Mufti Menk – Concerns Around Parenting – Ramadan 2022

			Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim we commence in the name of
Allah Almighty, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
		

			Alhamdulillah I'm really thankful to Allah Almighty for allowing me to participate in this beautiful
event during this month of Ramadan. And inshallah I will be speaking a little bit about parenting
and the importance of taking care of our children as well as parents and broader family members. You
know, that Allah Almighty has created us from Adam May peace be upon him. Adam Alayhis Salam was
created from soil from dust mixed with water, and then given shape and Allah subhanho wa Taala said
Be and he was then Allah Almighty created Eve or Hawa according to the narrations from Adam Alayhis
Salam. So once the two of them were created in a unique way,
		

			then Allah Almighty decided that reproduction will be in a way where you have a mother and the
father and you will have children and they will reproduce by means of giving birth. And Allah kept a
special connection between parents and children. It is a unique natural connection to begin with,
inspired by Allah subhanho wa Taala as much as we call things natural. Remember nature is something
that was created by Allah Almighty in the first place. So for us, we may say something is natural,
but in actual fact, for Allah it was designed by him it was planned by him it was intended by him.
Imagine if there was no connection between parents and children, like some creatures of Allah
		

			subhanho wa Taala How would children survive? They need someone from the very beginning to take care
of them because that's the plan of Allah he wanted it that way. So there are people who have
children with ease and others do not have children with that much of ease and some may never have
children. Allah Almighty mentions this in the Quran. Leave him only because
		

			they have low BOMA Ayesha
		

			yeah bully me
		

			Well, yeah, happily my shirt.
		

			Oh, we use a widow home look on our
		

			wire Jai Lumi Aisha Joaquim. Allahu Akbar, Allah says, To Him belongs the heavens and the earth of
the skies and the earth.
		

			He creates what he wishes how he wishes, he gives whomsoever He wishes, female children only, and he
gives those whom he wishes male children only.
		

			And he gives some
		

			no children. He doesn't give them children. In other words, yeah, gentlemen, Yasha Kaman. They are
barren. They don't have children, or for whatever reason. Or he actually grants both male and female
to some. That is Allah. That is Allah Almighty, He decides. So people would like to have children
Masha, Allah Tabarrok Allah. But it is a very big responsibility. It is a gift of Allah asked those
who don't have children, they are praying, they are making dua, oh Allah bless us with children, and
so on. Ask those who don't have children how desperately they want to have children, then the others
who just have children, it's by the way, they don't even consider it a gift at times, and they are
		

			not even bothered. It is a challenge. It's easy to say I'd like to be a mother or a father, have
those children and see how difficult it is to read them. You have to change their nappies. From
what? From the excretion. You have to clean them, you have to bathe them, you have to feed them from
the very beginning. It is a huge challenge. That's why the reward of parents is great, the mother
more so than the father.
		

			My brothers, my sisters, Why did Allah keep it such that we have to take care of these children and
if we don't, they won't even survive? Because Allah Almighty wants the link. And Allah Almighty
wants there to be a connection such that when you grow older, they should take care of you. Subhan
Allah Subhanallah it's amazing. And that's why the DUA that is taught for us to make for our parents
is Rob Burnham, Houma Kamara Bayani Surya, oh Allah have mercy on them, because they are the ones
who brought me up when I was little Subhanallah SubhanAllah. So you always remember the favor they
		

			bestowed upon you, or that Allah bestowed upon you by giving them that strength, and they did it for
you Subhanallah they did it for you. So do it for them when they are older, however, my brothers, my
sisters, as you have these children, you need to bear in mind something amazing. But it is your duty
to give a good name to the child, not a name that sounds nice, only but a name that has a good
meaning reasonable decent meaning something that will
		

			identify them as being Muslim, something that will identify them as being
		

			from a good family from a good lineage. It has good meaning Subhanallah so when they have this
identity of a Muslim from the name, they automatically know where they belong from a very early age
and that's why the prophets Allah Allah Allah Salam tells us Mohammed Mahmoud in in LA EULA do Allah
Fedora Tifa who you are with Annie, oh, Jana Serani. Here we go. Maji Sunni. Every child that is
born is born upon nature that Allah has created them upon FITARA to Allah He Letty Fatah, NASA Alia
that nature is the nature that Allah has created them upon. What is the nature referring to here it
is the connection with the maker. The ability to identify to distinguish at a certain point as they
		

			grow older, and they realized, you know what? The uncontaminated mind of the child automatically
inclines towards the belief that there is a deity supreme maker who made me that's what it is, and I
owe my worship to that deity alone. That's the fitrah of Allah, that He created us upon. Now, as the
child grows older, the parents then contaminate the brain with what with their own ideas, with their
way of speech with their way of talking with their beliefs, which is very important with whatever
they wish, sometimes educating them in a certain way, getting them accustomed to certain things,
they learn languages from you and so on. That's the plan of Allah. When you got your phone, it was
		

			empty. You are the one who downloaded all the applications. When you got your computer, it was
empty, you are the one who downloaded everything on there. That's amazing. So you look at Allah and
the gift of Allah, you will realize and understand that he's given you something empty, ready to
receive. You need to fill it with the best, my beloved fathers out there, speak in the correct way.
Be respectful your character, your conduct, be dutiful and to Allah, your children will watch you
even if you don't say much, and teach them because you are responsible. Allah will ask you about
your children. Allah will ask you about those whom He bestowed upon you. You call them my children,
		

			but they were actually the worshipers of Allah, the creatures of Allah, we are all belonging to
Allah Almighty.
		

			The same applies to mothers from a very early age, what's your language, make sure that you teach
them good words Allah and so on, rather than immoral items, you know, immoral lyrics, immoral,
whatever else it may be, immoral dresscode this distance from Allah those type of things are
negative. We must instill in them positivity, goodness, culture, we instill in them good character
conduct, how to respect the elderly, how to serve people community, how to understand you are one in
a few billion on earth. You need to teach them that you are not. You know, you are not the only
person on earth. There are so many others teach them how if they were to serve others, Allah will
		

			grant them goodness teach them the narrations of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him as they grow
older, choose good schools for them, good environment for them, good neighbors for them. You need to
choose good neighbors as well for your children. Because if you haven't chosen good neighbors, how
do you expect them to grow without contamination when the people all around them are contaminated
with the worst things? So teach them how to reach out teach them about saving lives, the importance
of life, the importance of other people teach them how to solve problems, teach them how important
it is to resolve matters not to become violent. This is the parenting. That is a requirement that
		

			Allah has placed on our shoulders, my beloved fathers and mothers. Take a look after your children
meaning look after them in the best possible way. Make sure that you understand and realize teach
them revelation mean from an early age we are worried more about let's educate them. Let's let's
give them a fine education. Choose the best Cambridge Oxford colleges whatever it may be. Give them
fine university that's not wrong. But did you start with the more important thing because your child
might never live beyond the age of 50
		

			Dean, who knows. So all the secular stuff that you taught them, it did not yet come handy. And guess
what they already returned to Allah. You know what, you are a successful parent when you've
instilled in your child the importance of a connection with their maker, and the importance of the
connection with the rest of the creatures of the same maker subpanel, then you're a successful
parent. But if you've given them all the education secularly of the globe, but they don't have a
connection with Allah, and they don't respect other human beings, and they don't have the character
and conduct of a Muslim, that lofty morals and values. What was the point of having all these
		

			children, letting them grow like wild grass? What was the point? It's important for us to realize
the duty that Allah has placed on our shoulders. Your value as a parent is only because you are
fulfilling what Allah has told you. If you don't, you don't have value as a parent. In all honesty,
people say my parents will will if by serving them, I will be granted entry into Jannah. Yes, that
is a verse of the Quran. In fact, that is a Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu sallam, and the verses
of the Quran have encouraged us to speak to our parents with respect. But what if the parents
themselves are far away from ALLAH asking us to do that which is wrong? They themselves have bad
		

			habits. They themselves don't bother about the relationship with Allah subhanho wa taala. What do
you want thereafter?
		

			Those type of parents we need to protect ourselves from we will not obey them in the disobedience of
Allah Allah, Allah Lima fluke, infamous Seattle Halleck there is no obedience to the creation in the
disobedience of the Creator Himself. Remember that? So my brothers, my sisters, today we see lots of
children out there. They lack manners. They don't know why they're there. They're filled with greed,
selfishness. I'd like to believe somewhere somehow we have gone wrong. We as an ummah, need to go
back to the drawing board and take from where the plans were drawn. The Quran and the Sunnah of the
Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam. Look at how they built their men. They created amazing human
		

			beings. They created people who are successful businessmen, but they were Muslim before everything.
		

			The first they were Muslims. They were upright. They had brilliant character, they cared for others.
Sometimes people amass wealth but they're not charitable. What was the point of amassing all of that
wealth? When Allah is in the equation he says, a chemo salata to zakat. Have you ever thought of
that that verse, how many times it is repeated? Have you ever thought of why you pray that for
yourself or to Zika you give what Allah gave you give it away to the others because they are
creatures of Allah, whom Allah did not give as much as you. That's the connection. One is how cocola
the other is hope or labor. Have you thought of it? A team of Salah Dawa, to zakat they to come
		

			together, you look after your relationship with Allah and look after your relationship with others,
the underprivileged, the downtrodden, those who don't have as much as you do, learn to respect them,
because akimbo salata is Allah, we respect Allah to zakat at the poor people, a different type of
respect for them, without them, we would not be able to fulfill our two zakah, we won't be able to
give charities to the poor. So this type of teaching comes from the parents, give your children
money at a young age, if you can, a little bit of pocket money or whatever, and teach them that from
that put a little aside, in the little kitty or in the charities box. The donation box, put a little
		

			if you have for example, $5 tell them $1 Put it in there, give the poor Allah will give you more and
after some time, give them a little bit more from what Allah has given you. This is how you instill
in them, the feeling for others, help others go out educate them in a beautiful way secular
education is very important, but we commence with beautiful Islamic knowledge. Who is Allah? Why
should we worship him? What are the characteristics I'm supposed to be having as a Muslim? What is
halal? What is haram? How sacred is the life of another human being? That is important. We see
people on the streets, people draw guns and want to shoot at each other people committing crime and
		

			murder. They are supposed to be children of the Muslims. How could this happen? Little kids?
		

			There is no merit in having children. If you're not going to look after them. People don't realize
this. May Allah Almighty protect us? My brothers, my sisters?
		

			Yes, we are facing many crises. And as much as we do have a lot of hope. We need to speak about the
reality on the ground as well. Subhanallah sometimes it is so appalling to see people who are the
children of Muslims. Where have they gone astray? We did not keep them close enough. We didn't
communicate to them good communication is essential for a healthy family a healthy community
		

			Without communication, you will not have a healthy family unit or a healthy community, talk to each
other. Make it easy. Don't let there be a cat and mouse relationship. Let there be a beautiful,
loving, fatherly motherly relationship where we can talk to each other, we can guide each other, we
don't have to scream and yell or we don't have to fear speaking the truth. Because if we are dealt
with in the correct way, we will love and enjoy speaking about our mistakes, because we know we will
be corrected in a beautiful way, when we correct them. Very harsh, they will hide their mistake from
us and continue to commit the error because they will not correct it. No one corrected it for them,
		

			you didn't get the opportunity to correct your own children, you didn't spend enough time with them,
to empower them, to teach them to give them the feeling of belonging. When you have a father in the
home and the mother in the home, telling the children how beautiful they are. They don't need
validation from anyone else. When you have the father and the mother of the home telling the
children how lovely they are, how intelligent they are, how beautiful they are, how much they are
loved by them, they don't need validation from everyone else. The problem is, we don't spend time
with them. We don't tell them how much we love them how much we care for them. We don't bother, we
		

			call everyone else when we are traveling. We don't call our own children. We don't call our family
members when the children see the beautiful relation between mother and father. It helps them It
empowers them, it gives boosts their confidence, it really does so at least show that good
relationship between mother and father to the children to empower them. Allah blessed kids with a
mother and a father. So these children need to see that relationship. Yes, we do know there are
orphans out there. And we do know there are people out there who have really really
		

			struggled in their infancy and beyond. We will reach out to them as community, we must take out from
our wealth and put them into the systems of education Islamic as well as secular, we must do that if
we don't. The negative effect of that will come back to us to haunt us in all honesty. When Allah
says an hour careful when Allah says in the beautiful lips of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon
him. The teaching is from Allah, the statement is of the Prophet he says an hour Kefalonia Timika in
in Jana, myself and the one who takes care of an orphan child will be like this in paradise. Don't
take that lightly. That is a serious statement. He would never say that, unless it was very, very
		

			important. And it's difficult. It's not easy to look after an orphan child that doesn't belong to
you. It's not easy to look after orphans and widows and whoever else in society is downtrodden and
the underprivileged, the reward is tremendous. If you do not take care of them,
		

			then the damage is equally severe. When I say equally severe, when the reward of taking care of them
is so high, then the sin of abandoning them will also be so extreme. Remember that don't abandon
these children are our children. They no matter which city or town they are. You see them on the
streets, these little
		

			street street kids as they call them, or should I say you know, the underprivileged who don't have a
home. They are our children. They are the children of Adam. My forefathers your forefathers meet up
somewhere. Those are our kids if we are not going to care for them and provide for them shoes and
clothing and accommodation and whatever else it may be and food. I promise you you will have
robberies you will have people who don't have any culture you will have people who are unlettered,
meaning they know nothing Subhan Allah, may Allah protect us, you have people who are criminals at
times, because they had nowhere else to go. They have no income, they have no education. They
		

			haven't. They don't even work. They don't know how to work. No one's taught them no one's spoken to
them, no one's empowered them. This is what we say when we say we must educate not just our
children, but the children of the society and community, the underprivileged create funds of
scholarships, not only for the intelligent even for those who are not so intelligent. You know, one
of the mistakes the scholarship funds make, they only give scholarships to those who are extremely
intelligent, so the rest of them lose out.
		

			How many doctors are there out in the market that were not the most the brightest of children, but
they became later on? The most successful of surgeons think about that. It's foolish to only provide
for those who are intelligent, when Allah knows the wealthiest from amongst us were not very bright
at school, in most cases, in all honesty, had they not had the wealth they probably would have been
abandoned by society. But if you have got the wealth Subhanallah and you know that you were not that
intelligent at school, can't you provide for some
		

			No one else the children of others. Look at how we're speaking about parenting but we want to talk
about our children. That's where we got to community and society to say please provide for them,
please look after them, please make sure that they are taken care of. And in this way, Allah will
take care of your own children Subhanallah Subhanallah you know, I want to end on a note my father
was once asked
		

			by someone on a radio station many years ago that you know, Allah has blessed you with children and
mashallah they are pretty successful in the deen and in the dunya, and so on.
		

			How did you manage this give us from you know, your page, a page from your book. He said, That was
ALLAH, I was busy taking care of the children of the underprivileged and Allah took care of my
children, which is true, because my father Subhan, Allah has established institutions solely and
exclusively for the underprivileged in Zimbabwe, and SubhanAllah. They are 1000s of young boys and
girls, and even older people, people older than myself, because it started before I was born. And
subhanAllah there are 1000s of them who have benefited and they have benefited others and the others
have benefited others. And there is Allah, Allah takes care of your children, you take care of the
		

			children of others. Are you ready? Some of us don't even take care of our own children. We're not
even bothered about anything. It's just about me, my business, my pride. It's I need to do what I
want. Many of us have bad habits which we need to work on. How are we going to disseminate goodness
when we don't have that goodness in us? So develop yourself my father's my mothers who are out
there, get some goodness, get a link with Allah, the world is bleeding at the moment, we need a lot
of solutions. Those solutions only lie in what Allah and His Rasulullah sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
have taught us May Allah Almighty bless every one of us, once again shukran for this opportunity to
		

			share a few of these beautiful words in this month of Ramadan. For your information, I'm actually
seated in Al Madina, Munawwara And subhanAllah I'm busy speaking to you by the virtue of Allah I
thanks to the organizers. And thanks to all of those who made this happen. I won't mention them by
name but Subhanallah I really do our goes out to them and to all of you who have benefited from this
May Allah grant myself the ability to rectify my own weaknesses, and to be there not just for my
children but for the Ummah and all of us to in our own unique ways. In this way, we will see
goodness in society's communities in our nations Akula kolayca wa sallahu wa salam, ala Obara,
		

			Kerala and Vietnam.