Abu Usamah At-Thahabi – Children, Festivities and Identity

			Now, earlier, you mentioned something about children
		

			during these, quote unquote festive periods, you know, being a living here,
		

			our children, sometimes they feel left out of the celebrations during the festive period, how do we
stop children from from feeling left out during the festive period? Now here is the challenge. I
feel up into this very point, what we're talking about, although it's empirical, through experience,
and through trial and error, we've seen the beauty of Islam in terms of the rulings of what we've
been saying, Why is halau or why is haram this or that. But now when we come to the issue of our
		

			babies, now is the challenge, man, this is the challenge.
		

			So, in this society, our kids have identity crisis as Muslims, they want a way their hair a certain
way. They want to dress a certain way they want to talk a certain way. Look at social media, look at
tick tock. There are Muslim girls who are doing things because this is the culture this is how the
minute the millennials just get down like that. So as parents, now we have to be really on top of
our jlb my little man, my little man, and Allah preserve all my babies, my little man, I put him
		

			inside of the nursery at
		

			three years old, and some change. He's three and some change for
		

			and it's mostly Muslims. It's in our area. It's probably 100% Muslims, but the staff and the people
who are the leaders of the staff are Christians, but not practicing non Muslims.
		

			When we put them in there, and in this country, you take your kid to school half of the day till he
gets used to it at a main system. And they really seem like they like our kids. I really liked being
a part of that process.
		

			But then that was two months ago when he started. Now Christmas rolled around. I'm living in Leeds.
When I came to Birmingham, on my day off, I go to get my little man, I take him to school. I'm
taking my little homie to school and when I get to the door, I notice there's a Christmas tree up in
this joint.
		

			I was shocked. i This is the real life. We never thought about that. When we brought the kid to the
school. All right, let my little man go into school. I started talking to the lady who's in charge
of the school. So listen, I'm not from ISIS. I'm not trying to let her cool down. I'm not like that.
But I am a principal person. I'm a Muslim. And I began to tell her listen, what's going on?
		

			What's the schedule? So she started telling me Nah, we don't
		

			you know, force them to do anything. If they're going to draw. If the kid wants to enjoin, he will
join in if he wants to join me he'll join him. If not, come on, what kid is not going to join in?
Yeah, He's four years old. Do you think he's gonna sit on the side and say that? You know, Allah
said no Quran, like attack. Me No, no caffeine and ODM and Doonan. mumineen my kids gonna say that
my kids gonna get involved. Santa Claus come walking through the door hole hole hole hole hole. My
		

			kid is gonna be like everybody else yo, hold his cat in the red suit right here. And he's gonna want
to be a part of it. I said, Come on, you can't be serious. So we were talking. She a she was very,
very appreciative that we talked about it.
		

			She was very she told me listen to what happened. Once here, mister a very heavy. She said after
911. One year, a father came in with Legos. And the father had built this is what she said, Well
Allah, He by the Lord of the Kaaba. She said that the father built two buildings, and gave his son a
Legos airplane and some airplane, and the kid took the airplane zoo and hid it and not the building
over.
		

			And it was the father's way of giving download. I say listen, I'm appalled at that. I personally if
that happened, I'm against that. That's not knowledge. That's not my religion. And she said, I know
I'm just showing you how some people are. So that's a person who doesn't understand Islam. Whereas
what I'm trying to tell you is I'm a Muslim parent, and I don't want my kid being exposed to that.
And I want to know what we're going to do about it because I'm seeing you guys are bombarding him.
		

			With all of this stuff, you know what the teacher told me, Muhammad?
		

			She said, but the staff members, the staff members were Muslims. They didn't do it. That was her
deal. I said, Look, with all due respect. Those brothers and sisters, those ladies, those staff
members, because they may see me right now doing this, I don't want to be disrespectful to them.
		

			I told the lady those staff members, I don't take my Deen from them. I don't take my religion from
them. I told her look like Christianity, I'm telling you. And I'm saying to you, as a white lady,
don't look at me, as us in them. I'm telling you, you can be a Muslim.
		

			And if you're going to be a Muslim, I would say don't look at them as the blueprint. We have a
source and they don't go by the source all the time. So never say to a Muslim, especially a revert.
Yeah, but these people who are Muslims do that. Don't do don't say that to me. And that's why we
have to have a consistent pattern. So back to the square man as it relates to our kids. I believe as
Muslim dads and Muslim moms, we should spare nothing that we hold valuable in terms of our mind, our
		

			money, our time to make our children's Islamic identity preserved and saved. Make Friday big to
them. We all have to eat together on this Friday. We all have to get up knowing everybody take a
costume everybody dress, even if they're not going to go to Juma and the day of their eat. Make them
kids feel Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar. And don't let it just be about chick patties and curry. And
this and that. Let it be about a this is part of who we are. And this is one of the reasons a
		

			prophet says SallAllahu Sallam and burry oming Cooley Muslim you jam on Mushrikeen I'm free from
every Muslim who lives with the Mushrikeen doesn't mean we can't live in England know the meaning of
that hadith is you choose to live with non Muslims and you refuse to hold on to your Islamic
identity while simultaneously living with them. So the Jewish person, he dresses the way he wants to
dress. He puts that hat on his hair and he doesn't care.
		

			And we say Dino sort often was stuck in Serato levena And I'm telling him rival mug doobie alley him
with a burly he's not scared, she's not afraid. And here we come to people with toe heathen Islam
and we want to apologize. So we have to definitely make an effort concerning those issues.
Definitely. I mean, when it comes to the our festive period and our Aedes we need to go all out all
out with what is halal and that's what I tell my peoples. We're going up potty until the wheels fall
		

			off, but with what is permissible