Bilal Assad – Parents who weaponise religion

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