Preserving Family: A Goal Of The Shariah

Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

hamdu Lillahi Rabbil alameen wa salatu salam O Allah Nabil al Karim Allah Allah He was happy at Rahim. We begin by preventing the loss of a Hannah Darla, the Lord and creator of the universe, the most wise the most just who revealed the perfect sherea to the best of creation, Mohammed even Abdullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, we asked Allah to send his peace and blessings upon the final profit, and all those who follow his way with righteousness until the end of time.

Previously, when I was a year, we spoke about the concept of the goals of Islamic law of the Sharia. And, inshallah Today, we're gonna continue with that discussion. But just a brief recap. For those who aren't here a few weeks ago,

we said that Islam is a set of laws called the Sharia. And in recent times, this word, Sharia has become like a bad word. People don't want to say people don't want to talk about it. People don't want to admit that they follow a Sharia, and people don't even know what it means anymore. So to help re educate the Ummah, on this important and beautiful term and what it means and what it should mean to our lives, we will have a series of Juma lectures covering what the Sharia is all about. Right? And so we said in the previous lecture that Sharia means, in terms of Islam, it means a way of life. This is what Sharia means. When you say you follow the Sharia, it means you are following

the Islamic way of life, from how you talk to how you walk, how you conduct your business, everything is done, how Allah wants you to do it. This is all the Sharia means. It's not specific to criminal law. Right? It's not specific to government law. It's, it's comprehensive, so you can live in a non Muslim country. And you can still follow the Sharia in your personal life by praying five times a day by having a halal business by eating halal food. All of this is following the Sharia. Right, you shouldn't restrict it to government only. So this is what the Sharia is. And what we said is that the scholars of Islam have said that the Sharia revolves around two goals. Number one, is to

protect people from harm. So wherever Allah has made prohibited, he has prohibited it because it is harmful to us. So Allah has created a Sharia to protect us from harm, the harms of alcohol, the harms of Zina, the harms of pornography, the harms of all of these things, we are protected from it, when we follow the Sharia. The other goal of the Sharia is to make life easy for us to make life easy for us. This is the goal of the Sharia, as mentioned in the Quran, you read the lobby kumagaya you need to become a nurse, Allah wants things to be easy for you, he does not want things to be hard for you, as the prophets allow you some informed Allah of his time Sahaba, who is sent to teach

Islam, he told them, yes, the ruler to make it easy for the people to not make it hard for them. So this is a fundamental goal of the Sharia, that it is meant to make life easy for you. When you follow the Sharia, you will have less psychological problems and those who don't, you will have less emotional problems from those who don't. When you follow the Sharia, you are able to protect yourself for many things that may cause depression that may cause a suicide, they may cause harm. And in that way you make life easier for you. So this is what we spoke about in the previous

lecture and continuing from there. I want to focus on one of the goals of the Sharia.

Now, to understand this topic, I just want to mention it in a broader context. When you study the books of Islamic law, they mentioned that the entire Sharia revolves around protecting five things. And these five things are called the necessities of life. Meaning you need these five things to have an easy life to have a comfortable life to survive in this world. And the whole Sharia revolves around protecting these five things. These five things are number one, the religion of Islam itself. So the Sharia revolves around protecting Islam and protecting our demand. Right many of the laws are there to protect our number two, the protection of human life. So Islam has prohibited murder, Islam

has prohibited

you know, harming people physically, Islam is prohibited even the harming of trees and animals without a need. You're only allowed to kill an animal if you're going to eat it, or if you are defending your family otherwise leave them to live their lives. So the protection of life number three, Islam came to protect our minds and our our consciousness and our mental health. So this is why Islam has prohibited alcohol. This is why Islam has prohibited drugs to protect this part of us. Number four Islam came to protect our wealth.

Our money this is why robbing people stealing is haram. This is why interest is haram. All of this reason why Islam allows business and it allows a free economy for the sake of protecting people's right of ownership of wealth. And number five, number five is what we are talking about today. And in different groups who goes by different names. a sharpie quality protecting lineage, Al ghazali, call the protecting order, even assured call it protecting family. And that's what we're going to go by today, protecting the family. So what this means is, Islam has prohibited Zina and encouraged marriage. Why? Because Xena is this honorable, it breaks up lineage and families, it causes family

ties to break, it destroys society from that point of view. And at the same time, at the same time,

marriage, marriage is something honorable marriage is something that allows your lineage to continue. And marriage leads to the creation of families. So the topic I want to talk about today is this topic of Islam and the laws of Islam were sent to protect the concept of family to protect the very concept of family. And why is this an important topic, it's an important topic. Because we are living in perhaps the only time I know of in human history, where people don't want families,

we actually have a generation who just don't want to get married. And if they do get married, they don't want to have children.

You see, unfortunately, the Muslims of our time are highly influenced by Western culture, the good and the bad of it. Right, the good of it, they want to be environmentalist, and hungry. That's a good thing. The bad of it, is, for example, the Xena culture. So the Western culture, it's all about sub gratification. It's all about freedom. It's all about myself. And marriage, and especially children get in the way of these things. So someone who's enjoying a life of Xena doesn't want to get married, somebody who's enjoying the freedom doesn't want the responsibility of children. And so now we have a problem, we have a problem that there are many young people who have no interest in

getting married, they have no interest in having children, they have no interest in starting a family. Why? Because it's getting in the way of the video games, is getting in the way of the Netflix is getting in the way of them going out and hanging out with their friends every night. So they are choosing the desires over family. And what's the problem with us? Well, let me give you an example. To understand what's the problem with this, just see there is a man, a respectable man in the community who has only three children. But his three children are influenced by Western society. And all three of them decide that they never going to get married, or maybe one of them gets

married, but also says they never going to have children. What happens to that family's lineage? What happens to that family as a family? two generations from now.

It doesn't exist anymore. The family will literally not exist in two generations time. Why? Because no one's having children. Now what happens when you have an entire community like this, the entire community will put itself into extinction. And this is a problem in the West today, to such an extent in the UK, in the United Kingdom, it is something that government is worried about. They're worried about the fact that people don't want to have children anymore, and that they are going to become a minority in their own country because they only want to have children. So it's a actual problem that they are recognizing. They chose this lifestyle of freedom, this lifestyle of Xena,

this lifestyle of do what you want. And now it's coming back to bite them in the sense that the families are decreasing. And the numbers are decreasing, because they chose what is wrong over what is right. So this is a major problem. And the solution to this problem is very simple. Follow the Sharia. Right. But I want to speak about this from two perspectives. Number one, how the Sharia protects the sense of family. And number two, what you as an individual can do to implement this in your life to follow the Sharia in this part of your life. So how does the Sharia protect the concept of family? Well, number one, by prohibiting Zina by prohibiting Zina in all its forms, understand

this in Islam, the only sort of intimate relationship that is allowed is between the husband and wife are male and the female husband and wife. And now we need to even clarify the male or female part because people are getting strange ideas from a non Muslim or that area. There's only one type of relationship that allowed all other types of relationships of that nature are prohibited. Why? Because they get in the way of protecting families, in societies where there is freedom to enjoy Zina with whoever you want, and to experiment or whatever you want. People have no need to get married. And now we have a movement in the West. We have a movement

Seeing that marriage is a religious construct, and it should be done away with altogether. We have people saying, What's the point of this piece of paper? Why do I need a piece of paper to show my love for someone. This is an actual movement taking place in which people are trying to get rid of the concept of marriage altogether, we have feminists saying that now that is a patriarchal structure. And there should be no place for marriage in the modern world. So people are trying to get rid of marriage, at the same time, promote Zina, and what this needs to know families. Take a look at many Western societies today, we have an entire generation of children who don't even know

who their fathers are.

Forget about not having a relationship with a father. They don't know who their fathers are, because their mothers have been with so many different men, that they themselves not even sure who the father is.

And so what happens to a child who grows up not knowing who the father is, they grew up with mental problems. They grew up to have drug addiction, they grew up to be suicidal, they grew up to become prostitutes, they go into all these areas, and you can see the research for yourself. It's available online, all of these things. When the research was done to what leads people down these paths. In all of them. One of the factors is not knowing who the father is, or not having a relationship with your father, not having a proper family. So this is a major, major problem of our time. And Islam's number one solution for fixing this is that Islam prohibits you now, number two linked to that Islam

encourages marriage to such an extent that upon most people it is watching in general marriages sooner, but in this day and age in this culture, it becomes larger. Why? Because without it, you will fall into sin. That's just the reality of most people. If you do not get married, you will fall into sin. And so getting married is something encouraged by the sherea. sherea protects the concept of family by encouraging us to have a lot of children. Right. And again, this is something taboo in our times, something we're not supposed to talk about to encourage, you know, we're supposed to be telling, you know, when you see people with large families today, people get shocked. But the

prophet SAW a lot while he was on set, Tanaka who Takata gotta get married and have a lot of children. So my mama can be a lot on the Day of Judgment. This is a this is a dish of Rasulullah sallallahu sallam, he said we should have a lot of children, actually Islamic colleges having a lot of children why there is Baraka in that it leads to a bigger family. When you get old, you are more likely to have someone to take care of you, you have more likely for your legacy to continue after you die, you are more likely to have more good deeds on the Day of Judgment. If all your children end up righteous and all your grandchildren end up righteous, continuing continuing for generations,

Islam encourages us to have as many children as possible.

The fourth way in which Islam protects the concept of families is that it has laid down rights for every member of the family. And so in the books of Fiq, you will find the rights of the husband, the rights of the wife, the rights of parents, the rights of children, the rights of your siblings, right you will find in Islam, a detailed description of every member of your family, what you are supposed to be doing for them. In this day and age of freedom. Nobody wants to hear about rights, except for their own. Right, a woman will come up and say what are my rights upon my husband? But she doesn't want to know what the husband's rights upon her and vice versa. The men want to know

what's my wife's rights? What's my rights? What's my wife duties, but he doesn't want to know what his wife hates. Islam teaches us that we must care for everybody else's rights and for a family to function properly. If the man's worried about fulfilling the rights of his parents, his wife and his children, if his wives worried about the rights of the husband, the children and her parents and in laws, then guess what? Everybody's happy and everybody functions properly. But when we only focus on our own egos on my rights Me, me me, when you only focus on that what happens, everything falls apart, because a family cannot survive if the selfishness evolved. Understand that if you are

selfish when it comes to your family, the family's not gonna survive. Family requires being selfless, caring about everybody else. So you must get out of this mindset. It is all about me. It's not all about you. It's about the oma Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam which includes your family.

Islam also protects family by making the laws of inheritance very clear, because one of the main causes of families breaking up is fighting over inheritance. So Islam made this clear so there are no fights and the family stays united by just doing what Allah said to do in the Quran. Islam came to protect our families in many, many other ways. But these are the most important ones mentioned in the Quran and in the Hadees. So why

why is there so much emphasis on family? Some people may see but you know, what's the big deal? If I don't want to get married, I don't want to have children. I just want to enjoy my life and you know, watch Netflix and play video games all day to like die. What's the point? I mean, what why is it a problem? Why is the assumption of making family such a big deal? Well, the many reasons that we might have mentioned why family is important.

I just want to mention five. Number one and most obviously, without families, your lineage will become extinct.

Right? If you're gonna have a family, then and if your friends are not having families and your siblings are not having families and nobody's wanted to have families, your community will go extinct. And so the number one reason why Islam preacher emphasis on family is so that the human race is preserved, and especially the Muslim Ummah is preserved, right as we continue from generation to generation, and we don't die out as a nation. Number two is the concept of honor. And this is why Imam Al ghazali. He called this the protection of honor, he didn't call it the protection of family equality, the protection of honor Why? Because when people choose a lifetime of

Xena, they are bringing this honor to themselves and to their families. And this is a topic on its own inshallah, perhaps next time I'll talk about honor as a as a topic because it's something forgotten our time. You know, when we talk about honor people think about knights and they think about ancient warriors. And they think about things that happen in the Ottoman Empire. They don't think about himself, as if this is an ancient concept. No, this is an Islamic concept. This is something we're supposed to be worried about today. Am I living an honorable life is something you are supposed to be worried about today, not something that existed only in the time of the Ottomans

in the apostles, right? So protecting your honor, if you choose marriage over Xena, you are protecting your honor, you are living honorable life and that's what Allah wants to you. Allah wants you to be honorable in the sight of people. When the Muslims are honorable in the sight of people, more people flock towards Islam. But when the Muslims are the thieves and the oppressors and the people committing Zina and the people taking drugs, why would people have any interest in our religion? If we are choosing dishonorable lifestyles? Why would people want to be like us? So honor is very important. So that's the second reason why Islam encourages families for the sake of honor.

Number three,

Baraka and Sakina. blessings and peace, family brings Baraka family brings peace. Yes, families can cause problems. Yes, families can fight with each other. Yes, families have bad days. But in general, the overall picture if you look through your entire life, the main source of peace and happiness in your life is your family. And this is why people who are cut off from their families tend to be very lonely, and they tend to fall into depression. Why? Because they are cut off from one of the most fundamental sources of peace in human life, which is family. So Allah wants us to have that Sakina He wants us to have the peace and Baraka in our lives. And that's why he says we

must have families, we must work towards having families. Number four.

Having a strong family protects your mind, it protects you from mental health problems, right. So people who have strong family ties, they are less likely to fall into depression. And if they fall into depression, they have family to help them out. But somebody who lives alone, what happens when they go to depression, they just get more lonely, there's no one to talk to them, they don't want to support them. There's no one to help them to go to psychiatrists, they don't want to give them advice. There's no one to take care of them. It just makes the problem worse. But when you have a strong family, it protects you from falling into this in this it protects you from becoming

suicidal. And this is one of the many lessons taken from the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu sallam, when he said whoever wishes to live a long life and get a lot of wealth, he should maintain family ties. Right? One of my psychology teachers mentors explained this Hadees. To her she said that one of the meanings of this Hadees is that when you maintain family ties, when you grow older, you have a bigger support system, you have more family members to take care of you. And you have more family members to help you. And so you end up living a longer life. This is one of the many meanings of this Heidi's Allah knows best. Number five,

the family and this is very important for those people who don't want to have families who don't want to get married who don't want to have children. This is very important. Understand this, families are the foundation of society. If a society loses the concept of family, it will fall apart. Just be those societies today they are getting rid of the concept of family. They won't even exist in 20 to 30 years time, they're going to fall apart, maybe even sooner. Family is where society starts. When families are strong. They produce a strong society. When families are righteous. They produce a righteous society. When families are broken when families are

disintegrated when families don't exist, there is no society. And we see this in history. We see this for example, the greatest rulers in our history were white people who came from strong families. Look at Omar Abdulaziz, right he was the great grandson of America top. He came from the strongest of families for generations of righteousness produced a ruler of his nature. We complain we don't have rulers like this today. What are people are reproducing? What kind of children are we raising because

Understand the children, you are raising one of the maybe the leaders of tomorrow. If you raising them to be good righteous people, there's a chance that this woman will have a good righteous leader in the future. But if none of us care about this, where's the leader gonna come from? if no one's having children, or no one's raising their children righteously, then where do we expect a good leader to come from?

It comes from how we raise our children. So to recap, five of the main reasons why Islam put so much emphasis on family is because without families, number one, we go extinct. Number two, family is a source of honor, Xena is a source of dishonor. Number three, family is a source of Baraka and Sakina blessings and peace. Number four family protects you from mental health problems. And if you do have mental health problems, it helps you to get through it, it helps you to survive it. Number five, family is the foundation of society. without strong families, there is no society. So for the final part of today's presentation, we come to the practical part, what can you do? What can you and I do

to live this aspect of the Sharia, to live our lives according to the Sharia in this way, and to achieve this goal of the Sharia, which is the protection of family. I want to mention eight things, eight things that every single one of us are capable of doing. And if we do these eight things, we will individually fulfill this goal of the Sharia, and they are collectively fulfill it as well. Number one, and no, it is very hard in this day and age. Because we are surrounded by temptation. But we have to talk about it. Number one, avoid Zina and avoid everything that needs to we are living in a Xena culture. Yeah, let's not hide the fact that we are living in a culture that that

glorifies it in all its forms. In every movie, every TV series, the billboards, you know, the magazines, everything is glorifying a culture of Xena. And because we're not talking about the many of our youth are falling into it and to the young people. I tell you this much. If you get addicted to these this lifestyle, you are going to ruin your own life, you will never experience happiness. Someone who's addicted to Xena lifestyle will never experience happiness. This is why suicide rates are higher in countries where people have a similar lifestyle. This is why depression rates are higher in those countries why loneliness is higher in those countries. This lifestyle leads to these

problems, right. But when you choose family instead when you choose chastity. Instead, when you choose marriage, instead, you have honor, you have happiness, you have structure, you have company, it's a much better lifestyle. So I know for the young people out there, many of them are facing a lot of temptation. Choose to avoid, choose to get married as young as possible. Choose

chastity over Xena choose to live a morally firm and honorable lifestyle. And this is the first step you can take towards preserving family. Number two, if you're not married, take the concept of getting rattled seriously. If you are married, take your marriage seriously. Take your marriage seriously. Don't Don't take it for granted. I don't take it that because I'm married. This is the way it's going to be. You ignore your spouse and wait for the day when they stop loving you understand this is a point of psychology, a lot of people don't realize your love for your parents is natural. It's there from the time you were born. No matter what happened between you and your

parents that love stays forever. Right? The love between you and your spouse is not natural. It was developed over time, meaning for the first 20 or 30 years of your life, you didn't even know that person existed, then you met that person, and you started loving each other. So this is not in love there was there from the beginning. It's something that has to develop. And so it's something that can go away if you don't work on it. If you don't work on your marriage, the love can go away. The only way to stay in love with your spouse is to keep working on your marriage. So we as a community, we need to talk about these topics. And as individuals, we need to pay very close attention to how

we are treating our spouses. Are we people we're taking them for granted? Are we making time for them or we value our relationships. And for those people who are not married? Make it a goal. Make it a goal to find somebody good, a good Muslim and to marry that person. Right find make it your goal in life, to marry a good person. Don't make it something maybe someday maybe or think about in Kenya, Saudi Arabia think about in 20 years time. It may be too late. Right? If you find somebody who is righteous get married the Prophet Alayhi Salam said about

when a man goes to propose to a woman, he said if a righteous man of good character proposes to your daughter and you reject Him, they will be fixed now not it will be corruption. And this is what we see in society today. Nowadays, when righteous men proposed to girls, what did the father say? Oh, she'll get married in 10 years time of IVF and I'm looking for proposals now.

And then three years later, finds out his daughter's may be involved in things which are Haram. And she called her boyfriend, she got a non Muslim boyfriend she wants to run away with a non Muslim. This is the fifth not the prophets have warned about in this Hadees that when we choose the western lifestyle over the Islamic lifestyle, there are consequences. So take the concept of marriage seriously. Number three, make time for family. Make time. I know we all have busy lives. Some people travel, some people work 10 hours a day, some people work seven days a week. Make quality time for your family. If you can't make quantity time at least make quality time, one hour with your kids a

week where you're giving them your focus, undivided attention is better than five hours where you're distracted by your phone. Give them quality time, this will build marhaba this will build the love and relationship between you and them. And this will work towards preserving your family. Number four linked to this, spend money on your families. spend money on your family. I mean, you'd be surprised how many situations we have Muslims in our community who are wealthy, but they don't buy their kids anything. They don't cheat the wife out to a meal. The Prophet Mohammed slice them said the best money is the money you spend on your family. This is the best money is the money you spend

on your family. Do not think of spending money on your family as a waste of money. It is a source of Baraka, it's a source of reward. It is something that Allah loves. Allah loves it when you spend money on your family. So when you buy your kids something nice, this is something Allah loves. When you take your wife to a fancy restaurant. This is something Allah loves. Why? Because Allah hates miserliness. He hates stinginess. And he loves to see that families are maintaining close family ties. So when you spend money on your family, you are doing something that is beloved to Allah subhanho wa Taala. So let us make time for families and let us spend money on our families. Number

five, for those family members who are older than you, I number five and six together in one Hadees the Prophet sallallahu Sallam said, he is not one of us who is not merciful to those who are younger than him and respectful to those who are older than him. So the prophets long Islam mentioned two things in this Hadees if someone is younger than you, be merciful to them. And if someone's older than you Be respectful to them. Now, technically, we supposed to be merciful and respectful to everybody. Right, but why they emphasis on mercy for the young and respect for the older people? Right, let me give you an example of why younger people tend to make more mistakes. Right. So the

first lesson is telling us to cut them some slack, give them a break, let it go. They're young, they're gonna make mistakes you don't have experience in life. So we must let the mistakes go don't make it a big deal. And this is a lot of parents love. parents want their children to be perfect. As soon as they hear that teenager committed a sin, they want to beat him up and kick him out of the house and cut off time to do that. Teach him the doors of Allah's mercy or open teach him to make mistakes or teaching to make Toba. That's what you're supposed to be teaching your child not expecting perfection from him. So the proper Samson be merciful to those who are younger than you,

they are going to make mistakes, they are going to misunderstand, they're going to do things wrong, because they don't have experience in life. So be merciful to them. And to those who are older than you. They have earned your respect. And sometimes you may be nasty, because, you know, when people get older, they filters get less. I some, my eldest told me this, that because they got old now they're like, you know, I'm gonna die soon. I can tell you whatever I want, right? So they end up talking more blankly. So I was saying no. So some is saying listen, your elders, they may talk to you more bluntly, they may be a bit more rude when they talk to you. They may say things in a way

that may hurt your feelings. respect them. Don't say anything back to them. They are older than you deserve your respect. So it's interesting that

even though we supposed to be respectful and merciful to everybody, but Rasulullah he emphasized mercy with those who are younger than us, because that's where we tend to get very angry with people and give them a hard time. And he emphasized respect to the elders because unfortunately, because many of us are stronger physically than our elders. We don't respect them as we should. So these shootings are also ways to fulfill the sherea goal of preserving family. Respect your elders, no matter what they say no matter what they do, and be merciful to the youngsters no matter what mistakes they make. Be a means of bringing them closer to Allah Don't be a means of chasing them

away from Allah number seven. Number seven, make an effort to maintain family ties. Not just with your brothers and your sisters and your children and your parents, your cousins, your uncle's, your aunts, your second cousins, your entire family. Make it a goal in your life to go out of your way to maintain family ties, especially if a member of your family is trying to cut ties with you. Go out of your way to repair your relationship with a family member. This is a good deed in Islam. In Islam, trying to maintain family ties with someone who's cutting off with you is from the best of good deeds and breaking Family Ties is a major sin

Minus in a major breaking family ties up there with Xena and murder and stealing, it's that bad. It's a major sin to tell your brother that you're not my brother anymore to tell your son that I disowned you. This is a major sin in Islam. It's from amongst the worst things a Muslim can do. So work towards maintaining family ties to not work what grating family ties. And finally, number eight, forgive each other. Everyone's going to make mistakes, your spouse is going to make mistakes, your children are going to make mistakes, your parents are going to make mistakes. Learn to forgive, I learned not to expect perfection from people. If you want to make any relationship work, you're

going to have to learn to forgive people. And unfortunately, again, as a community for some reason, we expect perfection of everybody else besides our own selves. And this is a hypocritical thing many of us have, that we are our own selves, we have many sins, and if people had to confront us about using our human

body, but if you see our say, our child, our wife, our parents committing the same sin, we get angry. We know what kind of a child are you? What kind of a spouse are you? We treat him differently from how we want people to treat us. So learn how to deal with people properly. Learn how to help people make mistakes. Learn how to help people make Toba Don't be the kind of person who cuts your family ties for every mistake, because everyone's going to make mistakes your spouse, your children, your parents, they all going to make mistakes, learn to forgive, because Don't you want to forgive you? So I want to end up with a very quick story. The Prophet sallahu Sunstein

is a very famous story where his wife Ayesha was accused of a major sin she was slandered of a major sin by her own cousin and her father, Abu Bakar. He was in charge of helping the cousin financially. So imagine you've got a cousin who you helping financially and he slandered your daughter and spread rumors about society. What would you do? Abubakar? He said I'm not going to give that money anymore. When he said this alarm revealed a verse in the Quran, telling him forgive and forget, don't you want a lot to forgive you?

This is a last message to Abubakar when his cousin had committed the major sin of slandering his daughter. Allah told Abu Bakar forgive and forget, don't you want Allah to forgive you? So that's a message to all of us. Your family are going to mess up. They're going to gossip, you're going to slander they going to make mistakes. forgive and forget. Don't you want Allah to forgive you? Baka da da da da da da da minha Salam Alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh