're talking about today. She said, because my
brother gets better treatment at home than my than I do.
My brother gets better treatment at home than I do. Allahu
Allah
SubhanAllah.
So because of that, she wants to become a boy so she can get better
treatment.
And a lot of this is cultural, bad culture. I love culture. You can't
nobody, nobody can be without culture. Remember it. Life doesn't
exist without culture. Now, if you're from a Pakistani culture,
Bangladeshi Somali Indian culture, and you don't like that culture,
you're going to have to pick another culture, that's what
you're gonna have to do. But you can't say I don't have a culture.
Because culture is us. All right, you might have a confused culture
have multiple things together. But everybody has a culture. Culture
is whatever you do, the way you do things, what you'd like to dress
as what you'd like to eat us, that's just going to be a new,
unique culture, that's all it's gonna be. But you can't deploy,
you can't divorce culture. But what we must do is get rid of bad
culture, bad aspects of our culture, because of Hamdulillah.
All Muslim cultures from different countries which are varied, have
very good ideas, very good points that come from Islam, but then
they all nearly all of them have some bad elements have some very
bad elements, like treating their sons better than their daughters,
for example, forcing their daughters to get married to their
cousins. And they don't want to do that, or the cousin is not a good
guy, but because you've promised from their birth or, you know, 15
years, 20 years ago, you have to do it, or you're better than he
will, will complain, or you will be you know, have to listen from
people, or this kind of weird culture.
People leave their faith because of this, because they're forced to
marry somebody that has no compatibility. Now, remember one
thing, if you've come into this country, from another culture, as
the majority of us, meaning somewhere, have come from
somewhere, then there's going to be a difference in the culture,
the original culture can just never be maintained 100%. In fact,
the culture of whichever country can't be even maintained even in
those countries anymore. Because of globalization.
We change things happen, things are different now.
Just have to understand what do you want? What do I want? And we
need to Subhanallah I felt so sorry for these girls, that they
had nobody in their families even to reflect on and say, No, at
least my brother's a good guy. My father is a good guy, I don't have
to worry about, you know, I'm going to find somebody like my
brother or father, if you're a guy and your sister can say that, you
know what, I would love to have a husband like you in terms of
behavior and character. And as luck, then you're successful. But
it's our parents responsibility to try to bring up our children that
way.
And again, I'm not saying that there's women are not to blame at
all, or whatever. There's not some misunderstanding that, all of
that, taking all of that into consideration. It is a very
concerning, very concerning, because what we have now is that
girls and boys don't want to get married until they're much older
until they're much older. They just keep putting it off because
they want to do other things. And there's a number of other issues
that we don't want to get into right now. So we pray that
while
we need to consider all of these things and try to make that
change, sought our own personal relationships out with our
spouses, go get some counseling, make some dua think of it in a
different way. 20 years of fighting, doesn't have to continue
to 30 years. It can change. Olson has an edge. They came together
and
Kane brothers, after 70 years of fighting, you don't have to do
that. And if we're just worried about our own businesses and our
own careers and not focusing on our children like that, that's
another issue. are we contributing to this Allah Allah protect us
from that Allah protect us from Allah give us sound, insight,
sound,
understanding sound therapy of our children so that we can have
healthy communities, then we can be more we can be better people,
we can then help other people better as well, otherwise, we
weak. The point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to get
further an inspiration, and encouragement, persuasion. The
next step is to actually start learning seriously, to read books
to take on a subject of Islam and to understand all the subjects of
Islam at least at the basic level, so that we can become more aware
of what our deen wants from us. And that's why we started Rayyan
courses so that you can actually take organize lectures on demand
whenever you have free time, especially for example, the
Islamic essentials course that we have on the Islamic essentials
certificate which you take 20 Short modules, and at the end of
that insha Allah you will have gotten the basics of most of the
most important topics in Islam and you'll feel a lot more confident.
You don't have to leave lectures behind you can continue to be, you
know, to listen to lectures, but you need to have this more
sustained study as well as Aquila here and Salam aleikum wa
rahmatullah wa barakato.