Mirza Yawar Baig – Isolation is death #2
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
A continuation of what I mentioned about
the dangers of living in solitude
and
having
an exclusivist
kind
of outlook and attitude in life,
Especially when we are living in, in the
West in these countries,
which are where we are
minuscule
minorities.
Muslims are 1% in the United States
and where we,
whether we like it or not, we have
to deal with
people
who are different from us, who
believe differently,
who look, walk, talk, eat, live
very differently from us.
And we need to live with them and
we need to live with them in
constructive
positive ways,
not in conflict.
So I mentioned
in
the earlier
reminder
and the question asked is, do you know
your neighbours? Now, this is very important to
go
and meet your neighbours.
Now,
some things to
keep in mind when you are doing that
is,
remember, and this sounds like a dumb thing
to say, but it's very important.
Remember that
this is a different culture.
So don't expect your cultural norms
to apply
in this culture.
So
you will find when you go to your
neighbor's house, you know, and you knock on
the door, then they open the door.
And,
when they say yes, what can I do
for you?
Now, the thing today do do there is
go with something, go with a gift.
Flowers are usually a safe thing to take.
If you take food,
take something which is sealed
straight from the store, make sure the expiry
date hasn't,
hasn't been exceeded.
Don't cook food in your house and take
it because,
many people don't eat stuff which,
is cooked unless they are, you
know, you get that friendly and so on.
But,
and then then of course, make sure that
what you are taking there is sealed.
Because if a seal is open or if
it's an open thing, they won't take it.
So don't take a bag of fruit or
something. A stick, something
sealed. You know, box of chocolates,
some something,
from a reputed store,
which they know
or take flowers. And just go and say,
I am so and so. We are here.
If you're buried,
take your wife with you. That's always
a calming
and and, positive,
experience.
So go there and say, well, I am
so and so. We are
here. We are your neighbors and we just
came to say hello. And here is a,
you may hear something
from us.
And,
I hope we'll get to see you and,
you know, we are here. If you need
anything, we are your neighbors, you will write
on us and so on and leave it.
Just a 2 minute meeting.
Remember that people do not invite you inside
the house in this culture.
It's
not because they are polite and rude and
so on. In this culture, they don't do
that.
Later they will, when you become friendly enough,
then they will call you inside and everything.
But until then,
they don't
expect that. Don't feel bad if it doesn't
happen.
It's not supposed to happen
and come away. You don't need to worry
every day. And after that,
whenever you see them, make sure you wave
to them or something and say hi, hello.
Do small
good things with deeds. Like, for example, if,
you find on on the weekly garbage day,
once the garbage has been collected, if you
find that their garbage has been collected and
they have not yet moved the bin inside,
then maybe you can just
bring the bin and leave it at the
by the side of the door. Again, be
careful. Don't take the bin into the house.
Don't walk into the house. Never enter the
house
just by the side and do that. If
you are not sure, do not touch it.
Do not put anything in the mailbox because
in this country it is a federal offence
to put anything into anybody else's mailbox.
So don't put anything into the mail. Meaning,
you know, like a greeting card or something,
don't put in the mailbox.
If you want to send it by mail,
post it. It will come to them. But
it's for any,
non postal
employee
to touch
somebody's mailbox is a federal offence in the
United States. So be very careful of that.
So they'll do these things. So then you
have some relationship with the neighbors and people
are nice. I mean, I I mean, I
have,
the best relations with my neighbors and, you
know, we get along
fantastically well. When we go out, we tell
them and they keep keep an eye on
our house and when they go out, they
tell us and we keep an eye on
their house and so on and so. But
that build over time,
doesn't happen overnight.
But make the effort.
That is very, very important.
Then also what you do is,
I know that you have,
homeschoolers
have
homeschooling groups
where
they meet and
they have activities together, picnics together, games together
and so on. But the problem of that
is that all people like you, they are
all Muslims, all Muslim kids.
The world is not full of Muslims. For
every one Muslim, there are 4 non Muslims
and you Muslims have to learn how to
deal with non Muslims, how to live among
non Muslims.
And there is only one way of doing
that. It's like saying, I want to run,
I want to teach my children how to
swim,
but without going into the water. Remember, if
you don't want your child to drown,
the solution is not to,
you know,
weld a,
weld a
lifejacket onto his body. The solution is to
teach him how to swim. And there's only
one way to learn how to swim and
that is by getting into the water.
You can't learn how to swim by watching
a video on on swimming. So you have
to get into the water and then getting
into the water in this case meaning go
meet people and so on. So now if
you have a whole bunch of homeschooling
family
and
you only meet Muslim kids and so on,
your kids still don't know how to deal
with non Muslim children.
And usually, and I have seen this all
the time,
Muslim children become highly critical of non Muslims
because that is
the language that they are hearing,
in among themselves. Right? So the whole time
they say, oh, they are so dirty. They
are this and that. They are shameless
and whatnot and all these kuffar and all
these.
Please,
this this kind of language is highly, highly
detrimental. It is highly un Islamic.
As a Muslim, you are not allowed to
call somebody a kafir.
That's not your job,
to talk like that before your children. You
will teach them,
this, and all that it does is it
produces bigotry, and it produces hatred, it produces
discrimination,
all of which is highly un Islamic.
If you want to present Islam to people,
you have to learn how to win their
hearts. And you do not win somebody's heart
by calling them kafir, by saying you are
dirty and whatnot.
So they are different. Yes. We don't eat
what some of the some of the stuff
which they eat, we don't eat, which is
pork. Other than other than that, we eat
other stuff.
In terms of, you know, clothing and whatnot,
by all means,
especially in these countries,
we have full freedom
to maintain our culture, our religion, our,
way of being,
without any problem at all.
So, biomedics do that, but don't
spend your time and don't teach your children
to be critical
of others.
That leads to bigotry and that cannot
with that attitude, they will never be able
to form
a good positive relations with others. And that
is very important for them going forward in
their careers and so on. So what you
must do is in these,
activities that you do, include non Muslims. So
go to your neighbors and say, look, we're
having a basketball game. Would you like to
send your children? Bring please bring your children
and come. Play the basketball game. The the
thing is that do things where,
you are not necessarily I'm not saying send
your children to jam sessions and to prom
parties, but,
baseball, basketball,
you know, all kinds of games, soccer,
play with
others.
Play with other children. Let your children play
with other children. That way what happens is
that when the children are playing, the parents
are sitting together watching the game, cheering their
kids and so on, and you build relationships
with others.
And you teach
your children to build relationships with others.
Provide the food, if they
bring food and very nicely, very politely and
so on, tell them, Look,
we don't eat pork and so on. So
certain things we will eat, certain things we
won't eat. People are used to all this,
believe me, because we live in a country
where there are lots of Jewish people who
also don't eat pork. People are used to
that. They're used to kosher, they're used to,
to vegan diets and so on. So there's
no problem. It
is how you put it to them. It
is how you
communicate and how
you present
your thing in a way with respect. So
we respect what they do and we
present to them what we do and they
will respect it.
So this socialising is very, very important and
this is one good within quote safe way
to socialise, which is to,
through these things.
Also
depending on what you're teaching and whatnot,
you can invite
the, your neighbor's children, their friend's children to
come to those classes,
which they will enjoy again socializing. It's a
very important thing to socialize
with others.
I know I I have benefited from this.
In my days, there were no,
there were no homeschooling anyway, but,
I have benefited from this in the context
of of my life,
of having lived with and worked with,
people from multiple cultures. I went to a
school which had
in those days,
we were not even conscious of whose religion
was what. We were so integrated, so together.
A friend was a friend, period.
We we we didn't say what is religion,
which is which
which race and which, region and whatnot.
Anyway, I don't want to go into that.
We have I've written 2 books on it,
so you can read that. But in this
case, as I'm saying,
make sure that you create these opportunities,
for socialising,
which are extremely important,
for your children to have social skills, which
will be life critical
for them to succeed
going forward.
Inshallah more if I think of something else
and if there are any questions please let
us know.