Ismail Kamdar – Maintaining Family Ties al-Adab al-Mufrad
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The speakers stress the importance of preserving family friendships and healthy relationships in Islam, avoiding breaking family ties and maintaining family connections through polite behavior. They also emphasize the need for individuals to build up their knowledge and believe in their beliefs to avoid unnecessary harm. The speakers stress the importance of avoiding harms' behavior and maintaining healthy boundaries.
AI: Summary ©
Alameen wa salatu salam ala Nabil Karim while he was happy at my end. Welcome back to our fourth session on Imam algo Hadees. Otherwise Bullfrog so in the first session we covered the biography of Imam Al Bukhari. In our second session, we did an introduction to his book other one booklet called manners. And in our third session, we covered the first 24 chapters of the book, which focus on the rights of parents. So today, Inshallah, we will cover the next few chapters, not as many, we're looking at about 10 chapters that cover the
importance of maintaining family ties. Right, so this is starting on page 11, if you have this copy of the book, your chapter 25, the duty of maintaining family ties.
So this is a very important topic.
Maintaining family ties is not from the secondary aspects of Islam, it's from the own Islam, the primary teachings of Islam.
To the extent that
violating family ties
would be considered in majors, right?
To cut off completely, someone who you should be complete with should be closely related to would be from the cover from the major sins.
The majority of sins are minor variations or major. So if something is listed as a major sin, then it is something we need to take more seriously.
And
we say that from the methodology of Imam Al Rouhani, is that the order of the subjects in this book are from what is most important, right? So when it comes to the concept of Adam, the biggest sin you can commit is to be disrespectful to your parents. That's why the first chapter is on the rights of the parents.
The second biggest sin you can commit when it comes to other bananas is to
make family ties right to cause disunity in the
next set of chapters focus on family tags. So this topic was the word family ties actually mean, the Arabic word Zeno
comes from the word Rohan, which is the womb of the mother. Right, the womb of the mother where the baby grows is called Raha. And this comes from the word of Rama, Mercy. Right. And there are many Hadees about this, some of which are mentioned in this chapter, about the why each call Rob why it's why this name was given to
the mother war. And from that,
Family Ties basically means that someone who is your blood relation,
you have certain duties and rights and responsibilities towards it.
And this is something that was there from the early days of Islam. You look at other aspects of the religion, like the prohibition of alcohol, or you find the Salah, many of these came in much later.
But the maintaining of family diet, in fact, Valentine's is there right from the beginning, right from the earliest message of Islam, when a man came to Makkah when the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam was still preaching in secret. And when asked him what is your message, he said that you worship Allah and you maintain family ties, when job when he will be darling When to dinner, Joshi and the Joshi asked him, What is the message of your prophet? He said, again, the same thing that you worship Allah and maintain family ties with Heraclius disease of Rome, as opposed to beyond what is the message of this prophet, I was together wasn't even a Muslim at the time. But he said his
message is that we worship Allah alone, and we maintain family ties, and we pray Salah and gives a cup. So this is constantly from the beginning, a fundamental part of the religion. It is also path to democracy to Sharia, the goals of the Sharia, that if you look at the goals of the Sharia, it is the preservation of our faith, our human, the preservation of human life, the preservation of wealth, and honor, and intellect and lineage, right and many of the all of us lineage means also family, right? So when you look at the preservation of family, this is a fundamental of the Sharia. Many aspects of the Sharia revolve around the preservation of family. Things like the prohibition of
Zina, the institution of marriage, the rights of the wife, the rights of the husband, the rights of children, all of this is around the preservation of family. So the preservation of family is the goal of the Sharia. Therefore, we
Making family ties goes against the goals of the Sharia elevating the level of sin involved in it.
Now, the reason why Islam put so much emphasis on your family is because families are really the heart of civilization.
Every civilization is only as strong as its family system.
Right? If the family system is weak, the civilization will collapse.
And we will probably witness that in our lifetimes. Because what we are seeing around the world today, in many, many countries, is the collapse of family.
First, it became people, you know, not having a close relationship with the brothers and sisters, then people start having close relationships with their parents. Now, then people didn't want to have children. Now people don't even want to get married. Right. So what's happening if you're going from living as large families, to living in silos, living as individuals, and if everyone is just living as the individual focus only on themselves, you don't actually have a society, you don't actually have people working together, helping each other being there for each other, what you have is just individuals focus on their own individual interests. And that's where the implosion of
society begins when people are not close to each other in history. So Islam views the family as the heart of the civilization, if families are strong, civilization is strong. And that's why from the very beginning, the prophets, a lot of us are focused on family.
It's also important to note that family in Islam is not limited to our understanding of family, in the modern world, the nuclear family, as you will see from some of the activities, we will go through today, even a distant relative, if you discover, for example, that the person sitting next to you is a distant relative of yours, right, some level of family ties, forms and some level of extra level of goodness towards each other faults, because you are now related to each other, and this is coming towards the end of this chapter.
So, we need to look at families as the units of the Ummah, in the units of the Ummah, at this united, what can we expect for the Ummah as a whole.
But if the units of the OMA strong, then perhaps you will be strained in between them.
And in the modern world, just like we said last week, or last time, but parents in the modern world, they are problems that are causing people to break family ties, so I'll just go through five of the primary causes of the breaking of family ties in the modern world. Number one, same thing with breaking ties with parents that we mentioned last time. It's hyper individualism, right? So some level of individualism is normal and even encouraged. But what we are witnessing over the past 15 years, and especially in the past five years, is hyper individualism, where life is all about me. What I want to do, you know, building your entire identity around your own desires, it becomes all
about me, myself and I. And in the process, people lose the sense of weak, there's no sense of the family as a unit, there's no sense of the responsibilities towards my parents, or my spouse, or my children, leave alone, my cousins or my uncles and aunts, and grandparents or neighbors or anyone else, life becomes all about the individual. And nowadays, more and more people are so obsessed only with their own selves, that is almost like no sense of family at all.
So this is a major problem when it comes to the breakdown of family in the modern world.
When it comes to the breaking of family ties, another primary cause we find in modern society, is materialism.
And this is the love of dunya. Right, the love of this world.
That many of the cases we deal with, when people stop talking to their own siblings, or their own cousins. It's often over a family business, or inheritance, or one got wealthier than the other. It is the level of money that has caused people to become jealous of their own siblings or resentful towards their own siblings to break family ties. So very often, money gets in the way of family and this is one of the tests of life. We are tested with family and we are tested with wealth or lack of wealth. And these tests can sometimes become one with one cause a test in the other.
A third cause of families breaking up today is sectarianism. Right, so amongst the Sunni Muslim community, we are so subdivided into many sects and groups that very often
My two brothers will not talk to each other, with the only issue with each other is a very minor fifth issue, a very, very secondary issue. But they view each other as be that is, or people outside the fold of Islam, or they will push the other way over things, which in reality are not that important. Right? That really we take sectarianism. And there is some level of sectarianism in every religion, and some level of sectarianism that is healthy. But really the way it is in our community is completely unhealthy, where
even the smallest difference of opinion causes people to not talk to each other for years, right, and not to have any kind of relationship with each other for years. And this is extremely unhealthy for society.
The majority of causes of the breaks in family ties will fall into the category of lack of lack of character. That's why this is in the book of values, right? Because this is a natural character back to our manners. Because too often, families are broken through betrayals, jealousy, malice, abuse, oppression, these are all character flaws. These are all bad o'clock. Bad other, right? So it makes sense that this topic is covered in the book of manners, because most of the causes of families breaking down, come down to people who lack good character or good manners. And this is a very difficult thing to overcome. And it's not a 21st century problem. It's a problem since the beginning
of time.
The concept of families breaking over a lack of UCLA is something that has always been there. Right. It's something that has been there, from the beginning of time.
The very first murder in our history, Cain and Abel, a brother being jealous of his own brother, right use of Ali's arms, brothers throwing him in the well, jealousy between brothers, right, so it's there from the beginning of time. But in our time, it is very much something that we see all over the community that too often with two family members are not talking to each other anymore. It's often a character flaw on one or both of them side that is causing it. And finally, a tricky one to deal with.
Sometimes we break family ties with members of our family, who we perceive as open centers, people who don't want to have negative influence on us to our children. So it may be that you may have a sibling or a cousin, or an in law, who's an addict who's openly fornicating, or openly call towards him. And you do not want that person to have any influence on you or your family. And so you may go to the extreme of completely cutting ties with them. So we'll discuss this a bit later.
There is a middle part, right between justifying their behavior, that's one extreme and cutting them off completely. That's the other extreme, we need to find the middle part between them right away to maintain a healthy relationship with them. That can be a means of them coming closer to Allah, rather than having no relationship or all at all, or an unhealthy relationship. Right. So these are some of the causes of problems in our time. And what we're going to do now for the bulk of the session, we will read through the 27 Hadees. In this book related to family ties,
which can be subdivided into eight topics, the obligation, the fog aisle, the virtues, the how it prolongs life, how it builds love, the different grades and levels of family, the punishment of breaking family ties or the sin of breaking family ties, the difficulty
of dealing with difficult relatives and the importance of maintaining family ties with them. And finally,
the
importance of maintaining family ties even if they are not Muslim. Right. So I said, if your family members are open Cinder, you still have to maintain every day for them, the higher the score further and so even if they shake, you still have to maintain family ties with them. Right? So we're not justified to break family ties over somebody's sins or mistakes in their beliefs, rather than using metal parts. So inshallah what we're gonna do now is we'll read through all these are Hadees might give some brief commentary on them and then we will discuss some lessons and some ways forward. So we spend our money regime starting with chapter 25. If you have this version for PhD level,
the duty of maintaining family ties, colleagues, even one for RCA, my grandfather said, rasool Allah, towards whom should I be dutiful? He said towards your mother, your father, your sister and your brother, then towards your
relatives the nearest to them, this is obligatory duty, and those of those ties of kinship must be maintained. So this chapter begins by quoting a Hadees. That lets us know that maintaining family ties begins with your mother, your father and your siblings. This is something you never break your mother and your father and your siblings. This is the most important family ties, you do not break ties with them. But it says then your nearest relatives in your nearest relatives, meaning family ties is not limited to them.
Your cousins, your uncle's, your aunts, their cousins, it goes on and on, but in grades, right, so obviously, the kind of relationship that you have with your brother won't be the same as the relationship you have with your cousin. Right? And obviously, the relationship you have with the first cousin might not be the same with a second cousin. But you still have to, you still have to have a good relationship with them. It shouldn't be one of animosity or malice. It shouldn't be I mean, what's the malice towards relatives.
The second half is I will rewrite radula who said when the verse was revealed, while you're nearest relative to this was one of the earliest verses to be revealed, right? In the early days of Islam, Islam was preached in secret. And then the revelation came to preach it to the nearest relatives, and then to preach it openly. So this was the second stage of the dialogue to preach it to us relatives, and what the soul shows us that even in Dawa our family have a priority over everybody else, that we should be inviting our family first towards Allah before anyone else. So when this verse was revealed, the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam stood up and said, one God, even though I
saved yourself from the fire panel, Abdul MODAF, save yourself from the fire panel, Hashem save yourself from the fire. Why not absolutely save yourself from the fire, fire at my daughter, Muhammad, save yourself from the fire. I cannot change Allah's decision about you, except for the fact that you have ties of kinship, which I shall make. So the Prophet sallallahu Sallam he called upon his tribe, bringing it narrower and narrower, right, so it wasn't called one day by the generally. But then within Binaca, you have been updated my mouth, and within that battle hardship, and within that battle, absolutely. Right. So
to understand this update would tell him is his grandfather, right. And Abdul Maga, or Hashem is a great grandfather and Abdul Manabi is great, great grandfather. So, with each cause he's bringing it down, until he comes down to this to the closest relationship possible, his own beloved daughter, Fatima, who is a child at the time. But he turns to this child and says, that if you have to disbelieve, I can help me further Allah. I will maintain family ties and during this world, but I can't help you in front of Allah. Now, obviously, we know property management, one of the first believers, but the Prophet saw some calls out by name, to signify that being that closely related
and that beloved to the Prophet sallahu wa salam would not be enough without Mr. Right, who we know she was of the people of Oman, and she was the leader. She's the leader of the woman of Jana. But it was a point of emphasis, that even this close in relationship, you still need to eat for Allah to decide in your favor on the day of judgment. And
he says that, I will continue to maintain family ties with you, meaning he's saying even if a relative chooses not to believe in Him, Rasul Allah so the reason we continue to maintain family ties with that relative we see this, for example, in his relationship with Abbas, right, and I will tell you, these were his uncle's, that he maintained good relationships with them. And we know our darling died as in this believer, Abbas eventually accepts Islam over a decade later. But throughout the decades that close relationship is maintained. So for example, when the Prophet slice and goes to meet the people of Medina, and today we are right in secret. He takes his uncle Abbas What if
even though our boss is not even a Muslim yet, but they still have that close family ties that his uncle is there to protect him and he's confiding in his uncle, they still maintain that family relationship, even though he's not a Muslim yet at that point.
The next one is which is
the chapter simply called maintaining family ties. These are the primary Hadith are the most important studies on this topic. Are you are you answering Romulan who said a Bedouin came to the Prophet SAW Allah He said while he was traveling, and he asked tell me what will bring me near the garden and keep me away from the fire. What will bring me close to Jana?
keep me away from your head. No. He said, worship Allah. Do not associate anything with Him, perform the salah, pay this guy and maintain family ties. Again, you see the importance of maintaining family ties, that when a man asks the Prophet so I said what are the main duties of a Muslim? He mentioned the shahada, Salah Zakah and maintaining family ties. Now, some of the commentators will ask Why didn't you mention fasting or Hajj yet, because those commandments hadn't been revealed yet at that point in time? Right, those commands were revealed later. So this was the early nourriture.
I will bring it up Rajon who said that the messenger of allah sallallahu sallam said, Allah created His creatures. And when he finished kinship of family ties to that, and Allah said, Stop, it said, this is the opportunity to seek refuge would you for being cut off? Allah says, Are you not contented? I will maintain relation of connection to anyone who connects with you, and I'll cut off whoever cuts you off? He said, Yes, I am. My Lord. He said, You will have that
I will read it and said to recite the verse of the Quran would you do if you were given the command to go corruption in the land and severe your family ties, this are these is from the Buddha shall be hot, the unclear the relations that
they use, each month of Akita will have a different way of interpreting it, right. So
what is apparent or from this hadith is that
many of the concepts in this world have a consciousness in the,
in a different world, right? So like family ties, has a consciousness. And when this concept was created, the concept itself spoke to Allah and asked Allah for, to give it a special status. Allah gave me the status that whoever maintains family ties, Allah will take care of them, and you're able to cut your family ties, Allah will cut them off. Now some of the
groups will take this at least metaphorically, some will take it literally. The main thing to take from here is that whoever maintains family ties, Allah will take care of them and whoever cuts it off, Allah will cut them off when we shouldn't think too deeply about the unclear parts of it.
The next generation of doula even Abbas said about the verse give your relatives is due and the needy and the traveler and squandered not. Right. And it goes on. But that's the part that's that's directly related, yo, give your relatives do. He began by commanding the most pressing of obligation. So Abdullah ibn Abbas is giving the Tafseer of this verse, right, Abdullah even abandons the Surah An extra sulamani. So in verse 26, to 29, Abdullah, even Abbas is giving a Tafseer of this passage. Now, again, Abdullah, even Abbas was the Mufasa of the sahaba. He was this hobby who understood the Quran best. So this is not a nice, this is a narration of Abdullah ibn Abbas giving
his steps here of this verse. And Abdullah even above says, that Allah begins with the most important commandment. And then they go, you know, in order of importance. So what's the first commandment in the set of verses?
The first commandment is give your end of history.
I truly mean some all the commanded moments in this verse, the most important one is
to take care of your relatives, right and then the poor and then the traveler.
And then if you have nothing you excuse yourself by
seeking Allah's mercy or speaking them gently, right. So
basically, the reverse holds us that if you do not have any wealth that you can give to the poor, you should turn them away with a with a polite way. Don't turn them away harshly or rudely or do it in a polite way, right Be polite excuse if you do not have anything to give them
in the form of a good promise to not keep your hand chained to your neck Do not be advisable no outstretched so much that you sit reproach me don't give so much charity that you end up needing charity yourself. Abdullah ibn Abbas says that means the person to whom you gave everything has denuded you or has now overcome right? So what this verse says is you should give charity to the relative then the needy, then the traveler and you should not be myself. And I'm dealing with a boss is pointing out the relative is mentioned before needy or chappelow. Any pointing on why is the relative metric cost because your family have more rights over you than anyone else. And this also
comes to when it comes down to his car and sadaqa family have more rights as anyone else that we provide for our extended families is part of is how we will fill this verse of the Quran by providing for our extended
The batteries
okay the next for her the is focused on the for the oil. The virtues of maintaining family ties are what Maria Rajon who said, A man came to the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa salam and said, Rasul Allah, I have relatives with whom I maintain connections while they cut me off. I'm good to them, but they are bad to me. They behave towards Me like fools where I am patient with them. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam said, if, if what you're saying is true, it is as if you are putting hot ashes on them, meaning you are going to be a proof against him on the day of judgment, right.
And every time they have you, you know, that's going to be against them in the afterlife. And you will not wrap in support or against them from Allah as long as you continue to do this. So this hadith is saying that a man complained to the Prophet saw that he's trying to meet the family ties, but the other family members are not responding and kinda abusing him. They're treating you badly. And the Prophet sallallahu Sallam told him that if he's doing this, then two things are happening. Number one, those who are treating him badly, they will have to answer to Allah for that. Right and every bad treatment of him will be a proof against them on the Day of Judgment. Number two, Allah
will be his helper, Allah will be supported to Allah supports the oppressed. And what this Hadees teaches us is that even if our relative is not responding in kind, we still should be working towards maintaining family ties, for the sake of God. We should be doing it for the sake of Allah even if they don't respond and correct
up to Rama, he will offset that the Prophet sallallahu sallam said, Allah says this is Hadees are good see, ALLAH SubhanA wa Taala said, i Mr. Rahman, and I created a rhyme and its name is taken from my name. Whoever maintains kin kinship, I maintain kinship with him and ever carted off I cut him off. So this is a Hadith I could see. where Allah says that the word Rahim for family ties is taken from Allah's name or Rama. And this is deliberate. It is deliberate because family ties are that important to our mind. If you want the Rama of our man, you must have Rama towards your family. That's what the hadith is saying.
The next one is is a different version of the same idea is this one not so good. See, Abdulla, even our said that the Prophet will always on pointed his finger towards us and said, the root word or M is derived from the word out of man. Wherever maintains connections with his family, Allah will take care of whoever consider Allah will cut him off. And the kin will have a three and eloquent tongue on the Day of Judgment. Meaning if you can't have a family member, on the Day of Judgment, they will testify against you. And they will speak eloquently meaning that is going to stop them from testifying against you. Meaning if you oppress a family member, they will bear witness against you
on the Day of Judgment.
I shall Rajan and the reason that the prophets Loise I'm said the word Rahim is derived from the name of Last Man, whoever maintains it, Allah will maintain him and whoever cuts it up, Allah will cut him up. So these are three versions of the same Hadith, right, the one from Europe and even OB the hadith of Guzzi and the one from Abdullah even Amana, Aisha in the words of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
in the next study is maintaining title Fincher will prolong life right this is the next chapter. So now we move on to what is the reward? Okay, so we know now for these Hadees that maintaining family ties is necessary and cutting it off is a sin. What is the reward? And this is one of my favorite Hadees that quote quite often because it really is one of my favorites, at least, obviously with Molly Rajmohan, who said the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said whoever wishes to have his wild expanded and his life prolong, should maintain family ties. Whoever wishes to have his wild extended
and his life prolonged or life extended, should maintain family ties.
I will read it out Rogers narrated the same thing.
Abdullah ibn Omar Rajan in the region. He said if someone feels his Lord and maintains family ties, his life will be prolonged. You will have a lot of wealth and his people will love him. So these four innovations are seeing the same thing, right? Two of them are Hadith the Prophet slice I'm telling us two benefits are maintaining family ties. Those two benefits are
good someone told me once to two benefits of maintaining family ties.
extended life and a lot of wealth. Right. And what's the third one that Abdullah even whom are added is not introduced? What's the third benefit?
Because the third narration is from Abdullah even Omar
Yes, your family will love you. Right judge the third benefit of maintaining family ties, people will love you.
And
there's many levels to this hadith, but the primary meaning of this Hadees is that they will reward for maintaining family ties is not just in the archaea, there is a duniya reward as well. The reward in this dunya is a long life and Baraka in your world. Right, and he was this dunya is a long life and Baraka in your world. And also that your family will love you in return. Because in general, if someone is has the kind of personality, that they always going out of their way to maintain family ties, be good to family, inviting them over buying them gifts, you know, talking to them on the phone, whatever it is, they're going out of their way to maintain family ties, in general, the
majority of the family will have their back, yes, maybe Allah will test them one or two members of their family, but the majority will return and respond in time, right. And so on the other hand, if someone's of the personality type really forever being mean to their family, meal, being arrogant, being abusive, then when they grow, they're not going to find anyone around him who loves him. Right, because they didn't build those bonds of love, what they bought was resentment and malice. So these are the rewards of maintaining family ties. Now,
the general meaning of the Hadith that Allah has blessed you with this, right that if you maintain family ties, Allah will reward you with a long life and a lot of wealth.
The is a another explanation given by contemporary Islamic psychologists. And the explanation is that, in general, if somebody maintains family ties, when they grow old, the children will take care of it.
And because the children will take care of them, they will live a longer, happier, more relaxed life in the old age. But someone who was mean and nasty from a young age, they may never get married, they may never have children, or maybe they will have children that you don't want anything to do with them. And so they find themselves alone, they find themselves cut off, and they find themselves, you know, dying at a much younger age often from don't either so depression. And one of my teachers are male and muscular. So she passed away a few years ago, she was a psychiatrist who did some experiments, you know, some crucial experiments basis had nice, and she said from her
conclusions. Anytime somebody focused on the Saudis, they focus on maintaining family ties, they only just beautiful, right, they had the children and the grandchildren around them. They will Baraka in the world, there was a sense of, of love and muhabba in the house, you can see all of this inaction. And whenever someone was, you know, mean and harsh and rude and didn't care what anyone besides themselves, they often didn't look to the old age. Or if they did, it wasn't a it wasn't a nice and so there is a social aspect to this, right is a social aspect to the view maintaining family ties, people will respond in kind. And this will obviously lead to a happier life and a
happier life leads to a healthier and longer life. Right.
The next set of ideas tells us the levels are the grades of family ties. We almost done with this chapter. There's just three pages left on the DOM Rajang, the rates the prophets, Allah says Allah commanded you to be dutiful, to your mothers, to be dutiful, to your mothers to be dutiful to your fathers. Then he told you to be dutiful to your closest relative and then your closest relative. So very often, we hear the first half of this at least right? To be kind to your mother than your mother, then your mother and your father. But in the extended version at ease, it says then your closest relative gain your closest relatives and your closest relative, meaning kindness doesn't
stop with your parents. It will all your relatives, right? It's just this level to this. The most kindness is to your mother, and then your father and then your brother and then your sister, and then it goes like that in rates.
Or smile. Rajon who said Abu Huraira came to us on a Thursday so you're able to usually mine the molar Guzman said, I will read I came doors with a Thursday, the night before Friday and he said I'd like every individual was cut family ties to leave our company. No one left until he said this three times. In a young man went to one of his aunts of whom he had severe ties to the last few years. He went to her and she said and everything what has brought you to us. He said that I heard her say this. She said go back to you and ask him why he said this. I will read I said I heard the Prophet sallallahu Sallam see, the actions of the children of Adam are presented before Allah every
Thursday, the night before Juma. He does not accept the actions of the one who has severe family ties. So very interesting story. So it's Narrated by Abu Sulayman de Mola Samad what's the holdup?
Yeah.
freed slave, right molar in this context. So generally a freed slave owner, what tribe they're from. So we don't know who's the father or what's the tribe. So instead of calling them for example, a boy you sign up to so you will say I will au molar response. Okay, we don't know what tribe is fumbled. We know you used to be on those one inch mark freedom, right. So whenever you see moda in this context, it means the freed slave of that person.
So boy, who was one of the freed slaves of smart Rajani. And he said that one day on a Thursday night, they were gathering data for halacha write for a gathering like this. And
I will realize that if you have not if you have severe family times, please leave our gathering. You didn't want anyone in the gathering with severe family ties. So one young man went and repaired his ties with his aunt with broken title her two years ago. And it she told him to ask Abu Huraira why I will read up mentioned this hadith. There on a Thursday night, our actions are presented to Allah and He does not accept the actions of someone who may who says he has family ties, right? So again, yogi's see the Sahaba, not just in the * of Hadees, but ensuring that the community and the students practice it right the other way around, basically pushed his students to practice Hadees so
much so that one a young man went and repair family ties with his auntie and we don't know why this he ended aren't what problems they had. That's very often those things are left out in the Hadith, because it's a private and a personal issue. So our business right for them, of course, even his anti to break family ties, you know, that was this. What matters is that the parent also note his name is not mentioned, the young man and his auntie the names don't mention again, to hide the sins of others, right to hide the sins of others. So often, when they Hadees mentioned somebody had committed a sin, they leave the name out very often just to protect the honor and dignity of that
individual.
And this is necessarily to mention it.
Abdullah even Omar narrated and he said, Whatever a man spends on himself and his family are expecting a reward from Allah will not fail to be rewarded by Allah, you should begin with your immediate dependents. If there's something that's overspending on your nearest relative than your nearest relative, if there's still something that over give it to whoever you feel is most deserving. So this harness is teaching us multiple things. Number one, any money you spend on your family, Allah sends it back to you multiple times over. And many people are unaware of this concept. Many people think that charity is outside of your family. And God decreed like spending on your
family that's like, you know, just dunya there's there's no there's no Dini or spiritual aspect to it. When in reality, the prophets lie. Some said the best money is the money you spend.
Right there is baraka and reward in spending on your family. In Islam, the man is supposed to be the provider for his family. And
he's not supposed to be miserly in this role. He's supposed to be generous in this role. This is why classical books on masculinity, they would often miss generosity as the hallmark of masculinity, that you'd want your daughter to marry a generous man, not a miserly man. Right because a miserly man, no matter how wealthy he gets his wife and children always be miserable. Because he's amazing. He doesn't know how to spend it. But a generous man, his family will benefit his relatives to benefit his community will benefit. Right? So he ends up being a true provider. So this hadith is saying that the is reward in spending on your family. But then it goes on to see not just your close
family, number one priority, take care of your wife or children. But then look in your extended family, see who needs help, and help them out. I don't leave your your brothers or your sisters or your cousins in, you know, in a state of need, take care of them. And this was the average of the Sahaba we look at Abu Bakr Rajon, he would provide for his nephews who made it Yeah, and we couldn't provide for themselves. And he will take care of the expenses for them, that they show the extended family as part of the event you didn't just think about, you know, nowadays, we we don't realize this, but this concept, we have a family of just being wife and children, husband, wife or children,
the nuclear family. This is a very modern understanding of the family. The Islamic understanding of the family is much broader than that. So the Sahaba would take care of any nephews and nieces. They will take care of their cousins, they will take care of the apples and hearts because if you do all of them as family, right, so the
Buddha said spend on your family and then look at your relatives if any of them I need help them out. Right. And if you help your relatives and you don't have money to give in South Africa now you give to other people. So the next lesson of this hadith is if you have sadaqa to give focus on family first, you shouldn't be giving sadaqa to other people if your own family I need right this is actually a principle
hoping that you can take from this hadith that sadaqa should be given to the extended family first before people outside the family.
Mercy will not descend on people when they someone amongst them was of yours, the title of kinship, the prophets always I'm saying mercy will not descend on people when there's someone amongst them who's of yours that type of kitchen. So this is the name of the chapter and this is the statement in this hadith. This one had ECR and it's a the same statement right? That India is a group of people. And amongst them there is someone who does not maintain family ties. This Allah's Rama will not descend on the gathering,
again, strolling the severity of it now. The next few ideas is now focused on the other side the other.
So, again, Building Hope, and fear. One page focus on the rewards for maintaining family ties, the next page focuses on the sin and punishment for breaking Valley ties. So the prophets always said the one who severes family ties will not enter Jannah. Now these type of Hadees, it's important to understand
the context of these Hadees, right, or the way of interpreting these Hadees.
There are many sins about which the proper soil is obscene, whoever commits the sin will not intergender.
The correct understanding of these hadith is that they are warnings about the severity of the sin. It does not mean that person is not a Muslim, it does not mean the person will never intergender right, Allah can still give them as long as they have to eat. Right? Allah can still forgive them, Allah may punish them first and then put them in Jannah. These type of Hadees are warnings, not promises. Right? So in the Prophet sois, I'm saying the one who said yes, dramatize the agenda. It doesn't mean he's a conqueror, doesn't mean he's going to join them forever. It simply means this is a major sin. That's what it means it's a major sin, not a minus. And
the Prophet saw some sin and brought him comes from the word of man, and would say, My Lord, I have been wronged by law that had been cut off, Allah will say, Aren't you contented, I will cut off the one who cut you off, and I will maintain ties to the one who maintains ties with you. So again, the repetition of the early Hadees. But this time, the focus is on the second half. On the punishment pathway, Allah said, I will cut off the one to cut your family ties. So from the punishments of breaking family ties is Allah will cut you off in different interpretations with this, the most common interpretation is that Allah will not be on your side anymore. You cannot expect Allah to be
your protector. And you know, to take your side if you are oppressing your family, right, that Allah will cut you off in that sense. Do not expect His help if you are not maintaining family, Titus will the hadith is saying and the next one, he says are heard Abu Huraira, seeking refuge from the rule of the young and foolish people. Even Hassan Andreini told me the other will Neeraj. What will be the sign of this rule. He said, When the ties of kinship are severe, those who must guide people will be obeyed. And those who guide rightly will be disobeyed. So this hadith is actually got IDs. It's a discussion with Abu Huraira students.
I will read on warns that the time will come when young and foolish people will all right. So this is he started talking about the sign of young that people who are young and foolish will look and his his students asked him what's the sign that that is happening. He said it will be during a time when it's be normal to break family ties, where misguided people will be in charge and the right to guided people don't want to listen to them. Right? And that will be the time in which the foolish will be in charge. So he's talking about what are the signs of the Day of Judgment. And you mentioned that breaking your family's house would be like normal as a sign of the Day of Judgment
will come a time where it's normal to find everyone's breaking family ties.
The punishment for the one who cuts off family ties in this world so that's the punishment either often what about in this world? There is no huddle punishment for breaking family ties meeting there's no lashing or anything like that public enemy dies, but he is punishment of Allah in this world for people who break family ties. And that is mentioned the next Hadith the Prophet sois said there is no sin that Allah causes the punishment to come quickly in this world,
in addition to the punishment saved up for the day of judgment, right then breaking family ties and do them oppression. So the Prophet sallallahu alayhi salam said the two major sins that bring about the Azov Allah quickly zulum oppressing people and breaking family ties and often they go hand in hand. Right.
So the general rule is when you commit is Allah gives you time to repent, and you can be a long time someone come up can commit a sin when they 20 They have
3040 50 years to repent. But the sin of breaking family ties, the time frame for repentance is much shorter and Allah Azzam comes much faster. So the ADCC if, if breaking family ties is something that someone is known for Allah Azza will descend upon that person in this world, it won't be safe for them for the next one is best in what form it will come, it'd be different for each person.
The next idea is, teaches us the maintaining family ties is not limited to your good family. So again, many people now they say that, you know, I don't want to maintain family ties with him because he's mean to me. Right? Well, that's really where the test is. There's no reward only doing easy things the reward is doing the hard thing. And the hard thing is maintaining family ties with someone who is you know, not good to you. So Abdullah evil our says that the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam said, the one who maintains family ties is not the one who simply reciprocates, the one who maintains family ties is the one who when his relatives cut him off, he still maintain ties with
them. So maintaining family ties doesn't just mean that if other people are nice to you, you're nice to them. That reward lies in being nice to those ones who are not nice to you. Reaching out to those who are trying to cut you off, trying to rebuild a relationship with someone who wants nothing to do with you. That's where the reward lies. That's where you can see the jihad realize that you are struggling for the sake of Allah to Boolean relationship with a family member who wants nothing to do with you.
The next day is a big one came and said prophet of Allah teach me an action that will enable me to enter Jannah he said, the question you asked is big, though you have asked in a few words, free a slave. Right?
If he did three someone and said a slavery, you asked, are they the same thing? You said nope. Freeing someone is setting someone free yourself, setting a slave free to contribute to the cost of someone else, of setting him free.
And then an animal for milking that has a lot of book and give generously to your relatives. If you cannot do that, then command what is good and forgot what is evil. If you cannot do that they control your tongue from everything except that which is good.
Right? So this hadith is a man asking the prophets was up about what good deeds he can do to help him enter Jannah. And it gives him a list in order priority, that the best good deed you could do that the most beloved to Allah is string slaves. I ended if someone is a slave and you free them. The next is to set a slave free meaning some of the slave to somebody else. And they're trying to become free. So you help them like maybe give them the money they need or whatever it is needed to facilitate that. And then the next one is to give generously to your relatives. So that's how it fits in with our topic and then commanding what is good and opening what is evil.
Again, regenerator ask the prophets why some Do you think that the good deeds that perform the job in India, like maintaining family ties and freeing slaves and giving sadaqa will be rewarded? And the Prophet saws have said you became Muslim along with the good deeds that you have done? Is that important? It is because we know when someone converts to Islam, all of their past sins are forgiven. So this is how he's asking what are my past good deeds, and he specifically mentions maintaining family ties. And the profit for him said you keep the reward.
So if someone converts to Islam, all the previous sins are forgiven for all the previous good deeds, Allah will reward it Wait, right so it's not like you're starting from scratch you're actually starting with good deeds and no sense.
Abdullah Omar said Omar saw a silk robe and says messenger of Allah you could buy this robe and wait on a Friday is over. Only someone who has no portion of the year after will wear this. When the Prophet was presented with some roll made of the same material give it to Omar. Omar came to the Prophet was a Macedo messenger of Allah. How can you give me this rope when after what you said as an I'll give it to you two way I gave it to you. So you can either sell it or give it as a gift to someone. Omar gave it to one of his maternal half brothers who are still an idol worshiper. So this hadith is basically we know that wearing silk is haram for men. And the Prophet was from teachers on
that in this hadith, but he also gives him a silk robe. And he tells him to give it to somebody else or to salad. So he gives it to his half brother who was not a Muslim. And the purpose of mentioning this hadith in this chapter is twofold. Number one, that you should maintain family ties even if they're not Muslim. So Omar is still caring for his half brother even though if you're a Muslim. And number two, you should be giving gifts to your family members. Even if they're not member, even if they're not Muslim, you should still maintain them will haga by giving gifts to them, as Omar did with his half brother
shabiha brother here we mean they had the same mother but different fathers. Okay, two more Hadees and be done with this chapter.
On Omar Raja who said on the member, learn your lineage. So you can maintain family ties by Allah if there is some bad feeding between a man and his Muslim brother. And he learned that there's some kind of relationship between them that will prevent them from breaking up. Abdullah ibn Abbas it, remember your lines of descent so you can maintain family ties, one will not make his relatives distant when they are close, even if they look far away, one will not consider them to be close relatives in the distance, even if they live nearby. On the Day of Judgment, every type of kinship will come before every individual and testify on whether he maintained it or not, it will testify
against him if he disappeared it if he severe did, and he will testify in the house, that he maintained it if he maintained it. So the last innovations here are from Omar and Abdullah ibn Abbas. And they both say the same thing. And what they say is something completely neglected by our community. They both say learn your lineage, maintain your lineage. So you know who you are related to.
The Arabs do this, the Arabs can tell you the lineage all the way back to this abou back hundreds of years.
Unfortunately, most Indians do not know their lineage. Most of us can't go past our grandmother or grandfather, right. And this is not good. Because someone could be related to you and you don't even know.
Right, someone could be related to you, and you don't even know. So Islamically, We should know our lineage, we should know who our relatives are. And almost gives the benefit of this is maybe two men want to argue with each other they do about to break up with each other in the bonds of friendship. But if they know this person is my distant cousin, that may stop them from breaking up, because family ties comes first. So if you know, okay, this person is my distant cousin, this person is related to me this way, this doesn't have some kind of relationship, it prevents this unity, because you see everyone around you as your relative. And this is why it's important to learn our lineage.
Okay, we're almost done for today. And we'll open the floor to q&a, the staff. So the lessons we learned from this is that it's a major sin to break family ties, and we should avoid unless necessary, right? Avoid unless necessary, necessarily, will be for example, if someone your family is violent, right, yeah, having any kind of relationship with them could lead to you getting killed or something like that it gets them to be understandable in the sight of Allah. Right. The reward of maintaining family ties is to do it when it is difficult. So it's not about doing what's easy. It's about doing what's difficult. The worldly benefits and rewards are there. So the worldly benefits
are that you have a long life and a lot of wealth, and you have a loving life, right. But it also the worldly sin that Ebola comes quickly if you break family ties, and your good deeds are not accepted. If it's broken out any, you know, God and reason, you should actively work to repair family ties between family members that have cut each other off. So family ties is not just between you and others. But you should also try to be the middleman or the middle woman that you know your brother is not talking to your sister, or your mother is not talking to your brother or whatever it is, you should try to rebuild the family ties between them. Right, you shouldn't be the bridge
between family members, and that there are levels to this based on closeness to Allah. So to conclude some of the some solutions that we can apply to our community from what we learned in this chapter. Number one in education. We need to talk about this topic, teach your children about it to families about it. This should be something that we learned from a young age just like from a young age, we learned this denial around we should pray five times a day that alcohol is haram we should also learn from a young age and maintaining family titled compulsory and breaking family ties with a major sin. Unfortunately, many Muslims don't learn this. And they don't realize what a severe and
important topic this is. Number two, take time to assist family members. To this means be a role model, be role model to others, to your own children and your extended family be their model in how they
on how to maintain family ties. So it's not enough to just talk about if you just talk about it, but you'd have no relationship with your own parents or your own siblings or your cousins, then you're not really setting an example. Each of us need to be the one who sets the example for others. Each of us need to be the kind of person who is going out of their way to maintain family ties. So other people have a model on how to do it. They can look at you and say okay, that's how you do it. That's how you rebuild a family relationship. That's how you rebuild ties with someone. We need to be the models of it. Counselors should offer services for families broken apart through trauma or
oppression or abuse. So the family is broken because something genuinely happened that caused them to dislike each other. There was abuse involved or oppression or some kind of trauma
We as a community should have some kind of counseling service, where the purpose of the counseling is to rebuild family ties is important because a lot of modern counselors encourage people to break family ties. I've seen this happen too often a lot of modern counselors. If someone says, you know, my mother is mean to me, if you're your own boss, you don't need to listen to your mother, you don't need to talk to her. You know, we already know she's toxic, you'll have stuff like that. And this is problematic Islamically this is the wrong advice to give. We need Islamic counseling. Islamic counseling will be how can we repair the relationship? Not how can we push people further away from
each other. Finally, let us be from the people who overlook and forgive and work together as much as possible. Understand that your family are a testament Allah. Each of us are tested with good and bad family members. And
how you deal with the situation is a test. You know, when Yusuf alayhi salam forgave his brothers, for literally throwing him in a well, which led to him becoming a slave, which led to him going to jail, and he still forgives them. He's taking the example of maintaining family ties. When Rasul Allah slicer walks into Makkah as a conqueror, and he forgives everybody. He's setting the example of maintaining family ties in the story of Aisha Romulan when she was slandered and her own cousin was slandered. And Abu Bakr wanted to cut him off. And Allah revealed the verse Khalid Abu Bakr, forgive an overlook, because don't you want Allah to forgive you. And so he forgives his nephew for
slandering you don't daughter, they are setting the examples. And now history is full of these examples, that inlife family is going to mess up, families are going to see silly things, they're going to end up hurting each other, they're going to end up losing temper with each other, you're going to end up doing things they embarrass each other. By the end of the day, you know, we have to try our best to forgive and to overlook and to work together and to find common ground. Because maintaining this family ties are very important for not just for our funeral, but even for our dunya to function well.
And finally, finally, do this for the sake of Allah. Don't expect anything in return. Don't expect anything in return. Again, going back to the man who told the prophet that I'm trying to maintain tied to them, but they are abusing me and they know insulting me and they've been mean to me. And the Prophet says you're rewarding to Allah, you only want to Allah. So we should all be doing what we can to maintain family ties. At the end of the day, we do it for the sake of Allah and we expect our reward from Allah, and whether the other person responds in kind or not, that is between them and Allah. Right, your job is to try your best. And they it is up to them, you know whether they
respond or not, they will be responsible for their own deeds, and you will be responsible for yours. With that we come to the end of this chapter. And we'll open the floor to q&a for about 10 minutes. And then inshallah we will close off.
So just to give you an example of what's coming next, before we take a q&a
After this the set, there's no real set topic, right in some chapters on the rights of freed slaves or the rights of daughters and the rights of citizens. These are very, very short chapters. So
maybe the next topic overall theme would be the rights of children and close relatives, because it's it's like two Hadees on sisters, what are these young daughters want her knees with orphans? Who are these are children. So you put it all together as a right to have children and close relatives. That will be the next overarching theme
for our next session. Inshallah, any questions or comments on this topic?
Could you hear people take us very frivolous courts in a court of law? So if somebody hypothetically were to play by the law, that they will never speak to a family member again, would they have fake expiation or care or to bring in being a something that is against itself? Can you make your own in subsidies against this idea? Okay, so the question is, firstly, can you make or ought to do something around
that question? So this there's two schools of thought here once one opinion is that the old is invalid. The other schools are these are the oldest invalid, but you have to proceed to make it all right. And I think that's the safe opinion. So firstly, don't be Coates general accounting is part of our culture to make much more the other culture but Indian culture is not really part of our culture, but don't take oats or these things. Remember in Islam, if you break a an old way you swore by Allah you will do something, then to make up for that is huge. You need to free a slave right now gonna find slaves to free today. Oh,
Give me the past 60 days in a row, right? All you need to, you know, give charity to a lot of people. So it's not an easy thing to do. So don't take these loans. But in general, if somebody takes the old like that, my opinion is that it is haram for them to take that old, but they still have to make up for it. Because they took that oath, and now they're forced to break it because for pulling it will be harder to de force to break the oh, that they have to make up for was making such a statement. Right? Anything else?
Two channels, one is to genetic relationships.
Another one is to marriage. So your family is suddenly your wife's family, your spouse can become your family as well. These are the two kinds of families, families, not only people that you have blood related to it's also because policy,
wise family become your family. And you have the same obligations to them as you have relationships. Okay, so that's a good point without, against at this level. So that's right, so.
So the point is that, besides your blood relations is your family's family as well and you have
obligations towards I will say the obligation is not the same, right, you still are obligated to be good to them to be kind to them to maintain good relationship with them. But it's not the same, like the level of respect you should have for your mother in law is not the same as the level of love you have for your mother is not equal. Your own mother is still closer to your heart, right? But you still have to be good to her, you still have to be kind to it, you have to treat her well. Right today is there. So there's actually multiple levels to that, firstly, there's your blood relations right there. There's also people who you may be related to through, you know, nursing,
breastfeeding, you have to maintain family ties with them as well, right, so many people aren't aware of this. But if a woman dressed with a child, that child becomes a macro and her family become his family. So you actually have to maintain family ties with them, because they now related to you. And likewise, this now the ties to marriage. Now that ties to manage a difference. Now, that's where you find the ideas about maintaining value eyes, they don't mention the husband and wife relationship. Because the husband and wife relationship is not blood relationship. It's a relationship based on a contract. And that contract can be broken with a divorce. And that's what
they said, I should break ties with your brother or your sister, your mother is a major reason to divorce your wife or your husband is not a sin in itself. It can be completely allowed the time's right? So it's not the same kind of relationship, like with your in laws. If you're married, yes, you treat your in laws, well, you know, you have a good relationship with them. And you may take other walk with them. But if you had to get a divorce, and you never spoke to your ex mother in law ever again for the rest of your life, right, maybe you've added someone else and started a whole new company, that wouldn't be considered drinking family ties. Right? Because that relationship was
based in a contract. It wasn't blood relationships. So that's why he's not on the same level as family ties. Right? Because if there is a halal way to break that relationship, which is a divorce, or even death, right, even death would would break it. But again, other worklog used to treat each other well. But the point being is that if somebody has been estranged from their own mother, that's a major sir, by someone's ex wife's mother. That's not listen, if you if you if you don't talk to your ex wife's mother, you know. So that's why we weren't really on the same level. But at the same time, yes, you must be good to your in laws, and they should be good to you. And they should be a
mutual muhabba between the families. That's what's best for everybody.
You just denominator, which about, you spoke the meaning of the words and somebody who's openly revisited descending as a family member. So for instance, something was common, maybe it's definitely if you have a child or sibling was a drug addict. And you try to maintain ties with them, to try to help them out. But eventually you find them it's becoming you can't do it too much, even if they were homosexual, or transgender or something. So there it is. But so how do you deal with these type of occasional cases where a family member is like, really bad, right, whether they're an addict, or a criminal, or
committing major sins, and you've tried your best already, to help them make you maintain family ties? The question is like, is there a liberty? Is there a point where you say not anymore?
I would say there's no general ruling on this. We have to deal with case by case. Right? You can't say for all people like this, this is the ruling. You have to view the case by case and there should always be a bridge there should always be a way for them to come back to Allah through the relationship with you.
Often in such cases, I would recommend what I call maintaining a friendly this
It's agencies the main method that I recommend, in such cases maintaining a friendly distance. So just use the example you gave, just say you have a brother who is a drug addict. And if he comes to your house, he's going to steal from you, he's going to get high in front of your children, he's going to cause problems in your home, you don't want that. Right. So you keep him at a distance. But if he ever called you and saying, I need help, I want to go to rehab, you know, I want to change my life, you're gonna be the first one to help him. And he knows, you'll be the first one to help him. He knows you're there for him like that. But at the same time, you have this boundary that you don't
have to cross, because you have other family members who also have rights. You have your children have rights, and you your spouse have rights to you. And you know that he's in that state of mind or capable of upholding the rights. So you have the right to enforce boundaries, you have the right to say sorry, as long as you like that you come into my home, right? You my brother, I want what's best for you, but you can't enter my home in the state. Right? Until you change your life, you have the right to say that, that's not breaking family ties. Because you still, if he had to give you the call the next day to go to rehab, you'll still be there for him breaking down the ties with a you
don't care about him anymore, when you want nothing to do with you. But even if he needs help, you're not going to help him. That's when it becomes breaking family ties. So I call this maintaining a friendly distance, that you have a boundary that you don't let that person into. But outside of the boundary, you're still there for them, and their boundaries to protect yourself and protect your family. Likewise, if you have a family member who's violence, right, you don't want them near your children, you don't want them near you or your wife, right, you have the right to enforce them.
At the same time, you have a decent relationship with that person outside of that circle.
So again, we won't give a general warning. But we'll say these things we deal in case by case. And often there may be a level where it may become possible to break family ties. Where if someone is that bad, that having any kind of relationship with them, is going to put your life in danger or your family in danger. And you just have to completely cut them off. We would say that's the exception, not that there will be a matter of the rule of necessity. Right. But we don't talk about the exceptions. We talk about the laws. And people come to us with specific cases, then we weigh the pros and cons and sometimes based on necessity, we may say in this case, it's you know, it's okay to
let that person go. Right. So that's why we see with you did case by case.
Okay, any other questions?
You mentioned the next major sin after disobeying parents is breaking them into just the basis for that.
The basis for food, that's stupid.
You may have mentioned something to the effect that makes me Justin
or in terms of Addabbo o'clock, right. So
other workflow is terms of your manners and character. The way Imam Bukhari looks at it is that values and character starts with the family.
Right. So when it when it comes to manners and character, most of what is in this book is from that which is Mustafa, that which is recommended.
What the book starts off with is the most severe issues. And the most severe issue is number one, having harming appearance, either having disobedience to your appearance, that's number one. And then number two is breaking family ties. Now why breaking family ties? You mentioned that number. Number two, if you look at all the Hadees we went through, its openness, there's a major sell off and this is something that comes up Allah's Mercy is something that brings Allah Azzam quickly in this world. So it's not a light rattle, right. Furthermore, even with the early message of Islam before Allah revealed Salah before he revealed fasting before he revealed Sokka, he revealed
maintain family ties, and that cutting off parameters of ageism, is like one of the earliest laws of Islam to be revealed. So that's why,
according to some authors, when it comes to family, biggest sin, breaking out your parents, second biggest sin breaking family ties, right, and then number three would be oppressing those under those under your care. That's what the next few chapters are. So next few chapters are like slaves, freed slaves, children, orphans, sisters, what puts all of these together is that they under your care,
right? So you're not supposed to go to oppress anyone who's under your care. Right? So there's like levels to those parents, that family that those under your care. And then once once all of those sections are done with the book, after the moves on to recommendations, then the chapters get a bit lighter. It's like it starts with major issues, and then it gets to like the issues. Right. So it's really the first few chapters that could have been is family ties. It's very heavy topics as well.
Again same with the next chapter deals with abuse and oppression, you know, the cash flows under your care. So very heavy topic, but as you go along most likely topics,
what you talked about earlier about,
you mentioned in passing about sectarianism somebody gives me sectarianism is good.
When does it become
better to have you break the ties when, say if you have somebody who's a open atheist or has failed right into a polytheistic family engaging in,
in the rituals.
Okay, so the question is,
is there a point where you break family ties based on family members beliefs? Yes. Well, the fact that the Sahaba maintained family ties to the idol worshiping brothers means no right that the Sahaba Omar Raja was the strictest of all the Sahaba the skiff is the most of your wallet Sahaba. But he maintained close family ties with his brother who was a ideological, right. So I don't think it's justified to ever break family ties because of their beliefs. Because you're supposed to be the primary means of doubt, you're supposed to be dead reach back to UCLA, if you break that relationship, you're pushing them further into whatever they're going into, right. So for example,
if someone's brother in law becomes an atheist, and all the Muslims cut him off, he's just gonna go deeper into atheism. Right. But if you made the ties with him in a way that again, you set the bounds, you say, I do not approve of your beliefs, right? I don't like the choice that you made. But you my brother, are we still gonna have your brotherly relationship, so you make it very clear that you are maintaining family ties, but you do not approve of this? Right? That's, that's that that's the right way to do it, that you maintain your boundaries, you're very clear about your principles. But at the same time,
you're not going to cut that person off completely. Because if you cut them off completely, most likely, they're going to go completely into the other world.
Any other missions, this isn't a follow up to that. So if they start trying to impose on you, or their beliefs, then you should cut them off like this.
As a Muslim, you should develop a personality with a conical simulation, you should always maintain that, that confidence in what you believe in, right? That if you find having a discussion with them, they are trying to force those beliefs to new, you should build up your knowledge and your conviction to a level where you can turn the tables on them. Right? I would encourage them what is the right the right role? What cutting them off agency to mean to them is that oh, I was right. And he couldn't debate with me anymore. So he just stopped talking to me, that's when it's gonna go to them. I remember in Islam, what our primary goal here would be, we care about the soul of the other
person. And we should be the one doing Dawa. There's a principle that if you're not calling others, they're calling you. If you're not doing the data that was being done to you should we should build ourselves and our families up in a way that we have the confidence to be the one doing the doubt. If a family member has gone off the straight path, you should be able to speak to them and debate with them and and try and bring them back. And if you can't do it yourself, get someone else to do it. But if they have influence over you, it means either your knowledge is weak or your Imam is weak, or maybe even just your confidence is weak. Right? So I don't think breaking the ties is the right
solution. I think building yourself up to be a better solution. Right? Because otherwise, that person is just gonna go deeper and deeper into copper and it was gonna say a lot of
a lot of cases nowadays where people what happens a lot of young people these days, Allah protect our youth but what I've seen a lot of young people is around the ages of 18 to 20 as part of that rebelliousness, you go into like atheism, or some modern movement or whatever is the latest trend to go into that right. And
if you cut them off completely, they go completely into that. But if you are the one constantly sending them reminders talking to them, sitting down having polite conversations about it, trying to help them overcome their doubts, as their mind matures as they get wiser as they experience life. You inshallah will return might take five years might be 10 years might be 14 years, but eventually they return to Islam
but in the cases with with their families have completely cut them off. You know, and these communities are completely cut them off. They don't have that lifeline back to Islam. So I personally don't think it's good to cut them off completely. I've never seen that the end Well, I've seen people do it never ended
without 100 people where, again, the point is to be firm on what you believe and to be firm that I do not approve of what you do.
Just say for example,
a family member is living in a scenario relationship. You're living with a girlfriend, right? They're living openly is in a relationship, you have to be very clear that this is haram, I don't approve of it, but at the same time, and that person's car breaks out, you'll help him. He's still your brother used to your casual and we still want to have people that one thing is not related to the other. Right? You still got to maintain family ties in that way. So no, I don't think it would be right to cut them up, I think the better thing would be to, to build up your confidence in skills that you can be the one who's influencing them, as often something I teach teenagers is that be the
one who's influencing others don't allow others to influence you. We need we need to hold ourselves to that level, that we are always the one who is influential in any situation.
When it comes to maintaining family clients, because what
is their degree, tell them
for example,
the relationship can get to the point where what you would do or think is the safest approach would be to just be able to greet a person and perhaps ask how that person is and whatever else and not anymore? Is that still maintaining family ties? Or would you say unfortunately, depends on how closely related you are to them. Number two, I think if the more further away someone so for example, if someone's your, your sibling, or your parents, it should be better closer than that. But we'll be talking about things like cousins or uncles or distant relatives, maintaining family ties, according to my understanding what they would simply mean having no ill feelings towards them.
Right? That if you have no ill feelings towards your distant cousins, even if you never met them for five, six years, you live in one country, they live in another country you don't meet you don't talk, but you have no ill feelings towards them. You have no malice or jealousy towards them, that maintaining family ties at that level. Right. So this level to this right, it depends how closely related you are to them, that will affect
what is necessary for maintaining family ties. Also, culture affects it as well. But I would say that, in general, your close family, try your best to have a good relationship with every member of your family. Your best sometimes is not possible. Sometimes your brother can be the worst person on earth, right? But you still try your best and you will get your reward from Allah Boyd. But if someone's a distant relative, just simply not having your feelings towards them is enough to count as maintaining boundaries.
Any other questions? Should we close up? Okay. Is that our Suhana
Alameen Salam aleikum