Fatima Barkatulla – January Live Q&A
AI: Summary ©
The importance of learning the Quran for children is emphasized, along with practice and finding one's own reasons to do things on social media. The speaker emphasizes the need to manage time and find one's own reasons to do things, especially in the West. The speaker also discusses the physical demands of men and women on social media and plans to end the segment with a q q0% in December and a follow-up in February.
AI: Summary ©
Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu salam ala Rasulillah the brothers and sisters As Salam aleikum, wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
I'm looking to this January q&a session.
A lot of you actually requested q&a sessions regularly. And that's why
I decided to actually go ahead and carry on with them.
So, first of all, I want to apologize to everyone, because
I'm 40. Unfortunately, they did have some technical difficulties at the beginning.
And, but Hamdulillah, I sorted those out. And that's why I couldn't start exactly at 7pm. However, Alhamdulillah, we're here now. So let's make the most of the time that we have.
And I'm gonna go straight into the questions.
So I've got some questions that people have sent in already.
And I've also got questions that people had posted
in on various platforms. So I'm going to start off in sha Allah with
this question.
Any tips for training your three year old to love and start learning the Quran, any tips for training your three year old to love and start learning the Quran?
Okay, well.
A three year old, three years old is very young, of course. But I think loving and learning the Quran is something that our children have a natural propensity for.
And so I think some of the things that we can do as parents, to help them on that path, is, first of all, not to expose them to technology and screens too early. You know, because
if you think about it, even as adults, we find these devices very addictive,
and distracting, and they distract us away from our work, they distract us away, sometimes from Subhanallah, from doing things that we, as adults know, we should be doing right? Or that it's better that we would be doing. So what more for little children, I mean, their brains are just developing. So I think it's really important,
especially for a little child hasn't been exposed yet to technology, and to all these kinds of distractions, to delay that exposure as much as possible, for as long as possible, hold it off, you know, children don't miss what they don't have, what they haven't been exposed to. Right. So
I would encourage you to have time limits for your own usage of phones and devices.
And maybe make certain rules in your house, you know, regarding devices, not having them at certain times, not having them when you're with your children and work, especially when you're engaging with them in different things.
So if you don't expose them to technology and screens, from a young age, you'll see that they're probably going to have better attention spans.
And they'll be more likely to find
more kind of traditional things.
appealing, right. So when you're telling them a story, that's going to be appealing, when you're addressing them and you're reciting ground to them. That's going to be the thing that appeals to them, that's going to be the entertainment and the thing that attracts them and makes them think and listen and want to be attentive, right?
If you introduce technology and screens,
we just can't compete with them. You know, we just can't compete with the technology and screens in terms of the dopamine hit two that they give in terms of the constant changing the constant attention.
Moving you know, and
basically the scattering of of a child's attention that it causes. But at the same time, the addictive nature of it means that the traditional
things that parents used to do with their children like weird stories, like sit with them recite.
Give them attention one to one
are not as appealing. But actually children yearn for our attention deep down. They they yearn for it, right. So I would say
one of the things you can do is
tell them stories from the Quran.
Right, introduce them to all of the stories in the Quran and make it clear to them that they're from the Quran
recite Quran to them regularly yourself, you know, when when a parent is
singing a lullaby to a child to put them to sleep. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with singing, you can do that. But you could also use that time, that sleep time, you know, that really close time with your child, even from when they're born. And even before they're born, and actually to recite Quran, and make Quran the thing that suits them, you know, because Quran is a soothing thing, right? It is a cure, it does have that effect. So I think it's so wonderful opportunity when your child is so attached to you in those early years. And believe me, that doesn't last forever, you know, as they get older, they're not as attached to you, especially when they're teenagers, etc. They're
attached to you in a different way.
But that kind of intense
yearning for your attention and for your presence, that's very much something that happens when they're very young. So make sure you realize that it's precious, and make the effort to tell them the stories from the Quran, make the effort to recite Quran, you know, when they're going to sleep, and even when they're awake, let them see you reciting Quran, let them be there. When the Quran is being recited, I think that's definitely going to have an impact. And for that, of course, that means you also need to know how to recycle. So I really encourage mothers out there especially but also fathers, of course, to you just, you might think you know how to recycle ran. But if you've
never done a third read course, right? If you've never attended a class with a qualified teacher, or a teacher who has an agenda, for example, in a Corolla,
recitation of Quran,
you might actually have quite a lot of mistakes that you're making, in recitation, especially major mistakes, and you don't want major mistakes in the recitation, you know, because major mistakes, they change the meaning of that.
And you don't want that that's, that makes it a mistake that we should be avoiding. So make sure that you, even while your children are young, if you haven't already done it,
take some classes, make sure your recitation of Quran is to a an acceptable level, right?
So that when you are reciting, they're internalizing a good
you know, the correct recitation, even if you don't know and you're still you're still learning, you can still recite grant to the best of your ability, you know, I'm not saying don't do it, I'm just saying that this should be like a motivator for you to make sure that your own Quran recitation level is,
you know, up to scratch.
Also, I think it's a good time to
a child can actually memorize
quite a lot, just from hearing, right. So if you know, for example, if you memorize JAMA, or maybe you are memorizing Jama right now, then, which is the 30th part of the Quran, then you can recite it
to them from beginning to end, you know, as for your own practice, but also, you'll see that they'll actually start memorizing it, they'll start being able to end the ayat, that's a sign that they've memorized it, right? They're memorizing it,
or internalizing it. And then when they actually can articulate the words themselves, you'll see that they will be able to do it. Because all that time, even though they didn't have the full ability to express themselves, they were taking it in, they were taking it all in and memorizing it, right.
And then their brains are like sprint sponges at that age, they're really going to memorize as much as they can. So personally, I think you can, at the very least get them to memorize Usama the 30th part of the Quran, when they're that young,
by just reciting it to them and playing it in the background for them.
And you'll see that by the time they're four or five, they'll know it. They'll know the integers.
Also, that of course, if they see you treating the grand with respect, the most half itself
that's going to mean that they're going to also start learning that adab right, the the man is that adab that they should have with the Quran. And we should be teaching them that you know, so if there's a must have
be carrying it properly, putting it away properly, not just leaving it lying around and things like that. Right. So in total, I think all of those things, especially the stories, recitation, encouraging them,
creating some kind of reward system for them as they memorize, you know, so what I did was I made a list of all of the sorters, in JAMA
and also essential things like Surah Fatiha, it could see things that I really wanted them to memorize in the early years, I made a list with
online, you know, just you can probably get it online. I don't know. I haven't seen them. But I made my own on like a spreadsheet, and or like a table
with a little box next to it, or a few columns. And then I printed that, and then we put it up. And then
age of three and above what, you know, whenever they start being able to speak and recite themselves, you can start ticking off or putting a star next to the sources that they memorize. You know, make it fun, make it interesting, make it something like they're watching their own achievement.
I think all of those kinds of things really help motivate kids. Okay, let me see. Just like well, a heron. They've got nice, some arms coming in while he was Salam to you all, as well.
I've got another question here.
Salam aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato. I have a family member who no longer prays
and is involved in a lot of wrongdoing, what would be the best way to advise them?
Okay.
No longer prays.
Okay, so that kind of,
I assume means that they used to pray, right. And now they don't no longer pray. I think in a situation like that.
You've got to try to empathize with the person.
Right? Like what's going on in their life.
You've just got to empathize with them and try to think to yourself, you know, something must be going on in their life that has led to this, right.
Especially if somebody was praying, and now they're not. So something's going on, you know,
something's going on to lower the Eman in some way. Either they're becoming involved in some things that were hanging around with certain people, or maybe
indulging in certain sins, or going through certain tough times, and they're finding it hard to,
you know, to maintain the emotion, and to keep it high. So, what you don't want to do is
come in that,
you know, in a very negative, a very kind of,
Sledgehammer way, right? You don't want to
go too hard.
What you want to do, especially if they're not somebody who's very close to you, you know, it's not like your child or something, it's maybe somebody who's in your extended family, then you want to deal with it with a lot of compassion, right, and empathy, first and foremost.
And I think
you want to keep a good relationship with them. So, you know, make sure that you do have a good relationship, sometimes, you know, we were not involved with our family members,
especially extended family. And we never invite them to a house or we've never really built a good relationship with them a long term relationship. And then when something starts going wrong, we wonder, we think, Oh, should I do an intervention, but
you never had a relationship in the first place, you know, you never built a relationship in the first place.
So I'm extremely important. Even if you haven't now up to now, to start building that relationship. You know, we should know what's going on in our family members lives.
Extended family as well, to the best of our ability, we, I would invite that person around, you know,
for dinner, be very kind to them. Try to understand, you know, what's going on? What's happened, what what's happening in their lives, what has been happening.
Where are they in terms of their thinking?
You know,
And
I think the more kindness you show, the more they will probably open up to you naturally.
So of course, this is also assuming that you're setting a good example yourself, right?
If you're setting a good example yourself, make sure that you're setting a good example, with yourself, your family, your children, etc. But then with this person,
tried to show them a lot of kindness, invite them around for dinner.
And you probably find out that they're going through some stuff, right. And if you find that out, maybe you could help them in some way.
And,
you know, over time, if you can build that relationship, then you can probably have a conversation where,
you know, you try to broach that, you know, that that topic,
the topic of Salah.
But even before you do that, what you can do is sort of, if you're spending time with that person, for example, they're in your house, and you're all going to pray, you can invite that person to join you, right? They might join you for that prayer. And even if they do it out of embarrassment, is still better than them not having any sense at all for the salaat. Right. So in other words, what you're doing is not only providing sympathy, empathy,
reminding them that you love them, you care about them. But what you're also doing is reminding them who they are, right? That they're part of this Muslim family, that they have a duty to Allah, your attitude will rub off on them. Right? You've kind of provided them with a peer group. And a lot of the time when people do you leave these things with Salah and things like that,
especially if the young people, it's due to their peer group, being influenced by their peer group or their peer group not caring about certain things. Over time, they stopped caring about certain things, right.
So
I think that will, you know,
treat that issue from multiple levels, when you've built that relationship and you show kindness. And, or if you already have that relationship, then you can broach the subject, you know, in a very kind way, in a in and be really honest with me, especially if you're private, if you if you're in a private place, don't do it in front of people, obviously, don't embarrass them in front of people, but take them into your confidence and say, Look, I really care about you.
I just want to know, is everything okay?
Anything going on? You know, I noticed that you're not joining us for the salon, whatever it is, you know, you find a way to broach the subject. But I wouldn't broach the subject just out of the blue if I didn't have a relationship with that person already, you know.
Because that could be counterproductive.
Right, so in the way you've got to judge it, of course, you know, better what kind of relationship you've got with them. But these are just some pointers that I'm giving, you know, if you can have a bit of a relationship with them, build it up more, show them a lot of kindness, show them a lot of love. keep inviting them to pray with you.
If you do get to have a one to one, and have a proper,
you know, face the situation, face the issue, do it make an intervention in that sense.
You do want to try to convey the message to them, right? That the Salah is very important. That's what's going to bring you back on track. That's what's going to help you in your life. The Salah is the line between us and the disbelievers. Right. It's the line between us and Cofer.
Some of the Sahaba they didn't used to pray janazah over somebody who didn't pray. Right.
Just imagine the message that that is that is giving right.
So
I think it's really important that we, of course, we want to entice that person and remind them that praying is something that is going to bring them closer to Allah that's going to help them with their problems.
Turning away from Allah doesn't remove the problems, right, it doesn't remove the issues.
It could be that that person is having certain doubts.
If that's the case, you know, that you could actually encourage them to share their doubts, or the questions that they have with you. You know, not in public, but in the private, safe, safe setting. And if you can address those issues, those questions that they have those issues, that will be great, or if you can take them to somebody or if you can say to them, you know, let's find out together. Let me go and we'll explore this together, you know, and then you can go and find out some of the answers to some of
The questions or issues that they might be facing.
Or what you're doing is you're providing a safe environment for them
to work through it rather than the whole family going silent. And letting that person just keep spiraling downhill, right. So as I was saying, you want to tell them the positive things in the reasons why they should be praying. But you also want to want to tell them the
the fact that you know, it's a major sin, not to pray, right.
You might not want to say those everything all together, you know, you it's up to you, you have to have hikma, you have to have wisdom in the way you convey. And maybe in the order in which you convey the message, you know, you try by by saying it in a positive way you try it by enticing them and, but then, you know, when push comes to shove, we can't force people to do anything, but what we can do is convey the message right, and let them know that it's actually a big deal to to give up your Salah.
So, I think I've said a lot there.
But never let people lose hope. You know, let them always feel there's a way back and show them that way back. You know, help them to rebuild their relationship with a life they've gone away. Because what happens is, when a person's demand is low, for example, if they've had a test, or if they started becoming weak in certain areas, with the hanging around with the wrong people, etcetera, etcetera,
then they feel less motivated to obey Allah.
And then if they stop being aligned certain things, then it kind of spirals downwards, they start getting worse, feeling worse, wanting to do less having lower Eman, feeling worse, wanting to do less having lower in mind and then it keeps going and in a negative spiral. Right? What you're meant to do when you're feeling low is insist on maintaining that Ibadah maintaining the the obligatory things right maintain the obligatory things
you want to maintain the obligatory things and in fact double down on them so that you're increasing in a man right? You're fighting against that and negativity and that way you can slowly spiral upwards because you know when we do good deeds increases our Imam
good deeds increase our iman and doing bad deeds decreases our Eman.
So leaving off Salah is going to decrease a person's Eman. They've they're leaving their connection with Allah. You know, Allah only asked us to make five prayers in a day.
He did initially
decree many more, didn't he on the salon Mirage we know. But then he reduced them to just five. And so the person the being sorry, the being Allah Subhana Allah who gave us our time, our life, our faculties, everything. He is the one who's asking us to pray five times a day. He owns our time he owns us. And he's asking us for that.
Of course, you know, we have to do it, you should do it. Right.
I hope that helps. Let me see if there's any other questions
Is it right to express love
by by saying it to bill before marriage
I mean,
a person should not be having certain types of conversations with the opposite * before marriage. Right?
Somebody who's a non Muharram to you. You should not be having casual
chit chat. Casual, friendly, casual, romantic conversations
with that person, right?
It might be hard because maybe you're engaged to get married. If you're engaged to get married and you're in the run up. Even then, you know, hold yourself. hold yourself back a bit, you know, because
it's when you're married when that contract is done. And Nica has done.
That's when now
you'll have love for each other right? Then you can express these feelings these thoughts
Now, there's nothing wrong with, especially if you're trying to propose to somebody to express to them that
you really admire them, you hold them in high regard, you might have to do that right to convince somebody to marry you in the first place.
That's possible. But of course, that could be that should be done in through the right channels.
To
have kind of romantic talk with a person of the opposite *, before marriage is not something you should do, because what will happen is,
you will get emotionally attached to that person.
And that person could get emotionally attached to you.
And then,
if nothing happens, in other words, if there is no no marriage, if there's no hope of getting together in marriage, then it's going to be a very painful experience for both of you.
Right, or for one of you.
So,
I mean, that's just the human element of it, that's just the emotional element from a shadowy perspective, you should not be having certain types of talk certain types, just as you wouldn't touch a person and certain way.
You know, there's certain line you don't want to cross.
So, you know, the example that he's given of
you when a woman is widowed, right, or divorced, and she's in it.
And well, not really divorced, small, more without, right. And then she's inherited that and then
during that, if somebody wants to express to her that they want to marry her, right?
It's allowed for a man to indicate it, isn't it?
To give some kind of indirect indication, like, you know,
saying something positive, like, you know, a lady like you, lots of men would want to marry you something like that. That's, that's the example that the scholars usually give, right? Like some kind of statement that expresses to that woman that you're interested without saying it directly. Right.
So there are indirect ways you can tell somebody that you're attracted to them, with a view to proposing to them for marriage, but not
just to kind of have romantic talk. In general, you know,
it should be that you're proposing to that person, for example.
I know it's hard. We're okay in that situation.
But
it's better to hold yourself back, hold yourself back.
Because there's great wisdom in saving, all of that kind of romantic talk all of that stuff, save it for after marriage.
That is the correct context for it. That's the halal context for it.
And in that context, you're safe. You know, you've both agreed to be married to one another. So now, you can express yourselves as much as you want, in any way you want. Right? So
okay.
Somebody's asking, I'm a medical student. And
I'm torn between studying Islam and my secular studies. How can I balance? Both?
Okay, medical student? Well, subhanAllah nowadays.
There's lots of ways to study Islam, right? So I would say, don't be completely ignorant. Don't be somebody who does nothing, no studies of Islam, right?
Even if you're going to go down the medical route, and you are, you're saying you are already a medical student, you know, you can find courses that can fit around that. For example, we can courses online if need be, or in the holidays, you know, when there's intensive courses and things like that.
Just keep going and keep building on your knowledge slowly. When it comes to, for example, tend to read Arabic, you know, because those are kind of like the quite important foundational things
you might want to
do. Get an online tutor, an online tutor from Egypt or somewhere like that. Right? Where you will literally have a teacher
a time that suits you. It's not very expensive either. Usually, depending on where you're living, right.
And
that way you can keep the Arabic going, for example, with age with, you know, Quran recitation autodj, or Arabic language. If it's other things like Islamic stuff differently Islamic subjects, you can see there's some online
courses available. I mean, there's so many Institute's I don't even know which ones to mention this. Goethe Institute has got the students skilled.
These are like the flexible ones, right, Bryan College has got some flexible online courses. I think Albula Academy is one.
A salaam Institute
has got some courses. So just look up these online courses, find something that fits that you can make fit around your life, especially your obligations, and then keep going. That's the key, you know, just keep going don't feel like it's all or nothing. It's not all or nothing that I have to either do Islamic or medicine or nothing, you know, medicine or a no Islamic or Islamic and no medicine. No. Like, if you're doing medicine. And if you've committed to that, and you don't want to take a break from that, then,
you know, keep up your Islamic
studies
by finding ways that you can continue learning on the site.
I think it's very possible nowadays because people do multiple, you know, people have hobbies, don't they and they kind of fit those around their lives. So I'm sure if we
took more accountability for our time, we could also find ways and even if it's a couple of hours a week, believe me those hours add up. Over time those hours add up. I remember during the
pandemic during the COVID lockdowns.
One of the things I started was I had an Arabic tutor for my daughter, just as tiny as she was just 10 years old at the time. And literally having a one hour class a week. I tried to do more than that. But you know, just ended up being
too much for her. So we just thought, Okay, let's just at least do 45 minutes or an hour a week for this entire lockdown period.
So for about a year, she did a one hour class once a week. And by the end of that year,
I started asking her questions in Arabic. And she could answer me like in quite an intuitive way. And so she went from
knowing know Arabic as a language. I mean, she knew how to read but you know, she didn't know it as a language, to being able to speak some basic sentences, and had a lot of more vocabulary, etc, etc. Right. So that that was quite surprising to me, because
it shouldn't have been surprising. But it was surprising because it kind of proved that even having something that doesn't seem like a lot, but doing it regularly, over an extended period of time. There's amazing fruits in that, right. It's the consistency, it's the it's the building upon, you know, you build one foundation, and then you build on it, you build another layer, another layer, another layer, and it just keeps increasing.
Of course, apart from that, there are also courses now on YouTube, there's also courses
like audio once, right? Audio classes you can listen to,
I would encourage you to study the Sierra, especially, you know,
study Islamic theology Aqeedah study
the fundamental elements that you need to know for example, Salah, the fifth of Salah, the fifth of the five pillars of Islam, right, that you need for your for for living, basically as a Muslim,
and build and keep building.
And maybe when you get to a stage in life, when you have more time, maybe when you finish your medical degree.
And you do have a bit more flexibility maybe I don't know, I don't know how these things work.
Then you could or even if you could take a sabbatical, take a year out.
You can commit to something a little bit more substantial, maybe you know something more regular.
Another thing that people do is go abroad.
In the summer to learn Arabic
so in Egypt for example, Cordova Institute, the Cordova institute that's cute Oh to be a
every year, they have a summer intensive two weeks. I'm sure even as a medical student you could do that.
Obviously, assuming you can afford it, it's not very expensive at all not for people in Western countries anyway.
Flights of course and then there's this like package of where accommodation and and the tuition and everything and including some excursions that are included. So you get a two week or a four week I forgotten how long it is, there's a certain period of time intensive Arabic immersive experience. And it's a classical Arabic by the way, in that Institute, they only speak classical Arabic, they won't, they won't speak the Emir Arabic which is like the st the slang right? colloquial Arabic, they will only speak the Quranic Arabic. And so that's another amazing way that you can, of course, that in two weeks, you're not going to
master the Arabic language. I mean, even if you do it for years, it's something you keep, you have to keep building on, right? I still am studying Arabic, I've still got a tutor with just to be able to get to a higher level or, you know, get more fluent in certain areas.
Be able to read certain books, I just like to maintain that.
So it's a lifelong thing, learning Arabic and keeping up with it. But as an amazing kickstart, as an amazing part of your journey, I think. So really good. Good thing, you know, if you can do it regularly, even better, or if you can, like go one summer, start off, come back and then carry on having an online tutor with the same Institute for example, that will be a great way to,
you know,
to start the journey, so in sha Allah may Allah Subhana Allah make it easy for you.
Sisters asking Salam, how did you manage your time for this YouTube work? And kids and household work?
I think I answered that in the previous live, somebody asked me,
um,
I really like reading books about time management, and
productivity.
And I think that's, that has helped me know the sort of person who has a diary, who has online diary as well, like, we will diary right Google Calendar, sorry. And I use it, I use those things.
I think also just being very clear on what my roles are,
and assigning and apportioning time to each of those roles.
At the beginning of every week, I'm looking ahead at my week, right, so I know what to expect, I know where to do things.
I tried to have a meeting with my husband every week, like something that's a bit like an added mini meeting, rather than any other type of meeting, where we will just discuss, like what needs to be done this week. So that we can help each other, you know, make sure we're not
like there's something if there's something important to him that I need to be home for. I'm there, and vice versa.
So I think good communication, apply applying good time management.
All goes a long way to helping you balance your life. But each of us have different lives. And we each of us have different
I guess priorities and capabilities and
and also at different stages of life, we have different priorities and capabilities, right? So my children are quite
a bit older now. So maybe that's why there's certain things I might be able to do that. When they were a lot younger, I wasn't so able to do right. That's okay. Because at different stages of life, different things are more important. Right? Or different things become easier or different and or harder, right. So I think
it's about taking all of those things into account.
But also I don't mind getting help. You know, if there's something I can get helpful, I will
in terms of like
having helped with the cleaning
Right,
are having a cleaner in other words, right? Also, like in very difficult times, I've had difficult as in very, very busy times,
I've
paid somebody to cook for our family, you know, a lady in the area who she has this like cooking service, I'm willing to pay her to make a nice home cooked meal for the family, when it's a particularly stressful time. For me that was like, during exams, or when I was doing my master's dissertation, right?
Not, it's not something that I might do regularly. But in those type of times when things are getting a bit too much, I don't mind outsourcing
some things right, or getting help.
So and Hamdulillah, you know, having family help you is really great as well. So
I think and for that you've got to kind of communicate with people, right? why something is important, how much they helped means to you.
And you'll find that people are willing to help.
So those are just some
some of the things I could share with you anyway.
But yeah, it's something that you know, I struggled with as well. Don't always get it right.
But it's something I'm trying to always improve on. Okay.
Another question.
Startup, what topics do you recommend under fifth and though hate for children?
I mean, when you when you're a child, I think
I think it's good to learn in a methodical way. But a lot of the time, especially when you're very young, you're just absorbing FIP and dough heat, you know, it's not something that you need to be given a list about.
List of things, right.
You can teach children about a loss of $100 the heat right?
In a very organic way,
by talking to them about it, talking to them about Allah, but also showing it in your behavior, the way you live your life as a family, right? If they know that you're putting a lot in number one, right? When you're about to go out, or when you're out and about and there's a solid time you're, you're gonna make the salad, it's not going to be like, Oh, we're missing the salah. Because we're out and about No, we get our prayer mats out, we go out and make we do and we pray doesn't matter where we are. When you're doing when you do something like that, you're automatically giving a child a message of what our hate is. We worship Allah on his terms. Right? Worship Allah alone, and we
worship Allah on his terms.
So when he has prescribed Salawat for us, we're gonna do those saw, wherever we are, whatever situation we're in, and also showing them how easy it is for example, right?
When you have a problem, you're turning to Allah alone.
Yeah, you seek the means you show your children you know, you we do seek the means we go to the doctor, we do these things, but actually, the first and foremost and the most important thing we do is
turn to Allah into
in Salah.
And when that child sees that, and experiences that, and also the way you speak, you know, when you're under stress when you're in a difficult situation, or when there's been a calamity, or they see you respond, and you say hola, hola. Hola, La Quwata illa biLlah in LA, LA, Roger. They see you go down in such the size of the Shakur, right to thank Allah, they see you in the state of stress, you're giving some support.
Right?
They see you to avert calamity, right? They see or to ask for forgiveness.
They see you
make Salah when you want something,
pray tahajjud praise a lot of it's the heart of all of those things, fasting, all of those things that they see you do. They're experiencing. You're
teaching them basically the head right.
And then of course, you can also tell them the stories. How did people human beings start worshipping idols? I think that story is very important for children to know. You know, that it started off with
Human beings. Of course, Allah created Adam and Adam knows Allah and human beings worshipped a lot alone.
But then over time, human beings, you know, people when people died when some very wise and very pious died, what do they do, they started going to their grave,
and wanting to venerate them in some way. And then they started wanting to make images of those people, or statues of those people, bringing them into their place of worship. We know this is how share basically started, isn't it? Right, like people started bringing images or representations of dead pious people pose people who had passed away. What don't tell us what it was was Seiwa. Right. And your hoof
and yeah, what is it? Sorry, I've forgotten the names. But you know, all of the all of the different
pious people that the people of No, like Santa mentioned, right?
They were actually
pious people, those idols that they started worshipping, they were pious people who then had died. And human beings started bringing their images or their representations into their masajid places of worship. And then eventually those images and idols ended up at the front of the masjid.
And then people started worshipping those idols. So if you convey to our if we convey to our children, the Stories of the Prophets, we convey to them the stories of how Allah created the first man and how human beings basically degenerated into shirk, right, came from the veneration of people who had passed away, and lead on to share until people completely took a loss of that out of the picture, right?
I think that that conveys it to them very well.
In terms of FIP, again, especially when they're children, they're just gonna learn from copying you and from you pointing things out, and it becoming a habit. So with Salah initially, you might have to teach them of course, like all of the elements of the Salah, right, all of the things that you want to recite.
But then
when when you're teaching them how to pray, you're going to also show them the actual actions, you know, point things out what the correct way of doing things is how to make will do how to do so.
Basically, the things that they need for the five pillars, those are the most important,
right? And even more, from all of those things, the salah is the most important Salah and everything that is needed for Salah, the fifth of that is probably the most important. And you don't need to teach them that through a book really, you teach them that through
practice. And once it becomes a habit, it just becomes part of the pot become second nature. But there are some books you can get out there. I think there's a series
suffer Academy series I think that's what it's called, where they actually go through the thick of things for children. That's very nice. I remember when I was a child I read this series of two books called
I think it was called principles of Islam book one and principles of Islam Book Two, something like this. I mean, there are books out there like that, and they do and this but that's a little bit older, you know for for Charles is a bit older, who wants to kind of understand
you know, they can go into it a bit in a bit more detail like that, where they actually it's all spelled out, you know, properly, but when they're very young, you want to teach them through actual practice and habituation right
hope that answers the question
Okay
can you suggest some books for time management and productivity?
Yeah.
I think
probably the atomic habits that's that's a classic one. Yeah, atomic habits. That's a very good one.
I also like books by Ken
I'll Newport,
Cal Newport. He's a MIT professor. If you look up his books, he's got a few books that are, I think, yeah,
deep work, he's got a book called deep work, it's very good. It kind of shows you the different ways that you can
do high quality work, you know,
and what kind of thing you might have to set up for yourself to have to be able to do high quality, high intensity work, you know, that's a very good book, deep, deep work. I'm just trying to think off the top of my head books that I've actually read and used.
Of course, like years ago, I read the seven habits, right, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. That book is great. That's a great place to start. It's a really good book, because it kind of helps you put your whole house in order, in many ways, right?
Before you start talking about habits and everyday things, you want to go back to that level. Right? There's another book called The one thing that somebody recommended to me, I read that as well. That was beneficial. I don't know if I
100% agree with every element of that book. But I did like the way it really got you to start thinking about focusing on one thing at a time, and blocking time, and things like that.
I also actually really, like
I hit there's a podcast that I like listening to. And this podcast, I think it really helps with with my productivity.
And it's basically Brendan buss charts, podcast. I don't know if you've heard of him.
Let me just write his name.
Because your name wrong.
That's it. So I've written it in the chat.
If you look up Brendon Burchard, his
I, I don't think I've actually read any of his books. I've got one of his books, I've actually mainly taken a lot of productivity advice and tips from him through his podcast.
So he's got a podcast called
daily motivation.
And another one about marketing.
I was mainly with the motivation, one. So yeah, if you look that up, it's really good. Because I think he kind of gets you to think
about the things that you're wasting your time on the things that
if you're a high performer, if you're trying to be a high performer, at least,
he's done a lot of research into like,
what makes high performers, high performers. And so that kind of gives you a lot of insight. And it helps you to see, okay, yeah, which habits maybe that you haven't started adopting.
Also, I like the fact that he keeps encouraging you to check in with yourself in terms of where you are, where you want to be,
you know.
And I think he's somebody who believes in God, he, he's got that kind of
you can tell that he's motivated by God, you know, by a sense of a higher calling. And that really appeals to me about his
his productivity work. So yeah, I think those are basically a few. So Cal, Newports books. The book atomic habits is useful. Seven Habits is like, I think, generally, good for everyone. There's also one called Seven Habits of Highly Effective families that I would recommend.
Yep.
And Brendon Burchard.
And then I think what you want to do is as you start getting better at time management and better at managing your life, and
then you might want to start troubleshooting, you know.
So what could happen is, you might be a really high performer might have loads of things going on, and loads of plates spinning at once. But now you start noticing certain weaknesses. And then you might want to listen to an audio book or read a book that addresses that specific problem, that particular problem, you know, that you have a rather than general, you know, ABC level productivity.
So, for example,
Sleep, you know, if you've got a sleep sleep issue, you need to read a book about that maybe or
watch a video about it and just try and find what the best thinking is regarding it
and tackle each issue that you face in a similar way, right.
Okay
okay, mashallah people joining from all over
what dome was to do with the way Oh, when I saw thank you for reminding me. Yeah.
So these people would swear. Yeah, who? Yeah. Oh, and NASA. They were pious people basically, who passed away. They were Muslims. They were believers, who passed away and then
the generations after them started, eventually worshipping them. Subhanallah
it's quite funny, isn't it that sometimes, you know, atheists saw, I don't know. Archaeologists. They say that
polytheism was first and then monotheism came afterwards. Right? Have you heard this, like people say that? They say, Oh, you know, humans, they used to wash it, you know, people who believe in evolution in the modern sense cetera. You know, they'll say, oh, you know, there was
humans started worshipping lots and lots of gods. And then eventually they came to monotheism.
And the proof that they give for that is that there's loads of idols right ancient idols. And then eventually, you know, Abraham and
came and then there was, you know, the then they became evidence there's evidence of monotheistic cultures, right? But if you think about it,
monotheism
and he worshiping one God, worshiping Allah alone, it doesn't have artifacts, you know what I mean? doesn't leave artifacts. So, of course, monotheism came first worship of Allah alone came first. And there were no, there's no signs of it, because we because Muslims are the believers, the humans that worship Allah alone didn't leave science, right? Like they're not creating any idols or they're not creating any images, right? So
monotheism came was first and then came polytheism, over time, worshipping, you know, idols. And then Allah at various junctures kept bringing the prophets right to bring people back to Tauheed bring them back to the worship of Allah Allah.
So I'm already going to library cattle, I'm probably going to take two more questions, and we're gonna have to end the session. How can one stay consistent and disciplined with the learning and memorization of the Quran and Arabic language, just apply Hiren I think the way you stay
consistent and disciplined is by having a teacher and having classes and finishing those classes and finishing levels, you know, like, go to a class that has levels and you finish that level, then you go to the next level.
With the Quran going to have a tutor, either have a class that you attend, or an online tutor, and have a goal you know, so for example,
try to get any jhaza in the recitation of Quran, you can recite once you can once you've practiced enough and you've learned to read to a decent level, you can actually start reciting the entire Quran from beginning to end
with a teacher.
So they're listening
and correcting you or just listening
and making sure that you're reciting properly from beginning to end over time, so that's looking not not from memorization, but actually looking at the must have reciting from beginning to end and you can actually achieve an A Jazza in Akira, in one of the recitals or recitations of Quran, right. One of the modes of recitation of Quran and that's a great achievement because it's like
it means that you've recited Quran to somebody and then they have recited it to somebody who is recited it to somebody who's recited it to somebody all the way back to the sahaba. All the way back to the prophets Allah Allah when he was salam to Jibreel to Allah Subhana Allah Allah
Wow, Subhan Allah right like you and you actually can
get a certificate from that,
where that entire chain is listed.
Right?
I mean, it's just a beautiful part of our tradition. And I think we should honor it and maintain it.
But it also helps us to have milestone milestones, right? So you're not just doing pledge with,
but you're actually trying to complete reciting the whole Quran in one of the karats, at least.
And then again, when memorization, I think the only way to really do it is to have a teacher have accountability, because the teacher brings accountability. Right.
And that's one of the things you learn from productivity books, actually, that
people who are really productive, it's not because necessarily, they've got superhuman discipline, and superhuman levels of self control, you know, is actually because they create the environment that helps them be disciplined, it helps them win more,
right, they've got the environment that helps them win more. So for example, if you're a person who wants to memorize the Quran, or you're a person who wants to start reading Quran daily, and you don't already,
okay, just one second, my chair is going down. Okay?
If you're a person who wants to read Quran daily, or you want to
establish a habit with the Quran, one of the things you could do is have a space that you've set up with and was half ready. So every time you pray for a year, for example, the Quran is right that you're going to start reading it, right, or you book a tutor, a teacher, every day,
every morning, half an hour, you can actually do that, by the way, have a tutor just for half an hour.
from Egypt, you know, my favorite place.
And
that teacher will just listen to you resign grant for half an hour. And I know that that might sound like
you know, like a big deal. But actually,
I'd rather
pay a bit of money
to a teacher who probably needs the money anyway.
And she
helps me to be accountable
every single day than
just rely on my own sheer will. And my mood, you know? So, really, what I'm trying to say is it's about managing yourself, right? You got to know yourself, you got to know what would make you do it. What will it take for you to do that thing. If you want to build that exercise habit, it's the same thing, right? You.
You start off
making it easy, make sure you've got the clothes that you need for exercise ready every morning.
You know that you've got whatever you need set up. You've got it in your diary, you've got it scheduled in, you've made the time for it. And you do it on autopilot, you will stop doing it on autopilot if you
build it into your life and you make the environment conducive to it.
Right.
Hope that helps.
Okay, we're gonna do one more question.
Sisters asking sister many Muslim girls and women are very modest at the beginning of the journey of Tik Tok on Instagram.
But as days go by, they start sexualizing themselves. I want to know your opinion on this.
I don't know
what opinion is there to have on it except that they shouldn't do that. Right. Right.
I think the thing with social media is that
if you're going to do it, you're going to do it for a reason. You know,
and generally speaking, I would say if you can do it
showing, for example, if they're sisters who are doing cookery or, I don't know, food for children or
crafts, all those kinds of nice things.
I think it's better. If we set up channels and
you know,
social media activity, especially the one that's public, that isn't
exposing ourselves, okay, it's more about
the work that we're showing maybe or that we're sharing, or that we're trying to inspire people with. Right. I know, that might sound ironic, because I myself, you know, obviously, use social media for our purposes, right, or for sharing,
you know, sharing knowledge, sharing messages, etc.
To be honest, I wouldn't have done it.
Unless I was encouraged to buy certain shoe, you know.
And also,
if my husband wasn't okay with it, I wouldn't have done it. And also, if I didn't think that in our times,
there was not a need for it.
Unfortunately, what's happened is, if there are no voices of, you know, female scholars, for example, on in the online space, then
there's a lot of misinformation, there's a lot of kind of,
you know, women giving the wrong impression, giving the wrong advice, all of that kind of thing. There's too much of that. And so, especially in Western countries, I think
it's better to ask scholars, whether you should do something or not in the public space. And if they encourage you, if they
if they give you the Okay,
then that's the safest option, you know that, and they might give you some rules. And they might say, well, you should do it like this, you shouldn't, should make sure you don't do that should avoid these kinds of scenarios, etc.
So I think we all have to use the social media in a very responsible way, right? It's not about doing just anything on there. Right, just like with any tool, it can be used for good or for bad.
And the default in Islam is for women, to not be putting themselves out there, right, in the public space.
So
there needs to be a reason, if you're gonna do it. And it can't just be because you feel like it, you know, there should be a good reason, there should be some reasoning behind it. And you might want to ask some scholars just to,
you know, be on the safe side.
But yeah, there is this propensity for people, once they're in front of the camera, to basically fall in love with themselves and start.
And especially for women, you know, we can see out there, but there are websites now, where women literally sell photos of parts of their bodies, you know?
And
so there's obviously, something out there, it's, there's something in women that they do that, you know, it's not the men who are doing that it's the women who are doing it, right. But then the men are the ones who are buying it and paying for it. And so there's something in in men and women, that makes them likely to go down that road, right.
And recognizing that, I mean, I think part of it is just that women as women, we want to be admired physically. We want to be physically admired. And of course, there's a halal outlet for that in marriage, right. But for a lot of young people, obviously, they might not be married, they might not have that. And so they in online in the online space, you get a lot of validation, through the likes through the comments that oh, you know, you look great of type comments, right that people get, and worse.
There's a lot of kind of validation of the laughs, of this, of oneself feeling beautiful oneself feeling attractive and validated by those comments, and then they become addictive. And then, of course, people feel like feeding those comments even more by going one step further and one step further and doing more and showing more and doing something a bit more out there. Right. So analyze is a massive fitna definitely a massive fitna.
happens to people, as soon as they come in front of the camera, there's something about the camera that
it's slowly stripped away your sense of
modesty, you know, and your sense of
higher as well, sadly. So, I would say be very careful with yourself with your own daughters, you know, let them have that sense of
responsibility about themselves about their bodies, let them realize that there are predatory people out there, you know,
a comment from from from a random guy
is not going to be something that a girl craves for. If, in sha Allah, she has a lot of love from her father, her brothers, her family members, you know, she has a lot of validation from them. We notice our daughters, we praise them, we praise their appearance, all of that kind of thing. Give them hello outlets for looking good, you know, maybe having parties having, especially those girls who are into that kind of thing, then inshallah they won't turn hopefully to the online space to do that. Right.
I was going to parent mode when we discussed these things, because I think
that's what our sphere of influence usually is, you know, on our own daughters, our own the girls in our own families.
So yeah, my opinion about it is that it's, sadly, its reality, and it's something that is very enticing for men, it might be a completely different thing. So, you know, sometimes for the boys is like
doing pranks and doing worse and worse and worse and worse pranks just to get more likes and more, or doing more and more outrageous things, you know, I think nobody's not affected by everyone is affected by
boys and girls. And so I think if we inshallah try to instill a level of hierarchy in our daughters and sons, if we keep nurturing that high up, because hey, it's something you know, that can go over time, can wear away. We don't want it to wear away. So we have to keep it is something precious, that is in the fitrah, higher modesty, the sense of shame, sense of bashfulness, that over time can wear away as a person gets desensitized to certain things. So if our children, if young people are consuming certain types of stuff, they're gonna start thinking that that kind of stuff is okay. And that's how Chopin works, isn't it he starts slowly, just getting you acclimatized to something and
then something you used to find disgusting, slowly, you start thinking, Oh, that's funny. Or then you start thinking, Oh, that's nice. And he people get addicted to these things. Right. So Pamela, so
this is how shaytaan works. And then he makes us think certain things are not that big a deal for ourselves as well is not a big deal. If I take a photo of myself, it's not a big deal. If I pout if I you know, do certain types of hand gestures, or if I and then it just goes downhill, right? So I think it's really important that we hold ourselves to a higher standard. You know, Allah subhanaw taala is watching, would you would you be happy if the messenger of allah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam was to scroll through your Instagram and Tiktok feed?
I think that's the question, isn't it? Would you be happy handing your phone over if the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam came to visit? Would you be happy handing your phone over to him and letting him look through your Instagram and your tick tock
feed or profile?
Inshallah, I think with that, I will end
just come along here and heron. And with that,
I will leave you and we'll have another q&a in December. Sorry, in forgetting where I am.
Inshallah, we'll have another q&a in February. I'm also on Islam channel
every other Sunday, so I'll be there. This Sunday and then two Sundays later live at 12 noon on a Sunday.
And I'm answering your questions you can phone in you can
go on what's WhatsApp as well. They've got a whatsapp number comes on the screen. And so there you can talk to me can answer questions live there inshallah. Well, Inshallah, with that I'm going to leave you
Is akmola Harun salam to those from me see Algeria I think there was Pakistan
Kashmir
where else
if you can quickly just tell me where you're calling from where you're looking where you're watching from sorry, Milan, Masha, Allah, Pakistan. I've never been to Pakistan make dua that I that I get a chance to come to Pakistan one day I am Indian, like, my family's from India, but we're all to do speaking. And I've always wanted to go to Pakistan ever since I was a kid.
I've always wanted to go to Pakistan
but I never have so make dua for me that I get a chance one day
to go and see the beautiful land of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan.
Okay, so just follow her and with that, I'm gonna end Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh