Daood Butt – Navigating The Challenges Facing Muslim Youth

			100 in alameen wa salatu salam ala Gambia even more sunny Nabina Muhammad Ali Baba Salatu uttama
tasleem from
		

			Sydney Emery melissani of Gokhale, my brothers and sisters in Islam Assalamu alaykum warahmatullahi
wabarakatuh
		

			Hamdulillah, it is nice to be back here in this mustard. I've been here quite a few times in the
past four years
		

			predjama here a couple of times, etc. And it's just really nice to be, you know, in the same
community in a different part of the world, where, you know, you get to meet your Muslim brothers
and sisters have hamdulillah from different regions, and we can join and connect ideas and thoughts
with regards to the deen
		

			tonight's topic we're going to be discussing, you know, navigating ourselves, because we're all
youth in some way, shape or form, it doesn't matter how young or how old you feel you are, even if
you consider yourself young, you're still young, right? You're young at heart, you might not be
young at age, you're young at heart. And so we will navigate ourselves in sha Allah to Allah through
one Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, that's it, just one Hadeeth. And the reason
why I decided to stick to this one Hadeeth First of all, usually, when I do a lecture, or hook by or
anything of that sort, for about 3040 minutes an hour, I will try to stick to only one Hadeeth one
		

			idea, or maybe one Hadeeth. And one is, you know, just to maximum. And that's simply because it
coincides with what we're discussing tonight. You know, when we tried to navigate ourselves through
life, and we tried to grab hold of the son of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, it becomes
extremely difficult if we, if we bombard ourselves with a lot of knowledge. So if we're constantly
dumping, or if we don't want to use the word dump, let's say absorbing knowledge, right? Like we're
a sponge, and we're taking in knowledge, that knowledge is generally information. It's information
that we're taking in.
		

			The knowledge that we have is what we implement in our lives. And from the Sunnah of the Prophet
sallallahu alayhi wa sallam the Sahaba of the Allahu anhu was that they would learn bits at a time.
So we would see in the traditions of the Sahaba of the Allahu anhu, where they would take 10 of the
Quran, and they would learn it from the Prophet salallahu alayhi wasallam. And they wouldn't go on
to simply doing what we do, we're like, oh, we finished 10 Let's take another 10 right, and we sit
down, we memorize the Quran, and we're, you know, reading from the beginning right to the end. And
we don't even know what one of the ayat of the Quran actually means that we read from beginning to
		

			end. And we start over and we're encouraging our children constantly to go over and over and over
the verses of the Quran, which is good, we get rewarded for it. But if you tell that child to simply
read and memorize the Quran, and you don't teach them anything more, then there's not really much of
a benefit is there. Because by the time they reach a certain age, they want to do what they want to
do in life, and they don't know what they're doing. Because they have no guide, they have no
knowledge of what they actually learned that information remains information. And so we're going to
take one Hadeeth and shallow to add it. This is a very common Hadeeth it's a little bit lengthy, but
		

			it breaks itself down so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he was given this gift of speech,
and we commonly know it as Jonah and kelim. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam consider speak
in ways where he would give us a powerful amount of information and a direct sort of speech, yet it
would mean a lot and we need to sit there and analyze it. So we'll begin with this hadith in sha
Allah tala where the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he says,
		

			Yakumo one
		

			for in one academic studies.
		

			Now in this Hadith, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that's not the whole Hadith, that's just
the first part that we're going to take. In this hadith the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is
warning us of things to stay away from.
		

			And at the very beginning, he warns us to stay away from assumption or suspicion, to assume
something of someone else, or to be suspicious of another person. And then he says, fair in one
equitable Hadeeth because the majority of what we assume of others is nothing but false tales
		

			It's nothing but false tales, it's not even true. Now, what's really interesting there is that this
applies not only to our youth but to everyone, male, female, young, old Muslim, not Muslim, it
applies to every single person, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he warns us of assuming
things of others. And usually when we assume those assumptions are not true, they're false. And we
know that going through life that when we look at people, we, you know, might analyze their behavior
and say, Oh, you know, this person is like that, or that person is dressed this way, or this person
is, you know, look at them stuff at a law, right? We start to judge individuals.
		

			We know that our judgment is usually not true, or what we're assuming of that person is not right.
We should not be assuming anything of that person. We're not here to judge the prophets, Allah
either you will, some of them did not walk around and say, you're a Muslim, you're a cafe, you're a
Muslim, you're a cafe Do you like this ceremony, he didn't used to do that. He wouldn't point
fingers and start labeling people. Even though the profits along it was something new. Because Allah
subhanho wa Taala gave him that knowledge of certain individuals that were, you know, hypocrites
that would come and pray and pretend to believe with the Muslims and and you know, interact with the
		

			Muslims, the Prophet sallallahu, Alayhi, wasallam knew that these person, these people were only
hypocrites. But he didn't go and tell them you're a hypocrite and say, Hey, you know what, you're
standing in the front row, why don't you just leave, because we know you don't believe anyways, that
wasn't from the behavior of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. But we see that in us today.
Now, all of the things that we're going to discuss in this Hadith,
		

			it plays an important role on our youth.
		

			And the reason why I say this is in Toronto, where I currently live, I teach at an Islamic High
School. And I also teach at an Islamic elementary school. And I lecture in the evenings at for
other, massage it. So I'm in touch with the Muslim community, in my part of you know, Toronto.
What's really interesting, though, is that all of the aspects of this Hadeeth, we see our youth
struggling with ourselves as adults, we struggle with it as well. But we've noticed that it has such
a huge impact upon our youth, that in our day and age, I don't know about here in Brisbane, but I
can tell you for a fact that there are many youth in our community in Canada, that are taking
		

			antidepressants,
		

			youth that are depressed,
		

			youth that are stressed
		

			youth that suffer from anxiety. And when you think of it, you know, for the average person who's
sitting here who's 30 years old, or above, and maybe even 25 or above, right 25 3035 7075. When we
were young, did we have all this digital technology we didn't.
		

			But today, when you tell the child, you're driving in the car from here for the next 15 minutes back
home, for example, you're going to your house, what do you notice, you notice that that child needs
some sort of entertainment,
		

			because the child is lacking attention.
		

			proper attention, real Attention, attention from parents, attention from people like you and I,
people that actually want goodness for that child. We want to see that child grow up to become the
leader of this community. We want to see the child to grow up to be you know, a doctor, a lawyer, an
engineer, we want to see the child leading in various different ways, whether it's, you know,
getting into politics, or getting into, you know, law, we want to see goodness coming out of our
children, some kind of law, we tend to assume a lot of ourselves, and we assume a lot of those that
are sitting next to us, you will see a youth that might come into the masjid and praying for the
		

			very first time, willingly in the masjid, willingly not being forced willingly, and they might be
18 1920 years old. And for the past five or six years, they never came to the masjid. And today
they're praying they might be standing right here and they're praying, they're Salah, and as as we
finished the stand up and they start to pray, there's some not because now today for some reason
they felt I need to get connected with Allah subhanho wa Taala. And you see them praying right here
and you're sitting behind them in the next row. And they go into sujood. Right, they're making
sense. And you can see they're back in their underwear showing because their shirt is too short and
		

			the pants are too low, right or they forgot to put their belt on. And as soon as they're done,
they're solid. We start to criticize them.
		

			We start to criticize them.
		

			That's that's not something we should be doing.
		

			What we should do, and we're going to learn how we can act positively in all of these cases that we
go through in the Hadith. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam tells us not to assume something.
Did we know that this child is coming as an 18 year old, a 20 year old to the masjid for the first
time, willingly wanting to pray in front of Allah subhanho wa Taala. And now we start to tell this
child You know what, this is wrong? How can you come like this? You should be ashamed of yourself.
We can all see you know, your back, we can see your underwear, your boxers, we don't want to see
that.
		

			You should come dress properly.
		

			Do we think that person's going to come back? what we should be doing is becoming friends with that
person. We should come and sit next to them. When they're done. They're salatu salam aleikum? How
are you? What's your name? Where do you live? Do you live close by? Are you from this area?
hamdulillah? Do you go to school? What are you studying, get to know them. You want to go for you
know tea or coffee or something. Go with them, talk to them get to know this individual. You might
not correct their mistake on the first night. You might correct them in an indirect way. But the
point is you build the relationship with that person, instead of assuming something negative of them
		

			and simply pointing a finger at that individual, then the profits a little longer for us to move on.
Because I don't want to take up much time. I know you know people go to sleep early here in
Australia. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he then says when not to SSO.
		

			And like I said, we're going to break up the Hadith in sha Allah, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam says when to SSU, after he tells us Don't look for faults, or sorry, don't be suspicious of
others. He says what not to so don't look for the faults in others don't come and see, oh, you know,
look at this person. And you're sitting there in the corner. And we know that there are people
sometimes in our communities as we come into the masjid, or we might be in the shopping mall, or we
might be doing groceries. And you know, we're walking by and we see other Muslims. And we say send
them where they come and they don't say send them back to us. They're looking for the faults in us
		

			like home stuff, we'll look at how he's dressed stuff, it'll knock on their sister's hair, you know,
she has a little bit of hair coming out, Doesn't she know how to wear hijab properly, we're looking
for the faults in others, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wouldn't do that. And he teaches
us not to do that. He tells us Don't look for the faults in others.
		

			Don't try and look for mistakes that other people commit. And this ties into the online world that
we live nowadays. Our youth, they go online,
		

			and they post pictures of themselves, whether it's Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, any other
you know, social media platform that they use, they post pictures of themselves, they post comments,
they say things, sometimes they don't think before they speak, or they don't think before they type,
or they don't think before they take that picture of them in the wrong place. And you see them in
the wrong place. They're taking a picture of themselves, and they don't realize what's happening
behind them. And they post it up on the internet. And then we look for faults in them. We see
something and you say Hey, wait a second, why is this person with that person? Why is this brother
		

			with that sister? Why is this sister with that brother? That doesn't make sense. He's not home to
her. How come they're together, and then you start clicking on the other pictures in their profile
and you want to go and look for more. And this ties in with the next part. The Prophet salallahu it
he was sending them tells us what to just say.
		

			Don't spy don't spy on each other. So don't look for each other's faults and don't spy as the
Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam tells us and we go and we spy on each other. We go on the
internet. Who was this guy? Don't but let me go see who he is. Right? We go check out the so called
chef from Canada. Right? Let's see what he does. What did he eat today? Where did he go? Right? How
did he get here? Why is he here? We go to we spy on each other and we're checking we're looking into
the lives of each other. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam didn't want us to do that.
		

			It's okay to inform ourselves. It's okay to understand, but to look into people's lives to pry into
their lives. Why so we can find those faults? This is what the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam
stopped us from doing don't spy on each other. Then the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says
what to have to do? Don't mean jealous of each other. You're going to see oh
		

			Mashallah. This person they ate at a fancy restaurant we can afford that. Look at the car that they
drive. So Hannah law, a BMW. Wow. They claim to be so and so person. yet they're driving a fancy
car. A stole federal law. Right and we start to connect with Allah subhanho wa Taala in our sin
		

			Right, we're seeing the stone fiddle and not because of ourselves. We're not asking Allah subhanho
to Allah for forgiveness for ourselves, we're seeing a stone for the love because we're like, oh,
look at this person, let me say a stone for the love for them. Right? That's what we do. We don't
say a stone for the love for ourselves. We say a stone for the love for that person is like, Oh,
they shouldn't be doing this. I stole federal law. All right, May Allah forgive them for what they
do for what they're doing. But I'm sitting there, you know, spying on this person looking into their
life. Those are things that we need to stop doing my brothers and sisters, those are things that the
		

			Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam told us over 1400 years ago, that we are still doing and making
as mistakes in our lives. Today, we move on the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he then says
what not to do. And don't cut ties with one another, our youth, we know that you're going to go
through hardships in life, we know that you're going to experience things that As parents, we don't
want you to experience, we know that you might be caught in a place that you shouldn't be, or doing
something that you're not supposed to be doing or consuming something that you're not supposed to be
consuming, whether you're eating, drinking or smoking it.
		

			But what's important here, as youth and as parents as adults, is that we do not cut ties with one
another.
		

			If a person commits a sin, does that mean that they are no longer a believer?
		

			Depends on what the sin is, if the sin is disbelief, if they're completely leaving Islam, if they're
worshiping something other than Allah Subhana Allah, if you find them in a church, and they're
worshipping, you know, Jesus, or they're worshipping Mary, or they're, you know, confused about
their Deen, that's different, that we need to, you know, sit with them and discuss, but if a person,
you know, leaves the mustard now, and they light up a cigarette, and you say stuff, little Oh, what
are you doing? Again? You're saying it's not for the love for them? Not for yourself, right? And
then you start to question them, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? Don't you know, this is
		

			how long did you know this? Don't you know that? Why are you going there, you're holding hands with
this person, you're not my home to them. And we start to Subhanallah you know, look into the lives
of others in ways that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam, when someone would come to him and
tell him a sin that they committed, and this is not part of our Deen to confess, this is part of
Christianity. It's not part of Islam, but the Sahaba of the Allahu anhu. Sometimes they would come
to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And they would say hello, sort of like I did this, and I
did that, what would he do? He would turn and he would ignore them.
		

			He would turn and ignore them. Indicating to that person, you know very well, you committed a sin.
That's why you're coming in telling me. So don't come and tell me turn to Allah subhana wa tan and
ask him for forgiveness.
		

			But what do we do, we see someone committing a sin, or we see our own children doing things that we
dislike from them, and we give them a choice. Either you stop or the doors there, get out and don't
come back. And we I don't know, here, I think hamdulillah Australia is really good in terms of, you
know, family orientation. In all the times that I've been to Australia Alhamdulillah I've seen that
not only the Muslims, but the non Muslims, they tend to be connected in terms of family, right? In,
you know, other parts of the world, like where I come from when someone turns 18 years old, whether
Muslim or not, usually this happens in the non Muslim families. But even in the Muslim families, the
		

			parents will say you're 18 now you need to get a job, you need to find a place to live, you need to
get out of our hair. Now we need our own privacy. We've been raising you for 18 years, we need some,
you know, some space now. Right? Our house you took over as children, we want to live in our house
by ourselves. And so we see that as parents, we tend to give our children that choice.
		

			But we give them that choice when they make mistakes. And that's the time in life when they need us
more than ever. You know, when they're walking in, they're crawling and they're playing and they're
enjoying themselves and they're in the house and they might even be playing the video games or
they're chilling in the in the basement with their friends, etc. That's not really a time that they
need us so much they need us. But they need us even more as they get older and they start to
experience those challenges in life. So let's not close the doors on our youth in sha Allah hotel
rather than the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam says what to do, and do not hate one another.
		

			Coming from the word boop don't have hatred for each other, to hate one another. You see someone
doing something wrong, hate the action that they did. Don't hate the person. Hate the action that
they're committing. Don't hate the actual person. Why not? Who don't you know, don't have that
hatred amongst yourselves. And then the Prophet sallallahu wasallam tying in with this, he says,
well, cool new ariba de la Juana and B
		

			to each other brothers
		

			and sisters, why? Because we're worshippers of Allah subhana wa tada we worship Allah subhana wa
Tada. We're brothers and sisters of each other. In the Hadith, he says one, and that's brothers. But
this applies to the entire oma, the home of Muhammad sallallahu alayhi. wasallam is made up of
brothers and sisters, male and female. So he's not giving advice only to the men. He's giving advice
to the men and the women, the young and the old, the children and the adults, the parents, those
that are single, every single person, the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam is telling us because
we worship Allah subhanho wa Taala Hannah, be brothers and sisters to one another.
		

			Don't hate each other, don't spy on each other. Don't look into other's lives. Don't create hatred
amongst yourselves. Don't cut yourself off, don't assume things of one another. These are all things
that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam tells us so that we can guide ourselves through life.
It's simple. It's really simple. My brothers and sisters, and so I don't want to take up too much of
our time. Insha Allah, I want to leave us with this Hadith of the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa
sallam. And I want to remind us that our youth need us more than ever.
		

			Our youth need us more than ever. Honestly, I see that the condition of our youth in different parts
of the world. I travel a lot. I was in Perth last weekend. I was in Singapore the weekend before I
was in Canada. And between that, you know, I'm off to London next week. I'm off to Manchester after
that, then I'm going to be going to Vancouver. You know some how do I travel a lot. And they see
around the world how our Muslim oma is. And one of the things that we tend to forget is who we used
to be. Who did I used to be growing up? When I was 18? What did I used to do? When I was 15? How did
I used to behave? When I was eight years old? How would I speak to my parents? And some handler when
		

			our children do that? Now we look at our children, we say hey, you know what, when I was your age, I
never did that. If I did that, if I ever spoke back to my parents when I was your age, we would get
hit. Right? That's what we hear a lot of our parents saying, but think of it when we were children.
Did we absolutely never ever say something bad to our parents? No, for sure we did that. It's just a
cycle. It's a cycle in life. We go through it, our children go through it. We need to learn how to
deal with them. We need to discipline them in ways that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam
showed us to discipline them. And the most important way of disciplining our children is not in a
		

			punishment. That was not the method of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam. He didn't discipline
children by punishing them. He disciplined children by spending time with them.
		

			And that's what I want us to do in sha Allah hotelera spend time with your children. Do what's fun
for them. Not what's fun for you. Do what they like, not what you like, enjoy life with them, doing
what they like, because they will like to be with you at a later point in time, if we like to be
with them. when they're young. We ask Allah Subhana Allah to Allah to grant us a deeper
understanding of the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, we ask Allah subhanho wa
Taala to make it easy for each and every one of us to learn this Deen and to take little bits and
pieces of the sermon of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and try to implement them in our
		

			lives. And we ask Allah subhanho wa Taala to remove all the hardships and difficulties of the
Muslims in this community and different communities around the world. I mean, out of the land, I
mean, are some of them sallahu
		

			wa sallam