Help Your Child Who has a Crisis of Faith

Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah the brothers and sisters Assalamu alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh. And welcome to this special session that we're having today. As part of the raising believers masterclass, we have with us a special guest brother Yousef

brother. He suffers from the Sapiens Institute. He's a researcher and he is Sapiens Institute's Lighthouse mentoring manager.

I already talked to you about the lighthouse mentoring scheme, where you know, people can actually phone in, they can book a mentor to help them with doubts that they might be having, or questions that they have about Islam. He has a first class degree in philosophy Masha Allah, his focus has mainly been on nihilism and the meaning of life, for which he wrote a dissertation and he's made many videos discussing the subject you can find him on YouTube. I think his YouTube channel is pondering soul, which focuses on philosophy and theology. He's also a co host on the up and coming YouTube channel thought adventure podcast, as well as regularly featuring on other our channels.

MashAllah brother Yusuf embraced Islam in 2014 and has since studied Islam with qualified Xu yo. He hopes to continue the studies alongside his studies and philosophy. So welcome. Whether you serve Salam aleikum, Wa Alaikum salam are the lucky

for having me. Many of the parents who have attended our course, they've are some of the parents they've been expressing concerns about, in particular, older children, you know, they have older children who unfortunately have either stated that they want to leave Islam or that they don't believe anymore, right? Some kind of statement that has kind of shaken the family, right.

And we were hoping that today, you could help maybe

shed some light on some of the things that parents might, it might be good for parents to be aware of? Yeah, definitely not. So basically, I run the lighthouse project, in particular.

And I do the managing, so do all the admin work, we also take about 50% of the calls.

And it has two parts it and we're hoping to branch into a third, the two main parts we deal with helping people that have doubts. And that may be some most of them are born Muslims who book a meeting, they don't really have anyone they feel like they can talk to.

If they try to speak to their parents, the parents don't really understand.

And there's this anxiety around talking about it with the family or with the community.

And either they just sort of like hold it in. And they live this sort of dual life where I growing up, I was a non Muslim. I had friends like this. We grew up in a council estate in North Manchester. And there was a Pakistani family that lived down the road. And it was a big family, they all lived in one house.

But the kids would come out and there wasn't any other Muslims in the area. It was a predominantly white neighborhood.

But these kids will end up hanging out with those. We just grew up together, they went to the same school as us. And while they were with us, they live a completely different lifestyle. And then when they went back home, they had to switch. And if we ever really saw them with their parents there was almost unrecognizable, although they would try to keep us completely separate. We weren't allowed to go knock on for him, or anything like that with his, they were like there was this big wall that they would try to build between them.

And it's it's quite common and like a lot of the people that I grew up with a newer Muslim would maybe have girlfriends or it became quite a common issue. But obviously they're not really going to be communicating this to the family at home.

And a part of that is obviously attached to the stigma. But when they're sort of going out, like the non Muslim world, especially for the youth in particular, is extremely different. Not only just for the Muslims, but even between the parent and child relationship in general. In the UK, there's a huge divide. Especially now we have these sort of dual income families. Both mom and dad are out at work, doing a full time nine to five sometimes longer.

When they come home, everyone's knackered and there's arguments about whose turn it is to do the housework because there's a full time job at home that needs doing but now there's no one's there full time.

And there's there's got to be some sort of debate discussion about who does that you've got a bunch of kids in the home, people are not really having, you know, dinners at the dinner table anymore. Everyone's just sort of resigned to their own bedrooms, people eat in their bedrooms.

And everyone's just sort of stuck in their own little online world, on their own online devices. And if you can think alike, in terms of how that transforms a family, historically, this wasn't the case, people, when they had dinner, it was usually together at a dinner table. And I'm talking obviously, over the past few 100 years before TV came about before

the internet before all these devices, this was typically how families would eat, they would eat together.

They, you know, the parents, there was usually some one person at home, one person working bringing the income in. And people were involved to some degree with the raising of their children.

But this has been offloaded now to strangers

that we don't even really know too much about them. And the schooling system is sort of treated like factory lines, where kids are just sort of pushed into it. And the they're treated as if the only thing that they have in common is their, their date of manufacture, their you know, their date of birth, and they just push along this conveyable. And each year, they go to a new class, a new teacher. And that teacher's job is to get x y Zed into the kid's head. If for whatever reason the kid doesn't absorb that the kid is seen as a problem rather than the system being a problem. And that just sort of

pushed along.

So we're living in a very strange environment. The schooling system doesn't really deal with children on an individual level, it's just sort of abstracted to this sort of ideal.

And that, like, there's this strange development of children in general, even the invit, there's a really good book I can recommend,

called teenage, by John Savage.

It talks about some interesting things. But in particular, it's about the the creation of youth from 1875 to 1945. And, in particular, it's what hones in on how, during this time, everything just completely changed. Prior to them, we didn't really have this concept of the teenager.

Prior to then there wasn't necessarily public education, that was compulsory

that people had no choice and they had to go to prior to then there wasn't something like the automobile. And you had this industrial revolution, the complexity of the working environment kicked off massively. And that required that, well, now we need a better educated populace to get involved in this more complex working environment.

And how do we do that? So one of the things introduced was the public education system.

That was compulsory, and so people had to start going to this school. And the way that the school transformed as well, they went from like small school houses that were very localized, where the teachers pretty much lived on the estate. And all the kids that went to the school lived on the same estate, and they all knew who was in there.

But then with the invention of things like the school bus, all of this kind of stuff, you start having these things called the High School developing, which are these huge institutions, which contain 1000s of children.

And the classes grew in size and the way, like we said, you know, it's sort of industrialized and treated like a factory, even like when you think about the the aesthetics of a school.

Even the aesthetics are very factory line based. You've got the ringing of a bell for break. And all of this

came out of sort of Europe, I think it was was it Prague, I remember where exactly, but it was sort of popularized there, and it was pushed everywhere. But then with these sort of high schools, you have, what John Savage refers to is like the invention of the teenager, where you have this subculture

that's being developed, because these people are essentially adults.

And this is why they're separated from younger education. So you've got like, you know, the primary school, and then when they start to reach the age of puberty, there's a line drawn there. And there's a completely different school unit that they then transition to, because there's a common understanding that it's round about this age, that children develop and they change, right. But because the schooling education system has become so complex, and because they're they need to sort of push them on for longer.

Because you can't teach them things like you know, GCSE science, you can't teach that to toddlers.

Or you very rarely, most kids can't absorb that kind of material. So there has to be this sort of separation and it becomes something that's compulsory.

But at the same time, these are young adults. They start developing attractions for the opposite gender, etc.

And they're essentially becoming adults. But because they are maintained in a state of dependence, there's this weird sort of

tension within them. And myself, I was a bit of a trouble student.

I was a bit of a class clown. And I was very good at

being naughty, but never getting into trouble. And a big part of that was that I resented being treated like a child, by these people, because in my head, I felt like I wasn't a kid anymore. But they would keep treating you like one.

And many schools are like this now. And I think if you if you've ever been to a high school, if you're dealing with high school children, you can start to see that there is there's, I don't know if any of you've had this sense. But there's something strange happening with the way that the education system sort of built.

They're not really being prepared for adult life. They're sort of being trained to maintain dependence, almost like they're being trained to be continuous children,

even when they're they should be being shown how to be adults, how to be men how to be women.

But this prolonged adolescence, yes, yes. And it was like, it was never like that. Even in the UK.

Historically, the second you were born, if you were a boy, when you hit puberty, you were expected to join the workforce. You were expected to go home. People were in the workforce even before that, yeah, as soon as they were kind of able to think and do anything of use, right? Yeah, the age reason in Christianity was the age of seven. That's the age I got my Holy Communion, specifically part of Christian doctrine, that that's the age that you become accountable.

Okay, according to, you know, in the eyes of God, and that's sort of like seeped into the culture a little bit. So yeah, there's probably people as young as age of seven that were working. But if for whatever reason, the family could maintain dependents of the children a little bit longer, sometimes they would. But the second you reach the age you were put into the workforce, you would even be taken into the pub, expect to drink your first pint, you were treated like an adult. Yes, there was distinctions between this kind of adult and an older adult, like the age of 18. And just in the same way, as distinctions between 20 year olds and 30 year olds and 40 year olds, that's but each is

still considered adults just at different stages. And the teenager was accounted as an adult at that point, they weren't treated like children, they were expected to earn a wage, they were expected to contribute and not be completely dependent anymore.

But obviously, with the, the introduction of the education system, this sort of changed.

But it only changed.

Aesthetically, like in terms of the the people that have been put through this education system, they're still going through the same things. They're still going through, you know, the the hormones and the

development of being a young adult.

And you're sort of thrown into these crazy environments, especially public schooling, you've got this mixed environment. And a lot of the attention is this competition between the boys trying to get the attention of the girls, the girls trying to get the attention of the boys. Obviously, some of you maybe can get your children into segregated schooling, but like, it's very, very common now that public schools are just not segregated.

And all of this develops its own sort of subculture. And you can see how this completely transforms things. Because if you know, it's, for some reason, the 20th century, you seem to be able to categorize it by the decade, that there's these huge cultural shifts that happen every single decade. And a part of that, is that the popularization of teenage culture, you have this group of people that you put together.

And there's not many adults involved in that. And they build their own culture, they build their own. And obviously, you're putting them really close together in these huge groups, where they can communicate their likes and their dislikes, and whatever is trendy, and there's this, there's this new subculture, this new community that you've created by slamming all of these children together, and this, this continues up to today.

And it's been made even more complex by the introduction of the internet, where now you have this sort of global subculture where kids, what's that new thing that we're doing not long ago, everyone's putting sweets into gherkins mad, but that was that was all over the planet.

And, like how, and obviously, that's,

you can see how these things sort of develop and change these people. But if you're an adult, and you're working, and you've got your own things that you're trying to work on, you can't really be plugged into what these kids are watching what these kids are learning about what trends, they're following what their conversations are having with their friends at school, the majority of classes, they may not be paying attention, they may just be talking to each other.

And all of this leads to building this wall that I mentioned, with regards to my friend, and maybe many people that you know, as well, and maybe even yourself growing up, if some of you are about my age,

maybe you are part of that generation that had this sort of split life, this,

you know, these jewel worlds,

where you're like one way in front of the kuffar and you're like this other way in front of the family.

So this causes problems, because when you find yourself in two completely different worlds, communication becomes difficult. Because they may say things, but you have you don't live in their world. So you don't know the struggles that they face. You don't know the problems that they have to deal with. And they're different, they are different. We don't live in the same world now, that we did last decade, and this is new. And we don't really yet quite know how to deal with this. Because historically, it whatever world you grew up in, it's pretty much the same world your great granddad lived in. So he could give you advice, he could say, you know, this is what you should expect, this

is what you can do. But we can barely even do that for ourselves. Now, because I have no idea what the world is going to be like in 10 years, there's this, this rapid rate of change gives rise to a sense of instability, where you can't even really prepare yourself for the future, let alone your children. And this causes a huge problem with communication. Because no one really knows what's going on. And we're just sort of like sticks in the river being carried by the current. And like, the language changes, like people are using new words to mean different things. I heard something new the other day, and I had no idea what they were communicating at all, they were just saying

things. It seems to mean something to the others that were listening, but I don't, I really don't know what they were saying. And, you know, and that's just with like slang and culture and all of the things he likes, etc. And because of that, there's sort of an anxiety as well, because obviously, there's you can maybe get in trouble your parents, etc. And so they build these walls, and they sort of stay separate. And the problem with this is that there could be all sorts of things happening here.

And you would just have no idea until it's too late, until they grow up. And they tell you that marry marrying a non Muslim man, or, you know, they're doing this and they don't, or they've left the religion or they want this kind of job or their practice, like when it's too late.

Obviously, it can come quite as a shock, because you're not seeing the builder. You're not seeing how this progresses over a long period of time. Did you want to add something sorry?

No, not at all. I mean, one of the things, themes that we have talked about quite a lot is, of course, prevention, right? Like building, building a good relationship with your kids, right from the beginning, being involved in whichever type of schooling you you do choose.

Being involved helping your children to curate friendships, the right sorts of friendships and actually creating the environment if they don't have that at school. Yeah, you know, to actually be with like minded people and having other mentors other than yourself. So we've been putting a lot of emphasis on, you know, like, you can't, as a parent ever outsource parenting, you can't outsource

your role as a guide.

But regardless of that, there are still parents who will

face problems, right? They will, like you said, yeah, they don't really know what's going on. Yeah, there's as much as you may, like, try to implement your effects upon the children, there's still going to be things outside of your control. And we've got quite Annika examples of this with Alex and his son.

Noah is no as one of the best examples of the human being that we have. And even his son was rebellious. Even his Sunday like he's telling his son to join him on the boat and if someone is saying no,

and so this is where obviously we care for our children.

And I've just been going through like old pictures of like my daughter and watching her as she's sort of growing and being going through this baby and like the you know, the first pictures we had of her in the first video, so she's sort of crying

Like her developing herself as a little human being and like developing a personality, and she's getting a little list and then the list disappears. And now she talks like a proper little human. And she walks around like little bossy knickers telling everyone what to do. And like, obviously, like when, like you see them growing up from from a complete,

not complete, but like an almost empty vessel

to like just watching them build up day by day by day, especially when they're younger, obviously, they're very, very dependent. So you have to be around them constantly. And then as they grow, they slowly they start to become a little bit more independent. And you can see them drift away a little bit, you can see them, and there's a sadness to that. But you love them, and you want what's best for them, and you want to sort of be there. But there is a realization that there are things in your control and things outside of your control. Once they start to develop as a person, then and they develop their own will. You all there's, you can do your best. But even then, like I've seen, I've

heard some horror stories about, you know, these Muslims that come from families of chefs, and that, you know, they've had faith of Quran. And you know, they've,

you know, they've been studying for years, and they're very learned brothers, and then they get caught up in the wrong crowd. And before you know it, they're motivated, and

they're doing the craziest things, and they've developed drug addictions. And it's like, I've heard crazy stories. But I've also heard crazy like me, as an example, you know, I grew up in a Catholic family that wasn't practicing. My dad was a heroin addict. He was in prison.

You know, I was a naughty kid. My dad died when I was about nine. My mom was always at work because she was a single mother. We were looked after by my paranoid schizophrenic Polish grandmother who could barely speak English, me and my brother did what we wanted. We used to go out on the ROB, as kids, as we were just talking about this the other day, when I was 10 years old, my brother was about eight, we broke into a factory that was filled with alcohol. And we took it, we just robbed it, and then we walked to school the next day and got drunk

at the age of 10. Like so you maybe you would look at me and think, you know, bloody hell, like what a crappy environment for a child like what chances that person got

then I'm by no means perfect, but I handle I became a Muslim. I've been a Muslim for nearly 10 years.

And like Islam is my life now. Like I you know, I love it so much. I call people to it.

To like it can go the, you know, Allah is the best of planets and you can plan and plan and plan and do what you want and do what you want but ultimately guidances with Allah and the prophets struggled guiding certain people, even those they love know Ali salaam with his son, the prophet luta Ali Salam with his wife, the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam with his uncle Abu Talib.

Sorry, I was gonna say, we do, like, the the one message that I do want to give parents though, is that

if you're going through something like that, at the moment where you feel like your child has made some kind of massive pronouncement, you know, or is going astray, or is straight,

don't lose hope, you know, because I really want to give that message as well. Because remember, life is a long journey, right? Yeah.

We can't write off our kids. And how insha Allah the things that you've put into their minds in their lives from childhood? There might be phases when those things it seems like they haven't come through

but with your DUA and within Charla taking into account some of the things that maybe we'll discuss today.

You can Inshallah, bring them back. Yeah, it was part of Allah can you know, obviously, he has the power to bring them back. So don't ever lose hope

is to keep doing our part, right? Yeah. And that's exactly the point is like, I'm, I'm trying to take you on a bit of a roller coaster here where like, there's the tension of the there is this element of a lack of control that things could go the way you want things could go the way you don't want them to.

And there isn't like this is where we have to understand who we are. We are Muslims, that is we are those who submit to the will of God. And that isn't to say that we don't feel hurt or that we're not saddened by the bad things that gotten in our life. We just we understand it in the context that this life is a test.

And that guidance is with a lot and that we are to be patient and we have to do our best with the means that we have and the abilities that we've been given.

And we can't do more than that. And so when that there has to be this submission to the things outside of your control, and obviously a bit of reflection with regards to what is in control what is in your control and what isn't. Now, if you've done your best, if you've done everything that you can, to the best of your ability, and even then you may not have done everything, but at least you've tried, you've done something, yeah, then that's better than actively working against them actively pushing them away actively being abusive, so on and so forth. Like, there's obviously degrees of this. And our job is just to do the best that we possibly can to be patient to seek

forgiveness, where we make mistakes, to try to rectify things, these kinds of things. And but you're not to lose hope. Because even the even when you get these horror stories where these people do go on blips, and they they leave or they they apostate, I've got a story just from this past week, what day is it today? When did I speak to them?

I can't remember, I think it was maybe Sunday. Okay, when I spoke to a monitor

who had left, and he was dabbling in Christianity, and then he was dabbling in Iran, some traditional African religion. And he was just all over the place. And the family invited me over to the house, and we spoke for like three hours.

And what became clear is what we're going to be talking about today is that, yeah, like many of the young people I speak to,

he was just lost. He had no, he had no idea what he was doing. He was overwhelmed by too much inflammation by a secular education that just pummeled him with all of these different ideologies, and flattened the value hierarchy to make them seem as if they're all equivalent. They're all true. If it's just like a cultural thing, like the kind of clothes your parents were back home, like that religion is equivalent to that. It's something that you can wear something you can take off, maybe you could try this other person's clothing on. Try this other person's religion, but they like it, a secular education.

It just diminishes the importance of the questions religion is attempting to deal with. Even like my own religious education, like we had an hour and days was broken into, like five one hour classes. And science was given hours and hours and hours, like science, you would be broken up into maths, biology, physics, chemistry, geology, geography.

And whatever else you had to do, we had ICT,

Home Economics, we had all of these different classes, and history. And they all had a lot of time dedicated. And then we had pcse, which wasn't even just religion, it was like religion and lots of other weird stuff. And we were given the worst possible teacher for that class who had no control. She was the librarian. And it was as if she hated teaching. But we just we literally, like, I remember, we broke her door in half once because we were messing about, she just had no control. We just did what we want it and she couldn't do anything. So especially we didn't learn anything. Because it was just we found it boring by someone who was teaching it, who didn't believe in any of

them. And so there was no passion, there was no, there was no faith.

There was like she was being taught, like we were being taught something, you know, that someone didn't really care about didn't believe in so we just that's how we saw religion we became we were indoctrinated into secularism. We looked at religion as a junk. And our only real experience with religious people, myself as being raised as a Catholic was like these boring Catholic sermons where you just got this dusty old man at the front, just talking in Latin every now and then and changing it up and saying something in English really bought like, slow and Joni and it was all very sad. And

it was just very crap. And then when it came to our experience of like, really religious people outside of churches, a lot of the time it's just like crazy people standing on top of

boxes and shouting, you're all going to hell and all Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on your door, there was a strangeness to religious people.

And the secular felt normal and that that is indoctrinated to us in our schooling system.

You know, the popular man if you brought your brought up with Islam, I would say the way religion is presented at school is like, there's the six religions that mainly usually present it and six religions. You know, they've all got these

you know, strange, peculiar peculiarities about them, you know, and they have each of them have a symbol. Each of them have this each of them have that. So basically what happened

Did you just sort of think, okay, it's just like, it's not going to come up, right? Like,

I picky Pokemon is that we're playing Pokemon Red. And you've got to pick Charmander, Squirtle, or whatever the other one was Bulbasaur. And it takes guts to sort of be a Muslim in that environment. You know, even if you brought up with Islam, and speak up and be willing to say, actually, I don't agree with this, or actually, that is true. And that isn't true or right. So yeah, yep. Definitely. For young people to do that, continuously. Yeah. Because the thing is, as well is like, and I'm so I'm recognizing this issue as well. Obviously, I've in my own daughter.

Like in schooling system. And there's, there's certain things that happen.

That, like even when you're engaging with the disbelievers. And you can see they may be left leaning, and they're trying to be inclusive, and they have this language. And even when you're dealing with Christians, or people who believe in God, and they try to neutralize their own

religion to incorporate like, there's some schools in this area I live in Bolton. Bolton's heavily populated with Muslims. And so even the Christian schools are like majority Muslim. So there's, my ex wife has my daughter most of the time. And I didn't have much control over which school she was going to. And so she's in a Protestant school at the moment. And that Protestant school is 60%. Muslim,

that, but they still tried to take them to church. And obviously, I'm not comfortable with that. So whenever they're going, I come, I take my daughter out, and I bring her here, and I'll teach her some about Islam until they finish, and then I'll take it back, and they go back. But I had to speak to the head teacher about this. And she was basically trying to convince me to let my daughter go to the church. And I'm having none of it because I'm former Christian, like, and I've been in these churches, I know what's in there. And as much as they tried to be neutral, they've got all the stories on the windows, like they've got, it's there, like the kids, even if it's not said it's like

it's subtly in their face.

And even when they're trying to be neutral, they don't realize they're not being. So like that, like they have these conceptions that are on Islamic. Like, they'll they'll refer to God as being the all loving, like they say, He loves everyone. He loves this, he loves that. And you know, Islamically speaking, we don't say he's the all loving, there are things Allah hates, there are things that Allah does not like.

And obviously when, like if they're not clued up with Islamic up either, and why would they be they're not Muslims. These things can sneak in.

And it's very, very, very difficult to manage. Yeah. So I'm going to share my screen.

So what I'll do,

I remember you were talking about basically the young man who you had been talking to, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I'm trying to give you a bit of hope.

He was just, he was someone who was confused.

He's, like the rest of us has, we've been drilled into our head because we've got the internet. And we're all overloaded with so much information about all of these different religions, all of these different ideas, all of this information. And there's this, there's a problem that our generation face now that no generation before that had to face is we have everything at our feet,

the world's information in the palm of our hand, we've got access to Google. And whatever we want to know we can start to google it, we can read books, we can, we've got access to it.

And this was sort of put forward like it was a good idea. And naively like kids with chocolate, because it tasted good. The first bite, we think we thought it was good. But we've not really thought about the long term consequences. And in the same way, if you eat too much chocolate all the time, you're going to get diabetes, you're going to become overweight, there's going to be certain health issues that can then lead even to mental health issues, and even potentially kill you. Because it when you're sort of like, when you're ignorant, when you're before the singularity hits before you're exposed to something that is revolutionary, like this is like unlike anything we've

ever had to deal with ever. You can't really anticipate what is going to happen after this the whole point of what a singularity is you, you don't know what's going to happen. And we are a guinea pig era. And all of this technology has been developed. And we've just gone. Alright, let's have it and we've just pushed it all over the globe. And now we've got it and it's here and we're watching as it's changing society we're watching, like, and no one really knows what's happening. You know, even like, you can get into conspiracy mindset, and we can talk about how there's these people at the top trying to control things, but even they are human beings. They're limited in how much information

they can take in. You know, whatever worldviews they have can affect how they even process that information. And they are not the one in control. Ultimately, Allah subhanaw taala is the best of planners and they plan but

It doesn't always go the way they want it either, if the most richest, the most powerful of people on the earth, they are not Allah, they are not the all powerful, there are still things outside of their control. And there is chaos in the earth. And what happens is, is people are exposed to all of this information. And then there's this sort of recognization that, Oh, crap. Like, I don't have enough time to really figure things out. Like if you walk into a library, and you just think for a minute, how long would it take me to not just read all of these books once, but to read them enough so that I can comprehend what's going on? And then not forget? The first books I've read, by the

time I've gotten to the end? How do I absorb all this information? How do I process it? And there's it and especially when it's essentially a phone, isn't it, you're looking at the Internet, and you're like, crap, there's just too much information. And I have not got enough time in life, to figure out what's going on. And then this sort of nihilism sets in for many people where they just give up on truth, they give up on being able to find what the answers are. And once they sort of let go of attaining any higher truths, then they just sort of focus on the immediate, and this is where you've got this popularization of things like YOLO mentality, etc. You only live once just focused

on the now. And the kids. They like if they transcend, quote, unquote, too much to try to incorporate and connect all the dots of what's going on. It just frazzles their mind. They can't, they can't do it. It's a task too big for mankind. And so there's a fear of this. Because you just recognize how chaotic things are. And especially when you can see everything that's going on in the world. You see the wars in Gaza, you see what's going on with the egos you see what's going on with our brothers in Kashmir and, and like there's just madness everywhere. And we don't we seem completely powerless to do anything about it. And so what they do is they sort of collapsing on the

moment. And then they just focus on what is happening here. And like kids being offered chocolate, they just take it and they get lost in that they get confused. And they don't know that there's like, there are ways of dealing with this. Like, if you find someone who's murdered, you don't need to check every person on the planet. What Where were you on the night of, you know, October the seventh or whatever date, you know, what did you do, you know, you can go through a process of deduction. And you can rule whole nations of people out because the murder didn't take place in China, it happened in Manchester.

In the same way with religion, you don't need to look into every single religion. But people have this naive assumption that that's something you need to do. You don't you can group things into categories. If polytheism is absurd, you don't need to look into any polytheistic religion. If monotheism makes sense, you're pure Tao heed, you don't need to take Trinity if Trinitarianism is something completely contradictory, and it caves in on itself. You don't need to take any of the Christian denominations seriously, you can write them off as a category. And then you could just focus on the ones that fit. What does make sense, these sort of fundamental ideas that, and I think

this is one of the reasons why Islam is so popular, is because it is the only religion and with myself, that's what I found, because I went to Buddhist temples, I was looking into Hinduism.

Obviously, I was a Catholic. So I was looking into all these things. And the only one who was ticking all the boxes was Islam. But I had some tools, I had an ability to sort of look at the information, categorize things, write them off, and to observe now not everyone has that. Not necessarily because something you're born with, it's just, you know, some Allah subhanaw taala puts people on certain paths. And they you know, these things are easier for some are harder for others. But people get confused. And so I, I'm sat with this boy, and I'm talking to him. And it's the same story that I've heard a million times, he's just a young boy, overwhelmed by too much information,

got confused, start dabbling with different stuff.

And then just apostatize. And then when I'm speaking to him, I'm asking him questions. He has no idea why he left. He can't tell me why Islam is wrong. You can't even tell me why he's interested in Christianity. He can't tell me why he's interested in this sort of thing. And so I go through a few basic arguments. When am I showing why Trinitarian theology is contradictory. And it makes sense. All right, so now we don't need to worry about any Christian denomination. If the Trinitarian philosophy is fundamentally contradictory, you don't need to take it seriously. If polytheism as a category just does not make sense. And even within all the polytheistic religions, they have this

notion of like the higher God or the like the Quran, a shot the same thing. They believe in Allah subhanaw taala, but they just had these intermediaries. You see the same in places like Hinduism in all of these different religions? And if that is absurd, and I can tell you, why not just skip all of them, why not just worship the thing at the top? Why not just worship the most worthy of worship? Why bother with all these things that are themselves dependent upon the highest

Once you do that, and break it down, and you're like, it didn't take too long or three hours is a big conversation. But it was making sense to him. And then by the end of it, he took his shahada and hamdullah. He's like, I think it was Thursday, I spoke to him. And then the next day, he messaged me, he said, he went to

the Joomla. And he's doing much better. But he's just, he's depressed. He's lacking, like a vision. He doesn't know where he's going. He's a young man, and he's not really been prepared for the world of adulthood. And he doesn't know what's going on is confused. And that's, that's just absolutely devastating as a man because he's just not been prepared for a world, mainly because the people that were raising him had no idea what this world was, they couldn't anticipate what what life was going to be like now, no one could be there even ourselves is fully grown adults who are still trying to figure things out, like, what's, what is going on.

So but the point is, is that people can go away, they can come back, like, there's all sorts of stuff that can happen. And that's not to say, Don't feel sad, because obviously, it's heartbreaking when these terrible things happen. But it's about remembering to have patience. And this is a fundamental part of Islam is to have patience to, like, bear these things with patience to just let things play out and understand that Allah subhanaw taala is the one in control. And you need to make a distinction between what is in your control, and what isn't. And what you do is the things are not in your control, you just leave them. Because, by definition, there's nothing you can do about it.

And the things that are in your control, you do what you can, and then you leave the rest of Allah subhanaw taala. Now, a couple of things that you can use, the resources that we have, with Sapiens Institute. So if you go to our website, sapiens institute.org. Or if you go to our YouTube channel, just sort of Sapiens Institute. There's lots of material on there, and on here, as well. And a couple of things that I want to draw your attention to is here, can you see my screen?

You're muted. I don't know if you're saying yes or no. Yep, yep, can see.

So here, we've got essays, articles, books, answers to certain questions, book reviews, etc.

Have a little look through them. There's lots of interesting things on there. All of its free. Here, we've got books, many of the things I've been talking about with regards to sort of like the overload of information. And then I've written a book about it, Islam and nihilism, my positive my cure, and it covers a lot of these things. And you might find it interesting. But the major thing I want to sort of draw your attention to,

you can have a look through all of these in your own time, but it's the no doubt, material. So we've got it as a book, and you can download the book for free, I think you can get a printed copy. from Amazon, it's, it's not much, it's just whatever the minimum prices that Amazon charges us for printing, it's not, we don't make any profit on it. So it's should be pretty cheap. And then we also have the learning platform. So if you go to

here,

and you can go to our learning platform, and there are loads of courses on here from secularism, Islam, LGBT, the London area, things about the Trinity, things about atheism, Islamic history, nihilism, as the art of dissertation and debate, a dour training course. And again, one obviously I'm trying to bring your attention to is the no doubt course. And again, all of these are free. You know, it's there's, they're not, we don't charge for any of them, but they are professionally filmed, academically sourced, they're really good courses.

And this goes through in a lot of detail 10 different strategies that you can use for yourself or for anyone that you know, that is suffering from doubts. And it's very in depth, and it goes into a lot of detail. Now, I'm gonna give you like a brief, cursory overview of that today, very quickly, just because I'm obviously conscious of time.

I'm not gonna go into too much detail, but I will recommend that you try to take that course yourself. And even and it may even be a good idea to do it as a family where you just set yourself a certain time, once a week, where you go, and you watch videos for half an hour. And then as a family, you discuss what you've learned. And you just sort of test each other. Okay, so what was it that what was what did we learn in that video, and you just make it a regular thing, and you just power through the course. Or you can read the book by yourself. We also have the lighthouse mentoring program, which is also free. And you can basically book a one to one meeting with either

myself or one of the other mentors. And we can sit down and we can have a chat with you. Now the only thing is, and obviously I'm aware this is for parents trying to deal with their children is that there is an age limit. We can deal with anyone under the age of 18 for legal reasons at the moment. It is something we hope to sort of implement in the future but it's not on the cards anytime soon. Because we've just got law

Whatever the milestones we have to hit before we can even get anywhere near that. But we can talk to parents, we can talk to anyone who's over the age of 18, that may be close to these people are dealing with these people. And we can, if they've got certain objections, they're asking, you don't know how to handle them, you're more than welcome to book a meeting with us. And we can talk to you about how we would deal with them. And generally, what we're doing is we're making reference a lot of the time to these 10 strategies. And part of these strategies. Two of them are about sort of the prevention is better than a cure thing. So like, how before the shipper had arrived? What do you do?

You know, how do you sort of be careful? And that's probably a lot of the things you've been discussing in this course. And then the rest of them are like, what do you do then, after it arrived? What goes on after that, and they differ, but we can see here, there's lots of different things.

And then there's two categories. So there's the one which is dealing with doubt. So that might be someone who's born a Muslim that might be someone who's an ex Muslim might be someone who's interested in Islam.

Or it might be someone who is dealing with those people, either a parent with children, be that a brother, or you know, even nowadays, children with parents that are doubting,

you know, or someone who's an Imam, or someone who is in a position, you know, in a leadership position and the community look to them for answers. For whatever reason, if you're struggling with certain questions, or you want to sort of, you know, go about discussing certain problems of how to resolve them, you're more than welcome to book a meeting. And we can go through these things with you. The no doubt course, it's broken up into a few different steps. And the first thing is to talk about the there's some big words, but don't worry about them. Because all the definitions get given to you. But it's about the metaphysical backdrop, which is basically to talk about worldviews. What

everyone has a worldview, The Quran mentions there, everyone has a template to which they turn. And it's true. And it's often the case that the atheists or the agnostic tries to make it as if that they don't have a direction. And that having a direction is sort of barbaric and backwards, and that you need to give that up, there's having a direction with regards to religion and become directionless. With a subset, you can't be without a direction. Everyone has a club little which they turn if you're not facing Mecca, you're facing a different direction. You're either facing north, south, west east, or any of the other directions in between, you cannot help but have a world

view. And the education system that you get, implements a lot of this into you very subtly, you don't even realize it. But this sort of goes into this in a bit more detail, the nature of the heart, how the heart wavers and how people often treat human beings as if they're like robots, and you've just got a sort of press a bunch of buttons, input information, and then Bish, bash, Bosh, you're gonna get a shahada out of it in the end. But it's not that some people can be rationally convinced of something. I was looking into Islam for over seven years. And I recall many years before I took shahada being convinced, and there was but yeah, I did not take Shahada. I couldn't

make that leap. Even the brother that I was talking to, who was a MultiPad on Thursday, who left Islam. By the end of the conversation, I asked him simple questions. I said, Okay, so after we've, we've had this huge conversation, I just want to summarize because I gotta go. Do you believe in Allah? He says, yes. I said, Okay. Do you believe Allah is One? He said, Yes. Do you believe the Quran is the word of Allah? He said, Yes. And do you believe Muhammad? SallAllahu wasallam is the final messenger. And he said, Yes. Last Apollo. So there's nothing else it says, no, no, I'm convinced all of that. So okay, so this will update your Shahada. It says, I'm not ready.

And then it was like, okay, so you say I've given you Would you say then I've given you lots of good reasons to be a Muslim? And he said, Yes. So okay. So what reasons have you got for putting it off? And his answer? Will, He was no good reason.

And then I had to talk. So you're telling me you've got all of these good reasons to take shahada, you've got no good reason not to. And yet, you're inclining towards not taking it.

Why?

And a lot of it was just tied down to anxieties, like a fear, like expectations that are in entailed with that it's not necessarily like a rational problem. It was the fear of having to be this perfect Muslim, and then we had to have a conversation about you're not expected to become a perfect Muslim overnight. It wasn't even the case for the Sahaba that the Quran was revealed to them over a period of 23 years. It wasn't just dropped on them. And I'm pretty sure even within the Quran and the Hadith, it talks about you know, had it been given to them all at once they would have flipped from you. So it was given to them in stages, piece by piece and they were developed, the belief was put

into their hearts first, and then the rulings when they came it was easy for them to accept it.

Is the generations about when alcohol became forbidden.

The narration talks about how they all came out with their alcohol and start pouring it in the street. The fact that they all came out with alcohol suggests they were all practicing it, there was something they all engage with this hadith that talks about some of the Sahaba getting drunk. And the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam having to deal with them getting into shenanigans, while they're having parties to like they, they weren't expected to become super Muslim overnight. And they're said to be the best generation, the first generation. And yet now, one of the biggest challenges a lot of children faces that, like that, it's almost as if they're expected to be the

best Muslim. And there's this huge anxiety that if you do go out there, and you represent Islam, you've got to be like, you know, as good as the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam. And the issue is, is it's just not, it's not realistic, it really is, like a huge benchmark to expect a young person to hit immediately. And so a lot of it was just about setting expectations to listen, baby steps, step by step, develop yourself slowly, aim, make a clear target for yourself and work towards it.

But this is tied into this notion of the the nature of the heart and understanding how that takes a play a part of this whole

process of dealing with doubts that people are not just minds, that their, their feelings can affect their ability to think. And when I've got really good examples, I had a friend who was an absolute genius. He was he was a really clever guy, he went to university, he got degrees in mathematics, he did really well he's a big time accountant, now, really clever kid. And then any other days quite, you know, a very, very rational person. And then he was obviously a non Muslim, but he fell in love with some girl, she broke his heart, and he became an idiot overnight. And he was like, Oh, I just sent her 10,000 messages, maybe she'll fall in love with me again. If I just, like, bother her and

pester her and seem that pathetic, maybe she might see how much she needs me. And it's like, we have to sit down with this person and what's going on, I thought you were a clever guy, what makes you think this is gonna work. And it was not about his brain it was his heart was broken. And that had an impact on his rational faculties. Because both of them are effective. And this is a part of the religion as well, we're, you know, Mohamed Salah Salem, narrated, you know, if you're angry, and you're stood up, go sit down. And if you're sat down, go lie down, like, you need to take yourself away, you need to calm down. Because when you're in this state of emotion, you're not, you're not

gonna, you can be the cleverest guy on the planet, it's not gonna matter, because your heart gets in the way of that. And this is something that is often neglected. How the hearts can affect the direction to which people move. And you're a human being. And you need to take this into consideration, not just for yourself, but the people that you're engaging with.

Today's crisis and challenges. We've already sort of spoke about these a little bit today, like how today is unique. And so even like, thinking about how maybe they used to deal with things two 300 400 years ago, yes, essentially, there's a lot of patterns. And there's many things that are still the same, and very applicable today. But there is something very unique about today's situation.

Because we're with the implementation of things that no previous generation has had to deal with, like the internet, for example, tick tock all of these crazy things. And even to the degree that even if you keep your kids away from these things, if they go to school, they're going to be talking to kids that go off these devices. And they're going to be affected by it. And you can try it, build your walls around them. But eventually, they're going to have to step beyond the wall. And you have to prepare them to some degree, you can't think you can just put them in this bubble. And then that's it, they're safe, because that can be a huge shock for them. And this happens a lot where

parents cocoon their kids, they go nowhere, homeschooling them, they've been locked in the house, and like I'm keeping them out out from they're not going anywhere near any of this fitna. And then they grow up, they can become adults, Mom and Dad eventually pass away and they've got to go out into the world and I, I have no idea what's going on. And they and then it's forced on them. It's something that they have to deal with.

So these are things you've got to take into consideration the crisis and challenges of today. Sources of doubt, there's different sources of doubt. And we've talked go into them, and a bit detail, and then dealing with yours and other people's that. And so then there's the 10 strategies in particular. So be aware, no attention, be aware is simply to say,

you can get these slides by the way. There's a lot of information here. And just because obviously we've been talking a lot, and I want to move into a sort of q&a session. How long have we got by the way? You say to have seven?

Muted

sorry, you're muted.

Sorry. Yeah, we've got about 25 minutes. Is that okay? Yeah.

Okay, so I'll just run through these quickly. But like I say, if you want to go into this in a lot more detail, I recommend just taking the course or just reading the book. So I'll just stick on this one slide, you can get the slides on the learning platform. So do check that out in your own time, inshallah.

But these are the 10 strategies here. So you've got to be aware, which is to say, if you're going into a dangerous environment, you need to be aware, you're in a dangerous environment. And if you let your guard down, this can be trouble for you. Like if you go out into the jungle, and you know, there are tigers in the jungle, the last thing you want to do is we're going around, like making yourself a target, letting everything know that you're here and acting flippantly. You have to be aware of your situation. And to a degree, that means be self reflective. Look at the World Look away, Look at what's going on around you try to act with wisdom did, you don't have to not

everything needs to be said out loud. Not everything needs to be propagated, you need to be someone who chooses his words carefully, and steps carefully. If if you're walking through a minefield, the last thing you want to do is just not watch where your feet are going. Because you're going to step on our mind eventually. And this is what we mean like be aware, like if there are dangers around watch where you put your feet, watch where you put your feet be aware of what's going on. And this is like pre emptive. So this is part of the prevention. No attention refers to just not giving certain things attention.

For example, if you've got certain worse, worse and stuff, the public compute in your head, not everything needs to be delved into. And I have an example of someone who did not take this into consideration. It was a young man. And he would email me every day saying, I have all of these

doubts, I have all of these horrible habits. I need your help, I need your help. And I said, Okay, let me see. And he sent me a list of 1000s and 1000s of like this huge document, where he lined out every single one, each one had its own video. And it was just one after the other after the other that was like how of you it was only young, it wasn't even that old. It was like 17, or some kid on Discord. And he just had a ridiculous amount of them. And then I got talking to him. And he he didn't even know what the majority of them were. Most of the videos he hadn't watched. He was just so obsessed with the existence of these shabiha that he began to collect them like Pokemon cards,

and he just compiled them. And the fact that they existed, he obsessed over their existence. And even like the most simple one is Okay, which one is the biggest deal for you? And he brought that one and I would ask him questions about and he couldn't even articulate what the problem was. So you don't these aren't shabiha you don't even understand the problem. Like you can't articulate it to me in any way. And his issue was his he was giving them all too much attention. Like he was so focused on the fact that they exist, that it made him panic, and it made him act incredibly silly. And like you have certain things you have to recognize don't require your attention. Like for example, if

you're walking through the street, there may be someone walking with a dog, you don't need to make a big deal. You don't need to start screaming and panicking. Sometimes don't pay attention to the dog and just walk straight back past it can be the best method of overcoming an obstacle or not getting yourself into a situation. Sometimes you can just ignore things, and they can go away. And just in the same way clouds, they come in, they go they pass, the tide comes in and goes out. And patience in this regard, can deal with a lot of the issues just let having the ability to let go. Like with this kid, all he had to do was just let go of certain things. Because most of them like you're going

through the list. Most of them were just the most absurd things. They like the silliest of doubts or the silliest of objections.

One of them meet like, you know, Islam worship, that Muslims worship the moon is probably like there's a verse in the Quran that just completely obliterates this idea, like do not worship the sun, or the moon. These things are creations of Allah worship the one who created them. It's such a simple, it sounds like he maybe just compiled it from some anti Islam website and just

it was it was a personal list that he made. And when I spoke to him, it became clear that he was basically just going down these YouTube wormholes. And whenever he found a new thing, he put it into his document. And he just amassed them. And it was, it was it was like a very scruffy list. You could tell it was just like nothing.

From a website, it was just his own little collection of links and comments and nonsense, basically. There was definitely there were some things that he'd gotten from because there was links to certain websites on there as well like these anti Islamic websites but

It was just this young kid who treated them like Pokemon. And he just tried to collect them all. So yeah, the main point here is that there are certain things you don't have to pay attention to. That's not to say, stick your head under the sand, because certain things will need your attention. And this is where the next bit comes in making the distinction. So there is a difference between different kinds of things. And there's an image if I can pull that up

make it? Yeah. So if I was to ask you, what's the difference between these things?

I couldn't even tell you what they were to be honest. I have no idea. This slides were produced by a chef I had, by the way. So I think he knows the names of all these berries. Oh, there we go. So yeah, like, if you would starving, there's a famous film called into the wild about a man who goes into the wild. And he's trying to survive, and he's trying to find sources of food. And he's gotten to a point where he's starving to death. And he's got a little book, and he's trying to find some berries that are that he can eat. And his big mistake is, spoiler alert.

He picks up the wrong berries.

I can't make the distinction between them. Now, some of these may look delicious. Or maybe you don't agree, maybe they don't look delicious. But you know, so one of these things you can eat, the other would kill you, if you did. And it's important to be able to make the distinction between these things. And it's the same when it comes to doubts. Everyone comes in this is I have a doubt I have a doubt I have a doubt. But when you question them on it, a lot of the time, it's not even a doubt. A lot of the time, it's just worse was a lot of the time, they can't even articulate it. A lot of the time. It falls on the one of the other two categories. But because they can't make the distinction,

they treat it like it's a show of hands, they go into a panic, and they don't know what to do. And so then they they start getting worried that there may be now I'm a kofod. And, you know, what do I do? What do I do? Nick? I'm running towards new talk to them. And by the end of it 90% of people? Oh, thank God, like, okay, so it's just a question. It's just, it's just the worst worst, it's not really something you need to worry about. So the first one is the worst was whispering.

whispers

akin to like, you hear someone saying something on the bus, you don't believe it? You don't. It makes you feel bad that you've even heard it. And you maybe you even talk against it. Like someone says something about someone you love. If someone is bad mouthing your mother on a bus, and you hear that, and you stand up and you say, No, that's not true. That that's not a shawl hat. Number one, you don't believe it. Number two, there is an aversion within your own heart against it. And that you don't recognize it as a truth. And you dislike the presence of it in your experience whatsoever. And this is something that the Sahaba had to deal with. We got an ovation here by Abu Hurayrah

delanco, where he said, some of the companions in the Messenger of Allah came to the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam and said to Him, we find in ourselves thoughts that are too terrible to speak off. He said, are you really suffering from that? They said, Yes. And he said, that is a clear sign of faith. And then there's another one to write about Ebola Tila, who,

who said the Prophet Muhammad said, Julie, Allah has overlooked for my Alma bats, which is whispered, or the wit, that's which is thought about in the lowest self, as long as they do not act to act upon it or speak about it. And this, just this alone, deals with so many issues, because people they're afraid to even mention they have these What's worse, and they assume it's a horrible heart, and then they live with it. They live with this guilt, they live with this pain inside of them. And it can manifest into something worse, because they maybe this the presence of this was worse and not knowing it's always worse rather than a Shabbat

can damage that Eman because as far as they're concerned, they're possibly covered already, because they have these westwards and they've not been able to make the distinction, which is why it's important to teach people the difference between a worse worse and I'm sure will hurt. And just that one little thing alone and even not just that, but questions. Some things are even worse, worse. Some things are genuine questions that are valid. And the companions of the Prophet Muhammad Salah Salem would constantly go to the Prophet and ask him questions. They would ask questions. The questions themselves are not necessarily a bad thing. It depends what the issue is. If you're just

wanting to learn about the deen and understand what Akita is, what the Islamic position is about certain things. There's no problem in asking these questions.

It's not an issue and the ones that you want to worry about as specifically as Shabbat and these are said to be falsehoods that undermine the fundamentals of Islam, or distort the religion in any way. And the person is unsure about the truth of the undefended the fundamentals of Islam because of these things, and so they're described as like a wolf in sheep's clothing.

And then they'll like things that mix truth with falsehood said there's bits of truth in them. And so they like, for example, a common thing that the MultiPad will do is maybe bring a hadith that Sahai. And they say, Look, this is what your religion says. So they bring a truth. Yes, the religion. This is part of our religion. It's from Sahih Bukhari, it says x y Zed, so they brought a truth. And then what they do is they start to add falsehood to it. And so they say, if this is from your religion, then that means this and then that means this and then that means this. For example, the verse of the Quran that says in kill all the disbelievers wherever you find them,

they bring this and say, Look, this is in your Quran, a truth claim, and you can check it. You look in the Quran. Oh, yeah, it does say that. It is that that is what it says. And then they'll add to it and say, that means if you ever meet a disbeliever, you've got to kill him. Your religion commands you to kill all the disbelievers. Now, what they've done is they've mixed truth with falsehood. If the person has no idea what the Islamic position is, hasn't seen the verses before, after hasn't understood the context. When was this verse revealed? What did the primary audience understand from that? It's very easy for someone to get confused with that. And then they and then

they're expected to have to defend it. And they don't know how to answer this. They they flee from it. They flee from it, they run away, because they don't want to say what that says they don't want to own up to the inferences. But they've been convinced they've been hoodwinked. They've been bamboozled into thinking that this truth claim which can be verified to be true, because they brought the evidence and it's there, you can argue with that. And then they attach a load of inferences to it. And if someone isn't really prepared to deal with that, that can be devastating, especially in the context of a young person in front of a crowd of people that don't believe what

they believe. If you're the only Muslim in a grant a group of people, and you're surrounded by 10, disbelievers. And this one brings, it shows the verse and everyone sees it. And they're all like, oh, yeah, don't say that. Don't say that. You can't get a word in edgeways. Whenever you try to say something, someone's interrupting me, but it's there, but it's there. But it's a, that's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of pressure, and in that some youth can't do anything, but just flee from that, and then throw it out the window, say, oh, then I don't believe it. No, I don't believe that. And then they, now they're dealing with this idea, I have just denied the Quran, I am recovered. And

they continue to live like that, then

that's, that's an issue. But this they've, like we say they've been hoodwinked. The truth has been mixed with falsehood. And this is essentially what a super heart is, is that there's always these extra little bits attached to a truth claim. And it's made to appear to be something that it's not, or there are fundamental things like a worldview, we will speak about a worldview that people have had instilled in them from a very early age, for example, this idea, it's fine to do something, so long as it doesn't harm anyone else. We hear this a lot. And this is something in the public education system that said very subtly, constantly, over and over and over and over and over and

over and over again. And then when it comes to things like the issues surrounding things like the LGBT things around Zina, all of these things, what they do is they draw a circle around the act. And they say, Well, no one's being harmed by it. And then they'll look at it and they go, oh, yeah, you're right. And they fall back on this worldview that they've been given. And then they go, so why is this haram? It's not harming anyone, there's no problem with it. But that's just because this, this arbitrary line has been drawn around the act. And there's not wider implications being taken into consideration. So this feeds into all the other things. So your environment, thinking about,

like, where you are, the people you're with, you know, all of these things have a huge impact. And there's different kinds of conformity. There's all sorts of studies that have been shown that, like this

might be related to this image. I'm not gonna read it, I'm just gonna tell you the one in my head. What's that guy called?

Darren Brown. He does this experiment, where he bring he's got three actors, and they're standing up and sitting down on chairs, every time a bell goes off, and they've been told to do this. They're paid. They know exactly what they're doing, why they're doing it, Darren Brown told them to, and then they bring in strangers. And these people have no idea what's going on. And they come they sit down in a chair, they're told to fill out a form, and then everytime the bell goes off, everyone stands up, and then they're looking and they don't know what's going on. And the bell goes off, and the people sit down, and then eventually, these people just imitate everyone else. And the bell goes

off, they stand up, bell goes off, and they sit down, and then they keep bringing people in. And then when the rooms full, they take the actors out and replace them with other people, and they keep pressing the bell, and now you've got a room filled with people standing up and sitting down, because the bells going off, and no one knows why they're doing it. Because the only people that did know have been removed, and it talks about social conformity and if you're a Muslim in a minority environment

There's a lot of this happening, where especially it's inescapable. Even if you like mollycoddle your kids, eventually they're gonna have to get a job. Eventually, they're going to experience being a minority in a majority non Muslim environment.

And that has an impact people can look up to certain people. And that can affect their their man. It's like, they may have some friends that they really like, and this friend does this, that and the other and they're living this fun lifestyle, they get to drink alcohol and take drugs, and they've beautified it. I was, I was one of them, I, I.

When I was younger, I was really into weed culture. And I used to beautify it. And I wouldn't show people all the problems associated with it. I wouldn't show people I would even lie to myself tried to tell myself, I wasn't addicted. And I had all these films that I love that were like about weed culture. And like, I acted as if it was just If only everyone smoked weed, it would solve everyone's problems. And the reality of it was not, that was not the case, handle, I left that behind a long time ago. But I was someone who used to introduce people who had never smoked it to it, including Muslims. And may Allah forgive me for it.

But it was like, an my character type was a dominant one. So there was some one that was maybe a bit more submissive, who maybe looked up to me or admired me in any way, it was very easy to sort of carry them along and bring them upon to this,

you know, this ideal that I had, just because of the type of person they were. And so you need to be careful about the environment that they're in, you need to tell them as well that this is the kind of thing that they need to think about. Because if they recognize the type of relationship they have with someone, because we've got the Hadith about the blacksmith, and that root cellar that everyone's familiar with.

And the question is, is, because this can be quite complex. Sometimes you might be a blacksmith, sometimes you might be a Nutella, sometimes the person you're with might be a blacksmith in one context, and a new seller in another. And what happens when the blacksmith hangs around with a huge seller, maybe the seller might make the blacksmith smell a bit nicer. But as well, the other thing could happen as well. And you need to be cognizant of that relationship that you have with the people you're engaging with. and act accordingly. If you find yourself to be someone who is easily intimidated, like, you know, a young person goes into university, they're all the same age, you've

got this peer group. All of them are very opinionated. They're all atheists, secular liberal feminists.

You know, what? How are you going to act in that kind of environment? Are you a dominant character? Can you withstand having a minority opinion in front of a crowd of people who disagree with you? Can you do that? Not everyone can. When I went to university, I went there much later, I was like, 27, I traveled around the world for 18 months before that, I had a wife, I had a daughter, I couldn't give a crap, what all of these kids thought I did not they wanted to do all these things. I didn't want to go to the pub, I'd been there done that I was over it. I did not care if they liked me. So when I was in this environment, it was completely different for me, I could stand there and hold the

Islamic position, tell them I believe in God, and they could laugh. It didn't affect me. I couldn't I didn't care if he laughed at me who was he is some little kid. God knows.

You know, where he's from what in fact, like, I My intention was not to please them. I was there to get a first class. That's all I wanted. I couldn't care whether or not they liked me about it. So I'd argue with them about feminism, I'd argue with them about liberalism and argue with them about their atheism and all of these assumptions that they were making. And if they mocked religion, you know, I'd say what do you know? Like what, what objections you get, and then I would tear apart the objections, like I, I could engage in that, because my character type is quite a dominant one. And in those environments, I'm just I'm not swayed by a crowd. They could all stand up together and

shout at me. And I just laugh at it. It's not, that isn't an issue for me. But that's not the case for someone who's maybe 1718 years old, and they've been mollycoddled all their life, they've never been in an aggressive situation. They've never even had a fight. Like I've had much worse situation. Because I grew up in a council estate, where like, you've got people waving knives in front of your face, I'm not going to be intimidated by some little kid from Oxford, who's British shows you doesn't it that we should encourage our kids to speak up? You know, because, yeah, unfortunately, sometimes.

In Muslim cultures, some some cultures.

Children are encouraged to just be quiet and listen to the adults and you know, not not question anything, not not speak their mind. And of course, there's a line between being respectful and disrespectful. But same time I think it shows you that we have to sort of foster that

ability in a child to for it to be okay for you to be different to speak up.

Yeah, definitely.

but it has to be done in a certain way. Because it's not like we didn't have that kind of thing in our environments like growing up, I couldn't talk to my dad. I couldn't give him feedback, I'd get a slap about the back of the head, I guess there was, we did have that with our elders, it's not so much now. Because obviously, that society is softened a lot.

But my uncle used to chase me with a samurai sword. If I, if I was naughty like that there was this like aggression, that what sort of develops that lack of care was a nasty side of life, like I was exposed, like, Yeah, and like I had to go out and I was engaged with gangs, like we used to hang out with this huge group of lads. And we go out on the rubber, we go out taking drugs, and like I had active experience with scary places and scary people. And so when it came to like, dealing with and it wasn't like it was no one put it on me. It was just you like a rock rolling down the hill, you went up there. Like, it's like, my mum obviously wouldn't have ever wanted me in those situations.

My dad tried to prepare me for that. And he would take me out for walks in the night. He used to make us watch horror movies, like his way of developing me was probably not

very good sonically speaking. But if you look at like how the Sahaba and that uses, maybe deal with their children, where the children were exposed to things like fighting, they could see wars happening, or they could see injuries and that you know that there was a different environment. They saw hardship. Tough. Yeah, exactly. And so like, there is a way of doing that from an Islamic perspective where you do introduce your children to hardship to difficulty in such a way so that it strengthens them. The question is, is obviously, like, in today's context, how do we do that? Because we've we're very self conscious about our community and how the outside looks at us. And

we're constantly trying to, like, reassure everyone, don't worry, we're not a danger. And this, I think, sort of makes us overcompensate with softness. And there's going to be like a long term sort of consequence of that. But environment Long story short, there's a lot to think about with environment. Let me try to get through this. study Islam, like a lot of things can be overcome if you just understand Islam, I mean, study at either study fit, like, what is the Islamic position on these things, because the amount of times where there's been someone who's like, told what Islam is by disbeliever, who does not have a single idea about what Islam is, the Muslim men panics, because

they don't know. And they're being like we told we're talking about before someone says, Oh, your Quran tells you to kill all the disbelievers. And then they show the verses, and then they're telling them so you can get your wife in a headlock and punch him in the eyes and pull a TIF out. That's not what it means. That's not what it means. But they're being told this. And because they've not studied Islam, because they've not really embodied it. And one of the biggest problems with the Muslim culture in the UK, with the people of my age, my generation was that all they were really taught was how to read Arabic with bad Tajweed. And then that was it. They just, you've got to

memorize the Quran, you don't really know what you read in, and the amount of people I know that have read the Quran from front to back in Arabic, but never read it in a language they understand. So they could tell you all these sources, they can recite them, but they don't know what it means. And that's a problem. Because

the Quran is like, it's trying to communicate was talking to you. A is trying to communicate something to you. But if you if you're going around China,

and like you're trying to learn, I can universities in China, and you're you're listening to the lectures, and you can repeat what the lecturer says back to him. What point is that when it comes to the test? If you have no idea what you're supposed to write down now because you don't understand what's being asked of you. You don't understand what's being communicated. The like, you have to understand, to at least some degree, what you're learning, what is it that's being communicated here? What is Islam? What does it mean to be a Muslim? And it needs to go beyond just the like these sort of cultural surface level elements that it's often put forward and studied to study Islam like

coming to understand what it is, what is the Islamic position? What is it that the Muslims believe about Allah subhanaw taala, about the Quran about the prophets about

what you are as a person, who are you? What are you doing here? How are you going to do it? If you understand these things? Like when they come up to you with misconceptions, it's not going to affect you, because you're already prepared. You have your shield, you have your sword, you're ready, metaphorically speaking.

study Islam, there's different like examples of common misconceptions like the age of a shot at the land, the age of consent. Women's inheritance is another one.

All these misconceptions that surround this that give rise to differential heart, if you just study it, you come to understand it and keep things like worldviews in consideration, these things cease to be a problem.

So if you've got critical thinking, critical thinking, it's just the amount of times I've had to speak to someone who's just got they're not it's not even a show, but it's not even on what's worse. They've just got a question where they go to a, someone who's supposed in a position of power in the community, they're supposed to be some type of leader, the Imam, or the parent of the Father. They've asked a genuine question. And they're just sort of abused for it. Like how dare you ask such that? It's an it's it's questions, the Sahaba of Assam times, and they're being sort of treated as if they've done something terrible. There's no empathy. There's no like, just how dare you ask this.

And this sort of inculcates this fear of thinking, this fear of engaging, and the thing is, is if you're reading the Quran, and you're doing what we said in the last one, and you're understanding what it's saying, you could end up doing things that you might, that the Quran is telling you to do that it's that it's take that it's sort of making it very clear that the fact that the disbelievers do this, this is blameworthy upon them by for example, Ibrahim alayhi, salam, he goes to his people says, Why are you doing what you're doing? You've got these practices, you've got these beliefs? Why? And the answer is mom and dad did it.

Mom and Dad did it. It's just, it's what we found the people that came before us doing. And this is made very clearly is put forward as this. This is not a very good reason. Why if mom and dad left the religion, would you leave as well?

Like why are you a believer? Why do you believe what you believe? Is it just because mom and dad believe it? Is it just because by accident? You were born into this family? Or do you believe because it's true. And Allah says there are signs in the heavens and the earth and within your own cells, for those who reflect for those who ponder for those who look out into the world. And look upon the signs that Allah subhanaw taala has left, read the Quran, think about it, engage with it, read the you know, the commentaries, read what the pious people have said about these things. Go into it, study it, learn it, think about these things, even that, like the objections that when an

atheist comes to you, one of the biggest problems at the moment.

And the things we get taught in school, sometimes there seems to be a conflict with Islam, like, you know, the common ones being like evolution,

or whatever else is, is that they're trying to teach. And this is just being given. Like, one thing they said is that like random mutations are a given, like, this is something you cannot question. And this was taught like it was Bible, if you ever tried to object against this,

you'd be ridiculed it especially if you were within the scientific community, it wasn't that much. It wasn't that long ago. But it turns out not everything is random in terms of what they think. And with regard to random mutation. This was something they had to let go. The the theory of phlogiston, they had this whole theory of this substance that was released when you burn things. And they had a whole discourse on it, where the elites would talk about this thing that in its own, I didn't even exist, but they had a whole discourse on it, there's something they, they, the intellectuals spoke about. And it just was not a thing. And so like, if you if you engage in critical thinking, and you

understand where things like like, this is something that can help you. But it can be taken too far, where people get to a sense of extreme skepticism. And they treat tools as if you can use them for everything, like someone uses a hammer to make a sandwich, or pick up a glass or get a hammer has got particular uses. And it's the same with critical thinking, like, there's certain things that it's going to be useful for. And there's certain things where like, it's going to be useless. If, for example, people talk about the ACA, the contents of the ACA, and like, you need to show me with reason alone, why they're, you know, why paradise exists, and why there's many mansions there, and

so on so forth. But that's completely understand misunderstanding how critical thinking applies, because there's, like, you can see my office. But critical thinking isn't going to tell you about what's behind the camera, or what's out of view or what's through that door. You can't use critical thinking alone to get those answers. There's other things you need. Sometimes you need evidence, sometimes you need testimony, sometimes you need experience. Like there's there's other things that go with critical thinking that can take you to certain conclusions. And so this is something as well, that can be delved into a lot and just because I've rambled and we're running out of time, I

am going to gloss over it. But I do recommend the course. If you want to talk more about it. Obviously you can book a lighthouse meeting, find a specialist so that could be like going to an imam or a scholar asking questions about certain things. Is this the Islamic position on this making?

give you the answer, maybe booking a lighthouse meeting and coming speaking to all of us who've got, you know, experience dealing with atheists quite a lot and what kind of objections they come with,

you know, find a specialist, don't just try to deal with this on your own. And don't just assume that there isn't anyone and just say, Oh, don't bother, don't bother, because these things they can linger, they can manifest. And if it's not just a worse, worse, if it's not just a genuine question, but if it is a genuine shabiha, that is affecting the heart of the individual, dealing with these problems, not finding a specialist could be a huge problem. Because it just finding one and having that conversation. I can't tell you how many times people have booked a lighthouse meeting. They've had a quick conversation with us. And then humbler at the end of it, they're over the moon at the

beginning, there are nearly in tears, because they're worried about being a Kfar, you know, like, I've I left the religion, you know, am I cursed? Am I there's some of that. But at the end of it, they realized there wasn't a problem at all, that they're not even, it's not a horrible heart, it was a question, there are answers, or it was the worst worst, it's something they can ignore. It's not something that undermines the religion.

You know, finding a specialist can itself be like finding a doctor, you know, you've got this illness, if you just leave it, the gangrene can spread. But if you find someone who knows what it is, and can treat it, that can deal with it, trauma, the amount of times people have just trauma from abuse from dealing with the community. We mentioned, like the sort of atmosphere in British mosques in the 80s 90s. I can't tell you how many people that have trauma going to the masjid because of how they were dealt with, during the process of being taught the Quran, where if they mispronounced something, they will beat with a stick. And this can affect the way you view

something, having a negative experience with an ex husband. And you know, and he was very, very abusive person, and so on and so forth. And he was a Muslim. And he was like, you know, like he the you know, the Hadith that says,

women are like, how do you remember call the Hadith about the women being like a stick? And if you tried to straighten it too much, it might snap?

What's the Hadith? You recall it?

Can you can you can you repeat the Hadith again, it's the hadith is describing women like a stick that is bent. And if you try to straighten it too much, you could snap rib. Yeah, there is one

where you and you get some men that that put too much tension on individuals. And they don't take this, you know the Islamic ethos into consideration that you're not to put too much pressure on, you're not to damage people and make them snap. And they've had to deal with this. And maybe it's child looking at a father who was abusive, or a mother who was abusive, to either them the children or to the significant other. And then that just paints the entire religion, the abusive person was associated with in a negative light, and especially blinking. Sometimes it's not

a rational thing, you know, that even the person is saying, Oh, it's because I don't believe in this, that and the other. When you dig a bit deeper, you find out actually, they're just using that as a cover for psychiatry, how many times has it happened, where someone comes to me with objections, and then I ask them to read to articulate it. And they're like, hold on, that doesn't make any sense. And when I push them on, it isn't about that at all. That's just like a cover, that's just something that masks the real issue. And, like, they don't really understand why it's a problem. It's just an excuse, that makes them feel better about the real reason they left. And when

you dig in, it's like, actually, you know, I had this abusive father, or you know, my husband, or my this or my that or my, like, I grew up around Muslims, and they were very cruel to me. And because of the way that they treated me I just had I just didn't want anything to do with that community. He said, Why what happened? And it's just like the crappiest stories you've ever heard. It's like that is That's crap. I can't believe they did that to you. And then you and then you speak to me, like, you know, that's not Islamic. Like there's nothing in the Quran and the Sunnah, that justified them treating you like that. That's just them being terrible people. And then then like, oh, and then you

go into your Yeah, look, you know, there is this reference from the Quran is this hadith. Like it's telling you to treat people with kindness to like, not, not snap them not be cruel, not not abuse each other with foul words. Like if they're doing these things to you, they are blameworthy. And then when they start to realize that it's like, you know, if if they were practicing, if they practiced Islam, that would never have happened to you. You what you have a problem with isn't Islam, it's with their,

their deviation from it. That's what and that and that could be a number of things that's affected. And that's that could be the fact that they they're embedded in this non Muslim society, and they've been impacted by these sort of societal norms. But trauma plays a huge part of it and sometimes

is facing that trauma is very, very difficult, because it's tied in with a heavy amount of emotions. And that requires a lot of patience. And depending on like the severity of the things that the people have gone through, like that, that can be big like that you could prepare yourself for a screaming match, it might be something you've got to sit down and go through. But sometimes, and sometimes people fear that trauma, they fear that tension that gets that arises from letting that bubble to the surface, and they just try and push it down and avoid it. Well, sometimes you have to go through it, sometimes you have to let people cry. And you have to be there with them and cry with

them and hug them. And, yeah, like it's a very, very important bit that's neglected heavily. And it's because of some parents, they consider sending their children to non Muslim therapists, okay?

When they're going through doubts, okay. And now, although therapists can be good for,

you know, a problem that you're facing, that maybe some psychological problem that you want to overcome,

I'm quite reticent to

encourage or even say that it's a good idea to send children to a therapist who are having doubts, you know, if they've got trauma, and they've got doubts, because I don't know what you think about this. Because in my experience with therapists, I've been to therapists myself before, and I know family members who have, because they're coming from a non Muslim paradigm, if that child was to start expressing their doubts, to that therapist, the therapist would almost like, help them to double down on those doubts, you know what I mean? And really, like, lean into it and really like, and of course, validate, validate them leaving a slap, right? Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's quite hard,

I guess, for parents, if they know that their child has gone through a trauma that needs to be dealt with, maybe they feel that they need therapy, but then they've also got doubts.

Maybe those two things need to be dealt separately, I don't know. Yeah, so

that's a massive problem. And this sort of leans into this, like, we have this niche that we need to sort of fulfill. And a part of that is we do need Muslim counselors like people. An alternative, exactly, that's like, the ideal is that we have people that have our worldview, that understand our problems, that can make the distinction between like, the psychological issues that need resolving, and maybe things that are not necessarily psychological,

like illnesses, so to speak, but rather,

the things we're even discussing with these nodes outside the environment, that this that etc. Now, what you've just said is exactly what happens because the the focus of the, the non religious secular psychologist, is the individual, they're not cared about anything else, like they just want to care about right or wrong, they don't care about your marriage. Like you could come to them with, you know, somebody could come to them with thoughts of, you know, breaking up their marriage or having an affair or whatever, whatever it is, they would never sort of pass a moral judgment on it at all. Yeah, and even what their job really is just to get you to be honest with yourself. Now, the

thing is, is being honest with yourself, you, we can be infected by we're not perfect. We were not these moral exemplars, we are finite beings with a mixture of good and bad desires. And simply getting someone to just be honest with themselves, that can make them feel good in a moment, where it's like, what they do is that they're basically focusing on the things we spoke about, and they're highlighting certain things to them, like, Oh, so you're anxious. And the reality might be is that they're worried about upsetting their parent. They're worried about, you know, letting mum and dad down. They're worried about expressing these doubts to them. Because if they do that, may, you know,

so on and so forth. And what the, the non Muslim psychologist is going to do hear it's just been like, like, Okay, keep going. And then what that person might end up doing is just expressing, like, I'm sick of being worried about this. I just want to be able to like and it's just this sort of wanting to break free. I just want to be able to like think about these things and express my thoughts and do this and do that without worrying about people shouting at me and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they'll they'll just get on like, Yes, keep going, keep going. Because like, it looks like this person is going through this. Like revelatory moment. Okay. You've been honest with

yourself. Yeah.

But are you

really completely cognizant about what the best way moving forward is? Just simply describing how things have been? doesn't tell you anything about what you should do next. Right? And there's this huge, huge gap between what is and what ought to be. And the therapist is just trying to get the person to just be completely honest about what is the case, right. But then it's like, okay, well, even I've known people who cut off from family, because they expressed it in therapy, you know, that I've, I feel like just cutting off from my family. And the therapist is not going to say, oh, that's haram, right? Don't

keep in good relations is important or don't cut off. Or they'll say, Well, if you need that, you know, do you know what I mean? Like they, they'll literally lay out the options for you. Yeah, they'll be like, Well, you could do this, this is one thing you could do, hypothetically speaking, you could cut off ties. And you could do this. And they just they lay out so long as it's not like illegal from like, you know, a secular standpoint, perspective. Yeah. Then they'll just, like, put all the cards on the table, and then say, okay, so which one do you think is going to be the path of least resistance, or which one do you think is going to lead to your well being, and there's notice

fakeness, that's in there. And this falls back on what we're talking about, for everyone has a direction, they try to pretend that they're neutral. But it's not a neutral position. It's a secular one. And with that, it's within the confines of British law, which in and of itself isn't necessarily problematic. But it's just that, like, what it does is it opens up many possibilities that are not possibilities when it comes to an Islamic perspective. For example, I had a friend who had a child, and she was going through depression, and she was upsetting that, and she just brought up this conundrum that she had. And she was like, No, this was years ago. I wasn't even I don't,

okay, maybe this was just near me taking my child. I'm not sure if it was before or after. But she was like, I don't know what to do, as well. So I've got 10 pounds left. Yeah. And I don't know whether I should buy nappies, or go out on the lash. Or go out getting drunk. And I'm just looking like, what you want about how is this a conundrum? How is that second one even, like an option on the table? Why have you got to think about this, like that shouldn't have even entered your head, nevermind, we put down for deliberation. But her worldview has that as an option. There's nothing prevent preventing that from sliding its way in and be an entering the scales which one is which? Do

I buy the nappies or

they will just go out and get drunk. Like, and this is the thing it's like, obviously, Islam

just gets rid of certain options. That is just not a possibility.

Yeah.

And but yeah, so this is something that needs to be taken into consideration. Focus on your heart. So Eman increases and decreases. And it's not, it's not like a light switch. It's not simply on off on off. It's something that can be low sometimes, you know, like the tide goes in and out.

And there's a lot to say that a man can increase and decrease based on obedience and disobedience. So when you do things that displease Allah, or that incur His wrath, if you're disobedient, if you're doing things you shouldn't do, or not doing things you should do, this can have an impact on your heart. This can make you feel guilty, especially if you know you shouldn't be doing or you should be doing it. This can wreak havoc on you, and affects your Eman. When you do things that Allah is pleased with, and you avoid things that you shouldn't do. So you do the things you should do and you don't do the things you don't you shouldn't do. This can have a positive effect on your

heart. And we know this, we know this Ramadan is a perfect example, where everyone, like they're doing all these extra things that they're fasting every day, they're reading the Quran, they're lowering their gaze. You know, they're watching how they talk, the you know, the printing taraweeh every day that like they're doing extra, so much more. And they give up all the bad things. They stop smoking, they stopped drinking, they stopped smoking and everything. They just leave it all behind. And by the end of the month, they're like it man is sky high and like Wow, well obviously part of that is that Ramadan is a blessed month, but a part of it as well is that you are doing

extra, you are avoiding things that you don't usually avoid. And you're doing things you don't usually do. And this is having an impact on your Eman

and then people Ramadan ends, and then they're like, All right, back to normal. Stop smoking again, stop praying, stop doing something like that. And then they wonder why their demand is dropping again. And sometimes it can be a nasty feedback loop where someone maybe smokes they feel guilty so they avoid that

because they can't stand having to face a law, knowing that they've done this. And because they do that they suffer from guilt. And the guilt makes them avoid other things. And it has this sort of feedback loop of like negative impact. And it just escalates and escalates and escalates. And it can get out of control. Now you need to be self reflective. And you need to teach people around you to be self reflective, and to focus on the heart as a vital organ that needs your attention. You can't neglect it, you can't act like if people spend so much time and effort talking about the gym, making sure that muscles are like onpoint, or their hair is nice. So their beds welcomed and, you know, the

everything is all nice and ironed. They're focusing on all of these things that are superficial. And in many ways, obviously, there can be important aspects to it, as I'm not someone completely against the aesthetics. It's very important. But they there's so much attention given to these. So the neglect of other things that are important, but then neglect off the heart to the neglect of social relations to the neglect of all these things. So you need to understand this is something important. And Allah loves small deeds done consistently, you don't have to go sell all your stuff and live in a cave, like you don't need to be extreme in your focus on your heart. But you do need to start

implementing tiny little habits that you can manage and do consistently every day, even if even if that's just like, wake up a little bit early and try to pray to center before Fajr or you know, you do daily upcard or you do some liquor after you pray Fajr. And before you go to bed, like you know just some of that small summit that takes 510 minutes, read a page of the Quran, whatever it is, just do something, you know, you can manage, it's not going to overburden you, overwhelm you, or make you panic, make you feel extra stress, because life's already too busy.

Or just stop something, there's something you know, you should stop, focus on that one thing and say, Okay, I'm going to give this up, whatever it is, maybe I swear, maybe I smoke, maybe I drink whatever it is, I'm just going to focus on this one bad habit. And I'm going to try and get that out of my life, do these little things and you will notice an impact on your heart. And when you notice that impact, you start to see how this relationship with Allah develops in obedience, and avoiding this obedience and learning, you know, getting to know who Allah is, and learning, learning who he is and learning about the Prophet. When you learn about who they are, this develops your love for

them, which is again, you know, focus on that. And when you love Allah, it becomes easier to want to obey Him in the same way. When you love your parents, it's easy to do what they want, because you love them, you don't want to upset them. However, when you have this sort of resentment to these people of authority in your life, for whatever reason, maybe you know, your father's fall, or maybe you maybe the like an act of rebellion in you that's blameworthy.

Obviously with Allah subhanaw taala. If there is a problem with that relationship, that problem is with you. It can never be with Allah Allahu Akbar, he's the greatest, he has no deficiencies is perfect. So if there is a problem with your relationship with Allah, then you have to look within yourself that you have to be self reflective, and try to figure out why that is. And sometimes that people just resent Allah because they've got bad things happening in their life. And they don't understand the Islamic context. It Allah tests, the ones he loves. They see it like he's attacking them like he doesn't care for them because these things happening. And they don't understand these.

I'm a physician that not Allah test the ones he loves. And that there's nothing that befalls are believable that it is good for them. If they are tested with hardship, they are patient, and so it is good for them. If something good hits them, they are thankful so it is good for them. And anything anxiety, stress, pain, suffering, even the picking of a phone, all of these things can be means by which Allah subhanaw taala will expiate sins from you on the Day of Judgment, where you'll see them dissolve. And so you recognize the meaning in your suffering, you recognize there is a point to this. It's not just unnecessary evil, on unnecessary to everything, from the Islamic

perspective is that it is infused with a purpose with a meaning and that it is ultimately good for you as hard as it might be whatever it is, and just understanding that and then the last thing

is making dua

understanding Allah simply can say Be and it will be and asking him for things Allah Allah is the one who asks, So pray to Him, turn to him in the dead of the night when you're alone. Like when you need things, turn to Him and ask make dua make use of the tools that Allah subhanaw taala has provided for you. So that's the course in a nutshell.

That took way longer. Yeah, so all of these things are things that parents can be aware might be contributing to the, you know, to doubts.

First of all, you know, identifying whether it actually is a doubt or was just a whispering and then

you know, some of the things that might be contributing and just knowing that I think

empowers parents doesn't it to, to perhaps just like a doctor kind of prescribe? Or to think, Okay, what might work with my child? Yeah, we do have some questions. If anyone has any more questions, please do send them in. Okay, so we've got a question here, how to deal with a situation where they have constant doubt coming from their

other parent who's an ex Muslim? So I think this is a family where the parents are split up, and the other parent is an ex Muslim. Yeah.

So yeah, so this is a difficult one.

Because there's going to be a lot of tension, and it depends on the relationship as well.

And there's a lot that can be said there. And I don't want to give,

like a very specific answer to something that's quite vague. Yeah. Without all that extra information, it depends. All I could say is, do what you can. But what's important is you have to understand your context, you have to be the better parent, you have to be that when this child is growing up, and there's going to be

shared custody to some degree, I guess. And what this child needs to see is that, when they're with you, things are great that your attention is with them.

That you, you know, add, when basically, you don't want to give them because especially when they're children, they're not rational beings, they're not. They're not thinking things clearly, like if you give them chocolate and ice cream for dinner every day, they're going to eat it, like they're not thinking clearly. And so what they're operating on the children is on a fundamentally emotional level. So you need to make sure that Islam is a part of your life that you are visibly Muslim. And that when they can see you praying, for example, they can see you fasting, you're not watching crap, all the time that you tried to put on, even if it's like Omar and Hana, or, you know, depending on

their age, you're trying to teach them Islam, maybe you can take them to the mosque, when you have them, you do what's within your control. Now, if the, you don't have control over what the other parent says, this is about making a distinction between what you can do and what you cannot do.

You can try and speak to her or him and asking them not to do X, Y, and Zed. And they may be reasonable depends on your relationship with them. And this is where like sort of, if you're co parenting with an ex partner,

like your relationship with them is important as well.

My

trying to think about what I can say without giving too much away, said, yeah, basically you've got there's two relationship you've got to work on, you've got to work on the relationship with your ex partner, because you have to maintain some type of contact with them, by necessity, because you share a child. And that relationship needs to be good, so that they're not acting in resentment to you. And so that means like, overlooking certain things, and not picking fights with them. And if that means like, you know, when they ask you for something you don't pick up like, You're someone easy. Like, for example, if they come to you, and like I need some money for this, if you can afford

it, like it might be a bit annoying, like I've already given this much money, I've already given that money. But if you're thinking the long term plan, if I'm just as long as it's obviously not putting you in a difficult situation, but if I could just give them this. And this means that they won't resent me, and that they may warm up towards me. And when I asked them of something, they may respect that, because I'm easy because I can like then they need money for the clothes.

And they've only asked for half, I'll just send the full amount. Yeah, there's money for the clothes, if you can afford it, do it. Like you need to do these little things, to develop the relationship with the ex partner and the child as well.

And again, just work with what you have in your control, do what you can. And if that if your ex partner gone, that was gonna say and also like, if, if it's a father, right?

Then you might have to now become more aware that okay, I need to make sure that my child has Muslim male male figures in their life, you know, good Muslim, strong, maybe it could be your brother, it could be your, your, their grandfather, you know, whoever, but they need to, they need to have that other male voice. And the opposite is true as well, right? Because

at some point, your child will decide, you know, whether they're going to take on what this person is saying telling them or not. And if they've got other role models, who love them to look up to then hopefully, you know, that voice will also be in their head. But also I would say wouldn't you say that if the child does come home with an actually shares with the with the parent, you know, things that the other parent is saying

And

that you would have to deal with that meaning that you would have to address those. answer those questions have the answers and have the engage with it. In other words, a good thing to do as well, is, you don't have to be like, Well, from my perspective, you include the child in it, you say, Well, you know, as Muslims, we don't. Exactly.

And you can't treat the child like the child is sort of this neutral. Judge, kind of figure out which one, you just include the child in your circle, say, well, you're Muslim, I'm a Muslim. Exactly. We don't believe that. We believe Muhammad Salah Salem is the messenger and he said this and so we believe in and if you understand as well, like, and this is why it's important about understanding why you're a Muslim. Why is it that Mohammed Salah Salem is the messenger, the final messenger and looking at the options like you know, he could have been this he could have been this could have been that none of these makes sense. And there's there's lots of good material out there

that makes a case for the prophethood of Muhammad Salah Salem, or makes the case for the divinity of the Quran. And you can get really good two good books off the bat, Abu Zakaria, he's got the bottom of my heart here. Divine, the forbidden prophecies, which focuses on the Prophet, the Prophet Muhammad Salah Saddam's prophecies and comparing them to other famous like Nostradamus, Hindu astrology, all of that and just showing how they're worlds apart that they're incomparable. The the journey through the miraculous Quran is another book he did, just focuses on the Quran and its miraculous nature. And just these two books, they're very short, they're not long, but they give you

something to work with. And you can bring these forward and say, you know, we believe the Quran like it. We have good reasons to be Muslims. We're not like the Quraysh when Muhammad Salah Salam said, What are you doing are like the people of Ibrahim, when asked what are you doing, they just say is just mom and dad. They followed it, that Muslims are not like that we're implored to follow Islam, not because mom and dad do but because it's true, because Allah subhanaw taala exists because he is one because Muhammad sallallahu alayhi salam is a messenger of Allah. And we have good reasons for believing that. And so we incline towards it. And we that is the default position. That is the norm.

That's how we don't say, oh, from this perspective, that perspective, because that can confuse the kid. Because now it's being presented as if it's a choice, an option. Yeah, yeah. And it isn't, it is explicitly the truth. And we have good reasons for that. And obviously, you've got to be careful because sometimes kids can accidentally act as instigators for arguments and they go back and they tell you what the ex partner said. And then they go back to the ex partner and tell them what you said. So you've got to keep that in mind as well. But again, you can only do what you have control. And you need to deal with these things, you can't completely ignore them. But a lot of it is just

about dealing with it in the best way. Having good etiquettes when talking to the child not being abusive, don't know are not not turning the other parent into an enemy.

As much as they may act like one, sometimes you have to show, get the child to understand, listen, you've got to be patient with your mother and instill good etiquettes with the child towards the parent. And because you've got no choice.

If you act with emnity, in this relationship, you could lose the contact with the child altogether. Because you got to keep them out as the secular environment inclines towards their individual. And in a dispute between a religious person and a secular person, the second person is going to come out on top in a court system, because then they can just simply say, Oh, they're they're forcing their religion upon their extreme, you know, look at he's got a beard, you know, he prays five times a day. You know, it makes me staff more than like, they can just say all these things, and especially if they like they, they don't fit a lot. There's no restraint anymore. They can just say whatever

they want. Whether it's true or not, it doesn't matter. So you have to be careful.

How another question here? What is the best way to prepare your youngster with strong faith and concise actions?

Where should we start from? Okay, so this that's what this whole course is sort of focused? It is. Yes. Just you've been learning with a bit slowly but surely building that in mind. And, I mean, we talk a lot about nature, you know, like getting kids out in nature, appreciating Allah's creation. So, remembering that deep down, they've already got it in them, you know, fit that that is already in them. So

it's about us nurturing it and not allowing it to be covered. Right? Yeah. And if it is covered, then it's about trying to peel back the coverings and recognizing what it is is covering it. Exactly. And this is where like just sitting down

Being a parent that that your children feel comfortable going to and asking questions exactly. Even, even if they, the question they're asking can be considered blameworthy to a certain degree. You have to understand as well, who it is, it's asking it like a child is not blameworthy. Like if you've got like someone who is young, and they're asking these things, you don't go in there as slapping them up. Like you've got to understand this kid doesn't know what's going on. And so they may say, like, they may question Allah, for example, and say, Why did Allah do that? And you obviously like, as adults, we may no, you can't do certain things you cannot question you just have

to understand that Allah subhanho wa taala, has commanded X, Y and Zed. Or he's told us this about himself, or he's told us this about the afterlife.

Like you can't be rebellious against that. You can't like push against the law like you are greater than Him or you have access to knowledge he doesn't. Because part of you know, entailed in that is covered. But with children, they're innocent, they're not, you know, we're not Christian at all, believe in this light sort of born with sin, you have to recognize who's asking you the context in which they're asking from being empathetic to the environment. Like if you're sending them to a public school, and they've got all these kids coming at them asking these questions. Sometimes it's just the case that they might want to know how to answer them. It's not even necessarily coming from

them. From their own hearts. It's coming from the heart, so disbelievers. And so asking questions, why are you asking that like, rather than just saying, don't

try to unpack what's going on, figure out what's happening, don't just go not make them feel bad about having expressed it to you, because actually, the very fact that they've expressed it means that they felt safe enough to do that with you.

Yeah, and if you shut them down, they'll find somebody else to talk to who might not be the right person, it may be secular, he may be an atheist, you may tell them, you know, your parents are just, you know, this is equivalent to Santa Claus, blah, blah, blah. And that's the worst situation like they, they're the person that they fall back on. That spiritual assistance is someone that does not believe in Islam whatsoever. That's just going to rehab it. And there are some other questions, but I feel like you've actually answered them through the course of this session. So I would encourage the parents who've asked those last questions to please go back. And if you weren't here, right from

the beginning, go back and listen to the recording and you'll see

that many of your issues or questions have been already answered Charla so I just want to thank you for the use of for this session.

Thank you so much for going through that with us and also for sharing your own experiences because I think that's very helpful as well you know, to hear and also gives us hope, especially like the story you told us about about yourself but also the the young person who you

spoke to recently you know, and you just realize that it actually sometimes something that seems like a big crisis actually might just be something

very simple going on in the person's life right.

Please make dua for all of our parents.

Well, last one, I was gonna make things easy for you all and give you and those you love victory in this world. eliminex I mean, does Apple a parent or the surf and everyone please do go to the website and the links that we've shared with you? And with that, we will end the session does Alchemilla parent Subhana Subhanak Allahu mobi him the ASHA do hola hola. Hi, Atlanta, esta Furukawa to Blue Lake. wa Salam o Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh

Alikum Salama,