Naima B. Robert – A Sisters Ramadan Season 3 Episode 5 6 Essential Relationships Relationship yourself
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Bismillah.
It is your sister Naima b Robert here
and thank you so much for joining me
for this episode
of A Sister's Ramadan.
Now as you know,
this year
I'm on a mission to encourage
every single one of you to cherish and
nurture your loved ones while you still can.
The reality is none of us is guaranteed
tomorrow. So let's stop acting as if it
is.
The central question of this year's show is
how can we as Muslim women
use Ramadan
to improve
our relationships,
Our relationship with Allah,
our relationship with ourselves,
our relationship with our spouse, with our children
and the loved ones around us.
In this episode,
we will be looking at how we can
nurture and improve our relationship
with our parents.
Our parents.
For most of us, our parents have been
a constant companion
on our life's journey.
From childhood
all the way through growing pains up until
adulthood,
our parents have been by our side
sacrificing,
teaching,
nurturing, telling us off, guiding us on the
way to go.
Now
if we take a moment
to remind ourselves of
this huge
blessing
that we have received as a result of
our parents.
Let's just take a moment to slow down
and think
about
everything that
is in our lives today.
Who we are,
what we know,
who we have become,
that is a result of our parents' choices.
Now of course Allah chose
our parents to be our parents.
He gifted us to our parents and then
He gave them the opportunity
to raise us. But
when was the last time you really sat
down
and looked back at your life and everything
that you've experienced and everything that you've gained
and realize that your parents were probably
the source of that. Every
sacrifice they made,
every time they went without,
every time they did the right thing rather
than the easy thing, every hard lesson they
had to teach us,
Every time that they didn't give up on
us. Every time that they loved us,
that they told us that they that that
we were important, that they showed us through
their actions, that we mattered.
Every time that they
guided us really,
gave us the benefit of their own experience,
gave us the benefit of their knowledge, told
us our family history.
In so many ways,
we are
a result of choices that our parents made
along the way.
Now, in an ideal world,
parents would raise their children,
their children would become functioning adults, and would
then be able to support their parents and
be able to be there for their parents
as their parents decline
in energy, in resources,
in time, etcetera.
But the reality is
modern life doesn't work that way.
For most of us, as we grow and
once we become adults, we take on a
whole new set of responsibilities.
And a lot of the time,
our parents are not on that list of
responsibilities.
We have studying, we have careers, we have
our own relationships, we have our marriages, we
have our children, we have a lifestyle, a
life that we're creating ourselves
and that keeps us very busy.
For many of us, I'm not looking at
those of you who are living with your
parents and are caring for them, that is
a very different path from the one that
I'm describing.
But for many of us,
leaving home
leads to a separation between us and our
parents. A necessary separation
but it translates
into
parallel lives.
Lives where we are focused on what we're
doing and our parents are almost an afterthought.
Now I don't mind sharing with you that
while I was planning this episode, in fact
planning this series,
I was reading a book called The Ideal
Muslimmer.
And The Ideal Muslimmer
takes the reader through all the Islamic guidance
on every aspect of our relationships with Allah
Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, with ourselves, with our parents,
our spouses, our children,
So that was my source material.
And while I was planning this particular episode,
right in the middle of it, my father
rang me. Now my father was waiting for
me to do something for him and I
hadn't done it yet because I was busy
planning the episode. And my first instinct, astaghfirullah,
was to just keep going and say I'll
call him back. So the phone rang and
rang and rang and then
something shifted inside me
because of the work that I was doing,
because of the episode I was planning.
Thinking about the right of my father on
me and the right of my parents on
me.
I answered his call. I answered his call,
I asked He told me what he needed,
I gave him what he needed, we ended
the call, and I went back to my
work.
But so many of us
are so busy with life as we know
it,
that our parents
wanting
us or needing us for something can actually
feel like a burden of some kind.
In fact, modern life really is geared towards
individuals and individual families getting what they need.
And the demands or the needs of parents,
especially elderly parents, can seem a burden.
My question is this,
at what stage did we start
either taking our parents for granted
or completely
neglecting them?
It's this relationship with our parents that I
would like to talk about in this episode
and Insha'Allah
offer you some thoughts on how you could
use this Ramadan
to actually improve your relationship with them.
So, when it comes to our relationship with
our parents,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala says in the Quran,
And your Lord has decreed that you worship
none but Him, and that you be dutiful
to your parents.
If one or both of them attain old
age in your life, say not a word
of disrespect
nor reprimand them but address them in terms
of honor.
Lower unto them the wing of submission and
humility
through mercy and say,
my Lord, bestow on them Your mercy as
they did bring me up when I was
young.
SubhanAllah.
It's almost as if everything that we need
to know about our relationship with our parents
is encapsulated in those ayeat.
Because what does Allah Subhanu wa Ta'ala want
from us when it comes to our parents?
Well the first is
respect.
Respect and kindness. Especially as
we grow and we become adults and we
no longer need them, that is now the
time to transition into
lowering the wing of humility.
Showing them respect, listening to them, being there
for them, being kind to them,
treating them in a kind and gentle way.
The other
aspect that we are taught about is gratitude.
SubhanAllah. As I mentioned at the beginning of
the episode,
none of us would be where we are
if our parents had not
fought for, sacrificed,
worked for, you know, gone without
for our sake. In order for us to
be able to stand here and be able
to lower that wing of humility to them.
So gratitude
is something that we are encouraged to have
in general
but gratitude to parents
for really,
the debt that we owe that we will
never be able to replay.
And not being able to repay that debt,
that is what should lead us to that
third aspect which is humility.
Yes, we're adults.
Yes, we're grown,
yes, we have responsibilities,
we have families of our own, we have
our own lives,
but Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala encourages us to
not allow our new adult status or our
new independent lives to make us proud and
arrogant and elevate ourselves above our parents. We're
encouraged to continue to be humble
and treat them with respect.
And I know it can be hard sometimes
but again,
going back to that debt that we can
never repay,
there is an element of humility there because
as we've said,
we are who we are because of what
they went through, because of what they put
into us.
So those three aspects
I'd love for us to think more
about them this Ramadan, to be more mindful,
to put more attention
on being
the type of children that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala is pleased with. No matter how old
we are and no matter how difficult our
parents may be or how much they may
need us. The other thing that I'd like
to bring to your attention
is again this aspect of Amana.
We've talked a lot about
the people in our lives being entrusted to
us. And this is the case whether they
are in need of us or whether we
are in need of them.
And again,
just like all the other relationships that we've
looked at so far,
our parents have been entrusted to us too.
They're part of our rizq, they're part of
what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has blessed us
with and we have responsibilities
towards them because they have rights over us.
So again, it's about being intentional with this
Amana.
Are we taking care of the Amana?
Are we giving
our parents their rights? Are we taking care
of our responsibilities?
Let's be honest with ourselves and see how
we could lean into this more and how
we could be more intentional
when it comes to looking after our relationship
with our our parents. Because again, my dear
sister, I want to remind you of what
we've been saying this whole series.
These relationships,
Allah has blessed us with these relationships.
And in the blessing of those relationships, we've
been given responsibilities
and they've been given rights over us. And
every time that we give them their rights,
when we nurture the relationships,
this is part of our ibadah if our
intention is on point. So
how can we use Ramadan
to gain more reward with regards to the
relationship with our parents? I'm going to give
you 6 strategies right now because Ramadan
is a perfect time to be able to
honor and build that relationship with your parents
if they are still around insha Allah. The
first is
involve them.
A lot of us live very, very busy
lives, ourselves and our children and we tend
to exclude
family that's not always in the vicinity.
Make time for your parents this Ramadan.
Again,
we know how busy we are with everything
but making time for them to call them,
to get on FaceTime, to pop by and
see them, to invite them around for iftar,
etcetera. This will make them feel
included, make them feel appreciated, make them feel
seen.
Serve your parents. There is so much reward
to be gained from serving parents, from being
of use to them, of serving them, whether
it's taking over some shopping, whether it's taking
some food that you've cooked.
Stay in touch.
Use the phone and all the things that
we have at our disposal just to let
them know that you're thinking about them and
that you care and appreciate them. When they
do things for you, thank them. Show your
gratitude and appreciation. And importantly,
encourage your children to appreciate their grandparents.
Encourage them to spend time with them and
to serve them and help them out too.
And if your parents are no longer alive,
may Allah have mercy on them. Do charity
on their behalf this Ramadan.
Talk about your parents to your children even
if they are no longer with us and
check-in on your parents, friends and relatives
to look after them and continue those ties
inshallah as we know from the seerah.
So now sis, it's over to you. It's
time to take a moment to sit and
think how you can actually implement what we've
spoken about today when it comes to relationship
with your parents.
I know you remember the 4 steps and
they are renewing your intention.
Slowing it right down, not multitasking
but being mindful.
Taking yourself to account, checking in with yourself
to see if you are fulfilling
your parents rights and pressing reset. Pressing that
reset button, giving yourself permission to try again
tomorrow if it doesn't work out today.
JazakAllah Khayron for joining me for this episode.
If you benefited from anything that I shared
then
be sure to share the khair. Leave your
comments, let us know what stood out for
you and make sure that you tag us
on social media, iman channel or nayeemabrobert.
See you in the next episode when we're
going to be discussing your relationship with
your community.