Bilal Assad – Parents who weaponise religion
AI: Summary ©
The speakers emphasize the importance of role modeling and not harming children by their actions to avoid parent's problems. The use of religious language in children for political gain and parent's initiative is crucial. The speakers stress the need to be mindful of parents' behavior and allow anyone to interfere with them. They provide guidance on breaking cycle and learning from past verses to improve one's affairs.
AI: Summary ©
As-salāmu ʿalaykum wa-rahmatullāhi wa-barakātuh.
I've got a question that came in which
says please give advice for verbally and mentally
abusive parents that weaponize religion to justify their
endless needs and demands.
The first thing I want to say about
this is truly this has become a problem
in a lot of societies and communities that
I continue to hear about and the first
advice I want to address is towards the
parents.
My dear brothers and sisters we are all
parents unlike you and the advice that I'd
like to give to the parents first of
all is that obviously our children are a
trust which Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
given us and therefore we are to nurture
them and to raise them and help them
to know right from wrong and if we
don't role model this then our children will
grow up with all sorts of problems mentally,
religiously and some of them even physically.
So they are a responsibility which Allah is
going to question us about and the Prophet
peace be upon him never abused or spoke
badly to any of his children or any
child whatsoever.
He had a young boy who was 10
years old who wanted to serve the Prophet
peace be upon him and he served him
for 10 years.
His name was Anas ibn Malik, was an
orphan as well.
His mother brought him to help the Prophet
ﷺ and travel with him and so on
and he says Wallahi I never heard from
the Prophet peace be upon him a single
hurtful word from him even the question of
why didn't you do this.
So in other words if I had missed
out something that he has asked me to
do and I didn't do it or I
forgot or I became a little bit careless
he would never even ask me why didn't
you do that but rather he would always
be smiling or he would just remind me
and that's about it.
The Prophet peace be upon him never abused
his any child and in fact he used
to warn parents from doing so.
In fact he used to warn them from
even harming them physically and he says that
harming a child physically verbally or even mentally
and emotionally is forbidden.
Allah will ask us about it.
My brothers and sisters sometimes parents can get
ahead of themselves and sometimes they some parents
are controlling some parents they fear that their
children might do something wrong so they jump
to conclusions they jump to assumptions and these
are based on fears perhaps from their own
childhood and how they were raised in their
childhood and what we need to do is
we need to break this cycle.
My brothers and sisters remember that as your
children get older they have to have more
of their autonomy and independence bit by bit
and letting go a little bit will be
healthier for them.
Most importantly is role modeling what you do
and what you say because they're going to
copy you.
Children may not obey us all the time
but they never fail to imitate us so
abusing children and having this extra control over
them especially their private affairs and to use
religious texts for our own benefits is not
only forbidden but could also border on shirk
which means making partners with Allah to use
Allah's verses for our own whims and desires
and Allah did warn about the people before
Muhammad peace be upon him in the Qur
'an the children of Israel says اشتروا بآيات
الله ثمنا قليلا they used to buy with
the verses of Allah little simple cheap gain
and sometimes in another verse Allah says that
they use them for their هو their هو
means their desires so brothers and sisters going
to be very careful in how we use
the verses of the Qur'an when it
comes to us if we're going to use
verses to remind our children or hadiths that
benefit us in our rights we must also
use the and obey the verses which talk
about our duties towards them so this is
one thing that I wanted to emphasize secondly
from our young brothers and sisters the children
look with your parents unfortunately we cannot change
behaviors of other people and our parents have
more of an authority over us in the
sense that they are our parents naturally so
you can control your behavior and what you
say to them although you cannot control their
behavior so don't focus on their behavior and
changing how they say but change how you
behave of course there are some parents who
go to the point of violence and some
people ask me can I distance myself a
little bit can I minimize my presence with
my parents if I'm constantly receiving abuse from
them and the answer is yes even with
parents a person can distance themselves although not
cut the relationship off completely remember parents a
little bit different to the rest of our
relatives such as the siblings and and and
so on so with our parents we try
to keep ourselves at a distance where we're
safe and good and we have to try
and tolerate and be patient with the words
that they say to us of course as
we get older and become more mature and
adults we become a bit stronger in what
to filter away from their words if we
are in danger of course islam does not
command you to stay in the face of
danger you're allowed to move away and protect
yourself but in general most parents they want
the best for their children and sometimes they
can get ahead of themselves and look there's
nothing wrong with drawing boundaries if allah has
given you that right so if your parents
say to you something using religious text which
you feel it's not right or not just
go to some scholars or shaykhs and ask
a knowledgeable person about your rights and whether
this verse can be applied to you because
sometimes we don't realize that a right of
a parent is actually a right of a
parent that they claim through verses is actually
not their right however it could be misinterpreted
or placed in the wrong place or sometimes
based on culture or customs or something that
they have heard ignorantly so there are so
many things if you if i were to
tell you how many times i have found
that certain parents calling something their right when
actually in actual fact in islam is not
their right certain privacies that the child is
entitled to where they thought that they have
a right to it it's not their right
uh so brothers and sisters this world does
require patience and i hope inshallah that i've
given you some guidelines at the end of
the day as you get older and you
get stronger your parents will get more frail
and weaker and you know what we make
dua for them make dua for them in
your prayer in your sujood oh allah guide
them oh allah forgive them because if allah
guides them allah helps to uh them to
for their hearts to be fixed and righteous
then your life inshallah will be better but
what is important for you is to break
that cycle with your own children and learn
the sunnah and the way of the prophet
sallallahu alayhi wasallam to the best of your
ability i hope inshallah this can give you
some uh enlightenment and some guidance may allah
ease your affairs