Bilal Assad – The Bonds That Define Us – Family and Extended Family
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the history and importance of Islam, including its impact on personal relationships, boundaries, and rights. They stress the need for respect for personal boundaries and rights and warn against becoming "oppressed." They also discuss the importance of privacy and respect for personal relationships, and emphasize the need to be careful in relationships. The speakers emphasize the importance of balancing financial needs and not putting too much pressure on one, serving families, and respecting boundaries.
AI: Summary ©
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful, all praise is due to
Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the
Messenger of Allah.
Our topic is about family and culture.
We want to talk about how the family
can remain in a harmonious living together with
all of its family members, living in a
consistently loving and good, merciful bond together, while
maintaining the rights and the boundaries and the
special word called Urf.
Urf means the customs and cultures of each
different culture and background that a person comes
from.
I recite a verse of the Qur'an
which talks about in-laws and extended families
in the following verse, in Surah 25, Suratul
Furqan, verse 54.
Which means, and he it is, and he
it is who has created man from water,
and then produced from him two sorts of
kindred, two sorts of family relatives.
Number one, by descent.
The first one are your children and grandchildren
by descent, and by marriage.
Everyone who is connected to the husband now
becomes, has a connection with the wife.
Everyone who is connected to the wife now
has a form of connection with the husband.
And your Lord is all-powerful.
My brothers and sisters, in this verse of
the Qur'an we understand that marriage brings
families together, new relationships that did not exist
before.
And at the same time, Islam indirectly tells
us that when you marry someone, then you're
going to take into account that you're going
to have relationships with extended families who are
important to your husband and wife.
And if you don't realize that, when you
have children, inshallah, those children will make sure
that their grandparents, their uncles and aunts, their
cousins and relatives are in the picture.
They will tell you, they will show you,
and you will see it.
Every child loves to see a big family
around them.
They enjoy their grandparents, their grandparents enjoy their
children.
Any child who lives to see grandparents and
uncles and aunts around them, wallahi, is a
child that has that extra mental health and
more of a strong, healthy upbringing as they
become older.
They feel more belonging in this world.
And therefore, Islam has made it extremely crucial
to do what we can to keep those
bonds together as much as we can, because
if those bonds are broken, then the person
themselves can become broken.
And not only you, but also your children
and their children's children, and sometimes it can
create a cycle of tyranny and oppression throughout
the generations that can never be cut off
and stopped.
And that's how we find mental illnesses and
issues that continue from marriage to marriage to
marriage, and also one of the reasons of
marriages not going ahead and not being successful.
So brothers and sisters, family ties is important
in Islam.
However, Islam did not come to make marriages
a form of dictatorship and a military type
of relationship or a type of relationship where
once the person gets married, they lose their
autonomy, they lose their personal interests, they can't
have their privacy anymore, they lose their privileges
and rights.
No, no, no, no, Islam did not come
to do that.
Islam came and sifted through the personalities, through
the cultures that all people share, whether you
are like me from Lebanon, whether you're from
Turkey, whether you're from Somalia or Pakistan or
India or China or anywhere in the world,
Islam took into consideration the customs and traditions
of people.
It did not neglect it, but at the
same time, it created boundaries and blinds for
every single individual, the father, the mother, the
husband, the wife, the children, the uncles, the
aunts, the cousins, they all have a boundary
and rights.
Why do they have boundaries and rights in
Islam?
Even if sometimes it's going to oppose some
of our own customs and cultures, we have
to be very aware of this.
Because Islam wants to maintain the consistency of
the family.
Because if you don't have boundaries, my dear
brothers and sisters, and we don't respect them,
the elders have to respect them and the
young ones have to respect them.
Why?
Because then it will be more of a
cause for conflict.
When boundaries are not there, it'll be a
cause for conflict.
It's like going into a business.
When you're in a business together and you
don't have a clear contract and terms that
both parties understand and know, then the business
will fall apart and there'll be always conflict.
And in fact, most people who fall into
business and partnerships, most people fall into conflict
and they break the contracts and turn against
each other.
That's why I personally, and many other sheikhs
I know, personally view that if you're related,
brother, sister, brother and brother, cousin, you should
not get into business partnerships, subhanAllah.
Don't have family, mix family with business.
I know it's harsh and we all love
to do that.
I have brothers and sisters and I always
love to do business with them.
But even with me, I am very careful
with this because we don't want to mix
the family relation we have and business and
money.
And family, when you have family, Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala has given each one a
right.
Allah says, for example, in the Quran, The
number of rights that a husband has and
the number of rights a wife has are
the same in number, even though some of
them are different in nature, different in kind.
We have to understand that.
The grandparents also have rights, but they are
different in kind, the children and so on.
So Islam came to put that.
Now, Islam put the Quran first, then the
Sunnah right after it as an extension to
the Quran.
Then it put what?
It put culture and customs after it.
It doesn't neglect culture and customs, but Islam
is first.
We have to respect the rights which Allah
told us in the Quran, such as an
inheritance, such as in duties, such as in
the rights of money, such as in the
rights of obedience, who to obey and who
not to obey.
Who to have a relationship and who not
to and so on.
Then it took, then after that, customs and
traditions.
Culture, customs and traditions, my dear brothers and
sisters, comes after.
Unfortunately, from my work in the community for
several years, for decades, in marriages and counselling
and family relations, I have seen that even
in my culture, the Lebanese culture, unfortunately, those
who are ignorant of Islamic teachings or they
know their Islamic teachings, but unfortunately, their culture
and customs of their people take precedence and
they're too strict on it to the point
where it can become oppressive and a dictatorship
type where certain members of the family, they
get to live a life of oppression and
they're victimized and they're not allowed to talk
when Islam gave them that right.
And we see the deterioration of the upbringing
of children.
For example, the great poet of Islam, I
forgot his name, he says, for example, a
mother is like an education institution.
If you look after her, you will look
after a generation with amazing, triumphant personalities and
healthy upbringing.
The father as well is the pillar.
Now, if you break that pillar, the family
is broken.
If you break that mother who is the
educational institution and she's not able to be
the person Allah allowed her to be in
the marriage and as a mother, you will
break also those children.
So it is not the person but also
the generations that we are breaking.
So we've got to be very, very careful
with that, my brothers and sisters, and very
strict.
And fear Allah, we are Muslims and our
deen is what unites us.
Mashallah, we have 10,000 people here, all
of us of different colour, with two genders,
alhamdulillah, and many different cultures and nationalities and
ethnicities.
Yet what unites us is our deen and
our Quran.
It's almost like hajj, subhanallah, here.
Tabarakallah, we are brothers and sisters and we
agree on that inshallah ta'ala.
So brothers and sisters, for example, Islam came
to put rights and boundaries, whether the husband
and wife stay together or whether they separate
and go their own ways.
For example, the father-in-law and the
mother-in-law, they remain mahrams from the
moment their children get married.
Your son and your daughter got married, suddenly
that son-in-law, that daughter-in-law,
that father-in-law, that mother-in-law
on both sides become permanent mahram.
She can take a scarf off if she
wears it, she can sit alone with her
father-in-law in a room in privacy
without a mahram, she can shake his hand
and so on and give him a respectful
kiss on the forehead or a hug, whatever
their culture is, because different people show their
affection in different ways.
And even if the husband and wife separate,
the father-in-law and mother-in-law
remain mahrams for that wife, even if she
is no longer the wife.
And the father and mother of the wife
also remain mahram to the, he remains the
husband, who is no longer her husband, remains
a mahram to his mother-in-law forever.
And that's because you have children and those
children remain related to their grandfather and grandmother
forever.
They also remain related to their uncles and
aunts from both husband, mum and dad's side.
What hurts me a lot that I see
all the time is that the husband and
wife, if they don't get along or something
goes wrong between them, unfortunately they drag their
children into their problems and they let them
suffer by depriving them.
Their relationship with their grandparents and their uncles
and aunts if they don't like the other
spouse.
Wallahi, this is a major sin.
And Allah will ask us about our children
and our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, if the
cycle continues, we are responsible for starting that.
We'll be in our graves and we're responsible
for cutting off that tie.
What's between the husband and wife is different
to what is between our children and the
family.
Just because I don't talk to a certain
person of my, for example, an extended family
should not be my children's problem.
Sometimes when it comes to in-laws, there
may be a forced or a pressured obligation
on either the husband or the wife to
do certain things for the in-laws or
the extended families which Islam did not oblige
upon them.
But we turn it into an obligation and
we even turn it sometimes into a test
of their loyalty and their love.
If this person's wife serves his parents and
families and agrees to live with his mother
and father all the time, then this is
a test of her loyalty.
And if she doesn't want to, then we
seem to say, no, she's not a good
daughter-in-law, she's not a good sister
-in-law and she doesn't love her husband.
And sometimes we say it about the son
-in-law.
I have cases like that where the son
-in-law is expected to do certain obligations
towards his in-laws and if he doesn't,
then he is a bad son-in-law,
he's a bad person.
Not necessarily.
Yes, Islam came to solidify the bond.
That when you get married, you offer beautiful
services and bonds and kindness and goodness to
your father-in-law, to your mother-in
-law, if you can, to your brother-in
-law and sister-in-law, to their families.
Whatever goodness you can do forward is amazing
because it increases the bond.
But to come and sit there and we
judge and we oblige even if it is
against their privacy, even if it means that
we're going to deprive them of their autonomy
and their personality and then we call them
names and put them under the ground and
we say that they're not good, this is
haram.
I'll give you an example.
In Islam, it is the right of the
husband and wife when they get married, our
sons and daughters, to have their own dwelling
and live alone, separate from their parents.
This is an established fact in Sharia.
However, if the son and daughter want to
get married, for example, in one of my
culture up in the village in Lebanon, in
some cultures, ancient now, they're changing, once the
son gets married, for example, the oldest son,
whoever he marries, that wife is obliged to
live with his parents forever, until they die.
And then we ask them, okay, well, where's
her privacy?
They said she has to be patient.
And then we say, okay, what about the
brother-in-laws and the sister-in-laws
who are entering and going and coming?
It's a family home, it's a parent's home.
They say, oh, that's okay, they're like her
brothers.
What do you mean they're like her brothers?
They are not like her brothers.
They are like her brothers, yeah, Islamically and
out of respect, but they are not brothers,
they are not mahram.
So I hear stories, for example, where she's
forced by culture, not because the parents were
in need.
There is a difference when, for example, my
father and mother are crippled, or they are
in need, and I got no other help,
and I have no other siblings, and the
only son they have is me, for example.
That's a different story, whoever I marry, that
wife has to be understanding of this situation,
to be patient with it.
But at the end of the day, brothers
and sisters, a wife has a right, Islamically,
to her own dwelling.
Even if it's a unit, a little bungalow
behind his parents' house, she needs to have
her own little amenities, a kitchen maybe, a
bathroom, a toilet, a bedroom, somewhere to breastfeed
her child, a place where she can take
off her hijab and have her autonomy and
privacy.
This is a complete right in Islam.
And I've seen many, many problems happen as
a result of obliging this culture for no
reason except its loyalty, its culture, its custom,
to a certain extent, my dear brothers and
sisters.
Forgive me if I am touching on any
sensitivities in this room, but please understand that
I also share this culture, and we have
to talk about it because I can see
many, many complaints have come to me, and
there have been separations and heartaches as a
result of not respecting the boundaries.
Sometimes you may see, Islam gives the right,
for example, to the husband to control his
own wealth, and from his wealth he spends
what his wife and children need.
At the same time, the husband, who is
the son, is obliged to spend on the
needs of his mother and father if they
are in need.
If they're not in need, he's not obliged.
But if they are in need, he's obliged.
The wife has to be considerate of that,
and not to put too much pressure on
him, especially if his financial situation is not
very good.
But if his financial situation is very good,
Allah says, لَيُنفِقْهُ سَعَاتٍ مِّن سَعَاتِهِ Let every
man who has abundance of wealth to give
more and to more people.
But at the end of the day, he
is responsible for his wife, number one, his
children, then his mother and father when they're
in need.
If they are all in need, he has
to try and balance it out as much
as he can.
At the same time, brothers and sisters, he
is not obliged to spend on her family,
for example.
Similarly with the wife.
Her wealth, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has
not obliged her to spend any of it
on anyone.
She does other things.
She serves her husband, she serves her children,
she's a homemaker, and she can work if
the husband and wife are happy and in
agreement of this and they've got this kind
of plan, no problem.
But her wealth is her wealth.
If she wants to give from it, alhamdulillah,
it's a goodness.
But for the husband to come and tell
her, you are obliged to spend on the
family, this is haram, this is not allowed.
But of course, out of her consideration and
love, if she sees her husband is falling
behind, there's bills to pay, and they're struggling,
she obviously should help because that's not a
really good wife who is not considerate to
her husband's financial situation, of course.
But at the end of the day, the
husband cannot tell his wife, you must give
me your money to give to my mum
and dad, for example, to give to my
brother and sister, for example.
This is haram.
At the same time, brothers and sisters, serving
one another, the husband serving his in-laws
is only out of goodness.
The wife serving her in-laws is out
of goodness, and it will definitely help the
bond between the families.
But to single out, for example, a daughter
-in-law or single out a brother-in
-law and let everyone else off the hook
and put too much pressure on one person,
wallahi is oppressive.
I see this in many families.
It depends on who is more vocal and
who is not.
That's not fair.
So the parents do have a role in
playing here, inshallah.
And if you are in that situation, my
dear brother or sister, then I say to
you, please don't try to fight it.
Yes, place boundaries as much as you can
for your own well-being, but at the
same time, know that your reward from Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala cannot be counted.
Cannot be counted.
You are something different.
I know a story of a couple where
I counseled, and the mother-in-law always
goes to this specific daughter-in-law for
help.
And she thought, why are my other sister
-in-laws not in the same situation?
And then I said to her, listen, if
you can change the way you look at
things, the things you look at change.
Why would this mother-in-law come to
you?
I think it's because she trusts you the
most.
She looks up to you the most.
She relies on you the most.
And I think she loves you the most.
And because she trusts you with her belongings,
she can ask you.
And it changed everything around.
But at the same time, brothers and sisters,
if you're a father or mother, please don't
do that to your children.
Because one will resent the other.
And you don't want that insha'allah ta
'ala.
May Allah bless us, bless you and protect
you and protect all our families.
Ameen.
My brothers and sisters, at the same time,
our children are always watching us, and they
will never fail to imitate us.
So if, let's say, a husband and wife
are in a situation where the wife is
very tired and she cannot always go over
to the in-laws or to always go
over to the places that her husband wants
her to go, that's fine.
Dear husband, do what you can within your
ability.
I know a family, insha'allah, who've got
a mother who has gone very old, and
their father had passed away.
And, you know, she likes to live in
her house.
She doesn't want to live with any of
her children.
She's the type, I like my house, I've
got memories here, she says.
So, alhamdulillah, the children made a roster.
Each child goes and sleeps a night with
their mother, boys and girls, brothers and sisters,
alhamdulillah.
And if anybody misses out, then they either,
someone else takes their turn and they have
to take another turn.
And, alhamdulillah, they shared the love of their
mother.
It made their mother very proud that she
doesn't have to sit there saying, you do
this and you do that.
They come together, the siblings, and they assist.
And not one of them put the pressure
on the sister-in-law or the brother
-in-law.
But when the sister-in-law saw this
cooperation, all of them also went to help.
Because, in general, families want to bond and
they want to be together.
But please, brothers and sisters, know where the
boundaries are and don't put pressure and obligations
in areas where Islam did not allow you.
I understand that cultures and customs are very
strong and sometimes very, very difficult.
But we do what we can.
I know a brother who said to me,
I did the marriage, and he said to
me, you know, I'm obliged to live with
my mother.
And, you know, I love my mother and
I love my father, but they're not in
need.
She has my father, my mother, alhamdulillah, they
have a great income, everybody visits them.
But, you know, we've got two children now.
My wife is unable to sit anywhere.
Anybody can just come in and out and
she has no privacy whatsoever.
I said, what does your mother say?
She says, my mother says, oh, they're like
your brothers.
Yeah, on Eid, they come and hug and
kiss and they shake her hand and she
sits down with her hijab off.
This is haram.
So in Islam, when there is darar, when
there is harm, then we have to respect
and cover that harm.
Now, if the son is unable to live
with his parents, that's okay.
Then you share with your siblings and you
go and visit your parents on a daily
basis if you can.
The obligation is on the child.
The obligation of my mother and father is
on me.
And I've got to do whatever I can
out of birr.
And this is what Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala has obliged me.
Anything extra, alhamdulillah, is your reward into paradise
and will only make your children grow to
be giving and generous and loving.
My brothers and sisters, my time is up.
And I hope that with this very, very
sensitive topic that I dared to tread on
and to go through, please forgive me if
I have said anything that would have upset
anybody.
May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala bless you
and keep your families triumphant in Iman and
in every way in this world and in
the next and protect your children.
And may Allah make this generation among the
best of righteous leaders for the years to
come.
I can see a lot of young people.
May Allah bless you, my young, can I
say, sons and daughters?
My God, I'm making myself so old.
My sons and daughters, may Allah bless you.
I love you.