Mufti Menk – Responsibility and Respect

			Bismillah R Rahman Rahim Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah who Allah Allah, he was a
big mine, my beloved children
		

			I visited yesterday
		

			someone somewhere in your compound
		

			and I met one of your members of staff who told me when are you going to come to speak to the
learners?
		

			And I said tomorrow morning
		

			and So alhamdulillah I'm here by the will of Allah.
		

			And today I want to share with you just a few words
		

			and I want to ask a few questions if you are ready to answer them.
		

			Who is ready to answer my questions put up your hand.
		

			MashAllah only some at the back are not ready. Can you hear me?
		

			You show
		

			Okay, put your hands down.
		

			How many of you have mobile phones? Put up your hands very high.
		

			All right, put your hands down. How many of you have watched YouTube? Put up your hands again?
		

			Masha Allah put your hands down everyone.
		

			So I'm sure you know what is Instagram? You know what is tick tock? You know, what is Facebook? You
know, what is Twitter? You know, what is YouTube? What else?
		

			Snapchat chap? Yeah, what else?
		

			Mashallah, okay. All right, we've got that. So you know what I'm talking about. To be honest, this
is a development that is a gift of Allah. And at the same time, it's a test from Allah. Because you
and I are Muslim, we believe we have rules, we have regulations, we'd love to be the best possible
version of ourselves. And here we have technology, my religion teaches me
		

			not to divorce myself from technology, but rather to use it responsibly to empower myself and others
around me in a way that is pleasing to Allah. That's what my duty is. So if you cannot do that, then
don't use it. You can say, Listen, I don't know how to control myself. When I sit with tick tock, I
flick and it just goes Tick, tock, tick, tock, and we just flick, and we don't know how to control
ourselves. So I'm not going to use it. If I don't know how to use it. But if I know how to use it,
and I'm responsible, and it's going to help me and benefit me in two ways, then I'm going to make
use of it. What are the two ways number one, you empower yourself for that which is beneficial to
		

			you in this world? And number two, you empower yourself in the way that you gain closeness to Allah
you become closer to Allah. How many prayers do we pray a day? How many Salah are
		

			compulsory upon us per day? Yes. Five, okay, five, we do five prayers. If I want to get closer to
Allah, I can add to that something known as sunnah and nothing, am I right or wrong? Right. But if
my time on social media, my time on these applications, my time with technology is going to take me
away and I can't even do my five prayers, because I'm wasting time. In that case. I need to go and
revisit how I use this technology and become more disciplined, right? Because if that is taking me
away from Allah, one day, I'm going to go back to Allah, when I go back to Allah, I'm going to be
the happiest person ever. I'm going back to my Creator, who is kind he is the most kind, the Most
		

			Merciful, the Most Forgiving, the Most Generous. If I'm going back to him, it's going to be the best
day possible when I meet Allah again. But I need to prepare for that day by being responsible while
I'm on Earth. If you're not responsible, oh, that day might not be such a good day, right? Imagine
you meet with Allah, and you're excited because you tried hard to be a good person. And so you you
meet with Allah subhanahu wa taala and you're, you're so excited that you have good deeds that you
want to say I did them for you, oh Allah. But if you stayed away from good deeds, and you did bad
deeds,
		

			And you didn't ask Allah's forgiveness, then it's going to be embarrassing on that day embarrassing
because why? A I was naughty. I used to swear, I used to scream and shout, I used to. I used to be
unruly. I used to be mischievous in a in a very bad way. Oh, did you get up and say, I'm sorry, I
apologize. I'm going to change. I'm not going to do that, again. If you did, that, you're a good
child, whether it's your parents, your teachers, whoever else it may be, you did something wrong.
And you say, Look, I'm sorry, I won't do that. Again. You're a good child. We all make mistakes,
don't we? But if you did not, say, I'm sorry. If you don't want to acknowledge where you went wrong,
		

			then obviously you're going to be embarrassed one day when it's laid bare in front of everyone that
you know what, this is what you did. I mean, come on. I wouldn't like people to see what I did. So
what do I do? I say sorry, to those whom I have wronged here on Earth. And I asked Allah's
forgiveness. Whenever I've done something that I'm not supposed to do in the eyes of Allah subhanho
wa taala.
		

			So how many of you use any one of those platforms that we mentioned? If you use any one of them, put
up your hands?
		

			Oh, Mashallah. That's the bulk of you. Let's put your hands down. I want to just say to you today,
you must use it in the correct way. You know, when I came into this hole, I came in with a stand and
a phone. Some of you might have noticed, am I right? Okay, what did I do? Why did I do that? Because
I want to use technology to its maximum to the best that I can. I want to try and benefit myself and
everybody else as much as I can. So that when I meet with Allah, I know that I tried my best, I
didn't leave a single stone unturned in trying to do something good. So I brought my standard. It's
a special phone that I use, mainly just for recordings. And I thought I'd set it up somewhere in the
		

			front. But because I'm standing on the stage, we set it up up there, right at the back at the top
there. And I said to the sister who's there, please, can you turn it off? Once we're done? That's
all.
		

			And you might want to know, well, how are you recording the voice? Isn't it because it's too far?
		

			Well, I have another phone, which is the normal phone that I use, that's doing the voice here. So
it's fine. And what we will do later on, as soon as I'm gone from here, before I get home, this talk
was going to be on YouTube. Inshallah, if it's came out, okay.
		

			And you know what, by the end of the day,
		

			I want you to check if you can see if I've spoken here, too. How many pupils do you have here
learners, approximately, roughly,
		

			say 400 450 How many ever may be here right now? It looks like about 300 here right now my little my
eyes telling me. But it's okay. What you will see, what you will see is
		

			1000s of people saying oh Subhanallah Look at this. You get what I'm saying? Why? Because we want to
use technology but for the right things. Now if I'm sitting and dancing, and if I'm doing my own
thing and showing people my clothes and doing old wrong things, if I'm doing wrong things for
example, then I shouldn't publicize it for the rest of the world. I need to correct myself I need to
become disciplined. I need to make myself closer to Allah subhanho wa Taala and try and change my
life in a way that will be pleasing to Allah so that I can use technology to actually do the right
thing. There's so many children out there who just do anything silly because they want to get clicks
		

			and likes and follows Am I right or wrong?
		

			Don't pretend like you don't know what I'm saying. Right? So is it okay for us as Muslims to just do
something silly in order to get clicks and likes and follows?
		

			No, we shouldn't we should rather do the right thing. Even if you don't get so many clicks and likes
and follows it's okay in the eyes of Allah when I meet with him and I can show him look I did this I
did this he says well I know already Mashallah. I know already. May Allah Almighty help us to do the
right thing inshallah. I want to say one more thing. So the first thing I wanted to say and I said
it already let's be responsible when we use technology.
		

			Why did I say
		

			mashallah Cordova, well done, well done. Hamdulillah.
		

			The second thing I want to say, no matter what Allah gives you.
		

			You must always respect
		

			Every one that you come across
		

			Why do I say this? Today you might greet me because hey, move to Maine came here. So you respecting
me why? Because you think, hey, there's a famous guy who walked in, whether I'm famous or not is not
really important. I'm just I'm exactly like you. I'm the same. I also went through a school system
like yours, I went through a teaching phase, different phases, we went, and that's what happened. A
lot of you might achieve more than I have in the near future.
		

			But I tell you, what really makes you
		

			when you can respect everybody that you come across on Earth and ask yourself, How can I help this
person?
		

			Even if just by them watching you, they can be helped? It's a big thing.
		

			The reason is, today, someone's got a very nice car, we will all greet that person, the rich, the
rich, we become friends with them because they rich, someone is so handsome, so good looking, we
want to be close to them. Why? Because hey, this person is really good looking. Someone is very
intelligent, really first in class all the time, we all want to say you know what, wow, this person,
we smile at them, we want to be happy. Why? Because they are very clever.
		

			When they have something Allah gave them, we human quote, nature is we try to respect what Allah
gave them.
		

			And if they didn't have it, sometimes we don't respect them. You have a person who's studying with
you from a home that might not be wealthy, from a home that might have a problem, a person who might
not, you know, be the most gorgeous of everyone, although all of us are actually good looking. It's
just that sometimes you don't realize that.
		

			And so no one wants to talk to that person. No one wants to treat them well.
		

			I tell you, when you treat people well because of Allah, that's when you have liberated yourself. I
want to talk to you and respect you and love you and care for you. Not because I think you have
something that I need or want or that I'm wowed by, but rather I do that because you are a creature
of the same Allah who made me I'm going to respect you for Allah to bring me here today is not a
coincidence for a lot of you. Oh, we went to school. By chance. We had Mufti mink that came in for
Allah, it was not a chance for you and I it was. So you need to make sure you respect everyone,
including the workers in the cleaners and those who don't have such a nice car. Those who might have
		

			tatty clothing, those who don't have perhaps the means to
		

			you know, to wear perfume that smells so good. You need to respect them, be kind to them, smile at
their faces, make life easy for them, make them feel worthwhile for the sake of Allah. Why? Because
Allah made me, Allah made them. Allah made me cross paths with them in this life. And he's going to
ask me, I allowed you to bump into this person, how did you seize the opportunity to get closer to
me? That's Allah.
		

			So when I respect you, I had a few boys. When I was outside there, I came quite early, I parked my
car outside. And I know I could have come in, but I didn't want to. I don't want to create a big
huge scene. But a few boys saw me and they came to greet me. I was so happy. And I I look to them, I
greeted each one of them, Mashallah. And then I greeted the last boy. And I held his hand.
		

			And I told him, What did I tell him? I told him, I said, How many members of staff do you have here?
He said, I'm not too sure. And in my mind, I said, I'm asking the wrong guy. Because
		

			he's not a member of staff. How would he know? I thought, I'm going to this beautiful place a school
I've heard about so much kotoba let me take a gift for at least the people who teach here.
		

			So I brought a little gift for everyone who teaches here and I said to myself, I just give it to
them Inshallah, perhaps they might if they don't want it, they can give it to somebody else. But at
least I came with something not because I had to, but I felt it's an opportunity it's a chance and
inshallah one day who knows, I might come up with something for everyone here.
		

			May Allah bless you guys say Amen.
		

			So inshallah those are the two messages I have. I thought I'd speak for 15 minutes. I've spoken for
15 minutes and 24 seconds. So inshallah I will end at that note, just by repeating the two things I
said number one, what was the first point I said?
		

			Be responsible when it comes to the way you carry yourself, especially online because
		

			As the future is happening online, right? It technology's progressing in leaps and bounds. Please be
responsible. Don't do silly things. Sometimes one mistake you made when you were at school and
growing up, it might shape your future. I know last week, there was someone at a different school
who did something that was quite bad. That child and all the child's friends were expelled from the
school and you know what they have to write matric next year, and it's going to affect them. And
then the one parent tells me, can you please come and speak to my child and so on? And I am What
should I say? I mean, you should have thought about what you did before you did it that this is
		

			going to shape my future to a degree, so don't do that which is irresponsible. That was point number
one. What was point number two, you respect everyone for the sake of
		

			Allah.
		

			I am treating you kindly not because I think you deserve my kindness. But I'm treating you kindly
because I know Allah loves those who are kind
		

			and good to you because Allah loves those who are good Allah who you hipbone machine, so I, if
that's the case, I'm going to treat everyone the same. No one is preferred over another. May Allah
help us to help one another. I know in schools, sometimes you have little gangs, you have little
cliques, you have a group of boys or a group of girls a lot of the times and then you sideline one
person, you make him feel bad, you make them feel unpleasant. Allah's watching is going to happen to
you at some point or your kids maybe one day, you'd rather just say listen, sorry, we're being so
silly. We only going to be at the school for a few more years. Let's at least get along with each
		

			other and respect each other for the sake of Allah. May Allah bless you all. I took two more minutes
Akula coli ha That was Salam alaykum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh