Ahmad Saleem – Seeds of Iman Parenting – Nurturing Faith Growing Strong Believers
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of parenting and building relationships with children in order to build confidence and values. They stress the need for flexibility and the importance of creating rules for risk and surrounding one's environment. The speakers also emphasize the importance of learning and building a strong will in order to achieve Islam, and the challenges of parenting children and creating a positive environment for them. They suggest attending classes the next day to learn more about the process, and invite parents to participate.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem, Bismillah walhamdulillah wa
salatu wa salamu ala rasoolillahi wa ba'd Rabbish
rahli sadri wa isri li amri wa ahlu
lughlatan min lisani yafqahu qawli rabbana azidna a
'ilman ya kareem.
My name is Ahmed Sareem, I'm from Atlanta,
I was here I think in summer, it
was quite hot in summer but still hot.
It's pretty cold in Atlanta right now and
Canada is even colder.
But anyhow, this time around I was asked
to talk about something more broader and then
the discussions went into the direction of parenting
and being able to discuss a little bit
about parenting.
What I'm presenting to you today is a
culmination of multiple research papers slash various books
written on the concept of parenting in Islam,
what it means to be a parent as
a Muslim and also this is a small
sliver of a greater workshop that I usually
do which is called Teenage Matters.
This is just one of the four sections
of that greater workshop that takes around 6
-8 hours, it's called Teenage Matters and it's
specifically targeted towards parents who have teenagers or
soon to be teenagers like 8, 9, 10.
So what we're talking about today is going
to be relevant whether you have teenagers, whether
you're going to have teenagers, whether you don't
have kids and inshallah Allah will bless you
with a kid.
Whichever stage you're in you will benefit from
this, whether you have your siblings, all of
this will help you inshallah.
A lot of the research that is here,
the credit goes to one education institute based
out of Pakistan, it's called ERDC.
Who knows what ERDC is?
Anybody know ERDC?
Good.
So ERDC is Education Research and Development Center
and they primarily focus on doing grassroots psychology
and sociology research on Muslim paradigms and they
bring Muslim paradigms of parenting, of marriage and
stuff that is inspired by a religion and
that brings the best of the western world
but not necessarily copying the western world.
Recreating those models so that they conform to
our values.
And then if we need to add some
meat from the western researchers then we can
do that.
So before we begin, what is the greater
goal of parenting?
And again this is going to be a
very interactive session so the more you participate
the better it is going to be and
then afterwards we can have Q&A.
What's the greater goal of parenting, yes?
Okay, so they are good Muslims.
Somebody else?
What's the greater goal of parenting?
It's going to be a lot better if
we all participate inshaAllah, otherwise I'll start picking.
And when I pick on you I won't
move on to the next.
So what's the greater goal of parenting?
Yeah?
There's no right and wrong, we're trying to
have a discussion.
Okay, so to leave a child behind that
when you have left the world that he
makes du'a for you or she makes
du'a for you.
Somebody else?
Yeah?
Okay, so somebody who is functioning and has
the innate capability to navigate the challenges of
the world and live through.
Excellent.
So the greater goal of parenting, I know
we didn't set these up for this but
maybe what I'll do after the workshop or
actually let me do it now.
Are you guys somehow connected to a WhatsApp
community group or something?
Okay, perfect.
Let me just do this because I wanted
to display this but again, so what I'll
do is I will send, oh what is
this code, I need to add this code,
sorry?
There's something going on so it's okay.
I asked so it's okay, it's okay, no
worries.
I'm gonna send it to you, Ibrahim, I'm
gonna send it to you right now and
if you can please share it in the
WhatsApp group so somebody, you know, this would
just make it a whole lot easier for
all of us.
So, export, PDF, export,
continue, share and Ibrahim.
Okay, I've shared it with brother Ibrahim and
inshallah he will share it with all of
you inshallah, did you get it?
It says sent from my end.
Are you using an iPhone?
Are you on iPhone or Android?
iPhone?
Alhamdulillah, you have the right aqeedah, you shouldn't
have a problem.
Okay, I think I resent it, I should
have gotten it, got it?
Okay, so he's gonna share this with all
of you so if you are on that
community group, you guys can get it, it
will just be a whole lot easier for
you to follow me.
So in the absence of that, just think
with me like this for a second, I'll
just flip this over here for you guys
to see on the screen for now.
So in the bottom, you have something called
confidence, right?
You have the layer of confidence and on
top, you have two elements, you have creativity
and character, okay?
So you have confidence in the bottom and
you have creativity and character and each one
of these boxes are, we have enough evidences
from the seerah of Rasulullah ﷺ as well
as the sahaba ikram that we know that
they were trying to do this.
So give me a story from the seerah
about confidence where Prophet ﷺ was trying to
instill confidence in a child.
All of them?
Oh, I was like, well that's a select
all.
So before the death of Rasulullah ﷺ just
a few weeks before, Abu Bakr is there,
Umar is there, Uthman is there and there
was a conquest that was being sent and
Usama ibn Zaid who happened to be a
16 year old at that time or 17,
he was asked to lead the entire Muslim
army.
Now what happened at the time of Abu
Bakr radiallahu anhu, Umar radiallahu anhu got up
and he said, Ya Ameer ul Mumineen, come
on like we are here, like I am
here, Uthman is here, Ali is here.
Like Usama, let's be realistic, yes Rasulullah made
the decision but he is no longer with
us and circumstances have changed and we have
to re-evaluate this decision and he said,
you want me to change the choice of
Rasulullah ﷺ?
If you read the explanation of this story,
it says that this was a subtle indication
by Prophet ﷺ, one of the last political
assignments, like politically speaking as a general and
as a political leader, he says he is
going to lead this particular department or this
particular conquest.
The last decision that he made was to
ensure that a person in the age of
17, 18 was appointed to lead an entire
army.
Can you imagine the confidence?
I mean there were definitely more skilled people
than him, Khalid ibn Waleed was there, like
there were way more skilled people but building
confidence, time and again you will see from
the stories of Prophet ﷺ that he did
that.
Give me another story, I have some stories
too but I just want to know if
you guys, ya, I heard someone say something
here, no, no, not
this one, somebody else from the sisters.
A story where you see Prophet ﷺ trying
to build confidence in the child, anyone?
What about the story when Prophet ﷺ, he
was in the market and a young boy,
he had started up a small entrepreneur type
of a shop and all he was selling
was marak, he was selling soup and the
story mentions that Rasulullah ﷺ, he enters the
market and then he sees this young boy
trying to set up, he goes up to
him, walks up to him and he says,
Ya Ghulam, atabat marakuk, is your soup ready?
So this young boy, with his confidence that
was instilled but out of all the vendors
Rasulullah ﷺ comes to me, he says, Naam
ya Rasulullah laqad tabat marak, my soup is
definitely ready.
So then Rasulullah ﷺ lifts the lid, grabs
a piece of bone and suckles on it
and says Naam, laqad tabat marakuk, your soup
is ready.
If it was any one of us that
was more experienced in cooking, we would be
like, listen, there's a salt a little bit
less here and maybe a little bit saffron,
we would just get that.
Think about it, it's his first time he's
setting up something and cooking a soup.
You really think Rasulullah ﷺ has had better
soups, definitely.
We would take the courtesy, no, no, we're
doing khair for you, inshaAllah, we'll tell you
how to make a better soup inshaAllah, better
nihari.
All of you that knows, right?
If you've made nihari or if you've made
any biryani or maqlooba, first time, you're so
excited about it, what do we say?
It's okay, but the rice, arroz mu mustawi,
alhamdulillah, ala kulli hal mutaz, but we give
on one hand and on the other hand
we take away all the confidence.
So, one of the essential elements, building blocks,
without which the parenting or the tarbiyah or
the development of child cannot take place.
The building block, the foundation is confidence.
You want to know how much confidence Rasulullah
ﷺ had instilled in the children?
Obviously, with character along, just confidence without character
is battameezi, right?
It's just like a misbehaved child, right?
You also want to develop character.
Imagine this, Ibn Abbas is sitting on the
right hand of Rasulullah ﷺ and Abu Bakr
on their left hand and then a bowl
of milk comes.
We all know the story, but look at
it from the lens of confidence.
So he ﷺ turns completely to Ibn Abbas.
The narrator says he physically pivots and then
he says, would you give me permission that
I give this bowl of milk to Abu
Bakr who's on the left?
What does Ibn Abbas say?
La ya Rasulullah, there's no way.
Then he looks at Abu Bakr and he's
like, well, it's his right, he's on the
right.
He said, if it was a bowl of
milk from the hands of anyone else, I
would have.
But how can I say no to the
milk that was given to me by your
hands, O Prophet of Allah?
And you'll see time and again during extreme
winter cold nights, those of you that have
been to Medina in the winter, you know
how cold it can get at night.
You need sometimes a jacket and they call
it the Sahrawi cold, right?
In Medina, there's a specific type of cold,
like it goes into our bones, right?
There's something about the cold there.
In that cold, people in the morning would
bring their bowls, as it is mentioned in
Sirah, water bowls, and what would Rasulullah ﷺ
do?
What was the purpose of bringing these bowls?
And all these kids would line up after
Fajr.
What was the purpose?
All Prophet ﷺ would do, is he would
take his mubarak hands, and it is in
so many authentic narrations that he would dip
his hands in there, and they would take
that water as a source of barakah, and
they would walk away.
But imagine the pain of Rasulullah ﷺ, that
in that cold night, you don't know when
the sun is coming out, you don't have
a watch, it's like 54 minutes before sunrise,
and he is dipping his cold, how many
times is he dipping his hands?
But imagine, sometimes we think it was a
mechanical process, where Rasulullah ﷺ was sitting like,
right?
Even the kid finds it funny, right?
We sometimes think it was, no, do you
really think Rasulullah ﷺ did not have a
conversation, he didn't tap on the cheek, right?
He didn't caress the child, and imagine that
child's feeling when he goes back, and tells
his mom, tells his dad, oh today Rasulullah,
he, you know, stroked my hair.
All of those memories, they were so etched
in the psyche of these children, that many
of the narrations it says, all of the
people who have described the softness of the
hands of Rasulullah ﷺ, are all children who
are under the age of 10.
They would say, I have never touched something
softer than silk than the hands of Rasulullah
ﷺ.
Another narrator says, that the day Rasulullah ﷺ
shook hands with me, right?
He says, I could smell the scent of
Rasulullah ﷺ until the next Jum'ah, I
could smell the scent.
Another narrator says, these are all young narrators,
Ali and they were all under 15 age,
but Rasulullah ﷺ built so much confidence in
them, right?
So, when we say the greater goals of
parenting, I'm not specifically attributing it to the
nucleus families, but even masajids.
Even masajids, when you see a child who's
not happy, they're not smiling, the onus is
on the elders to go and check on
him, to see what happened.
I remember once I was praying in the
masjid and I saw, I think he was
13-14 year old, and you could tell,
you could tell that this child is having
a horrible day, just by looking at him.
So, I went up to him and I
said, what's going on?
It seems like you're having a very rough
day.
And he told me, my grandfather died 10
minutes ago, right?
We see those things around, but then that
child would remember and he will attach a
sense of confidence to the center, to the
people, to the affinity, to the masjid, and
to the people that he interacts with.
So, confidence is the foundational layer.
Now above confidence is character and creativity.
Now when the child is born, the child
is born with almost perfect operating system.
One of the most difficult things to do
in a human being's life is to master
a new language.
And the child did that without the intervention
of a parent.
He didn't need your help or my help
to learn the language.
Allah has built, sent a beautiful operating system
of that child.
If that child is given the right opportunities
to display creativity and to display good character
naturally, they are born with that.
What is the saddest thing that you see,
right, is somebody who is less pure trying
to fix somebody who is pure.
What do I mean by that?
If a child today at age 7, 8,
9, 10, before the age of puberty dies,
where does he go?
Where does he go?
Jannah.
If you and I die, where do we
go?
Nobody is saying Jannah right now.
People are like, I don't know, Junaina, maybe,
small Jannah, right?
We don't have that confidence.
Because until the child is baligh, he is,
you know, his counter is zero.
He's pure.
And he requires environments where they can build
creativity, where they can build their character.
Now, character, numerous examples of Rasulullah ﷺ teaching
children of adab.
Teaching children adab.
Give me an example of that.
Where did Rasulullah ﷺ teach adab to a
child?
Character, who knows?
One story.
Yes, beautiful.
So when younger children wanted to join the
army or the warfare, Prophet ﷺ would teach
them the adab of seeking permission of the
parents.
When they were eating food with Rasulullah ﷺ,
he would say, say Bismillah, eat from that
which is in front of you.
Today we have the biggest issue that we
face as an ummah, is we have an
entire generation that does not know basic adab,
basic characters.
When an elder walks in, I still remember
my grandfather, rahimahullah, when he walked in the
house, again I was a teenage, Canadian teenager,
right?
But I remember my dad is like, boom,
get up.
You can't be sitting on the sofa, your
grandfather just walked in.
Go grab the bags from him, right?
And you were taught those.
Today like, doesn't matter if it's elder, doesn't
matter if it's a guest, how many times
do our children have that character, that discipline
to display the etiquettes of how to behave
in a majlis.
Now if you look at the schools through
which most, except one, most of the presidents
of America have graduated from, right?
You will find that one of the heavy
emphasis in those private schools is etiquettes.
They actually have classes, like they have one
hour and thirty minute class a day on
etiquettes.
How to walk, how to put your shoes
on the shelf, how to put your shoes
on the shelf.
You go there at the Jummah time, alhamdulillah,
right?
Like Shaykh Yasir Burjess, you know, Hafizullah, he
used to say, a masjid's culture is known
by the shoe racks they keep.
You want to know what type of a
masjid they have?
Walk on Jummah and see how the shoe
places, right?
You know what Shaykh Yasir Burjess does?
If he is not giving the Jummah and
he's in the majlis, if any shoes are
there, he grabs them and throws them in
the garbage.
He did that for three weeks, nobody puts
their shoes on the ground anymore, at all.
When expensive Jordans go missing, it hurts, okay?
It hurts.
So, character without adab, we cannot teach anything
to a child.
And when they are pure, they are literally
like a sponge, they will absorb every adab
you teach them.
And then the other part is creativity.
The child is naturally inquisitive about things.
How many of you have given your children,
if they grew up or before, give them
a car that was in a remote control
car, RC car.
None of you had those cars, masjid, deprived
community.
None of you had RC cars?
Alhamdulillah, one person, I feel good.
I had a Batmobile when I was a
kid.
When I was 16 or 14, I had
a Batmobile, right?
Batman forever or whatever, that Batmobile.
Now, if the child is inquisitive, what do
they do with that car?
After they are done playing with it, now
it's no longer fascinating for them.
What's the next thing they do?
Take it apart.
They take it apart, they are like, what
is moving this thing?
Why is this thing moving?
And what's the general response of a parent?
Haram, what are you doing?
A'udhu Billah, I paid $50 for that.
You're going to open this thing?
The very thing that the child was born
to do, to ask questions, we stifle questions.
Don't ask me too many questions.
Ek toh tumhare sawali nahi band hota hai.
Your questions, la hawla wala khutaa, maani faadi,
I don't have time for you.
See, if your child is not coming to
you and asking you new questions within a
week, you do not have a relationship with
your child.
If they're not coming to you and asking
you new questions, Baba, what is this?
Mama, what is this?
Then know that you have been disqualified in
the eyes of that child as a parent.
They don't see you as a role model.
And the same goes for teachers and the
same goes for mentors in the masajid.
Now, this Islam being parenting model, we spend
around two hours explaining this, right?
I'm just trying to do it in 15
minutes so we can actually move on to
the next part, right?
So we spend around two hours going into
details of character.
There's like five different paradigms and the character.
There are three different paradigms and the creativity
and then confidence and all of that.
So you understand the paradigm completely.
Now, what is the foundation?
If I was to say, for a mother
or a father, they must look dash.
And if you were to fill in this
word dash, a mother or a father in
the house must look dash.
What is that word dash?
That is the prerequisite for you to have
a relationship with your child.
What's that word?
Fill in the blanks.
What is that dash?
A father must look dash.
A mother must look dash in the house.
You can switch.
Sorry.
Approachable.
Anyone?
Come on, I'm not going to tell you
guys.
Somebody said it.
Respectful.
Neutral.
I didn't understand what he said.
Parental?
Absolutely not.
Like that's going to make sure that the
child doesn't even come to you.
Patient?
No.
Huh?
Happy.
The number one prerequisite through research that determines
your child's mental health is the happiness of
the father and the happiness of the mother
in the house.
Nothing, no therapy, no mental health classes, no
drugs have a greater impact on the child's
mental health and the child's ability to develop
confidence than having happy parents in the house.
Because they feel a sense of security.
They feel that when they come home, they
can be happy.
Now that doesn't mean as a mother or
father, you're not going through things, but not
in front of your child.
Not in front of your teenager.
You cannot.
You don't.
Look at every example of Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam, of Umar Radiallahu Anhu, Abu Bakr.
In the house, always happy.
Without happiness, staying happy, you cannot build confidence
in your child.
Now, staying happy.
What is happiness?
Let's first define that.
How does happiness look like?
First thing that you have to be doing
is what?
Smile!
And smiling is what?
Sadaqah.
I mean, these are basics.
I'm not teaching anything new.
I'm just putting it in a new format
for you.
Right?
Tabassumu fee wajhi aqeeqah.
Sadaqah.
Okay?
A sister came to me.
She said, you know, I read this hadith
and I was walking on the street and
every time I saw a brother, I smiled
at their faces.
I said, sister, no, no.
This was aqeeqah, generality, which means you don't,
you know.
No, it says aqeeqah.
It says, so every time I see a
brother, I smile at him because it's sadaqah.
I said, no, that's not what the hadith
is referring to.
But sometimes people are so naive.
They read the hadith and they really want
to practice it and they don't read the
explanation of it.
Right?
SubhanAllah, they'll get rewarded for that.
But smiling is the first.
When you walk home, when you enter your
house, when I enter my house, how is
my wife?
How are you as a father?
When you walk as a father, if you're
coming back from work, as a mother, if
you're coming back from work, take a pause.
Take a pause.
Don't get in the house immediately.
Reset yourself.
Allow yourself to reset saying, I am going
to walk in with, yes, all my problems
at work, all my problems, whatever happened at
the door, in the car, no more.
And you walk in, at that moment, you
turn off your phone and you be as
happy as possible.
All of you who have had children and
now they are a teenager and they're not
with you, every single one of you that
is in this room can tell me, you
will remember the moment when you used to
come back from work or come back from
outside and your children would come running after
you.
But then eventually they stopped.
Because they did not find the happiness they
were looking for in their father, in their
mother.
I was talking to one teenage girl and
she was having some sessions with me.
And so we were on, obviously we were
on the phone call and my rule is
like if they're teenagers, one of the parents
have to be there, even on a virtual
call.
So we're on the virtual call and the
father is there.
So I say to the girl, so when
have you, when was the last time you
saw your mother happy?
And the girl says, you know, my mother,
she is always happy when she sees other
kids.
But just not us.
So the father, he says, that's the same
with me too, by the way.
She never smiles at me too, she's always
smiling at the other, when other people are
home, she's always smiling but just with me.
So there must be a problem with my
wife then.
And I said, brother, this is not your
session, you can have your therapy later.
This is for the teenager, we're trying to
solve her problem here.
But the reality is that the child recognizes
this, that my mom is only happy when
she is…
And we all know, if you are from
a desi household, you know exactly what happens
in a desi household right before a guest
arrives.
Do you see those spider webs in the
corner of the house on the top?
That has to be cleaned.
Mom, like the guest does not get…
Nope, it has to be cleaned.
Everything has to, we have to present our
house like nobody lives here.
It should be so clean.
You know what I'm talking about?
Right?
And who is the, who gets the harsh
end of this?
Usually our sisters.
Right?
Right?
The mother is not going to push the
brothers to clean.
It's the poor sisters who end up doing
all the house cleaning, all the cooking, all
everything.
And then the brothers are just like sitting
and eating food.
Which is not actually the way of the
sunnah of Rasulullah ﷺ.
I'm not saying the sister should not be
in the kitchen.
But like when it is a major gathering,
the husband should be part and parcel of
that.
And when the son or the daughter, they
don't see that.
They walk away with feelings.
They walk away with feelings.
Number two.
The second thing that causes you to be
happy and for your child to feel that
you are happy in the house is less
talking and more ears.
Speak less as a parent and listen more.
And often times parents are like, if I
stop talking, my child doesn't talk.
Yeah, because he's just, you know, he has
complete, he wanted to talk, she wanted to
talk.
But they have completely shut down because they
know that they're not, they don't have, my
parent is not going to listen to me.
They're not interested in my story.
They're not interested in my story.
One of the interesting exercises that I did.
I had a very rough year in my
life and it impacted my mental health really,
really bad.
And I'm saying this not to brag, but
I want people to know that even imams,
it doesn't matter.
We all are human beings.
It was so bad that I couldn't sleep.
I would wake up in the middle of
the night at three o'clock in the
morning and I did not know that it
was.
And here I was helping everyone, but my
own life was going through.
And whatever I was going through was really
tough.
But here's the interesting thing that happened.
Less talk, more ears.
I wanted to build a relationship with my
children because I realized that in that eight,
nine months, they went really far for me.
Like I needed to reconnect.
So do you know anybody knows anybody here
from India or Pakistan and you know, they're
in their 50s or 60s.
They would probably remember this concept.
This concept is called the concept of Bayad.
Anybody knows that?
No.
So Bayad is a concept which is blank
white journals.
And back in the day, parents would keep
blank white journals and for every child that
they would have, they would have a shelf
and a blank white journal in there.
And that was your child's way of discreetly
communicating with you without getting into trouble.
So what I did is I got six
journals and I gave to all of my
children and I said, write whatever you want
to write in it.
And the only promise I will tell you
is whatever you write, be honest and open
your heart and I will not get upset.
And SubhanAllah, what I used to think was
my daughter's problem was actually not the problem
at all.
And when she shared things, I was like,
oh, my God, really?
That's the problem?
And as a father, it was an eye
opening for me.
I was like, Ajeeb, that was in my
wildest dream.
That should not be the problem.
I thought I have taught her better.
She should not have this problem.
But she did.
Right.
So that's a great concept of if you
if it's hard for the child to talk
initially, to use some form of journals and
put like names on them.
And one page they write, one page.
And then this is great if you have
older kids.
And if they have walked away and they
come over the weekend, if they're going to
university, they come back on the week.
It's a great opportunity for a parent to
connect with them.
And number three, happiness is to stay calm
and relax no matter what.
So stay calm and relax.
My mentor, he used to say that a
messy house, a messy house is a prerequisite.
It's a prerequisite for Tarbiyah.
I'm not saying a filthy house.
There's a difference between a filthy house and
a messy house.
Messy that things are disorderly.
It's a prerequisite.
Right.
He used to say that when we get
a sofa and when you give any of
these children the liberty and and free them
like this little girl.
If she's freed from all the rules.
Look, she just walked away with the bottle.
She doesn't care.
She doesn't care.
Confidence.
She's like, I don't care.
There are no rules.
Then what do we do?
Every time they want to explore, we put
rules.
Oh, we can't go here.
No, we can't sit there.
No, we can't do this.
I'm not saying don't develop adab, but constantly
saying no to the child completely removes them
from the ability of taking risks.
They won't take risks anymore.
Right.
They're going to become risk averse and they
will completely not be confident at all.
Now, in order for us to be able
to build a relationship with our children, we
have to work on our inner condition.
OK, so there's an entire section that we
do on our inner condition.
Right.
What how are you from inside?
Now, we're going to do an exercise together.
I want you all to identify this is
a you don't need to say it to
me.
Identify something that in the last 30 days,
something that happened to you.
And if you forget that particular event, you
try and you say, I don't want to
think about it.
I'm going to completely try to learn whatever
I need to learn from that event.
And I'm going to delete it from my
conscious memory.
If you forgot that, you will become happier.
So think of an event or an incident
that happened to you in the last 30
days that is that you're holding on to
and it's not making you very happy.
And if you forgot that event, it will
allow you to become happier.
OK, take 30 seconds to a minute.
Close your eyes and think about that event.
Could be personal, private, it could be an
email, could be a text message, could be
a WhatsApp, whatever it is.
OK.
All right.
So what happens as a consequence of your
inner self inside of you being happy?
What happens?
What's the consequence of you being happy as
a parent?
What do you think is the consequence?
Between your child, if you as a mother
now for the next 30 days present yourself
as being extremely happy or as a father,
super happy in the house, between the husband
and wife, whatever issues they may arise, you
settle them in the bedroom.
Right.
You discuss it not in front of your
kids.
But if you present yourself as a happy
couple in front of the child, in front
of your children, what do you think is
the consequence?
What will happen?
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Reciprocate.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
So this, mama, I'm sorry I did that.
What is that called?
Relationship.
You become eligible as a mother, as a
father, you become eligible in your child's eye.
And now they want to have a relationship
with you.
And that applies for an older child.
It doesn't matter, I know somebody who has
a son who is 31 years old, he
doesn't want to even talk to his father.
It's difficult.
It's extremely difficult because the ears that you
were supposed to build that relationship.
I'm just going to go back to that
parenting model for one second.
So confidence, character, creativity.
Any form of education.
Any form of immersion.
Any form of Sunday school.
Any form of Islamic school.
Any form of anything that impacts these three
fundamentals.
It will destroy your child from inside.
How many of us, is it possible for
you to have a person who is a
Hafiz of Quran and have bad adab?
Yes.
Is it possible for somebody to be super
successful in their university but then have a
horrible relationship with their wife?
Yes.
Yes.
Today the problems that we see that permeate
its heads in various different places in our
lives, all are because that child, one of
these three things were impacted.
One of these three, and these are non
-negotiable.
Once my shaykh was teaching a class and
children were running around like that.
And so one of the brothers, he grabbed
one, two, three and took all the kids.
And the shaykh said that if you don't
hear the laughing and the crying of the
children in your masjid, then cry for your
next generation because there will be nobody in
the masjid.
So them running around and stuff like that
is one of the most beautiful signs that
we can have.
You should come and see in our masjid
when we do our Friday nights.
It's like hundred kids that are sitting in
front of me.
So the mothers are there, the fathers are
there and all the kids are like it.
And then it is so, like 35 minute
lecture for me is more draining with those
kids because they demand, they're like buzzing bees,
they demand energy.
And I have to operate, like I have
35 minutes, I'm done.
I'm like, I cannot do the lecture anymore.
But they love it.
They're desperately looking for somebody that can capture
their attention.
So relationships is the consequence.
Now, outcome of relationships.
If you have a relationship with your child,
there are three main outcomes that are going
to happen.
Number one, your child is going to have
emotional maturity.
If your child has a relationship with you
as a mother or a father, and if
you happen to be a single mother or
a single father, studies have shown that basically
they will latch on, like if it's a
single father, they will latch on the motherhood
element to the father.
As long as the father gives care.
Similar thing goes for the mother.
They will seek, they would seek to have
the element that they miss from their father
in the mother.
Now, is that optimal?
No, it's not.
Right?
We have to be able to provide mentorship
opportunities for these children.
But emotional maturity is number one.
That's the first thing that's going to happen.
Today, you have so many of our children
today that are hungry for love.
From their parents, from their uncles, from their
aunts.
They're just desperately hungry for love.
Have you ever seen that land, like for
example in Arizona, the cracked land which is
so dry, so parched dry, that if you
can just keep on pouring water and water
and water and water, and it just keeps
soaking its water, and nothing happens to the
land.
Because it's so dry that it will suck
up all the water.
That is how many of our children are
today.
They're completely thirsty for love.
And what is the biggest blocker that is
preventing a mother or a father to be
able to love their child completely?
This.
Okay?
I want you guys to do this activity
right now.
Open your phones and go to screen time.
Open your phones.
Come on guys, let's go.
It's an activity.
Some guys are like, I don't want to
open this.
I know it's not going to be good.
But it's a reality check.
Look at the screen time.
What is your screen time?
Tell me.
It's okay, you can share.
Four hours.
What was his?
Did you want to share?
Twelve hours.
Twelve hours of screen time.
That's all the time that is away from
dhikr.
All the time that is away from...
Okay?
And I hope that the brother is watching
positive YouTube videos and stuff.
InshaAllah.
Okay?
Anybody else that has the courage to share
their screen time?
Yeah?
Two hours is great.
Two hours, 18 minutes.
Excellent.
So, hunger of love.
The second thing is something called hunger...
The second thing is called hunger of hugs.
When was the last time you...
When was the last time you hugged your
teenager, you hugged your child?
And if you are a child, when was
the last time you hugged your parent?
Right?
And if they are alive today, it's an
opportunity for you to fulfill that.
Because either one of them will soon not
be alive.
We all have an expiration date.
Number two is you become eligible for their
tarbiyah.
So, the outcome of relationship is now they
will allow you to be their mentor.
The closest word in the translation of tarbiyah,
the closest concept in English language that you
can translate the word tarbiyah is mentorship.
Tarbiyah is not that your child does what
you want.
Tarbiyah is that the child knows what is
the right thing to do and you support
him in doing that right thing.
Not force him.
Okay?
For example, I was in home depot and
one of the girls that attend, young girl,
one of the girls that attend one of
the classes with me, seerah classes.
She saw me in the home depot so
she quickly put her hand in the bag
and she put on the scarf.
And I told her, I said, so and
so, you don't wear the scarf for me.
Don't ever wear the scarf for a human
being.
You either wear it or you don't.
But don't be a hypocrite.
Because hypocrisy is a greater sin.
So, be happy and ask Allah to give
you the strength to wear it properly.
But don't ever wear it for and then
most of the time we face this issue
when we have, again, you become eligible for
tarbiyah but our version of tarbiyah is I
will tell you what you're going to do
and you're going to do it.
Bas.
Khalas.
Right?
What do we say?
Khalas.
I'm not listening.
Right?
Bas.
Right?
What happens?
Complete.
No, that's not tarbiyah.
That's dictatorship.
Right?
Tarbiyah is where you support your child so
they have the autonomous ability to make the
right decisions.
And if they make the wrong decisions, what
do we say?
I know you did not do wudu.
Right?
And sometimes the parents, some parents are so
paranoid.
May Allah help us all.
A mother came to me and she said,
I know my daughter does not make wudu.
I said, how do you know that?
She was in the bathroom when she comes
out.
I go and check the sink.
The sink is dry.
I know that she did not do wudu.
I said, only if you put in that
much effort on the sajjada in front of
Allah, that Allah guides her heart to make
proper wudu.
Because today you're there.
Tomorrow you're not going to be.
So tarbiyah is you become eligible.
When you have a relationship with your child,
when you're happy, the relationship is the outcome
and you become eligible in the eyes of
the child that they're willing to listen, to
advise from you.
And sometimes because the relationship, this, this, this,
just going from being happy and developing a
relationship and becoming eligible.
If you have not done that, sometimes it
may take four or five years of work
on the part of the parent before they
can see you as a mentor.
May Allah give us tawfiq.
And the last part is that child will
have inner satisfaction.
The child will have inner satisfaction.
They will be satisfied from inside, from whatever,
doesn't matter if, even if they are doing
something that is not seemingly prestigious in our
eyes, they will be satisfied from inside.
Because they know that my father is happy.
My mother is happy.
I remember having food once at a dinner
table and, you know, one of that, one
of the brothers that were there, he was
17, 18.
And obviously he came from a family of,
all of them were either nephrologist or neurologist
and all gists.
So the expectation was you are going to
become some professional.
Not just, doctor is too low, you're going
to become a specialist.
That's just like entry level doctor, like ajeeb
miskeen.
Right, so that's the type of family.
And this child, he says, this teenager, he
took the courage on the dinner table and
he said, I'm going to go into liberal
arts and I'm not going to do any
of that.
And on that dinner table the father said,
leave my house now.
You can only be part of this house
if you agree to become a doctor, otherwise
I don't owe you anything, you're no longer
my son.
I was witness to that.
Right, what happened to the confidence, what happened
to character, what happened to creativity.
So that child, if a child grows up
and becomes an adult and they never had
a relationship with their parent, the biggest indicator
of that, that I see, that they may
achieve great things in career, they may achieve
great things, like they will succeed in university,
they will succeed, they will get a job,
all of that.
But they will not be able to build
and keep relationships.
At all.
They will not be able to keep relationships.
And one of the biggest reasons why, this
is my humble own understanding of why this
is happening, is the immigrant generation when they
came, my parents for example, they came, their
predominant language was what?
Urdu.
Right, the vocabulary that my dad has at
his disposal in Urdu is close to 400
-500,000 words, but the vocabulary that my
dad has at his disposal in English is
probably 350-400 words.
Right, and no matter what happens, as a
child, your mother tongue is the operating system
in which you will understand the world.
No matter how many languages you speak.
I speak fluently 5 languages.
Right, but it's the language of your dreams.
When you dream, your base, what do they
call it?
You have the operating system and you have
something below the operating system.
There's a word for it.
The kernel.
The kernel?
The kernel, right?
Like the core operating system on which everything
is built is your language.
And today the issue that we're having with
so many divorces, and as an imam we
see this all the time, the fact that
we're seeing that one in every, Pew Research
just came out in 2023, one in every
four Muslims born in America are leaving Islam.
All of that, if you want me to
summarize it, it is because the operating system
in which my generation was raised, my operating
system is Urdu.
Because for the first 7 years of my
life I heard Urdu.
Right?
And I can fluently speak Urdu and I
made sure that my children, all of them,
they are fluent in Urdu.
Although they're born in Canada, I made sure
they're fluent in Urdu.
Because that is the operating system in which
you will be able to explain to that
child.
Now, every American born Desi, Confused Desi, ABCDs,
or Canadian born Confused Desis, or even American
born Arabs, you know the challenge you have
to be able to articulate, because your operating
system as a child was Arabic, but when
you went to public school it became English.
Now you are not able to convey the
pain that you have to your parents.
They're not able to understand because they can't
even respond back to you because they don't
have the vocabulary.
And we've also lost the touch with our
elders, whose vocabulary and operating system was either
Arabic, Urdu, Senegalese, whatever language you came from.
And when we lose that, we lose inner
satisfaction and we lose the ability to operate
in the society and maintain relationships.
And that is what's happening today.
The consequences of poor parenting choices.
Again, I can carry on.
The slides are pretty big.
But we'll stop over here.
What time is it?
We'll stop over here.
If anybody has any pertinent questions, please keep
it to the parenting topic.
If it is going to be mortgage related,
I will leave the masjid.
Somebody said to me, Oh Shaykh, I have
a question.
Which direction should I pray if I am
on the Starlink ship of Elon Musk and
I land on the moon or the Mars?
So, yes.
So, I said to the person, I'm going
to respond to you with what I saw
my Shaykh respond to back in 1999.
Rahimahullah, Shaykh Yusuf Islahi.
Shaykh Maulana Yusuf Islahi came to our masjid
and there was a person and he said,
Shaykh, which direction am I going to pray
if I am on the moon?
The Shaykh said, Do you have a pen
and paper?
He said, Yes.
Open.
Back in the day, people had pens and
papers.
Nobody does that anymore.
He took out a pen and paper.
Write down.
678-404-5059 When you get to the
moon, call me.
Right?
So, any questions pertaining to parenting, there is
a mic or you can just speak up.
InshaAllah.
If anybody has a question, we can pass
on the mic.
There is this mic.
We can give that to the sisters and
we can give that to the brothers.
It's set up for the sisters?
Okay.
It's better if you just give it to
the sisters rather than them coming up.
Yeah, just give it to one of the
sisters and she can pass around.
If they don't want to come up and
talk.
MashaAllah, you understood everything now.
Love it.
It's the easiest audience.
Oh, she has a question.
Okay.
Mic at the back.
Let's go.
Peace be upon you.
Okay.
Got it.
So, if it's going to harm them physically,
you have to stop that.
But if it is like, if they want
to do something, and again, it depends on
the threshold of haram.
Right?
Like if it's like kabair, you have to
stop it.
Right?
You have to have a conversation with them.
I wouldn't force the child.
But question for everyone.
If you do force the child and stop
him, do you think that's going to stop
the child?
It won't.
I don't want you to meet Farhan.
This friend of yours, Farhan.
I don't want you to meet.
Now, hear what the child's brain is saying.
I will now make sure that I meet
Farhan.
That's the child of the teenager.
Okay?
Actually, one of the things that we do
in the activity in the teenage workshop is
we have a list of questions.
And we go through like list of prompts.
You said this.
And what we do is we make parents
respond to how does the teenager hear this?
So, it's like you said it, but the
teenager heard it completely different.
So, the answer to that is conversation.
If you're already at that point where they
have made the decision to do something haram,
it's too late already for conversations.
Now, you have to make a decision how
much influence you have on that child.
If you think that you have lost that
battle right now, don't pick that fight at
that moment.
Don't pick that fight at that moment.
Build a relationship.
Build a relationship.
The reason is because if you pick that
fight, the system around us is not there
to support us.
As a matter of fact, this is something
for anybody to think about.
Do you know that if a Jewish child
has behavioral issues and they call the family
services, they don't go to regular family, they
call it FACTS.
What do you call it here?
Family Protective Services, whatever.
What do they call it?
Anybody knows the name?
Whatever.
So, whatever name, for the Jewish people, they
have their own.
When the police come and they see it's
a Jewish child, it doesn't go to the
regular services.
They have set up their own system and
they've got it regulated by the government that
it follows their doctrinal methods of whatever the
rabbi and all of that are going to
teach that child to conform to the teachings
of the parent.
And they have the same thing in Canada.
Any Jewish child that comes, police comes to
the door, Jewish child, alright, we're going to
call the family services, we're not authorized or
trained, we respect your religion so much, we're
going to refer you to this Jewish services
of yours.
But we as Muslims, we are 12 times
the population of the Jewish population in America
and also in Canada we're even greater, but
we're not focused on these systems, we're just
focused on making sure that my child becomes
a doctor or engineer or worst case scenario,
a lawyer.
Right?
And then if nowadays, if you can't become
anything, at least make sure you go work
for the FANG.
You know what that FANG is?
Right?
People who know what FANG is, they know
what FANG is, right?
What's FANG?
Facebook, Apple, Alphabet, okay, Apple, it's debatable.
Netflix, Netflix and Google.
Facebook, Apple, Netflix and Google, FANG.
Okay?
But anyhow, good question.
Barakallah fiqh.
Next person.
We wanted to do anonymous.
Yes, yes.
Barakallah fiqh.
Sure.
Yeah, I can definitely elaborate on that.
Everybody's got, who has a calculator on their
hand?
Anybody's got a calculator?
All right, great.
What time are you supposed, what age are
you supposed to command the child?
At what age for salah?
Seven.
What age did Prophet shallallahu alaihi wasallam say
that you can hit the child?
Ten.
From the time he's seven until he becomes
ten, how many salahs would he have to
pray?
Who can do the math for that?
365 times 5,000, what?
5,475.
Prophet shallallahu alaihi wasallam gave us the permission
to, to hit your child if they don't
pray after you as a father or mother
have told your child 5,475 times to
pray.
Now I had a neighbor, she was a
dog trainer.
She's going to laugh at this, but it's
amazing.
And I saw her training these puppies.
She would have these puppies and she would
like, she would do all of these weird
moves and it's like, come, and then she
was training them for service dogs.
So one day she was walking up and
down and she would like, you know, walk,
loop, and she would do all these weird
things that the dog would submit and all
of that.
So I asked her, I said, how many
times do you have to tell a dog
a particular command before they actually, because they
can't understand, but they can understand the reward
mechanism, but how many times do you have
to repeat it so that it becomes part
of the dog's psyche?
What do you think is the number?
Seven?
No.
That was, 700 times.
Our children are smarter than dogs.
Even if we had told a child 700
times to pray, you wouldn't have to hit
the child.
Right?
And if you read the sharh of this
hadith, it says the hitting part, right, some
of the people they say it's actually to
emphasize how important it is the 5,545
times.
To emphasize that, you know, don't miss out
on these 5,500.
And what do we say?
Bacha hai.
He's small.
Allah sagheer.
Salatul Fajr.
Ya, miskeen.
Right?
I was out, we went camping and mashallah
we had all like Arab families and Somali
families, all of them.
Fajr time comes, there's only two kids.
8, 9, 10, 11, some are like 12.
They're like miskeen, wallahi.
Last night sheikh he was very late, it
became too late, I don't want to disturb.
He needs to get his nine hours.
We screw our own children for our belief
systems.
Not them.
If you wake up the child and say
pray, wallahi the child will pray and go
back to sleep faster than you.
But he will know that this is something
important to do.
I have a rule right now with my
older children.
I'm trying to train them, they're 17 and
15.
I don't want to be a parent who
wakes them up.
So I want to build autonomy in them.
Alhamdulillah my older daughter is fine but now
the other ones, so all I do is
I wake up, salamu alaikum, it's time for
Fajr, Alexa, hang up.
And he's like no no we gotta go
and wake them.
I'm like listen, it's not your responsibility, they're
baligh.
We have taught them the deen, we've taught
them aqeedah, we've taught them fiqh, we've taught
them these are the fara'id.
They have to own up to their responsibility.
The reason why it's so important to raise
specially men like this, specially men, and I'll
emphasize this, is because many many many sisters,
they end up becoming victims of our over
protectiveness of the men, children, young men when
they're being raised.
We don't want to question them, we don't
want to, there's so many rules applied to
the girl but not too many on the
brothers, it's okay he can go out, he
can have this, he can have whatever, he
can come whatever, but all the rules apply
to the girls.
And this person was never given the car
color of his own car, the parents did
not let him choose that.
He's buying a new car, don't buy a
black car, it's Houston, it's going to be
very hot, why?
Let him make the mistake.
So allow your children to make failures, specially
your men, allow the young men to have
failures early on in their lives so that
when they are becoming men who Islamically are
supposed to be leading a family, they know
how to lead.
But if they've never had a failure, the
first failure they have, the guy's like, I'm
done, right?
Wallahi I did a nikah, the marriage broke
in four weeks.
They came to me and they said, Sheikh
we want Tanakh.
I said, what happened?
The sister's like, this guy can't make a
decision?
Literally four weeks, mama, I'm going to buy
grocery, which milk should I buy?
Mama's boy.
You know what I call these?
I call them man cubs.
I'm serious, I call them man cubs.
We need a shaykhan to wake them up.
Yes, exactly from the Lion King, but we
need that tiger, we need shaykhan to wake
them up.
I love the Jungle Book, it's the best
movie of all times.
Anyhow, sister, the mic is traveling to
you.
Be patient and it will arrive.
Alaykum Assalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh.
Bismillah.
Beautiful.
Firstly, if the child has those feelings that
they want to build a really good relationship
with their parent and there happens to be
some barriers in between, firstly, the fact that
you have that true intention, I am very,
very hopeful in Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
that Allah will open paths for you if
you have the right intentions.
Because no father and no mother in their
sane minds if their child is reaching out
to them are going to say no.
But I have seen really bad examples in
the community.
So I'm skeptical too.
One of the things you can do is
rely on some elders within the family.
We have a system of elders.
Right?
We learn from elders.
There is this entire system of cross-generational
learning.
Take maybe an older auntie that you trust.
We always have this one lady in the
house.
It could be your close relative.
It could be a good friend of your
mother.
And go and talk to them about it.
You can open up to them.
They can have a conversation with your mother.
They know how to get through their mother.
Right?
And then eventually when they're ready when they
say okay let's do this patch up and
we'll allow you to connect and stuff like
that.
Don't do it directly because sometimes the parent
may feel offended.
Now if it happens to be your sibling
then if you happen to be an elder
sibling to this person then you go and
talk to the parents on their behalf.
And if you happen to be a younger
sibling then use some of your elder cousins
who are higher in age because if they're
cultural parents age makes a difference.
If they're raising you culturally age is a
huge impact.
And sometimes you can also tap into the
imams of the local masjids and stuff.
Right?
They can do a casual they can bring
it up in a casual manner not in
an indirect manner.
And then lastly it's dua.
Asking Allah to open their hearts for you
or for your sibling is one of the
best ways that Allah can break down all
of these barriers.
Oh I can go on.
I am I'm thrilled.
Oh we have a class tomorrow.
Those of you we have a class tomorrow.
If you want to learn like all I
can tell you is if you spend the
weekend inshallah together last time I did the
tafseer of surah kahf and I did a
very short version of that.
How many of you were here last time
for the tafseer of surah kahf?
The portions that we did?
Okay.
So what we did last time was a
summarized version.
This time around what we're trying to do
is we have 6 hours tomorrow from 1
o'clock to when?
1 to 6.30 1 to 6.30
So we almost have 10 hours together.
Saturday and Sunday.
And I can tell you that if you
guys come tomorrow inshallah all throughout you're going
to walk away after this weekend never ever
reading surah kahf.
Like there are going to be things that
will be opened up and last time I
couldn't go into any of those details because
I was so constricted on time that I
needed to finish that story.
So inshallah we have that flexibility.
Please do come out tomorrow.
There will be lunch also.
Dinner sorry.
They see people.
3 o'clock lunch.
Dinner.
There will be dinner inshallah for everyone.
So please do come out.
Bring your friends and everyone inshallah.
May Allah bless you all.
And in the end we ask Allah that
Allah gives us truly the understanding of trying
to connect with our children and make us
worthy of the tarbiyah of our children inshallah.
Allahumma salli wa sallim ala nabiyyina Muhammad wa
ala alihi wa sahbihi wa sallim taslimin kathirin
Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh