Mufti Menk – When You Face Criticism For Volunteering

Assalamu alaikum. My

name is Hafsa, and,

this is a little hard for me because

even though I'm really confident usually,

I find it hard to talk about my

faith and how I struggled with it because

I'm a teenager. I'm I'm gonna turn 16

soon, but the past year has really been

a challenge.

Because

of how I dress and what I wear,

it's been hard to be taken seriously. And

whenever I organize events because I love being

in charge. So whenever I organize events, I

usually come upon someone or some people who

will tell me that you shouldn't be doing

this and you shouldn't be doing that way,

But I've learned that

even if I keep falling down, and this

I have to credit to you because

every time I feel down, I listen to

a small clip of yours, maybe it's 30

seconds, but it's made me feel empowered because

today I'm here and I feel like I've

gotten so much better. So thank you. And

I hope that everyone around me, teenagers and

adults alike,

can achieve this. Masha'Allah. Masha'Allah.

Well done, my sister. And I wanna tell

you something more like my daughter. I will

say something very interesting. When you're young and

you're a teenager,

you always feel like you want to be

in control. It happened to me. I'm sure

it happens to all of us. It did

happen when we were younger. We always feel

like we want to be in control. There

must be something, you know, and so on.

It's difficult to take instructions sometimes.

And sometimes we even feel offended when someone

corrects us or gives us instruction. You know,

like I'm a volunteer at an organization or

at a massive, massive event. And then here

comes people says, do this, do that. Stand

here, don't move, don't do this, don't do

that. No one should be taking pictures and

no one should be You guys are volunteers.

You're here for the sake of Allah and

you're like, oh, that just

brought my entire mountain crushing

because I was planning to do this and

this and this. I tell you what,

we need to learn to take instruction as

well. Whenever it is correct, you must take

it and listen and be disciplined.

It goes back to Khalid ibn ibn Walid

ibn Muhirah

when he was,

on the side of Quraish fighting against the

Muslims in the battle of Uhud.

When those archers that were on a little

mount, for those of us who might have

been to Uhud or those who know the

story,

when they saw that perhaps maybe this war

is over, they left the mount, the hillock,

and they were told by the prophet, peace

be upon him, do not leave the hillock

even if you think we've won. But they

didn't obey that instruction. As a result, there

were great losses inflicted upon the Muslims.

Caused by what? Exactly as I just said,

because they didn't listen to the instructions. So

it's tough. But as time passes, there will

always

be some goodness that Allah will send in

your direction. I tell you, when you volunteer

to to perhaps do the right thing, maybe

to be a person who's gonna help at

an event like this, the minimum is Allah

Almighty will keep you away from lots of

other negative things that people your age might

already be involved in. So that's a positive.

May Allah Almighty always keep us from among

those who are focused on the right things.

Ameen. Thank you so much. I see lots

of cues of brothers and sisters. I'm only

going to be able to take about 3

more there and 3 more here. And then

InshaAllah, we need to call it a night

because

suhoor, my brothers and sisters, is important in

Ramadan. Right?