Naima B. Robert – A Sisters Ramadan Season 3 Episode 6 6 Essential Relationships
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AI: Transcript ©
Bismillah.
It's your sister Naima B Robert and it
is another episode of A Sister's Ramadan.
I'm so so glad that you joined me
today. Now the month of Ramadan is almost
over and I hope that you have benefited
from the reminders that I've shared with you
over the past few weeks. As I mentioned,
I'm on a mission
to remind every single one of you
to love your loved ones now
while you have the opportunity, while you have
the chance.
The reality is none of us is guaranteed
tomorrow. So let's stop acting as if we
are.
As you know now, the central question of
this year's show has been, how can we
as Muslim women use this Ramadan
to improve
our relationships
with Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, with ourselves,
with our loved ones.
In today's show we are going to be
moving out from the inner circle that we've
been discussing so far. In the inner circle
where
yourself,
you know, your relationship with Allah, your relationship
with yourself,
with your spouse, with your children, with your
parents, all very close to you. And that's
your inner circle we can say. This is
your sphere of influence.
These are people who love and respect you,
who you are close to.
But there is also an outer circle because
every one of us is part of the
outer circle too. We don't only have
responsibility
towards those who are closest to us, we
have responsibilities
to those who are outside that inner circle.
So let's call it the community.
So far throughout this series, we have been
focusing on what I can call the inner
circle.
So it's the people closest to you. So
we not only looked at obviously your relationship
with yourself, but we looked at your relationship
with your spouse, with your children, with your
parents.
These are the people who we can call
your sphere of influence. Most of us have
one.
It's a circle of people who love and
respect us and who
have a direct result. When we take an
action they feel a direct result.
So that's the inner circle.
We talked a lot about how to nurture
those relationships,
what our dean teaches us about those relationships
and how we can use Ramadan in order
to strengthen those relationships.
But what about the wider community?
We can say that
our immediate family is that inner circle but
then outside of that there is an outer
circle
and there are people in that outer circle
who have a relationship with us and who
have been given
rights over us by Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
So let's look at who we can find
in that outer circle.
Well, we're talking about relatives.
So relatives that are a little bit further
away than your parents,
further away than your own children. We're looking
at
brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews, nieces, grandparents.
And then of course, if you come from
a culture where you have extended family, then
you can imagine how wide that circle actually
goes.
There might be a lot of people in
that circle.
I would also like to include in that
circle your friends,
your sisters,
your colleagues,
people who obviously have a relationship with you,
but maybe are not related to you but
there is love and respect between
you. I'd also like to include those neighbors.
We all know that within the Deen our
neighbors have rights over us
so let's include them in that outer circle.
And then let's look at our community.
This could be your masjid community, it could
be your school community, it could be the
community of your actual neighborhood.
Whatever your community is and however you define
that,
I would like us to include that in
our perception of that outer circle.
And then we can say society at large.
So the bigger picture, the people, you know,
the society in which we live. So this
is the outer circle
and I would like to share with you
today
how we can actually
build our relationship with that outer circle
through
Ramadan.
Now the reality of modern life
is that it's
fragmented us.
With our busy schedules,
with our many responsibilities
and our constant chasing, chasing, chasing,
our relationship with many of the people in
the outer circle is
sparse at best, is sporadic
at best.
We no longer live in close communities
where
people know each other, rely on each other
and have a sense of community purpose and
community identity and community life.
This has
largely been lost by most people living
in modern city centers and suburbs.
So
what can we do to change that? Can
we be part of the change?
Can any of us change the fact that
modern life has shifted us and separated us
all out?
Let's have a look at this nature
of this relationship.
If we reflect on how
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has weighed up and
balanced
the rights and responsibilities
between individuals
and the collective, we'll see that every one
of us has rights on other people to
varying degrees.
And the fact that our extended family for
example has rights on us
because we are meant to uphold the ties
of kinship.
The fact that our friends have rights upon
us in that we behave to them in
a particular way, that we, you know, treat
them in a particular way, that we,
offer them certain help and, you know,
support, etcetera.
The fact that our neighbors have rights on
us. The fact that we actually have
a concept of an ummah,
a concept of
collective that is larger than just our own
individual families.
All of this
builds a picture
that means that we create a harmonious and
balanced society
in which human beings can thrive
because human beings need other human beings.
We need each other.
No man is an island
and for those of us who are living
at the moment in places where the sense
of community has been lost,
we must restore that balance.
It definitely starts with us.
In terms of Ramadan,
Ramadan is the perfect opportunity
to start building links that are wider than
what we would normally perceive.
So when we're talking about our extended families,
when we're talking about our friends,
talking about the neighbors,
the local community, the Masjid community,
even society at large,
Ramadan offers us a blessed opportunity to be
able to build those bonds for this month
and beyond insha'Allah.
So what I'd like to share with you
is 4 strategies.
And these 4 strategies,
you can use them with any one of
these groups.
But before I share the strategies,
I'd like to remind you of a very
important point.
The whole purpose of this series
was to encourage you not to take your
relationships for granted.
To actually be intentional
about building those relationships,
nurturing those relationships, giving those relationships their rights
for the sake of Allah alone.
So that everything that we do is an
act of aibada.
Every effort that we make,
every investment that we make, every time we
connect,
it is for the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
It's us playing our part
in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala's plan.
And I wanna offer you this as well.
When
you are a source of khir for others,
that khir has been written for that person,
but Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has chosen you
to be the conduit for that khir.
He's chosen you to be the messenger. He's
chosen you to be the bearer of that
khayr.
And in
our deen, that khayr could be anything.
It could be a smile.
It could be a kind word.
It could be a listening ear.
It could be a phone call in a
lonely time. It could be an offer
of looking after the kids.
It could be a cooked meal. It could
be money that you lend. It could be
a job that you help the person get.
It could be a surah that you teach
her.
Any of these things. Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
has already decreed that that person is going
to get that thing.
But
for us, the honor is that He has
chosen us to be the bearer of the
zikhir.
So
with that in mind and bearing in mind
that throughout this whole month, I've been reminding
you that everything that we are doing here
is ultimately for the pleasure of Allah Subhanahu
Wa Ta'ala.
So these strategies insha'Allah,
we've used them with our closest family but
we can also use them with those in
our outer circle. Just to get out of
our comfort zone a bit and extend ourselves
just that bit more for the benefit of
the community.
So how can we start?
Firstly,
connect.
As I said before,
modern life means that we are living such
fragmented disconnected lives regardless of the fact that
most of us are on social media and
can spy on each other, 247,
we are largely
disconnected.
So
I'm going to invite you to make an
effort this Ramadan
to connect
whether it's with relatives that you haven't spoken
to in a while,
whether it's with friends with whom you've lost
touch,
whether it's with your neighbor
or the local community,
I'm inviting you to connect with them.
Send them a message.
Send them a voicemail, a voicemail.
Give them a call.
Arrange to see them.
Arrange to take something round
to connect.
SubhanAllah
I am sure that you've experienced
a day like any other day
when out of the blue
someone you haven't heard from in a long
time, a relative, a friend, a colleague
calls you up or sends you a text
and says, Assalamu alaikum, how are you doing?
I was thinking about you, how is everything?
For you to know that that person in
their busy life doing whatever they're doing is
thinking of you
and cares enough
to reach out and connect with you,
it does something, mashallah.
It makes us feel
validated, it makes us feel appreciated, it makes
us feel needed and cared for. And
if you can do that for
a handful of people in your life
then Insha'Allah,
for the sake of Allah
you will be a source of khir for
that person.
So the first strategy really is to simply
connect.
The next strategy
is to share,
To share what you have, to share what
you know,
to share what you're doing.
Again, modern life makes us selfish.
Nowadays everybody is looking after themselves and looking
out for themselves and at the most they're
looking out for their own family and they
don't care what's happening with anybody else.
And while it may make sense to look
after your own,
what about the vulnerable in our communities?
What about those who have no one?
Or those who have families that
don't have, you know, any any need for
them or don't support them, don't give them
help.
There are vulnerable people in our communities.
And if all of us are only looking
after our own, those people are left out
and shut out.
And Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala has not set
up this community to be one in which
we look after ourselves and we leave the
most vulnerable to fend for themselves.
So when I say share, what do I
mean?
As I said, share what you have.
Whether it's food,
whether it's shopping,
whether it's, you know, knowledge, whether it's a
book, whether it's an abaya, a hijab,
share something.
Give from what you love as Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala tells us in the Quran.
Share with that single mom that you know.
Share with that brother who's down and out.
Share with those kids whose parents can't give
them much. Eid is around the corner.
Are you only going to look after your
own kids this Eid and care about them
having a fantastic day or will you extend
yourself, sis? Will you extend yourself and think,
how can I share the chhere that I
have with someone who really needs it?
The third strategy is help.
Be of service.
What do the people around you need? What
does the masjid need?
What does your friend need? What does your
your great aunt, what does she need?
How can you help her? How can you
be of service? And, for the bonus points,
how can the children help? How can the
children be of service?
And then the 4th the 4th strategy
is to appreciate.
As I said before, the whole purpose of
this series was to remind us to
really be grateful for what we have now
before we don't have it anymore.
So if you do have distant relatives, if
you have friends, if you have great neighbors,
if you have a Masjid community,
show your appreciation
today. Show your appreciation this month and aid
is coming up. It's a perfect time for
you to show appreciation to all of these
in your outer circle.
Now sis, you know it's over to you.
You know what we do. It's time for
you to take action.
So take some time now to think about
what I've said and
ask yourself how you can nurture your relationship
for the sake of Allah with those in
the outer circle. And remember the 4 step
process. 1st,
renew your intention.
This is about Allah's
pleasure and nothing else.
2nd,
slow down.
Be mindful and intentional with any action that
you decide to take.
The third,
take account of yourself.
At the end of the day,
look at what you planned,
see whether you delivered.
And number 4, allow yourself to press the
reset button
because if you whether you did or you
didn't, if Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala gives you
life tomorrow, then you have another chance.
I would like to thank you so much
for joining me for this season of A
Sister's Ramadan. It has been a privilege and
an honor to just share these few reminders
with you. I pray it was of benefit
and I pray Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala accepts
all our efforts.
May Allah bless you with a fantastic aid.
Accept all your aibaadat
and bi iznila. We will see each other
next year insha'Allah.
For now,
don't forget to leave your thoughts and your
comments. Tag iman channel and nayeemabrobert
in all your socials
and make du'a for us. We are all
trying and may Allah make us better next
year than we were this year. For now,
it's your sister Naima B. Robert signing out.