Hosai Mojaddidi – Empowered Mother Raising Resilient Children Strong Muslim Identity

I said I'm on a call what I'm at the law here about a cattle.

But I wanted to specifically concentrate on raising children,

especially with everything we just heard from Sherpa, Zainab, and the

importance of really maintaining a strong identity in these times how

we can build our children with resilience. And so the first

aspect of that is obviously in order to, to, you know, to raise

your children in a certain way, you have to be able to model that

in yourself. So the very first focus here that I hope there's

three points I'm going to address, but this one is the first which is

in our tradition, they're the Hadith that we use, usually

reference, especially with leadership in general, is this

particular Hadith on Aquila camera in Wakulla, coma, Solon,

unreality, which is every one of you is a shepherd and is

responsible for his flock. And the Hadith, you know, goes through the

different roles right of leaders of men of women. And so for women,

it's very clear, you're a woman is the guardian of her husband's

home, and his children, and she is responsible for them. So I have

always loved this because it's such a powerful again, analogy to

leadership, but also parenting because think of a shepherd. And I

purposely picked this image here, because this is a female, she is

out there, she's wearing her hijab, mashallah, she has her

staff and the shepherd is, if you have ever, you know, learned about

shepherding, it is a role that requires a lot of knowledge, you

have to build your knowledge of what you're going to do, how

you're going to take care of the animals that you're going to look

after. And obviously, beyond a schedule, you have to be a

regimented person, you have to be a disciplined person, you have to

be a person that has all of these qualities, and also has the tools

necessary. And so I think the shepherd analogy is just genius on

so many levels. Because, in fact, again, as we see with mothering

and parenting in general, there is no handbook, you know, you do have

to learn, and the best way to learn, of course, is to surround

yourself with excellent models, you know, people that will, that

you can learn from. And so, in our tradition, this is why it's so

important. We were just having a conversation about women sharing

spaces like this and learning from each other, and having, you know,

time to actually watch and observe. I was reading earlier

about mirror neurons, you know, this incredible part of our brain

that helps us to be empathic. It's all through mimicking and modeling

that we adopt those virtues and good qualities. It's because we're

watching someone else. Now, how many of you by show of hands in

your mothering journey? Have you felt more isolated than surrounded

by the village that we all need? How many of you have felt

isolation, right? So when we look at why we struggle a lot of times

this is partly why is because we don't have that opportunity to

watch our mothers and grandmothers and aunts and uncles. I mean, not

uncles, aunts, and other female, you know, family members or

friends who who have children ahead of us. We're not really

having those types of gatherings and meetings, we're not

socializing on that level. And that can make us feel very

isolated. So shepherding. Back to this analogy, again, it's about

leadership and really understanding what that entails.

So specifically to shepherding right? What what do we get here

being humble? This is very important. You have to admit that

this is a new domain, you don't know a lot of things and you have

to be willing to take advice you have to be willing to open you're

gonna have unsolicited advice. If you've if you've ever had

children, you know what that is you'll have people telling you

about everything how to, you know, dress your child, how to feed your

child, how to birth your child, all of it, but that's okay. Let it

you know, handle that welcome that because this is a domain that you

don't, you haven't yet learned about. So humility is really

important responsibility. Motherhood parenting in general,

it's an Amana, just like the shepherd is responsible for the

flock, Allah soprano is giving you the charge of making sure they're

well fed. They're safe, that they're, you're protecting them

from the harm. You're you have to see your children not as little,

you know, extensions of you, which is a very Neff see sort of impulse

that unfortunately has come into parenting, people just want to

have little trophy children. This is totally, you know, alien to our

tradition. I remember many years ago, I had a debate with a brother

Michelle, who was a very learned brother, and he made a claim. He

said, most parents are very selfish. And I was like, What do

you mean by that? You said yeah, they're selfish. Ask them why they

want children. And so I started to go through all these different

reasons. I said, Well, you know, they want to have children to

love. He's like, That's so selfish. That's a selfish reason.

It's like, you just want a child just to love the child. That's

very selfish. I want to continue my family name that selfish to

take care of me in the future that selfish so everything I was trying

to offer, he was like, it's selfish. And then he said

something and I'll never forget it.

He said where's the parent who says, I want to produce the next

Salahuddin? Allah? UB where's that parent? That is the intention of

parenting right? So he said if you're not parenting with that

intention, you're a selfish person. And that really opened my

eyes because intentionality with everything that we do we say

Bismillah R Rahman Rahim was everything that we do, even with

when you want to have children. Why do you want to have children?

Right? So to see that this is an Amana, from Allah Sparta when he

blesses you with a child, and to also make sure that you, yourself,

are willing to submit because not everything is going to go your

way. There are many people, myself included. I mean, how many of us

who have children walked into the hospital with a birth plan? Right?

My older sisters laughed the entire time I walked into the

hospital like yeah, good luck with that. Throw it out. It's right.

It's and Dr. Emma, you know, best. It nothing will go I wanted

candles. I wanted soft music.

No, no, no, I just was telling for him in the car. I'm like, I hope

I'm not traumatize you. We told her our birth stories. Is that a

photo and I and I was like, it's about 46 hour labor like colors,

do you think you're gonna die? So you have to be willing to submit.

Allah is in control, right? That's a prerequisite of being a really

strong mother. And also making sure that you don't allow your

knifes to get ahead of you, right. All of these things we're talking

about is is making sure that you are in against submission to

almost partly because our challenges us he says our aim and

tada Allahu Hawa, have you not seen the one who takes his own

desire as God and that's where living in this very materialistic

culture we can get absorbed with the, you know, the

commercialization of parenting? How many

people plan more for their nursery, and for their photos that

they're going to take than actually thinking about? How am I

going to discipline this child? How am I going to teach this

child? Am I going to put them on the dean of hub? How am I going to

do those things? Those are the things that should keep us up at

night? Not where's my photoshoot gonna happen? Right? So we have to

really come back to this question. You know, don't worship your

desires, worship Allah subhana being dutiful, devoted and

watchful, just like a shepherd, we have to be ahead. I can't tell you

how many conversations I have with parents, who are unfortunately

willfully ignorant. They don't want to know certain things, I was

just actually speaking with another father, as well about some

parents who, even in the older phases of parenting, you know,

they turn a blind eye because it's, it's uncomfortable for them,

you know, they don't want to know about what their children are

doing online, they don't want to know about the companions that

they're keeping. This is very dangerous. It's akin to a

shepherd, leaving the gate open. For the wolves to come in. How is

you? How are you protecting your children? If you're all of your

gates are open, the boundaries have to be closed. And that's on

you to make sure the gates are locked. Right? That's on you. So

being watchful, always present? Where are my children? Who are

they with? Where are they spending time with, this is how the

Shepherd leads.

And then being upright, resilient and confident, very important. As

I said, you're our children, we know this, it's researched, it's

very clear, they learn best when they are model when you are

modeling the right character for them. So you have to make sure

that when you want them to have a strong Muslim identity, that you

are embracing your own identity, if you're going to tell them to

pray, but you don't pray if you tell them to read Quran, but

you're not reading Quran. And these are you know, I've talked to

many teachers of Quran, who's who have these conversations with the

parents, their parents come to complain to that my child doesn't

want to read Quran, he's in a half's program, he's doing this,

he's doing that she's doing this, she's done that and then the

teacher will ask them, do you read Quran?

I don't know how to sew, that's it. Tell us because you don't know

how to you're never going to even try. I mean, think about how, you

know, we talked about self harm as a physical thing. To me, that's

soul harm, right? If you do not, you know, understand the weight of

not having access to the book of ALLAH SubhanA that as being

harming yourself. Let's, you know, make that clear right now. And I

invite every sister here to never let what we call blameworthy

modesty, right. It's actually a disease of the heart. Because, you

know, modesty is usually that's a concept that we understand in a

positive sense, but there is blameworthy modesty, which is your

you let your HYAH or your shame prevents you from learning. If you

don't know that weed, you haven't learned the book of Allah. Please

don't let your enough's dictate to you. You have to say it doesn't

matter if I'm 5060 7080 years old. If Allah subhanaw has given me

life every single day as an opportunity, I have to go and be

that person who's going to

prioritize and make sure that I have that strong identity. So this

is how we model we have the upright resilience and confidence

in our faith, resilience and confidence in our faith. So this

is

is how we Shepherd and there's much more to this. But again, in

the interest of time, we're going to move on. And this hadith is

really the one that I think every mother holds on to right. Even

before you become a mother. We can't wait to use this on someone.

Right? We can't wait we memorize it. We don't know, a lot of Quran

but every woman knows this hadith. And the one about gender being

under our foot, right? Mashallah. It's a good, we should know all of

these Hadith. But we should also know that this is earned. It's not

given. It's earned. If you want this status, you have to earn it.

And how do we earn it? We have to understand that the Muslim mother

is honored. And she's honorable. Right? So we are honored and

hamdullah were elevated. Look at the entire Sierra of the province

I sent from the beginning of his mission and to the end of His

mission, He was constantly elevating women. And that's why

we're here today. Look at us. I mean, honestly, I just it's so

beautiful. I wish you saw what we saw as speakers says breathtaking,

beautiful modest women here learning and you know their Deen

praising Allah SubhanAllah. This is such a great honor for us. But

we also have to remember that it's earned as I said, so how do we

earn this honor?

What does it mean, to be honored and honorable means being modest,

in Word, in speech, in conduct and dress, very important because I'm

seeing this is not to call out any specific generation. But honestly,

the trends that we see online are very disturbing to the soul. When

you see young Muslims who are very strong and mashallah they have

passion when they speak, but then in the same breath, if they talk

about their faith, they will drop an F bomb, this is unacceptable.

We do not curse we do not use foul language as Muslim women or as

Muslims, we do not dress inappropriately we do not speak

about inappropriate things, foul things, we are not vulgar people,

we are honorable people I was kind of elevated so we have to elevate

our speech.

Right and here in the Quran, or the F Lahemaa for the ephah Menon

right ALLAH SubhanA assists successful indeed are the

believers go through all of these look at your in it whenever I you

know, read verses of the Quran, especially when describing certain

groups, we we should this is how we check ourselves. You have to

you know, look in your own spiritual mirror and say, Do I,

you know, follow into any of these? Am I humble? Right? Do I

avoid idle talk? Am I wasteful in my speech? Do I waste my time

talking about nonsense that will never benefit me or anyone else,

and potentially harm people. Because sometimes we talk about

things and we're not realizing that we could be sending someone

down a very dark rabbit hole with things that we speak about, you

know, you put up planted a very bad seed a weed, not a seed right

in someone's mind. And the next thing you know, they're going down

and searching and looking and now you're going to be held

accountable. Why did you bring up that topic or that, you know that,

oh, I watched this movie. And now this person is watching the movie,

not only are they watching the movie, they've abandoned their

salah, they've abandoned the Quran. So we have to be very

careful when we come together to make sure that our speech is

valuable, right that our way of being brings value. And this is

how we are honored and what it means to be honorable. And of

course chastity and modesty. This is not just the domain of Muslim

women, although it's always seems to be framed that way. Every

believer Allah subhanaw taala says, Every believer, men and

women alike must be modest in dress, conduct, speech, all of

that. So this is how we maintain our honor.

And then the last, the third part, the Muslim mother is a refuge,

strong insecure, SubhanAllah. When I think of my own journey into

motherhood, and I know there's there may be even women here who

have struggled with infertility, and may have even gone through

procedures, I actually know very, very dear beloved people to me,

who have gone through procedures where the womb, their womb has

been removed. And there is this spiritual connection that

sometimes we don't realize it's very real, that the word the womb,

right, it comes from the same word or the hymn right?

As one of the or the the attributes of Allah subhanaw taala

R Rahman r Rahim Russian. So we are connected very much to our

Creator through the womb, whether you're a mother or not, by the

way, it doesn't matter if you've never had children or not, you

have this capacity, right? And so really seeing yourself as a place

of refuge if you're a mother, that your children, your family, your

husband as well, we have to also mention this because we're in a

time and age where men and women are being constantly pitted

against each other and there's so much divisive language, and we're

seeing as enemies we're not we're complementary to each other. And

so we should provide that type of security for one another, but just

to have that mindset that if I am to embrace this role of mother, I

also want to be a place where my children my loved ones, always

feel like they can come back. And so this is where practicing

compassion you may find with your children, as they get older,

they're going to have struggles, they're going to have questions

they're going to have, they're going to bring up maybe topics

that bother you, you know, why don't don't respond? Why are you

asking that because I hear from teens all the time, they get the

door slammed in their face, you know, by by their own parents on

topics, you know that they are curious about? LGBTQ, whatever it

is, whatever controversial topic there is, be a place where your

children come to you, you should be the first point more than

certainly before the internet before their friends, you have to

be that person that I want to be the one that my children feel safe

talking to me about these things. Because if you don't teach your

children how to navigate these, there are wolves in sheep's

clothing, who are ready to jump on them and take them and consume

them and they will they'll take they'll eat a part of their souls

and that's exactly what they're doing. So you have to be that

Shepherd, that protector, that put that place of refuge for your

children. So be that in your spirit, and your ability to listen

before you, you know, condemn or before you judge. And these are

very important, you know, concepts again, connecting back to,

to our natural disposition as women we most of us, Inshallah,

all of us have these qualities of nurturing and loving and

protecting, but it's just really important to see yourself as this

in the capacity of motherhood. Now, the next slide here, also is

more on you know, compassion and building this empathy. I mentioned

neuron, mirror neurons. If you've heard me speak, you know, I talk a

lot about emotional intelligence. And, you know, this concept of

empathy is the fourth quality of emotional intelligence. It's

something we have to inculcate. And this is where you know,

working on your knifes if you have a hard time, feeling empathy for

people, that is a spiritual problem, because the prophesy

Saddam was empathic to all creation and he had empathy for

birds and camels and animals and even a hood when he was on a hood.

And it started to tremble. right within Oman, he What did he do? He

gently tapped it and said it be calm. So if he can have empathy to

the creation of Allah subhanaw taala, we have to question where's

the empathy within our own hearts, so inculcate these things and make

it a priority that you work on your own knifes so that you can

inshallah possess this beautiful virtue of empathy. And these are

just further Hadith, just as reminders of the power of the

womb, don't underestimate the power of the woman will in fact,

be given the capacity to speak like all of our limbs. So when you

practice when you don't practice empathy, and I've seen this

unfortunately, in our community, where relations are cut, people

get, you know, done, I'm done with her, I don't want to talk to her.

This is not our way this is not our language. This is not our

language to have riffs and family families. We should know this is a

cabana from the 17 Cabana and which are the enormities it's

among the top to cut people off. So if you know family members and

or you know grandparents or whoever were there, these things

exist work on softening the hearts especially as the month of Ramadan

draws near. We should really be intentional about trying to remove

this break and family. Chef zeta mentioned this. This is what this

culture aims to do, to divide destroy families to break families

apart. They would love nothing more than all of us to be cut off

from one another and one another. But our Lord calls us to not do

that. And to actually resist our own knifes and to work on

practicing empathy being understanding that people are

struggling. We have so many challenges. So Pamela, and so

again, I'm sorry, I don't know how much time I have left, but just in

the last two slides because I'm sure you can see the theme here.

Mashallah. she ever did much better with bringing her Katia.

But our hearts, our hearts were art. They were here. But our

hearts are somewhere else. And so I wanted to just take a moment

because these are the extraordinary mothers that we

learned from look at their example. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't

change the slide.

I mean, I'm sure we saw all of these in the pictures and videos

that were coming out. These are the ones that when I would look at

them, my heart

I mean, look at this woman Mashallah. bathing her children in

the middle of rubble.

Smiling, that is what a mother does. She shields her children

from the home around her. So, learn, feeding, protecting,

covering, dragging, making dua to Allah subhanaw taala, constantly

turning to Allah. This is the mother that we aim to be not the

mother who again is all over social media. In her polished

filtered world. That is not the mother you want to be. Man. I'm

not judging people. I'm just saying don't aspire for that

aspire for the faith of women like this one.

This is what motherhood is in our deen and this woman, masha Allah.

She just took my breath away when I saw this picture, one of my

favorite hadith is a moment murottal moment.

And it's a challenge because you know, what it means is that we

suppose we're supposed to reflect right beauty to one another. We're

supposed to reflect I think most of us the reason why we're moved

by these images, is because we see in these women what we hope we

have right the qualities that we wished we possessed. So when we

see their strength, I mean, she looks like everything that we just

talked about strong, honorable, devout. Look at her hands. I mean,

those are the hands of a working woman. Right? Humble, courageous,

resilient, modest, watchful. So this is the definition of

motherhood in our deen male also trying to make us inshallah the

best of mothers and May He give us strength and help us to raise

children who love Him and love His prophets of Allah hottie he was

salam alaikum Hello Faden or cinematical Muhammad Allah here