Answering Interesting Questions – Part 4

Salam aleikum, everyone. I was in between meetings and I figured I'd take the time to inshallah answer a couple of questions that have come through actually tons and tons of questions have come through. I'm hoping to get through at least three of them right now inshallah. The first of them is, could you give me

and other aspiring teachers out there some tips on how to be a good teacher? Is there a preferred method for teaching children? The love of salon, the Koran does the Prophet process on

make? And actually it's a question tied to this. But even though it's a separate question, does the Prophet Tyson and make mistakes? Why would Allah correct him when he says, Abba satola when he frowns? So let's take the first question. First, just tips on teaching. There's actually a really cool book I found unbecoming. The prophets, I saw them as a teacher, which highlights a lot of the teaching practices of the Prophet solution. And it's been translated into Urdu as well, I haven't seen an English translation yet. Maybe there's one out there. But from my experience, just kind of summarizing some of those things. And

in my own experience, the three or four things that I think take the majority credit for being an effective teacher, the first of them would have to be to think like a student, like, you know, when you know, something, or you're an expert in something and your professor or a teacher, then a lot of times people speak at the level of Professor or the speaker, the level of scholar, but when you're, when you're teaching, it's not the same as speaking, you're teaching, you have to actually think about people that have no background, they have no necessarily prerequisite information. And so you have to bring them from the bottom up, they shouldn't hear you teach and say, Man, that was a pretty

hard lecture, or I didn't get most of what was being said, that's not their fault. That's actually a teacher's fault. So to bring a teacher, a teacher has to visualize themselves literally sitting in there, not knowing anything, and how would they be spoken to. So that's, that's very, very important in the role of a teacher. A second thing that I would have to argue is letting go of inhibitions. One of the things that personally helped me a lot in teaching is teaching children. Because when you teach kids, you have to let go of your inhibitions. If you're going to tell a story, you can't be boring, because they're going to eat you alive, you have to turn into a line, we're going to talk

about a lion. Yeah, you know, you have to not not be shy. And you have to be able to make a fool of yourself. And completely let go. And this is actually part of, it's almost like theater, you argue sometimes teaching in a classroom, because keeping people's attention for a long period of time is not easy. You can't just talk for hours and hours and hours and expect people to just sit there and listen, you have to be able to captivate their attention. And part of doing that is to not have any hesitations. When you want to demonstrate something, when you want to say something, it's okay to make a joke that's not funny and nobody left, at least you're having fun doing it. And it actually

your confidence and your comfort with yourself. IT projects onto students, they can sense it.

The next thing is actually to be yourself. You know, a lot of people when they don't have a mic on, or they're not on the podium or teaching or speaking, there's someone and as soon as they get on the mic, they become somebody else, this is actually pretty weird, you just be yourself be whether you're talking to a crowd of 30 4050 50,000, it doesn't matter. You don't have to become a different persona, when you you know when the cameras on or when you're speaking. And that projects, because everybody sitting in your audience in teaching should feel like you're talking to them one on one. And that really, really goes a long way. And then of course, the final, especially not in speaking

but moreso in teaching is to, to find the right balance between being an authority in the classroom. And being a friend in the classroom. If you're too much of an authority, there's an emotional disconnect between yourself and your students. And that, you know, becomes a barrier to learning. And if you're too much too chummy and too, too much of a friend in the classroom, then you're not going to get any work done, because they're just going to turn the entire class into a handout. So finding that right balance between humor, and you know, taking it easy giving breaks, and then also putting your foot down when necessary. All of that is actually pretty, pretty important in a in a

teaching environment. The other question, which is completely unrelated, it was actually asked at the same time is about whether the profits excellent makes human mistakes. And that's an important question. And in order to easily understand I'll just give you one example because there's several examples that can be quoted, but I'll just give you one. And that's the famous one beginning of sola cabasse. Allah says Allah subhanaw taala. Right, he's referring to the Prophet Allah says, Allah, Allah. Allah says he frowned and he turned away, right? So and this is

a blind one had come to him. So basic story is that Abdullah Al Maktoum, one of the companions of the Prophet, who was blind, wanted to ask the Prophet a question. But in the at the time, the prophet was engaged socialism, talking to a leader of the Qureshi, a very prominent leader who you don't normally get a chance to speak to. But now there's a rare opportunity to maybe preach the message of Islam to him. So the Prophet is talking to him one on one, and don't let it be normal to comes barging in, and he interrupts

The prophet SAW said and asked him a question. And the prophet SAW sent him. Instead of telling him politely, just wait, let me finish this conversation. I'll get to your question in a second. He doesn't say anything, he simply frowns. And he like just small. Ibis actually means this little bulge on your forehead right here. That's it. That's all the ABA says it's not even rest the rest of your face. And the prophesies, I'm just kind of, he got interrupted again and again. And he just kind of looked away for a second. And then the IAAF came down, he frowned and he turned away. Now if you analyze the story a little bit careful, you learn a few things. The first of them is that the

prophet SAW Islam is not seeing anything. So what would be really hurtful to have to live in omak Doom is if the profitsystem said something, because he's he's certainly blind, but he's not deaf, right? Like, this happens to me all the time. I'm speaking I just came from the convention, I was speaking to literally hundreds of people in the middle of conversation with one somebody interrupts and says, Hey, somebody come, I really wanted to meet you, and have to literally say, I want to meet you, too. Let me just finish taking this person's question. And then I'll get right to you. Right. And I have to do that, even though it might seem as rude. But otherwise, this person that I was

first talking to feels like I just completely ignored them. I just forgot about them and just went on to somebody else. So if somebody does interrupt the conversation there is you've got to at least say, look, you need to wait or something. But the proposition didn't even want to do that. He was simply silent. It just he was silent because he didn't want to hurt his feelings. The second thing is even if the both showed up, or frustration on his forehead, how would I even though he's blind, you know, he didn't hurt his feelings by turning away, turning his face a little bit or frowning. Because at the end of the day, if this is a crime, if this is a sin of any magnitude, that means he

hurt someone's feelings, but he didn't. He didn't hurt the Lebanon, Muslims feelings. And if you add a little another layer of analysis to the story, you know, people that are blind have a very sharp, an extra sharp sense of hearing, that's the one sense that they rely on more than any other. So let me know more tomorrow, the long run, who is more than aware that our conversations already taking place. And regardless of knowing that a conversation is already taking place, he still interrupts him, he still chimes in the middle. And so actually, if anybody's done anything wrong, it's him. And yet Allah still criticizes the Prophet. So some of the question is then why. The first thing to note

here, as far as I've been able to understand it, is that the prophecies have never ever since he never ever since that's not a sin by any measure. But the best of our deeds, you know, if they go up to here, the prophets of Salaam, his standards for the lowest of his deeds is way above the best of our deeds. Allah has much higher of a standard for his prophet oxytocin. Then he said, for any human being, and so Allah azza wa jal critiques him for one reason. Now, for many reasons, but I'll tell you, one of them is that you know, you have people watching from a distance, and they don't know that Lebanon has interrupted a conversation, they just know the prophets lesson and paid attention

to a leader. And he ignored the blind one, he ignored the insignificant one, and it would give the wrong impression to the following, you know, and so the prophet SAW them as a role model has to be even more sensitive than anything else, because this can demoralize his followers. It might they might think, well, I guess the millionaires are more important. And us the rest of us are less important. So we should wait. And that is not something allows the witch and wants to project onto the online. So even to this day, if somebody some some governor or some, you know, some big shot or whatever wants to come and speak to me, and then a child wants to ask me a question. Right? It's in

my mind, if the governor should be given priority, When am I going to get a chance to speak to the governor, or the president or the CEO or the billionaire, the billionaire? And this kid can wait, then I haven't understood the message of the Quran. Like this is this is something being taught to the prophets, I saw them, it certainly doesn't constitute a sin, it actually constitutes higher moral values, higher principles of Dawa, like, you know, for Musa alayhis salam. He gets to speak to the greatest King alive at the time.

But he's going to talk down his analysis speak to him softly, but he's going to tell him like it is he's not intimidated by the fact or he's not feeling honored by the fact that he gets to speak to fit on. So we're going to be putting that position we're going to be put in a position where we're gonna have to choose who we give honor to and you know, who we who we give value to and the people who have said

that people who have accepted this Dean, they are valuable to align therefore they are valued