Mohammad Elshinawy – Child Abducted In Broad Daylight
AI: Summary ©
AI: Transcript ©
My brothers and sisters, there's a very wise and fascinating pattern in the Quran regarding being good to parents.
And that is that the opposite instruction is almost never there.
In other words, Allah azza wa jal over and over again, what was slain Allinson, we entrust the human being to be good to his parents. And you never find in the Quran that Allah gives you a CEA to be good to your children.
It's very wise because it's natural for it to be labor to be good to your parents, it's work. Whereas it is very natural. It's instinct, even if you weren't human, to care about your kids to care about your young to care about your offspring. So you don't need to be reminded about your kids. So you're not reminded about your kids, except in one ayah in the Quran. And that, too, is just exquisite in its wisdom. What was it, it was the scenario where you don't realize that you could be harming your kids. It was a discussion on inheritance, the breakdown of the estate distribution after you're gone. So it's something b goes beyond the radar, it's not my life, because
never in my life, am I expected to be consciously harmful to my children who does that animals don't even do that. But Allah says, when it comes to death, and estate and inheritance, you will see qumola The only exception Allah you will see coming trusts you regarding your children. This is how it should be broken down, meaning fear Allah about a moment you may not want to think about or even be expecting, when your kids are gonna go to war with each other. Unless you clarify, I want the distribution to be Islamic. I want the distribution to be fair, ie Quranic.
And this reminds us of the fact that
many times, not just after death, even during life, there could be unintentional harm. Of course, we love our kids, of course, we're going to try to protect our kids. But we could do so incorrectly in a way that has unforeseen consequences, unforeseen ramifications.
You know, I remember, personally, about 10 years ago, when I made the firm decision that I have to leave the big city, my son had just been removed my firstborn from the baby carrier to the car seat, he's sitting upright, and we were at a red light. And He's scanning, he finally can see through the window. And at that red light, there was people on the corners entangled in Haram ways. Men and women are the same gender as well. There were some very indecent scenes happening in broad daylight. And it hits me because I've dealt with so many youth and parents bring them to me and how in the world can I lie to myself and say, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay to expose my child for
1520 years to this, and they're gonna come out saying anything. But what's wrong with this? Why did Allah restrict these people? Why is this haram? What's wrong with love? It's a beautiful thing, right? And I said, I'm not going to go to sleep. During this war, I'm going to try my best knowing I never fully can. So at least as much as I can insulate them from becoming desensitized to this, I'm going to leave the big cities,
a place with less billboards, less sidewalks, a place with less exposure.
And this is just the only message that I wish to share with everyone that you as a parent naturally react, even if it would cost you every penny, even if it would cost you your life when you know you're under attack. But this sustained attack against our kids against our loved ones, is the reason why we keep getting caught off guard. It's the more subtle stuff that abduct our kids long term that we should be worried about. You know, I had a very odd instructor for world history in 10th grade public school, he was an open alcoholic, but he was also very
resistant to a lot of norms in society. And one day, he came to us in class and he said, Have any of you ever cooked frog before? And we're all like, what? And he said, People amateurs don't know how to do it. They want a fresh frog. They don't want to get it from like, you know, the freezer or something. And so they bring it home alive and they boil the water and they throw the frog inside. He said and this is silly because you throw the frog
Inside boiling hot water, the frog always jumps right out, he reacts.
He says the way to do it is to put the frog in cold water, and then turn on the flames. The frog will start slowing down, and then stop.
And then after he said that to us, he said, By the way, I've never eaten frog before in my life. That's disgusting. But this is what happens to everyone. When they're comatose into the numbing effect of social conditioning. You don't know you're under attack so you don't react. So he's telling us stay awake. And I want to say to every parent, it is the dangers that you don't need don't see as dangerous you need to be the most awake about
nobody tries to be a bad parent. Nobody tries to harm their offspring. You know, there was a seminar in our monthly or bimonthly parenting Seminars held here at the masjid, about the concept of holding on to your kids. And this is actually a title of a book that you should all be reading or listening to in audio form. It is called hold on to your kids by Newfield. Gordon Newfield basically wrote this book a few decades ago, it's very profound. He basically says, parenting is not complicated. It's not easy, but it's not complicated. It's not a riddle. He's saying people have been parenting the way they want for 1000s of years successfully. Meaning regardless of where you're from, your
kids come out the way you expect.
Why is it all of a sudden, you know, algorithms right now, why is it all of a sudden rocket science he's seeing in the whole parenting industry didn't help, because the parenting industry
makes you feel like, Oh, I'm just one parenting seminar away from figuring it out. I'm one more parenting book away from finally fixing my kids, um, just a one hack or skill left? And I'm finally gonna get it right. He said, it's all a ruse this stuff. Yes, it's helpful. He's saying, but the most important and the missing puzzle pieces, your kids don't care how hard you're trying.
It's about working smarter, not working harder. He's saying the whole problem is he's saying is orientation your kids not oriented to you. In other words, in psychology, they call it attachment theory, your kid is not attached to you. And so if you're not attached to you, you're never going to be able to have any influence on them. This is the idea. He's saying in the past, the reason why parents were able to do what they wanted of transmission of value transmission of belief. It's because the structure was vertical, right kid gets from parent parent gets from grandparent, this transmission he's seeing now it's been flipped on its head. And now the feedback comes horizontally
from peers and that's a disaster of course, right? You think about social media, but he wrote this before social media, it's been 10x via social media, he spoke about the school system not as a conspiracy, just the reality that you spend so much time with peers equals, and peers are what
just as inexperience with life as you
just as insecure as you are not as protective of you than as the parents are. Right. And so it's a recipe for disaster. He's saying so the whole fight is how to win my kids back. And he goes on to discuss this. But that idea of the Quran and the Sunnah telling us how to win over your the hearts of your children, how to make sure your children are not abducted from you in broad daylight meaning abducted from you while still physically in front of you. But their, their minds are impregnable. I can't get through to them. The clients gonna show us how to do it.
How to not just love with express love, not just to preach gentleness, but to live gentleness, not just, you know, to appreciate forgiveness, but to exemplify forgiveness, how not just reach righteousness, but also to embody righteousness, the whole package is there.
And so in other words, our children are in danger, because we don't recognize they're in danger. And because they feel if they break away from their peers, it's dangerous. Right?
It's their too vulnerable to break away to appease their parents. And many times, by the way, parents come and they feel betrayed when they discover what their child has become. No, it's just, you should if you really knew the reason you would feel bad, you wouldn't be as angry. You'd be half angry, half sympathetic, because they were just showing you what would appease you because they want to stay somewhat attached to you. And they were showing wider society which they spent most of their time with, with wider society wanted to see. So they can also have that sense of security. It was all like a vulnerability, dynamic, all of it.
And so of the ways to orient yourself, or have your children oriented to you, is to recognize some of their needs.
As if you have a cheat sheet and you do as if you have the master manual from Allah and His messenger and you do and I'll give you a few quick examples. Example number one, the Quran and Sunnah both. If you reading attentively you will realize that we know that girls have an affinity have a fondness for beautification. It's just natural, normal, fine. Girls care more about beautifying themselves that's a need of there's the Prophet salallahu Alaihe Salam one time, think about this. He stood on the mimbar and he had silk in one hand, and he had gold in another hand, and he said had any haram on Allah Zuccotti or Mati he lonely in Africa, these two materials are
impermissible for the males of my nation of my OMA permissible to be enjoyed by its females. The scholar said, you know, it's you would expect haram and silver, gold and sale to be haram for everybody. Because think of just gold go to allow it to be used as jewelry lessons, the currency that's available out there, right, let's go out there. Also gold being used as jewelry, it's not going to be for everyone, it's going to be for the people that can afford it. And that's going to break the hearts of the poor to see those who can afford it be wearing golden jewelry. So you'd think gold would be haram across the board. But it's not. Why not. Because Allah the Creator, knew
that women had a need a greater need than men to sort of ornament themselves with some gold, with some silver with some jewelry, right? Of course, silver is across the board for men and women. And so once you know that, you're able to tend to that you have a daughter, you compliment your daughter, you have girls in your family, you give them safe, permissible ways to sort of beautify themselves, not in the public sphere. And then once you give that you tend to that need that's going to orient them to you, right, you're going to be able to say by the way, what's most important is what's on the inside. That's what's going to allow you to get in, by the way, Allah does not look at
your images or your bodies, he looks at your hearts and your actions. You can say that a million times without them being oriented to you first, without you recognizing validating some of their needs. It won't work. That's the idea. I'll give you another example.
boys or young men, when they sort of become young men, they develop a greater attractiveness to women than to almost anything else in life.
It just ablaze gets ignited inside of them.
And the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam expressly told us this. It's natural, normal, very dangerous to ignore. He said Matt rock to the body fitness and here are the reality jelly minute Nisa, LD Jaleo mattina Nisa, I have never left after me, meaning for me till the Day of Judgment, this will not change, don't be in denial about it. I have not left after me a trial, a test more dangerous, more potentially harmful for the men of my OMA of my nation than women. So when you sort of validate that, what do you do? You facilitate marriage? Right? You, you create a reasonable timeline, right? For when I can get married, so that they can commit to that timeline, if it's
reasonable. You start putting reasonable safeguards.
You know,
parents came to me short while ago and they asked me to speak to the boys about being more chaste and dignified in the way they interact with women. Because we're seeing, you know, weird stuff happening in the masjid than outside the masjid than else and online.
These same parents after I probed a little bit, it's not my first rodeo, as they say, take their kids to the beach in the summertime. How does that work? Are you in like, do you understand what it means to be a man at 1314 years old onwards, you have this a system you can't pick and choose from the system. You have to recognize and valid this is real. So part of that is the marital expediting process, right? A part of that is safeguards. Don't tell me you know, movies are harmless. I'm sorry. They're not. If you watch movies at home, you're doing your family in mainstream movies, almost any movie out there will trigger those desires will corrupt those hearts. This is not the
healthy expressions we're talking about.
And so you want chastity you want lowering the gaze. It's called marriage. It's called you know, learning to fear Allah azza wa jal. It's all of this. And I'll give you one final example.
Girls and boys, men and women
Have an inborn all of us humans have an inborn desire for money and reputation. It's normal, normal. Adam Alehissalaam wanted a bigger Kingdom wanted a longer life. Put more sort of under my name. This is normal and human. But at the same time he said sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Murthy, Bernie Gianni will see that you're gonna mean B F said Allaha Minella Markman Harrelson Marie Allah al Maliki Musharraf et Dini, that no two hungry wolves being let loose upon a flock of sheep. Look at the image, being lets loose on a flock of sheep will do more damage to that flock Majan the carnage how they will ravage that flock of sheep, they will not do more damage to that flock of sheep than
people being fixated being addicted, right. Being so keen on money and on reputation will do damage to your religious commitment. And of course religious committed means your well being right the wrong in this world and the next. And so to validate this, you know, young man just I love him. He said to me yesterday, can we get a course on like where we can make money?
It's part of education. We deserve to tell them like everyone's out there making money in ethical and unethical ways. Can you at least give me a halal Avenue because I don't even know. What is it haram?
What isn't haram? Allah had ordained that the halal is more than the haram. Maybe nowadays the prevalence of the Haram is blinding it is but show them the it's okay to seek out wealth. We want you to seek out wealth. Good money in the right hands is a great asset. Reputation we want you to care about your reputation. Absolutely.
But what on what standards Don't stoop to that level to monetize yourself online or go celebrity status online? Right well, and think about how the the Internet has done that these days wealth and fame.
What will you exchange for it, but until you tend they will not orient you will not be able to impart you will not be able you will not be permitted access to regulate in healthy ways. A call to Colorado start from Raleigh Murray welcome.
Al hamdu Lillahi wa Salatu was Salam Ala Moana Viva shadow Allah ilaha illallah wa de julio Sharika who are shadow under Mohammed and Abdullah who whenever you who are also.
And so once again, my brothers and sisters, it is
unintended, but tragic, right? oppression of our loved ones oppression of our children, oppression of our youth and even ourselves, when we don't orient them to us by catering to some of their needs. I'm not saying I want to be like give them what they want. No, no, give them what they need,
in a way that they want.
You know, and as a developmental psychologist, I read for him the other day, that one of the hardest things to break through parents in this day and age is that there actually is no solution for your kids alongside the tech addiction.
That is the most perfect way it's not the classroom. It's not the sidewalk that I began speaking, it's not the billboard, it is sort of the virtual classroom, sidewalk and billboard. It is the endless instant gratification, they don't want to unplug, they're afraid to unplug from that. And so if you want to do that, you're going to have to offer something in exchange.
You cannot ask people to check out of what they like no matter how shallow it is, and then resigned to avoid
you have to create for them alternatives creates for them better more fulfilling relationships creates for them sort of intellectual reasons. You got to educate them you have to create for them spaces to act out these needs of theirs, identify for them what it is
and then nutshell a big part of that means we need better massage it yesterday. We need better Islamic schools yesterday. We need a better Muslim neighborhoods. Call this x out yesterday, whatever part of that you can play, play that role. play that role and let people following suit play that role even if nobody follows in suit. So that we can say in front of Allah azza wa jal we didn't
fall short of we didn't hold anything back. Allah knows what you do and what you don't do. Allah knows what I spend and what I hold back.
We can say yeah, Allah, you know, I put it all on the table. I left it all on the floor, as they say. And I'll end by saying that when I began this whole, asserting that it is natural for any parent, human or animal, to risk themselves for their child, I want
To tell you that on the day of judgment that will no longer be the case. This is not just for the welfare of our children, that may be your greatest incentive now. But on the day of judgment, even that parental instinct that universal one gets the reverse, where people will walk away from their most dear beloved children in that child's most needy hour and only be worried about themselves. So may Allah azza wa jal help us protect ourselves and our families from the Fire, whose fuel whose fuel is people and stones Allahumma Amin, may Allah azza wa jal allow us to facilitate the paradise of this world for ourselves and our loved ones. This world before the next May we find that
tranquility and that stability and may we find that sweetness and that gratification and that liberation that only our faith can provide Allahumma Amin