Mustafa Khattab – Anatolia Motivation Conference Our Kids
AI: Summary ©
The speakers discuss the challenges faced by parents and children in Islam, including the need for passionate belief in Islam and providing care for one's family. They emphasize the importance of teaching children the right things and leaving money for children in the future. The speakers emphasize the need for parents to prioritize their children and not let them take advantage of opportunities, pray together and bring people together, and learn Arabic or Guinea to improve one's knowledge and friendships. They emphasize the importance of not just giving money to children but also learning about the language of the person involved in the relationship.
AI: Summary ©
Our next speaker tonight is doctor Mustafa Khatab.
Doctor Mustafa Khatab is the imam of the
Anatolia Islamic Center and Muslim Chaplain at Brock
University.
Khatab recently
received well, not recently, but he has received
his PhD, MA, and BA in Islamic Studies
in English with honours from Al Azhar University.
He is a member of the Canadian Council
of Imams, a lecturer of Islamic Studies in
English at Al Azhar University, and a Fullbright
Interfaith Scholar. He has served as an imam
in the USA and Canada since 2000 and
7 and is a published author.
His most celebrated work is the clear Quran,
a thematic English translation.
With the lecture titled, Our Kids, Challenges and
Solutions, please help us in welcoming doctor Mustafa
Khatab.
So inshallah, I'm gonna kindly ask you,
to stand up please. Stand up everyone.
I know we have been, sitting around for
almost 10 hours now, so take a deep
breath,
stretch your arms,
put your hands down.
Now you can breathe out
and give a hug to the person to
your your right.
If the person to your right is a
sister who is not related to you
So,
thank you. Have a seat.
I love you too.
So,
Shalom gonna start off my talk by giving
a story.
And before the story,
close to the end, I'm gonna mention the
author of this book. His name is Azamakhshari.
The author of Al Kashaf. It's one of
the most important tafasir of all time. This
man was gifted, especially when it came to
linguistics
and the Arabic
language.
So those who are from Saint Catherine's,
they know this story already because this is
the first story I said, or I mentioned
when I started working as an imam in
Saint Catherine's. So the story basically
has something to
do with a brother who was at Tim
Hortons drinking his tea.
So what happened, someone came in and he
said,
brother Abdullah,
your wife is giving birth.
And she is crying. She's all by herself
in the house. So what he did, he
dropped this tea
and he ran in the streets. It was
late at night. No buses were running. So
he said, let me check on my wife.
She's giving birth.
So after running for 2 minutes,
he stopped and he said, subhanallah, what is
going on?
My wife is not 9 months pregnant. My
wife is only 2 months pregnant.
Then he started to run. I said, okay,
let me check on my wife. He started
to run again.
And after 2, 3 minutes, he stopped and
he said, subhanAllah,
have I lost my mind or something? I'm
not even married.
But he said, okay. No problem. Let me
go let me go and see what is
going on in my house. And he started
to run again and before he could reach
his house, he stopped again and he said,
what is going on here? What is this?
My my name is not even Abdullah.
So the guy was talking to someone else.
In Alabi, we call
this ghaflah,
heedlessness.
Some things are very obvious
but sometimes we tend to ignore them. Everyone,
even
kids in the kindergarten,
they know that the most important thing, one
of the most important things in Islam is
salah.
How many Muslims pray regularly?
The studies say 10%.
10%.
For Eid,
it goes up to 15 or 20,
then it goes back to 10% for Jum'ah
and less than 1% on a daily basis.
So this is something we know for a
fact, but we tend to
ignore. Another fact that we tend to ignore
is that our kids
are the most important thing in our lives.
Most of you are immigrants like me.
Unless you are a native Indian,
are an immigrant.
So most of us came here for one
reason,
to give a better future for our kids,
so they can live a good life
and live as good Muslims.
But how can they learn to be good
Muslims if we get busy working 2, 3
jobs?
We hardly give them any attention. We hardly
give them any time.
We can't.
You send your kids to the public system.
You don't send them to the masjid for
an education or in the weekend
to learn about a sahaba.
They are taught by Al Magdoubi alayhim wal
ad Dalin and you expect them at the
end of the year to be like Abu
Bakr and Umar and Uthman and Ali.
We're gonna talk about this in detail
in a bit, inshallah.
So we're busy in this country. I know
that you have so many responsibilities. You have
provided for your family, pay for rent,
taxes are going up, the hydro bills are
crazy,
13% in tax.
You have to pay for insurance, for food,
for shopping and you still have to send
some money for your mom back home to
buy her laptop,
although she can't read or write.
You know, you have a lot of responsibilities.
I understand.
But keep in mind that your kids are
the future of Islam.
They are the future of this community. They
are the most important thing in your life.
You should be willing to sacrifice your life
to give them a good life, but still,
we put them behind our backs and we
hardly give them a quality time. So what
what do we end up with? I've been
doing counseling for about 10, 11 years now.
I have seen kids,
this is what the parents tell me, that
their kids don't listen to them.
Their kids talk back to them.
They're not listening
and the whole day,
if they are not at school, when they
come back, they're stuck to their iPad.
They don't want even to talk to you.
They want to play games and watch movies
and so on and so forth. And if
you dare,
ask them to pass you a bottle of
water,
mashallah. It's like world war 3.
You know,
I can't play on my iPad. He has
been playing for like 10 hours.
You're ruining my life. I'm miserable because of
you. Why did you ever Come on man.
All I said, just give me a bottle
of water. That's it.
Some kids don't even pray
and the parents tell me,
their kids don't pray.
Right?
In some cases, I've seen some kids and
the parents told me that their kids are
dating,
their kids are doing drugs,
their kids are drinking, and so on and
so forth.
And in some cases, some kids,
they leave Islam altogether.
One time, one brother showed me an email
from his son.
He sent an email to his Muslim friend
and he said, when I'm 18, I'm leaving
because I want freedom. Because for him, Islam
doesn't give freedom.
And we have listened to 2 or 3
new Muslims today and we're gonna listen to
another 2 after me, inshallah. They see the
beauty of Islam and they come. I have
given 100 of shahadas over the last 10,
11 years because Islam gives them happiness,
Islam gives them freedom, Islam gives them discipline,
But he sees some of our kids, they
don't see the beauty of Islam and they
leave.
Pray 5 times a day.
Fast in the month of Ramadan 17, 18
hours.
Even camels will die if they fast for
17 18 hours and so on and so
forth.
So this is a situation where with our
kids and there are so many challenges for
them. I feel sorry for our kids because
they have so many challenges
and we were when we were growing up
30, 40 years ago, we didn't have this
challenge. We didn't have
Facebook or what I call fasad book. Fasad
book, like corruption book.
So many challenges.
Right? So I feel sorry for them. So
they go to their house,
their father is busy the whole day,
so their father probably leaves before they wake
up in the morning and he comes late
at night after they went to bed, so
they don't get the chance to talk to
their dad. Their mom is busy.
In many cases, the father and the mother
don't have the basic,
knowledge of Islam to teach their kids.
So this is the situation. This is what
happening. We are not paying attention to our
kids.
Even if they want to talk to us,
dad, I did this project at the school
today.
See what I did?
Have you seen the kid in Despicable Me?
Guru?
Like the way he was showing the prototype
of the rocket to his mom and she
was saying,
and she was
she was ignoring him. This is what we
do to our kids.
So when you grow older,
and you wanna talk to your kids that
you ignored for so many years, don't be
surprised if they don't talk if they don't
talk to you because now they are busy
with something else.
You are getting paid back in kind.
So this is a situation with our kids.
And, subhanallah,
this is something that all parents share
that no matter how old your kids are,
there will always be kids.
Your son is 35.
Yes. He's still a kid.
Your son is 40 years old. He is
a baby. He's my kid. He's he's a
baby.
So when your son comes to me, and
one of the brothers told me, I'm 35
years old, and I went to dad, my
dad, and told him,
I wanna get married.
He said he ran after him with an
ax. He said because you're too young. Don't
talk about
don't talk about this stuff yet. The
only time we treat our kids as grown
ups,
so you don't ask them for
like the prophet
did. He used to ask children
and young people for their advice like Usamab
Nizaid. The prophet
spoke to him for Mashura when he was
only 12 years old.
Something serious, something tremendous
about Aisha Radiallahu Anha and the rumors. So
he spoke to him and he spoke to
Alib Nabi Talib and Usama ibn Zayed was
only 12 years old.
So we don't talk to our kids from
Ashura. The only time we treat them as
adults
is when they make a mistake.
How dare you? You're 12 years old and
you do something like this.
Now they are grown ups. Now they are
big people. SubhanAllah.
We go to school,
the kids have challenges.
Right? So they talk to their friends,
especially if they go to the public schools.
Of course, in Islam, Islam stands on 2
feet. Your relationship with Allah
and your relationship with the people and your
life in this world. So in Islam, we
keep the balance between spirituality
and the secular life we're living. In the
schools, they are only teaching the secular things
and God and faith and spirituality are out
of the window.
So how can our kids learn about these
things if if they are not taught at
school?
And some of their friends who are not
Muslim,
of course, some of them have values that
are acceptable Islamically,
but sometimes they do things This is the
way they were brought up. They do things
that are acceptable to them, but they're not
acceptable to us. Things like drinking and dating.
So our kids, they look around and they
copy their friends.
And even when we talk about the educational
system,
a couple of years ago, they introduced a
new * education,
and I met a,
someone from the board of education,
and she said,
yeah. What we teach is also should be
acceptable to the Muslim students and they should
learn about this. And I said, yes. We
learn about this when we're young. We started
the Feqh of Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi,
Malik and Ahmad, and they spoke about tahara,
they spoke about puberty, but they are totally
different. She said, how? I said, when you
talk to, like, high,
high school kids, you tell them it's okay
to date.
You can do whatever you want. Make sure
you use a condom or something. Protect yourself.
Serve her the language, but this is the
reality.
But in Islam,
don't do it. Period. It's totally different. There
are 2 two different things.
The third place
to which our kids are exposed are the
masajid. So, mashallah, now you expect the masjid
to be like Jannah,
and our kids will be treated.
I I'm an imam. I know.
So, there are some elderly people in some
masjids, not in all of them, some elderly
folks.
I call them the Haram police.
So, they check everyone out. You come in,
It's like when you walk into this machine
at the airport,
they scan you, your clothes are too
short, you got,
this guy. What's his name? The singer.
What is his name?
Steve,
Bieber. Justin Bieber.
You have his picture. You gotta leave.
Your pants are falling down.
And even when a Muslim a a new
Muslim brother comes to Jashimash they took Shahadah
last night, and I've seen some cases.
The new Muslim brother comes. This is his
second day in Islam.
What's wrong with you? Where is the beard?
I just took Shahadah last night.
Well, sister, your hijab is not proper.
Jahannam.
Come on, man.
They are just babies in Islam. They're learning.
Some of them have a bit of faith
than we do.
And sometimes we don't lead by examples in
in masjids.
Most boards, they don't have youth on the
board. They don't have sisters. I've seen some
masjids.
So what happens even when they go to
the masjid and they see what is going
on, most of the Imams, they don't speak
English. They don't know their culture and so
on and so forth. So the youth, they
feel alienated at Jumah.
They're either playing with their cell phones or
they are yawning in the back and they
hate going to the masjid, because they need
someone who can talk the talk and walk
the walk.
Someone who doesn't see a projector or a
laptop or a cell phone.
A work of the devil.
Right?
And some of the people in the Masjid
Masjallaha, we have this
fights in the masjid. I spoke about this
on one of the Khutbas.
We always disagree in the masajid
about small things. Islam is all about bringing
people together,
praying together, you get more rewards, you go
for harp together, you fast Ramadan together, the
rich will give zakat to the poor. It's
all about bringing people together and we split
the community over small things like the beginning
and the ending of Ramadan.
How much we are going to pray in
tarawih, whole Quran or qullu Allah had the
Lord.
And so on and so forth.
So there's this story
happened in Texas,
a true story, and a man told us
the story and he said it was Ramadan
time, 1st night of Ramadan.
Normally have 2 groups.
You have the Arab group and you have
the Indian Pakistani brothers, mashaAllah, jazamalAllah, khairan.
So both
have a big fight at the beginning of
Ramadan.
So
read tomorrow, not tomorrow. Calculation, halal.
Are we gonna do 8 raka or 20
raka?
Are we gonna finish Quran, do khatm at
the end, eat biryani, or we're gonna do,
like, read short surah and go home and
enjoy kebab and
shawarma.
So that first night they had a big
fight
on whether they're gonna pray 8 raka or
20 raka.
So the Arab brothers were saying 8.
The Pakistani brothers, Takbeer, we'll do 20. They
started to fight.
Chairs were flying.
You know,
weapons of mass destruction.
You know how Muslims fight.
So after 30 minutes, people were falling down.
Al Asra with Jarha, some were dying, and
some were taken captive,
and the brothers were saying, Jihad, and the
sister was saying, Allahu Akbar.
So much blood. So someone decided to put
an end to the fight. He called the
police.
Now the police came.
They've never been to a masjid before. They
walked inside with their shoes on.
Now both the Arab brothers and the Indian
Pakistani brothers were both mad at the police.
They said, let's go. Let's do Jihad against
the police.
They are disrespecting
our Masjid.
So what kind of
examples we give to our kids?
So we have to honor our kids. We
have to lead by example. So in the
next 5 minutes left in my talk inshallah,
I'm gonna show you some solutions from Islam.
The first thing, we have to realize that
a human being is made up of several
things,
body,
soul, and spirit.
So most of it so let me put
it in layman's terms.
So the body is like the hardware of
a computer or a laptop.
So the soul is like the electricity
and the spirit is like the software.
So most of the time, we take care
of the body.
We make sure we feed our kids, we
give them biryani all the time, we give
them shawarma, we feed them, we send them
to the YMCA to play soccer, we take
care of the body, we buy them nice
clothes. It's Black Friday, man. They gotta look
nice. So subhanallah, the day before Black
Friday, they were doing thanksgiving. We thanking Allah
for everything that he has given us. The
next day is Black Friday, everything is on
sale and people kill each other at Walmart
because they want to buy an iPhone.
Doesn't work.
So
we take care of the spirit and the
soul. We teach them Islam and we teach
them terbiyyah. How do we do it? Look
at the example of
a Khalifa by the name of Al Mansur
and a scholar by the name Muqaddil ibn
Sulayman. So when Al Mansur was sworn in
Khalifa,
Muqaddil, a scholar, he came to tell him
to give him naseeha advice.
So Mansoor said give me an advice.
And Muqatin said, do you want an advice
based on something I heard or something
I saw with my own eyes? He said,
no. Give me something based on something you
saw with your own eyes. He said, I'm
gonna tell you something to teach your kids
tarbia
from Umar ibn Abdul Aziz and Abdul Malik
ibn Merwan.
When they left, each of them left 11
children,
both of them.
Umar ibn Abdul Aziz taught his kids Islam.
He taught them the Quran, the sunnah of
the prophet salallahu alaihi wa sallam salah, respect
for
people. Abdul Malik ibn Rawan was busy with
the Khalifa. He didn't teach that much to
his kids. Omar ibn Abdul Aziz left
19 dinar for his kids.
He was a poor man. He left 19
dinars and he was the Khalifa.
This is like a $100.
That's all he left.
They took half of that amount for his
janazah
and they gave the rest to his kids.
So each received
less than 1 dinar.
That's like less than $10. That's all he
left for his kids. And I'm not saying
that you should leave money for kids. The
prophet
said, it is better to leave your kids
well off than to leave them poor begging
people for money. This an authentic hadith is
Sahih Muslim.
Abdul Malik ibn Marawah lift millions of dinars.
Each of his kids received more than a
1,000,000 dinar.
Muqadda said, wallahi, I saw with my own
eyes one of the children of Omar ibn
Abdul Aziz who were trained in terbiyah and
in akhlaq in Islam,
given 100 camels
one day in the market
and the other guy, one from the children
of Abdul Malik ibn Marwan, he's sitting in
the market begging people for food. He wasted
all his money in gambling.
So if you leave good akhlaq for your
kids,
If they are good people and they don't
have money, they will survive. If they are
crooks, you didn't teach them anything, you left
money for them, they will waste all the
money
and
nothing will be left for them. And the
prophet
said in an authentic hadith, the best gift
you can leave for your kids is good
adab, tarbia and akhlaq.
How do we do it? As I said
at the beginning, the relationship with Allah, the
relationship with the people.
You know, the Hadith, Abdullah ibn Abbas, he
was 7 years old, 8 years old,
and he was with the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wasallam. Everyone knows the Hadith in Tirmizi, and
he told him, you
He said, keep Allah in your mind and
Allah will take care of you. If you
want to ask for something, ask Allah and
he will give it to you. If the
whole world is against you, they cannot harm
you if Allah is in your side.
And if they want to benefit you, none
can benefit you if Allah is against you.
Allah the prophet shalallahu alaihi wa sallam is
teaching
aqeedah,
the relationship with Allah to a very young
kid.
The prophet
said, teach them salah when they are young,
7.
We know from authentic hadith that the prophet
was teaching the little kids in the family
the last ayah of Surah
Isra.
Till the end of the ayah. He was
teaching them ayah, this ayah about tawheed to
every single kid in the house.
If you want your kids to be good
Muslims in this country,
I know you have to pay some money.
Islamic schools are not for free.
You have to pay a little bit. There
are some free programs here and there,
but you have to pay if you would
like for your kids to be good Muslims.
This is the price you have to pay.
Don't be like the guy
in the story of Al Jahiz. He was
in Iraq. He was passing in the streets.
They used to teach with a luh, a
piece of paper and they would write an
ayah and the kid would memorize it. We
used to memorize this like this a long
time ago in Egypt.
So Al Jahiz was walking in the street
and he heard this teacher
teaching this wrong ayah to one of the
students.
Everyone was saying their ayah right except for
this kid.
So al Jahaz came to the teacher and
he said, you're teaching him wrong. The ayah
is messed up. So the ayah basically was
And don't memorize this one because it's messed
up.
3 Surahs. He mixed 3 Surahs together.
So he went to him
and he said, what's wrong with you? You're
teaching him Quran wrong. Why? He said, all
these kids are paying.
Their parents are paying, except for this guy.
His father is not paying me anything. I'm
teaching him wrong.
I don't take money. He's not memorizing. Khalas,
we're playing games together.
No iman, subhanAllah.
So we need to teach our kids akhlaq
and iman. And the last thing I want
to say,
make sure your kids have good friends because
they learn from them
and make lots of dua.
Talk to your kids.
There's time to play. There's time to pray.
There's time for school, for their friends, and
there's time for you. Even if you spend
5 minutes with them quality time, tell them
a story in your language. Teach them Arabic
or Urdu. Tell them a story. Ask them
to say a story and listen to them.
Listen to them.
The prophets
and the ulama, they are talking to their
kids. See the story of Luqman. He's talking
to his son. When Yusuf alaihi salam have
the dream, the only one he trusted with
his dream was his father and so on
and so forth. There's so many things to
say but I got only 2 minutes inshallah.
So make lots of dua for your kids
that Allah will give them Hidayah.
Hidayah comes only from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
If you think you can give them Hidayah
without Allah,
you know nothing about the story of Noosh.
His son was kafir. He was a believer.
Ibrahim alaihis salam was a believer. His father
was a kafir. Hidayah comes from Allah, not
from you. So all you need to do
is make dua that Allah will give them
Hidayah.
So
back to Azam Akshari, it's a fantastic translation
when it comes to the linguistics of it.
The righteous in the Quran at the end
of Surah for Khan, they make dua for
their kids.
They say Allah,
give us righteous spouses, husbands, and wives,
and children
and make us leaders in piety to others.
So they make dua for their kids. Don't
pray against them.
If they eat your Nutella in the fridge,
don't make dua against them. I have seen
this.
Allah haeraq.
Jahannam.
Come on, man. So this man, Azamakhshari,
he mentioned his story in the introduction of
his tafsir. He said, when I was young,
5, 6 years old,
I caught a bird, a little bird,
and he tied a string around the leg
of the bird
and at some point,
the bird fell down. It ran into a
hole. He tried to pull the bird
out with so much force that he,
tore apart the leg of the bird. He
broke it completely.
When his mother saw this, she made dua
against him and she said, may Allah cut
off your leg just like you cut off
the leg of that bird.
25, 30 years later,
as the Maqshari was traveling to Iraq, he
fell off his camel
and he broke his leg and they had
to cut it off. So Allah answered the
dua of his mother and this is what
he mentioned at the beginning of the story.
I'm gonna conclude with another dua in a
positive way.
There was a scholar.
His name
was Al
Razi.
His name was Al Razi. Not Al Fakhr
Al Razi, another one.
So what happened in the story about Al
Razi, he said I when I was a
kid, I used to go to the masjid
and there was this big scholar
that I was listening to him.
So one time I sat in front of
him and I tried to read Fatiha and
I couldn't read anything.
The story happened at in, in Iraq.
So he said I couldn't read anything. It
was very difficult for me to read Fatiha
properly.
So I said to the sheikh, yes, sheikh,
I I'm trying but it is difficult for
me. What can I do to improve
my reading of the Quran and my knowledge?
He said, is your mother still around? Is
your mother still alive so she can make
dua for you? He said, yes.
So he said,
ask your mother to make dua for you.
So his name is Sulayim
Al Razi. Sulayim Al Razi.
So he said, I went home, I spoke
to my mother, she made dua for me
and all of a sudden Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala opened the doors for me. He showered
his mercy on me and I gained so
much knowledge that after 25 years, I was
in a masjid in Iraq,
in Baghdad,
and this sheikh
my sheikh when I was was young came
to the masjid, but he didn't know me
because now I have a beard, masha Allah,
look all he didn't recognize me.
And I was teaching and I was teaching
and people were writing down and some people
were crying and the people were overwhelmed with
emotions.
So the sheikh came to me after my
talk and he said,
subhanAllah,
how can I gain such knowledge like you?
He said I was about to tell him,
is your mom still alive so she can
make dua for you? The same advice he
gave gave to him 25 years old, but
he said I was shy of my sheikh,
I didn't tell him that. So make lots
of your dua dua for your kids.
Teach him to learn and love Islam and
lead by example. Make lots of dua for
them.
Insha Allah, keep an eye on your kids.
Make sure insha Allah they have good friends
and make them love Islam. Don't make them
hate Islam. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta'ala,
to guide us all and guide our kids
to what is best for Islam and Muslims.