Khalil Adam – Leading Your Family To The Ultimate Success
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AI: Transcript ©
We first, and foremost start by praising Allah
for being given the opportunity to be Muslims,
to be guided, and had it not been
for Allah's guidance,
we would not have been guided.
And we praise Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala for
sending us the message of Muhammad salallahu alaihi
wa sallam with the book, the Quran, the
manual in which there is no crookedness in
it.
We send our peace and blessings upon the
prophet Muhammad always.
Furthermore,
I wanted to begin by saying,
I thank all of you for coming, first
of all. You know, you could've been anywhere
but you're here in the masjid.
And this is an important topic that is
relevant to everyone.
How to lead a family to success?
We talked about the khutba, we're gonna pull
in some of that information from the khutba
about all of us are leaders whether we
like it or not. As we said,
The prophet
he says, all of us are shepherds, I.
E. Leaders,
and we all have a flock that we're
responsible
over.
And,
the question now becomes, if it is an
obligation for us to lead,
how do we lead? What's the manual of
leading a family to success?
Yes, Sienna?
Yes.
I'm
I'm blocking a car.
I'm sorry.
No no no. My wife can move it.
Maryam?
Maryam?
Can you move the Sienna please? 907.
It's a green Sienna, minivan.
Yeah.
You have the picture?
License bridge? No, no, that's not me. No,
no, that's not me. That's in Pennsylvania.
Sorry, never mind. That's not the car, No,
no problem.
I know I was in the right place
but just in case. I'm a guest so
you have to excuse me.
So we'll make this interactive in the lab.
Leading your family to ultimate success.
What in your words is ultimate success?
What's the ultimate success?
Jannah, right?
How to lead our families to jannah. What's
the ay in the Quran? Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala says,
All souls shall taste death.
And all of you will be given their
reward on the day of judgment. Whatever they
earn, they'll be given.
Whoever
saves himself from the fire
and enters into Jannah, then they have won.
It's a simple formula, nothing complicated.
And this whole thing that you see, this
worldly life, everything in between
is just a deception,
a passing deception.
You know, we're we're so entangled and engulfed
in it. We're worried about the risk, we're
worried about this, we're worried about marriage, we're
worried about the stresses of our children. At
the end of the day there is only
one thing,
If you take your family to Jannah, you
have succeeded.
And if you save them from the fire,
then,
you also have succeeded.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says,
Oh you who believe
Save yourselves. He says, all you who believe,
your main obligation
is to save yourselves and your families from
a fire in which the firewood are people
in stones.
Upon it are angels who don't disobey what
Allah has commanded them to do. Meaning there's
not gonna be angels who will say, you
know what? I feel sorry for him. I'm
just gonna let him out.
They're gonna yell out to Malik, the guardian
of the fire. Oh, Malik, give us relief.
And Malik is someone who is the guardian
of the hellfire. He will not be even
given an ability
to smile.
When he met the prophet on the day
of Israel Miraj,
the prophet said to Jibreel, who's that? He
said that is Malik,
the guardian of the fire. He says why
does he look like that? You know, very
stern, doesn't smile. He says, he is not
to smile for anybody. But he says, if
he would smile for anyone, it would be
for you, oh messenger of Allah. But his
job is to make sure that the punishment
is inflicted for those who neglected their responsibility.
And we said that all of us whether
we like or not, in any capacity, we
are leaders.
We can't shy away from that. In fact,
the Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, he encourages, he
says,
Oh Allah, make from our wives and our
children coolness of the eyes. And then he
also says,
and make us leaders for the people. Make
us leaders for the people. So, today, we're
going to talk about qualities of leadership as
a member of the family, someone leading the
family. What are the key ingredients? We're gonna
pull in from Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi sallam. There's
a book that I recommend all of you
to read when you get a chance, children
around the Prophet.
This is a book that talks about how
the Prophet dealt with children.
You know, very subtle things you may not
notice. We're gonna talk about that insha'Allah.
Also, women around the Prophet, the wives of
the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, how he
dealt with them as well. He was human
at the end of the day.
It wasn't a perfect world even for him.
So, you will see a lot of that
insha Allah, and you'll see how he reacted
to those things.
And then, the last thing I wanna say
is to to to know
and to acknowledge
that what you have of family is a
trust from Allah. And Allah
warns, he says, or
you who believe
Don't betray Allah and his messenger.
Why? How do you betray Allah's messenger? By
not fulfilling the trust, abandoning
the amana. There's a trust put on you,
and you said, you know what? I don't
wanna I don't wanna deal with this. I'm
gonna walk out on the family. I'm gonna
walk out on my responsibility.
He says, don't be like those who betrayed
Allah and his messenger and they betrayed their
trusts while they knew. So, insha'Allah, we're gonna
take the case study of Luqman alaihi sallam.
Luqman,
many of you know Luqman. Raise your hand
if you've heard of Luqman, of course. Was
he a prophet or a righteous man?
What do you think? Righteous man?
Who says prophet? Anybody says prophet? Some say
he was a prophet. There are some opinions
that say he was a prophet, but the
strongest opinion is that he was a righteous
wise man.
Luqman was given hikma. Allah
says, that we gave Luqman hikma. And when
you've been given hikma, from
an Whoever is given hikma has been giving
a lot of good. Most people don't put
worth, they don't put value in wisdom. Right?
They're like, oh, this old wise man, you
know, he's just he can't pay the bills
with that wisdom. Right? But this wisdom can
make life easy for you. Right? Because you
know how to put things in the right
place. If you make the opposite of hikmah,
is what they say,
when you oppress
or not only oppress, but you put things
in the wrong place because of lack of
wisdom,
you incur difficulty in your life. Some people
wonder, why why is life difficult for me?
You don't have the knowledge and the wisdom.
You're not doing things the smart way. You're
doing things the hard way. And so, even
though Luqman wasn't a rich man, he was
a slave that was freed,
but he had something that people recognize and
they gravitated towards.
An Arab man came to Luqman,
an Arab man who was free and he
says, there's something about you, you know, I
I just love to be in your company
and I love to hear from you. When
you speak, the words are profound, and they
I feel like they have meaning. So, he
says, what is it about you,
that you practice, that you hold as a
standard?
So, Luqman replied, he says, 3 things that
I hold dear to myself,
and he imparted this to his family.
The first thing he says,
That when I'm entrusted with something, I take
it serious.
And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, this is a
characteristics of the believers. Right? That he says,
Take what I have given you to Ben
Israel with strength.
Strength and seriousness.
We can't be, you know, haphazard about things.
We have to be precise. We plan, we
prepare
because this is a great Amanah. So, he
says, the first thing I do for myself
and I impart to my family is Adul
Amanah.
It means fulfilling the trust which leads to
integrity
Integrity
protects your family. When you're, you know, you're
concerned about that, you know, you don't wanna,
misrepresent something or you don't want to abandon
a trust given to you, you are someone
who is going to be upright. He says
the second thing is
When I speak, I speak only truth. If
I don't know it to be true, I
won't say it at all. So, and the
Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam in hadith, he
says,
that truthfulness, living a life of truth, always
standing up for truth
leads to what? Righteousness.
And bir, righteousness, leads to Jannah. So it
starts from truth,
standing up for truth, living by truth, and
only speaking the truth, and he imparted that
to his family as well. And then he
says the third thing,
that leaving off that which does not concern
me. And this is a hadith in in
in Nawawi. He says,
from the completion of the iman of a
believer
is that he leaves off that which does
not concern him. He doesn't concern about gossip,
he's not backbiting,
he's not going to things that don't are
are not important.
And if you take these three principles,
this is why Luqman says, I have that
aura that you are asking me about, even
though I was a slave.
And so, when you look at the
the Quran, and this is what we're here
to do, as the prophet says, whenever a
group of people look into the book of
Allah, they study it among themselves.
The angels come down and they envelop them
with mercy and tranquility
and Allah forgives the whole gathering. And then
they said, what if there's a man who's
just, you know, just came, he's not even
part of the gathering, he just came to
meet with so and so? Him too. Everybody
in the gathering, that's how powerful the forgiveness
of Allah is when people come together to
study the book of Allah. So, insha'Allah, we're
going to take the verses about Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala
mentioning Luqman.
Verse number 14, Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says,
The first thing here, Luqman, as he's talking
to his son, Allah interjects a piece of
advice.
He says, remember those and,
or was Sayyid al Insan, we advised
the the man
with to be dutiful to his parents, to
his mother particularly.
She carried him difficulty upon difficulty
through hardship upon hardship and their weaning takes
2 years. So, he says, so be grateful
to me and your parents,
to me is the final return.
Gratefulness is the the first point
where we are now going to be leading
our families.
To live a life of gratitude,
Always remind them of the things they have
versus the things they don't have. If you
can do this at the beginning,
you will succeed.
Even if you don't have food to provide,
they'll be trained to look at what they
do have. Look at the children of Gaza.
Look what they're going through. Look at
the children of Sudan and Syria. You know,
they are literally having nothing.
No electricity, no food, no shelter even. The
basic necessities of life, yet they're still playing,
they're smiling, they're saying,
we put our trust in Allah and they're
moving on. Life is not over.
While our children here in the west, you
know, something small happens and all of a
sudden they feel like an avalanche just falling
on them. Right? I didn't get the spaghetti
that I wanted or oh, I didn't get
the iPad, or I didn't get the all
of a sudden life is over for them.
Right? So there is a definite perspective problem.
We need to train our children. This is
what we said in the,
a teacher gave the student a piece of
paper
and she put in the piece of paper
a black dot and she asked each student,
what do you see?
So each student, what did they say? We
saw a black dot.
She says, you're trained to see the black
dot
when it's very small, where you could have
said, I see the white around the black
dot. Nobody nobody thought to say, I see
white. They said, only I see the black
because your brain is trained for that. It's
the, you know, the, flight or fight, you
know, that where you train for,
to for danger.
So, you have to train yourself to think
about the good things in life and you
do this with your family. Together, you sit
down, you say, let us be grateful. 50
things we're grateful for. Alhamdulillah, we have this.
Alhamdulillah. Train them. They don't know how to
do it. Even us as adults, we have
a hard time doing it. But if you
look at surah the Duha, whether Allah says,
The favors of your Lord, proclaim it, say
it out loud. You know what? Allah has
given me this, Allah has given me this.
It will train your brain to always look
for the good in any bad situation.
And so here,
Luqman is imparting that to his son. Then
he says, Yeah, Boonay, oh my son.
So,
Luqman is saying to his son,
first he says before this,
don't ever do shirk.
That shirk associating partners with Allah is a
big wrong. It'll destroy your life.
Anything that you've worked on, you've been successful
in a business, you've been a doctor, you've
been this, you've been that, anything will crumble
down because you associate partners with Allah. So,
the first thing is you have to make
sure whenever you do something, you do it
for Allah. Then he says here, he imparts
on him how powerful Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
is. He says, oh my son, and here
pay attention, he says, yeah, bunayyah, it's an
atonement of love.
You know when the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa
sallam would address some of his sahaba, he
would let them know he loves them first
before he gives them the hadith. Like Mu'adhib
bin Jabil. What does he say? Who knows
the hadith?
That's one hadith, correct. But the one I'm
looking for is specifically when he says,
Alright. He starts off by saying,
Mu'az, I love you for the sake of
Allah. And then which hadith does he give
him? We all say after salah.
He says, don't forget to say after every
salah,
Allah help me to remember you, to be
grateful to you and to worship you in
the best way. But before whenever Mu'az who
was a great alum, he went to Hashem
and he spread the hadith there.
The students would say, whenever he told us
this hadith, he told us the same way
the prophet told him.
I love you for the sake of Allah
and then he would narrate the hadith. Because
what what came down is not only the
hadith, the love that was given through that
hadith.
Right? So here, you know the atonement of
love, Yeah Buney, O my dear beloved son.
Ibrahim used it with his father when he
says, You Abati,
O my dear beloved father. And Allah uses
it for us.
When does Allah use it for us? When
he says what?
Yeah, Ibadi.
It's like saying, Oh my dear beloved slaves,
my slaves.
You know, there's an association, Allah is saying,
Yeah Ibadi, and then He'll give you some
ayaz or some advice.
And so, very important to not take that
out of the formula. Whenever you're teaching,
imparting advice,
always let them know you're coming from a
position of love. When they see that, they'll
receive it better. Right? And so, what does
he say, yeah, Buneya. He says, oh my
dear beloved son,
even if a deed were the weight of
a mustard seed,
if it was hidden in a rock or
in the heavens or in the earth.
Imagine a mustard seed in the middle of
a rock, somewhere in the heavens and the
earth.
Allah says, Yet be Allah. Allah will bring
it out. Yet be Allah is is giving
the imagery, Allah will immediately bring it out.
His knowledge is so powerful.
Any good that you do or any bad
that you do, I want you to know
my dear son,
Allah will bring it out.
So now that What is this building? That
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is not gonna let
anything go to waste.
Everything I do, I have to know that
Allah will account for it. So he's now
conscious about his actions.
He understands the power of Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala. As a small boy or a small
child, you're telling them about how who Allah
is,
how powerful His knowledge is and He's subtle
but aware.
You know, He doesn't punish you for everything
but He knows everything.
So if you got away with something, don't
think you got away with it. It's written
in a book. If it's a mustard seed,
you will see it of good or bad.
So it is zilzilah.
So here he tells him that then he
says,
I owe my son, I want you to
establish the salah. And this is the advice
of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to Musa alayhi
salam. He says
He says establish the prayer so you can
remember me. That's the way I want you
to remember me.
Right? And this is a priority we need
to give our families.
We do the opposite. Right? We we prioritize
the dunya.
Right? But in the akhirah, we're like, yeah,
just bare minimum is okay. As long as
you do this is okay. But listen, look
at to the verbs that Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala uses.
He says,
he says, he is the one who made
the earth flat for you to to walk
around and move about.
He says,
he uses the word walk,
walk on it. Right? So, walking is like
it's like you're taking your time a little
bit, it's not crazy, you're not rushing or
anything. Right? This is Allah's prioritization,
He uses different verbs. He says famshu. But
when it comes to, for example, the jumasalah,
what does Allah say? What verb does Allah
use?
Hurry up. Not physically,
but know in your mind it's important, I
can't miss jumaa.
I I there's an urgency there. Right? And
then when it comes to the forgiveness of
Allah, what does Allah use? What verb does
Allah use?
Right? You now you really better run. Right?
The forgiveness of Allah, don't let an opportunity
where you can get the forgiveness pass you
by. You gotta be at the forefront. There's
an opportunity, you gotta be there.
Right? So there's an awareness by the words
that Allah is using that the dunya is
at the last It's, you know, you're walking
in the dunya. You know, you walk there.
But when it comes to forgiveness, when it
comes to zikr, when it comes to these
things, you rush there. You make sure you
don't miss that. So this prioritization,
do the children feel it?
Right. They have to feel it from you.
If they don't see it in you, they
don't see you doing these things, then they're
gonna just they're not gonna hear what you're
saying. They're gonna do what you're doing, what
you're prioritizing. Right? If you wake up after
sunrise, right, and you're not really phased by
it, you're like, oh, just pray whenever you
wake up. But when it comes to work,
you got the alarm, you're like, you're yelling
at the the family, why don't you wake
me up for work? So now what are
the children seeing?
They're like, oh, dad prioritize work
more than he prioritize fajr salah.
It's that's how they're gonna take it. So
here Allah subhanahu ta'ala is through Luqman is
telling his son,
oh my son, make sure you establish the
prayer. It doesn't go anywhere.
And that salah should lead you to something.
Right? Now we question our salah
because if the salah doesn't lead you to
enjoying the good and forbid the evil
then something's wrong with salah.
Yes.
Yes. Yes, sure. Yeah, it's a good question.
So, you know, everybody knows somebody can pray,
but then
he prays maybe like Maghrib, he doesn't pray.
Isha or he comes home, prays all the
prayers together,
and sometimes he doesn't pray. So that is
doing salah, you know, you're not really establishing
salah. When you establish something, it doesn't go
anywhere. You you are known to always be
praying. He doesn't and if you miss salah,
you make it up right away. You know,
so you're not someone who's dabbling in and
out of salah. The only time, subhanAllah,
Allah
uses,
when it comes to salah, he doesn't use
ikamat his salah.
Who can guess when's the only time in
the Quran he doesn't use, he doesn't tell
the companions to establish the salah but rather
he says pray instead of saying establish the
prayer. What is the only time?
What's that?
The war. The war.
During Alayk salam?
Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, of course inshallah.
I said there's only one time in the
Quran where Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
doesn't say establish the prayer but that he
only says pray.
And the brother answered it, it was during
war.
Right? Because they had they had a formation.
2 would pray, the prophet would lead them
in 2 rak'ahs, then the army would move
those who prayed after they salamed, the other
army would come back, the other section of
the army, and they would pray with the
prophet
The only reason establishing prayer is not used
here is because you can't focus,
you know, you you just wanna get the
prayer over with,
right, because you're in the middle of a
war.
But every other time there must be a
priority of salah, meaning you have to establish,
you're coming into it with a tranquil heart.
That's one of the conditions of prayer, tranquility.
Right? You're not rushing, you're not trying to
get it over with, there must be that
in your life, especially in the children's lives.
You can't train them to pray and not
pray.
You know, oh, maghrib's okay but Fajr is
not okay. You know, Fajr you wake up
whenever you want. No, you can't do that
because that's not establishing the prayer.
And so here, he's making sure
he lets his son know to let the
prayer be a pillar of your life because
that is gonna be your lifeline with Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. Once the prayer is gone,
the connection with Allah is dimmed.
I don't wanna say completely eradicated because it's
never completely eradicated. Right? As Allah
says, Oh, those who despair against the mercy
of Allah or those who, have given up
on themselves, do not despair on the mercy
of Allah. That's always going to be open,
but it's dimmed.
You are playing with the connection and it's
not gonna be good for you when you
need it. But here, I wanna draw your
attention to something we all are guilty of.
We
pray, we come out of prayer and business
as usual.
Nothing changed. You saw it wrong, you kept
moving.
Now,
you have to question your salah
because the salah
is supposed to
bring about change, reformation
in your life outside of salah. Here's the
proof.
So, Shu'aib,
he's talking to his people in Midian
and they have a problem. What was the
problem of Shu'aib's people? They used to cheat
people,
the products,
you know, they used to water down the
yogurts and the milks
and they would mess with the scales.
Corruption, fraud, they were into money. That was
their fitna.
And so, Shu'aib kept advising them
and he kept telling them be be careful
of your crime.
And they said to him, Khalu, yeah Shu'aib.
Oh, Shu'aib. They got fed up of Shu'aib.
Shoaib.
Does your prayer Shoaib
dictate to you what we should do
with worshiping other gods or what we should
do with our own money. It's our money.
Why you bothering us?
Essentially, right?
So he says,
he says, yes.
Because at the end of the day
if I don't let my salah,
give me the guidance
to speak out against evil
and to enjoin the good, then what good
is my salah?
What has it done for me?
What because you know your main focus in
life,
is that you worship Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
But the worship is not limited to salah.
The worship is living a life of a
Muslim
in every sector of your life. Whether it
be with your finances,
whether it be with your family, whether it
be with your,
transactions with others.
So salah is important. You let the salah
help you. Sometimes we struggle,
Like, I wanna speak out against this strong
but I don't have the courage. So you
go into salah
to derive strength,
so that you can last until the next
salah.
You can be someone who is upright in
character.
You're working on those flaws of yours. Maybe
an addiction to social media. Maybe an addiction
to something like food. Any addiction you have,
any weakness you have, you go into the
salah to derive the strength.
But you don't do the salah as a
chore
because then it doesn't have the true benefit.
The salah was meant to strengthen you.
You know think about when the prophet received
salah. When did the prophet receive salah?
When times was the most difficult for him.
Right?
'Amul Husn, the year of sadness.
When he had almost nothing, everything was taken
from him. So Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala brought
him up
to tell him and to gift him with
salah for him and for the ummah.
And then he would say whenever things got
really tight,
what did he used to say to Bilal?
Oh, Bilal call azaan so we can get
relief. Meaning, we wanna go into prayer so
we can get some relief from the stress
we're going through. They went through a lot
of stress with the ummah, the sacrificing and
building. Same thing with us. It's hard to
be upon the truth. If you're really doing
it the right way, it's hard because you're
gonna be attacked from all ends. And here,
it's beautiful because it takes us right to
the next part of Luqman's advice to his
son.
He says,
oh my son, I need you to understand
salah is important, establish it. Then he says
that salah will lead you to something. What
will lead you?
It will lead you to enjoying good and
forbid evil.
That's the product of salah. Then he says
and be patient
about what's going to come after that.
Because if you do this right,
there'll be a target on your back.
This is brother always talking about Just think
about one subject. Let's take one subject, the
LGBTQ
subject.
What's afflicting our communities now?
Right? If you say something in your job,
in your workplace,
if you say something in a community other
than our community,
there's a target on your back. Yes?
Oh,
they've conflated now, you were a hate monger.
You're not tolerant,
you know, why can't you accept them? They
were born this way
and all of a sudden
you begin to think twice. Your children imagine
what they're thinking.
Dad, why are you so strict?
My teacher is like that. He's normal person.
He's nice. It's okay.
Everybody's desensitized.
So you have to go against the grain
and whenever you go against the grain,
you're someone who is an extremist
and you're marginalized.
Now we start to see how the prophets
were taken in their societies.
They were called madmen,
crazy people, magicians.
Right? You 1st you can't imagine it, but
now we can imagine
it because now we're the problems are starting
to emerge. All the problems of the olden
days
all coming in one time to let you
know the end of time is near
because these were some of the old things
that are all reemerging in our societies together.
The the riba,
the LGBTQ
issue,
the lawlessness,
the lack of,
proper authority where the authorities, those who are
in charge of us are juhal. They have
no They're ignorant.
People who are convicted of crimes are being
prompted as as leaders of nations.
You know, people who are puppets, they don't
have no they don't have integrity.
They are being the ones leading us.
This is all signs of the day of
judgment. Alright. So here,
if you do it right,
he says,
be patient, oh my son, for what's going
to befall you.
And this is so important, he's preparing his
son. He's not
telling him, you know, shielding him from danger.
What we do to our children, right? We
try to spoil them, we came from rough
lives maybe, so we try to shelter them
so they don't have that rough life.
But what you're doing is you're doing them
a disservice,
right? Because why?
They become soft men.
You know, hard times
is a very famous saying, it raises strong
men.
Strong men bring about good times
and good times
bring about weak men.
Right? Men who, they get pricked, they're like,
ow.
You know, they they can't, you can't send
these men to war. You can't send these
men to do big missions or big projects.
They don't have that fortitude,
that longevity,
that stamina
to withstand pain and suffering because you need
to go through pain and suffering to accomplish
anything in life. But if they are just
flinching at every little,
you know, mishap,
how far could they truly go?
That's important.
We could have
a righteous child.
He prays,
he gives sadaqa, he gives sama,
but his personality is weak. That's a problem,
Right? He's praying perfectly. He's good. Masha Allah.
He's he's good. But any problem comes, he
can handle it.
To be a man in his in his
household,
to lead a family, he can't really He's
too timid.
You want both, you want righteousness
and you want character.
What did the prophet he say
when it came to who you should marry
your wife to?
He gave advice. When you have someone,
your daughter too, I'm sorry. When someone's coming
for your daughter at hand in marriage, as
a father,
who is the ideal candidate as per the
prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam?
Do you remember? Do you remember what the
Prophet said?
What is it?
If you are pleased with His
Do you know who?
If you are pre Now look, the prophet
is saying 2 things you look for in
a man
to join your family,
his deen
and his character.
Now we know deen
is a comprehensive term.
Character is part of deen.
Agree?
Deen is complete.
But whenever the Prophet splits them up that
means they have specific meanings.
So, one is his religiosity,
his relationship with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
and the other one is his character.
How is he?
Is he someone who's rough?
Would he hit his
wife?
Would he
cheat people?
These are things you have to take into
consideration.
If his character is sound and his relationship
with Allah is sound, he's your man.
Don't ask me about
is he a millionaire?
How many degrees does he have? All of
that is irrelevant when it comes to the
basic necessities
of what the Prophet has given here. And
so now, when you raise children, you think
about that.
What are some of the things we do
to hinder
their character?
We may have a hafiz in the house,
alhamdulillah. We've been working on him with the
Quran and we've been working on him with
the prayers, alhamdulillah we got that part. But
he's we always criticize him.
We always tell him why did he do
this and why didn't he do this. What
does that lead to?
Timid,
weak personality.
If there was a group,
an Islamist group that are, you know, extreme,
he would easily be led by them. Right.
They
they they he falls for anything. So, what
what am I trying to say? The prophet
if you looked at the the book I
mentioned in the beginning, children around the prophet,
one of the narrations by Anas
Anas says, I lived with the messenger 10
years. I've been with the Prophet How many?
10 years as a servant.
His mom, his mother, alhamdulillah, she had wisdom.
She gave him when he was 10 to
Rasul 'asalam to be a servant, so he
can learn under the Prophet. So, Anas
says, whenever the Prophet there was a time
he sent me for errands
and I saw the kids playing, so I
played with them and I forgot about the
errand.
The Prophet met me on the way to
the masjid.
So, the Prophet is saying to Anas,
he doesn't ask him. He doesn't rebuke him.
He doesn't say why did you do this
or why didn't you do this?
He says he never told me that in
10 years. I've never heard from the Prophet
this sort of criticism.
But the Prophet did advise children because in
another part, the the kid who used to
come in and eat with the sahaba and
he would eat from everywhere. So, he says,
yeah, oh
young man,
and eat from your area.
Eat with your right hand and eat from
your area. So, the Prophet would give advice,
but he wouldn't criticize.
And they did a study on
German Shepherds, particularly. These are dogs that are
supposed to be trained to be go getters,
you know, protecting and guarding,
and be ready for danger.
He says, at the beginning when you raise
a German Shepherd you don't tell him,
stop doing that, don't do this, because you're
killing that
part of him that's going to basically allow
him to do his job. Right? So, this
could be taken with the children. If you're
over critical of the children, they pull back.
They always second guess themselves.
They can't formulate their own opinions in life.
They don't
evolve to be men.
So, you have to be careful how you
impart the advice. I told you in the
beginning, as Luqman is doing now,
oh my son, I love you for the
sake of Allah. Let me tell you a
piece of advice, it's all about
how you deliver.
And so,
here, he gives them these three things. 'Akemi
Sala
established a prayer, wadmurbulmarruf
wanhaanilmunkar
wasbir alaamaaswabik,
inna dhali kaminazimil
umur. This is the highest of resolves.
He's teaching him determination,
just like Musa alaihis salam
taught his companion determination.
Which companion did he teach determination? Who can
tell me? Musa alaihis salam.
You shab e Noon, the young boy. He
said,
He says, I will not stop to find
this man, al Khidr, until I reach the
junctions of the sea, even if it takes
me ages.
Right? So he's teaching his young partner here
that always for the sake of knowledge be
determined
and always say to yourself, I will not
stop until I achieve so and so. Whatever
it is, the goal that you're trying to
achieve.
So he begins to to do this and
then, Luqman continues to talk to his, his
son,
and he says to him, at the end,
when you when you have reached a level
where you're now someone who is a stand
up person in your community,
You established a prayer.
You,
enjoying the good and forbid the wrong and
you're patient.
He says, then there's something that you should
know.
He says, oh my dear son, do not
turn your nose up to the people.
Because what ends up happening to people who
are overly religious sometimes,
they begin to feel entitled.
Right? Look at me, I'm better. I'm wearing
thobes now. I've got a kufi.
I'm someone who's always establishing my prayer. I
tell people what to do right and wrong
because I know their religion now, So you
feel
entitled
to tell people what to do and you
feel arrogant.
So he is telling his son at the
end of the advice,
don't ever give your nose to the people.
Don't be arrogant.
And don't walk pridefully.
Allah does not like
arrogant and boastfulness.
Allah doesn't like that. It'll destroy
everything you've worked for. Just like who?
Shaitan. Right? Shaitan rose up to the ranks
of the angels
but because he was arrogant
and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala He says to
the hadith of the messengers salallahu alaihi wa
sallam, no one will enter Jannah if he
has a mustard seed of arrogance.
So they said, oh messenger of Allah, if
we wear nice clothes, is that a sign
of arrogance? He says, no.
Allah loves beautiful beauty. He is beautiful himself
and he loves beauty.
So that's not what it means to be
prideful,
to wear nice clothes and to look nice.
Rather it's to whenever truth is presented,
you say no to it, or you turn
away from it because of arrogance. That's true
arrogance,
and that's exactly what happened to Shaytan.
So we can teach our children at the
end of their journey
to always be humble, always walk with the
people. We mentioned the leadership of the prophet
shalallahu alaihi wa sallam. The sahaba would come
into the masjid,
they would be with him, and a stranger
would come in, and he would be looking
for the prophet, someone who was not Muslim.
And they would have to say, where's Muhammad,
Aina Muhammad?
Could you imagine? No special office, no throne.
He's just amongst his companions.
Right? And there's a hadith, some say it's
weak, but it's worth mentioning.
The prophet was on a journey with his
companions.
So, they got hungry. One companion says,
uh-uh, I will slaughter the sheep.
Another
one says, I will skin it. Another one
says,
I will cook it. And the Prophet says,
I will collect the firewood for it. So,
they said, oh messenger of Allah, you don't
have to move an inch, we'll take care
of everything. You just sit and relax, we're
gonna cook it, skin it, get it ready
for you, and we're gonna present it to
you. He says, I know you will do
that for me, but Allah
But Allah doesn't like
that his slave
become distinguished from his other slaves.
Right? That his friends, his companions,
that someone be above them in the sense
of this particular
instant, is Allah doesn't like that and so
he joined and brought the firewood together. So
it's a very important lesson. He says,
the last piece of advice Luqman gave his
son,
He says be moderate in your pace
and lower your voice.
This is important.
The voice represents what the adab, right, that
you shouldn't be
like shouting at everybody and shouting everywhere. He
says, lower your voice for the ugliest of
voices
is the braying of donkeys.
So this is the,
the hikma that Luqman imparted on his son
and that we could all do for our
children, boy or girl. Right?
At the end of the day my dear
brothers and sisters,
as I mentioned, we are all responsible for
our children.
If you take Ibrahim alayhi salam,
Ibrahim on his deathbed,
Allah Subhanu Ta'ala he says, wa wasa Ibrahim
bani. He says, he called his sons
and he says, Inna Allah has
selected for you Islam as the way of
life.
He says,
Don't leave this world except that you're Muslim.
Now, just ponder about that for a little
bit.
Someone at his death bed,
you would think he's everything is circling around
his head. You know, the property, the money,
who to give, who not to give, all
of this stuff is circling around someone's head
at their deathbed.
But Allah rewards you for how you lived
your life by giving you a host al
khatima,
by giving you a good ending.
A good ending is what? It's revealing
of what you live by. So Ibrahim, at
the last words that he spoke was to
his sons,
it's befitting because he lived the life of
Tawhid. He lived the life of Islam
and his children receive that from him.
The biggest thing you could do is to
be an example by you doing the things
that you want your children to do. It'll
easily transmit to them. And so here he's
telling his sons and making sure they know
the most important thing for them
is Islam, nothing else.
If you establish Islam,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will help you.
And so, that then, the next verse, he's
talking about Yaqub.
Yaqub was the grandson of Ibrahim.
And Allah says in this verse,
Were you present? Were you witnesses when Yaqub
was on his deathbed?
Now think about it. This is probably a
100 years later.
Yaqub is now on his deathbed
and he learns from his grandfather.
He says,
What are you going to worship after me?
He tells his 12 children and Yusuf alaihi
salaam.
And they say,
We will worship your lord and the lord
of Ibrahim
and Ishmael and Ishaq and
and the one lord,
and to him we will be Muslims.
Then Allah says,
This is a nation that has passed.
They will have what they earned meaning they
had a responsibility
and the last minute they're checking up on
that responsibility.
Hey, everybody on check. I'm leaving this world
now. As we said
every soul is gonna taste death.
So now the last things I wanna make
sure of is, are you guys gonna continue
to practice Islam? To establish salah? To enjoin
the good, forbid the evil? Are you going
to be patient? Are you gonna establish Allah's
rule on this land?
And once they hear the affirmative,
they have now finished their job. Right? And
Allah is saying,
This is a nation that finished its past.
They will have what they earned
and you now have to earn your part.
Right?
You still have your duty.
Right? So here Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is
putting the burden on us. We're still living.
We're not dead yet. But we have the
examples of Ibrahim. We have the examples of
Luqman.
We have the examples of those who passed
before us in the Quran.
By reading their stories and taking their advices,
we now know or have the manual of
how to live our lives. Make sure, we
said prioritize in our life Islam
and make sure their children also feel that
same prioritization.
Right. Don't do don't say something and not
do it. Right. You're doing something else and
you're saying something else, the children are gonna
immediately pick up on it.
Right. We can't fool them, as they are
fully aware,
of of, of how we live our lives.
So insha'Allah,
we want to leave some room for question
and answers,
about what it is that we need as
a community,
as individuals,
to be able to lead a family to
the ultimate success, to Jannah. The one thing
I can definitely tell you now, my dear
brothers and sisters, is we're afflicted with addictions.
Addictions everywhere.
Social media addictions, that's a big one. You
know, we can't focus on doing a task
because we're scrolling through feeds and reels. Right?
Or addictions to money.
As the prophet he referred to Abd dinar.
Taissa Abd dinar.
He says the the slave of the dollar.
Right? He worked it all the time. I
gotta make money. I gotta make money. But
who's gonna raise your child while you're making
money?
Who's gonna make that time out? There's only
one father.
Right? Nobody else can take that job but
you.
Right? There's only one leader. There's only one
mother.
So if you have filled that time with
other things,
you're gonna have to answer.
If your child is not the way he
should be in the sense that he's raised
knowing the Islamic values and so forth. Are
there exceptions, meaning you did your work and
still the results are not in your favor?
Yes, of course. We have the examples of
Nuh alaihis salaam.
Right?
So but the exception is not what we're
going for. We're going for the normal. The
normal is we put the work, we live
a life, and Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will
help us.
So there's a lot of obstacles. I wanna
hear from you guys inshallah.
What do you see as some obstacles raising
children and leading a family to success
here in Pennsylvania, Allentown, Pennsylvania?
Bismillah, don't be shy.
What are some of the obstacles? Lack of
resources?
Lack of time,
maybe?
What is it?
Yes. Bismillah.
Akshayama talukha.
Could you repeat? I'm sorry. One more time.
Oh, okay. So here, Luqman is giving his
his son final advices.
The advice that he's given in the final
verses is that once you've achieved a certain
level of religiosity
and responsibility,
don't give your nose to the people.
Don't be arrogant.
And so the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam,
he says, no one will enter Jannah
if he has
a mustard seed of arrogance in his heart.
I think there's children on the other side
probably.
Bismillah. Bismillah. Alhamdulillah.
Sorry about that.
So, sister, I was saying that
the final advice of Luqman to his son
was that don't give your nose to the
people
and don't walk pridefully on the earth
because sometimes when we've achieved a level of
accomplishment in our lives,
we tend to be
feeling entitled and so we walk arrogantly.
So the prophet
did mention in hadith,
no one will enter Jannah if he has
a mustard seed of arrogance in his heart.
And they asked him, concerned about this hadith,
O Messenger of Allah, we love to wear
nice clothes.
Is that a sign of arrogance?
And he says, no. Allah jamaeluhibbul
jamaal Allah is beautiful and he loves beauty
to see the beauty of his favors
upon his slaves. He loves that. So, that's
not pridefulness.
Pridefulness, he then says,
is when someone is confronted with the truth,
he rejects it because of who it's coming
from. Alright.
He sees truth but he doesn't want to
follow because of his own arrogance,
that is true pride, and that's what happened
to Shaytan.
Shaytan rose up to the rank of the
angels having achieved so much, and then when
he was told to make saysdah,
he refused
even though he knew it was coming directly
from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And so we
teach our children no matter how accomplished they
are in their lives,
they will still be nothing
without the mercy of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
They need to understand
everything good that happened in their lives
is from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We talked
about Dhul Qurnayn
after he erected such a magnificent structure to
protect,
the the people that he was protecting,
he he then referred it back to the
mercy of Allah, and that is a sign
of a true leader.
You make sure your family recognize any good
that's happened in our family, it's not because
of,
it's baba, it's not because of baba, it's
because of Allah
If you can get them to connect that,
they will always have that hope in Allah
no matter if you're there or if you're
not there. But if they think you're the
one, you know, you're the one bringing the
money, the food, everything,
and if something happens to you, then what
happens?
Hope is
lost. Right? So always attach your family to
Allah
and let them know it is Allah who
every day gives you. Every day that you
wake up, Allah is the one who's providing.
Very important for that. So, Fadhill. Do you
have a great board on the persistence of
those 2 brands, how to get the bad
character?
Yes.
Yes.
So so so the psychologists have studied
some of the components that a father or
a parent
translates to his children.
There's so many different pillars to this, but
he says the number one pillar, and that's
why I mentioned this in the beginning,
is love. There must be some love there
or the perception. Of course, a father knows
he's loving his childhood, but he has to
translate that. The son has to see that,
because if that pillar is not there, he's
going to start looking to others as role
models.
Right? But if he feels there's a connection
with his father, there's communication, there's love, he's
gonna look to you as his role model,
but what happens is many fathers nowadays or
many parents, they've disconnected that, you know, by
kind of being harsh, my way or the
highway or, you know, and all these sort
of rhetorics and,
feelings that they get from you, like, that
distance them from you. What happens? They look
for friends, they look for role models, basketball
players, singers,
somebody they don't even know, but they just
see the good parts,
you know, they don't see the the hard
parts, so they see the good parts of
this person and they look at them as
a role model, and so it becomes that
veering off of the path.
The other important thing I did mention which
is is important,
when you take that narration of Anas
when he says the Prophet after 10 years,
he never criticized me. He never says, why
did you do this? Why didn't you do
this? Some people misunderstand
as I mentioned.
They misunderstand
that to say, oh, the father should never
speak out against any wrong that he sees
his son do. That's wrong because the prophet
always gave advice. He gave it to Ibn
Abbas. He gave it to the young boy
who I told you was eating from the
plate. He says,
He says,
eat with your right hand, eat with what
is in front of you. But, the way
he said it was like an advice and
not a criticism.
That's the difference, it's the delivery.
We want our children, we want our children
to be men, as I mentioned. In order
for you to make them a man, you
have to deal with them a certain way.
If you over criticize them at the beginning,
and I've seen this myself,
I've seen, children who had a weight placed
on them. Why don't you do the why
aren't you doing this right? Why is your
grades not a 100 and all this pressure?
And they end up doing, you know, like
Xanax or something or or what they call
now like relaxation meds because they feel overly
anxious, they're timid all the time, they don't
have a decision,
they always follow others, they're followers not leaders,
and this is coming stems from the upbringing.
If we're over critical on our children,
meaning always criticizing them,
then that has an effect on them. And
I said to you in the beginning, we
want righteous children,
but we also want strong personalities.
We want leaders. We don't want timid
righteous people. We don't want that. He prays,
but when it comes to a decision, he
can't make a decision.
He can't run a family.
You know? So, there's a deficiency,
and I allude to the ayahs in Surat,
I believe in
where Musa alaihi salam meets the 2 girls.
The 2 girls go back to their father
and they say, oh father, hire him, he
is.
He is strong
and he is trustworthy. He has the two
things we talked about. When you come and
a daughter, you're marrying off your daughter,
what the prophet says, if you are pleased
with 2 things,
If you're pleased with his deen and his
character.
That character we leave off sometimes. Some people
have character, but no deen.
And usually they're, like I said, they're together,
but in this hadith the prophet mentioned them
separately.
Right? So, we want someone who has deen,
he's known for having a relationship in the
masjid,
he's known for having relationship with Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala, but he also has a good
strong personality.
Yeah. But when it comes to our daughters,
daughters can be complicated.
They can be stressful sometimes.
Right? Because you're dealing with emotions and hormones
and all these things. The Prophet gave a
great incentive.
This is whoever raises
2 girls and another hadith, 3 girls
and he raises them right, he will get
Jannah.
Right? He will be close to me on
the day of judgment.
So, there's a great incentive to how you
properly deal with your children especially the girls.
And, the prophet how he dealt with Fatima
was extremely gentle.
He would make sure he gets up so
she can sit down. Right? Even though it's
just
an atonement of love
to show her she's the most prized in
his life.
You know, but at the same time
he said when Usama bin Zayed came to
him,
trying to
relieve that woman of the punishment of fraud,
he says the prophet
he got angry and he says, if my
own daughter Fatima was to steal, I would
cut off her hand. So there's a balance
there. I'm gonna not cheat you because I'm
I'm I can't save you Fatima.
So on the day of judgment, nothing will
save you. Just just because you're my daughter
doesn't mean you automatically get a pass.
So you teach them these values,
but you also show them a great deal
of value and love,
in the way you deal with them, because
they're gonna remember that. Even not in the
beginning, later they're gonna remember that, and they
will use that as an example for who
they're going to be with. You know, you're
you're gonna be that example,
for them in their future relationships.
No more Any questions?
One more question. Yes.
Yes. Okay. So, people
So, okay. The prophet was a human
being. One day he got into a fight
with his wives.
They were nagging him,
you know, and they're as we all we
can we can,
you know, relate to that.
So he left, he abandoned the house. He
had a secret place that he would go
to. It's like a little room for him
somewhere outside by the masjid.
And, who found him? Umar
was looking for him. He's like, where's the
prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam? So, he goes
to the prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, he
sees he's stressed by the nagging of his
wives. You know, they were complaining about little
things, maybe of the dunya because as you
know the the the to be a family
of the prophet is very difficult.
He didn't live with riches
and so, Umar
comforted him. He was like a buddy
to him at that time, and he's kind
of hearing him out.
Just why do I bring this up? It's
because I want you to know the prophet
was human. He had to deal with this.
Right? It's not a perfect world.
In the in Sa'd ibn Waqas,
one time he got into argument with one
of his wives. His wife slapped him in
the face,
you know. So, these incidences
are there, you know. The sahaba were not
living a perfect life,
but we have to it's how you react
to things. Right? It's how you move on.
And I told you this the salah
is what you derive strength from. You know,
you said, you know what? Let me pray
salah.
We need relief from this dunya
because this dunya is not meant to be
the abode.
Right? You're on this dunya as a test,
you'll be tested with your family.
Fitna.
These are tests, your wealth and your children
are fitna.
So
be prepared for the fitna.
Be prepared for your reaction. The whole point
is to perfect yourself. You know what, I
reacted bad last time, this time I'm gonna
fix a little bit with how I react.
I'm not gonna let those same buttons
push me to blow up or whatever the
case may be.
Yes, Nishalna.
Yes.
Yeah. That's a very big problem in our
communities. Women are getting older,
more qualified than the men,
and so when the men come, they're not
worthy of getting married. Right?
So, I
Yes. The question was,
fathers are finding their daughters getting older, the
women, the sisters,
and they're not able to get married.
And so what should they do? Right? Pretty
much, yeah.
So, you know, I don't have an answer
for that. I have family also in the
same thing,
but what I can see that's happening is,
like I said,
we're prioritizing
the dunya
for these children. We brought them here, we
have a certain expectation,
but we forgot what's really important for a
woman particularly, is to be
raising children, to be taking care of the
upbringing of the home.
She may have many talents and we respect
the lady and the sister for all her
accolades and accomplishments,
but really, she's supposed to be first and
foremost the mother
of your children. Right? Your wife.
This is what completes the family unit.
And so if we don't prioritize that and
prioritize everything else, sometimes we can't ride 2
horses at the same time. You know, she's
going for 1 horse, going for the degrees,
going for the accomplishments,
but then when she comes back to go
in this lane, it's already too late sometimes.
So,
I don't have an answer, but for my
daughter,
she's small, I want to make sure she
knows this is her first position in life,
to be someone who is a wife and
a mother,
and I'm gonna try to implant that as
much as I can,
and then at the end, the marriage is,
you know, it's all risk,
some people are not destined to be married,
that's okay, but when you have a large
group of a community,
of sisters,
who are not married, then we need to
reevaluate how we are upbringing them,
and
men need to be more open minded, you
know. Yes. So what if she's a little
old?
You know, the the Sahaba used to some
of them divorced and married
right after she divorced. There was no stigma
like it is today. Today, you don't wanna
go for divorce, you don't wanna go for
over 30, you don't wanna go for this,
you know, some men need to be more
manly. That's the other problem, is that our
men are becoming mature later,
right, they're not able to comes back to
that problem I told you about. We're focusing
on one aspect of religion, oh, he has
to be Hafiz, he has to be praying,
but we're not focusing on the building that
character
where he has to be a man, he
has to take responsibility.
You know, we're sheltering him too much. You
know, like I said to you in the
beginning, we grew some of us grew up
in tough times, that's what gave us that
character, that edge that we need to be
able to support a family. But when we
bring our children in a very comfortable environment,
and we don't want them to get pricked,
we don't want to give them any hardship
in their lives, they become weak,
and they're not able to take on an
older sister
or a widowed sister
and so forth. So, it's a 2 part
thing, you know, we need to make sure
our children prioritize the
the and by knowing their full fulfillment of
what a family unit looks like,
and we need to make sure we don't
shelter our children too much. We let them
get uncomfortable.
It's okay, because that's gonna build their character,
insha Allah. And may Allah give us tawfiq
to be able to to accomplish that, insha
Allah.
And just to touch on the the brothers
saying, how do you break cycles of negativity
in the house?
You know that negative energy that sometimes hovers
over the family.
You know I say at the end of
the day, Allah is the solution to everything.
They have something called the triangle of love.
Right? The triangle of love,
that Allah
is at the top, you know, one spouse
is here, one spouse is there. The closer
you try to get to Allah,
you'll see yourselves connecting more,
because that's the common glue between the 2.
You go ahead and do your thing,
you fix your relationship with Allah, I'll fix
my relationship with Allah, and insha'Allah, Allah will
in turn fix the relationship between us.
You have to look at it always like
that. To break that negativity, we need to
come back to Allah
Whether you pray kiamalay, whether you start reading
more Quran,
because the Quran what it does it melts
the heart.
It
is a healing to the hearts, that fire
that sometimes there, cools it down
and what enters mercy,
it is also a mercy. So, when that
mercy enters,
you will display that mercy to your wife,
to your child, right? So, that's what you're
missing. If you don't find that mercy anymore,
because remember a family is made up of
2 things, components, especially with the spouse, love
in the beginning, but when that love dies
out, rahma is supposed to take over,
mercy is supposed to take over. But if
the mercy is not there,
now you're in a rough patch. So, how
do you get that mercy? The Quran. Just
keep reading the Quran,
it's gonna enter as a mercy, as a
medicine
and once you feel that, now you can
give that mercy out.
And that's why the Prophet
was rahmatinil
alamin, because he was a walking Quran.
When Aisha was asked by the sahaba,
the tabi'in, who didn't get to meet the
Prophet, He said describe to us the prophet
salallahu alaihi wa sallam. He says didn't you
read the Quran? He is the Quran.
That's why he was at mercy.
You know, and you know the last year
of his life,
where he was most merciful,
he Jibril came to him twice.
Every year he used to come to him
once to review the whole Quran in Ramadan,
but that year before his death, he came
to him twice, and so you could see
that he was extra kind,
extra merciful.
So the Quran is a direct relationship to
the mercy
and to break that chain of negativity in
our house. Insha'Allah. May Allah give us mercy,
all of us. May Allah give us the
correct understanding. Insha'Allah, we'll close with that. We
ask Allah subhanahu ta'ala to
guide us to that which is best and
to help us to be leaders
who will lead our families to the ultimate
success.
We ask Allah
to give us the understanding
and the knowledge to be able to do
that. We ask Allah to not deviate our
hearts after he has guided it. We ask
Allah
to give our brothers and sisters in Gaza,
in Syria, and Sudan,
wherever the Muslims are oppressed and occupied.
We ask Allah to give them relief, and
to give them victory, and to give the
Ummah, Izzah, Allahummaizal
mustimeen,
Allahummaizal mustimeen,
Allahummaqfilil
mustimeen, wal mumineen, wal mumineen, wal mumineen, walhamminatalhayat
minuumalamwat.