Hosai Mojaddidi – Empowered Mother Raising Resilient Children Strong Muslim Identity
![Hosai Mojaddidi](https://artwork.muslimcentral.com/hosai-mojaddidi-150x150.jpg)
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
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