Wanting Guidance For Our Loved Ones

Sorry, we're silly Emily looked at me lasagna, Coco de la Mata Bittner en Del Monte La ilaha illallah wa la Miranda, Mina Latina, Amina Mohammed Oh, sorry, hard, whatever. So be happy, whatever. So the sub manera belanda mean,

Allah is sent many prophets and messengers, and virtually in all of their stories, you find many common themes. As a matter of fact, a lot of the things that they said to their people are identical. For example, you find in sort of Shara, the 26th of the Quran, prophets that are from different generations, they're centuries apart from each other. They didn't even speak the same language, many of them they were from different areas and parts of the world. And yet, when they spoke to their people, they said exactly the same thing. But De La Hoya, have their own, the identically, you know, reverberated the same words as if the message of Allah and the revelation of

allies like an echo, it continues to be the same throughout all of the prophets and messengers. And so that's one of the things that the Quran teaches us that all of these messengers taught exactly the same thing. And in many cases, said exactly the same thing, even if they said it in different languages. But beyond that, you find other commonalities between prophets. What you find between all of the profits, or the vast majority of them, if you study them carefully, is that all of them had challenges with their family. All of them had some kind of difficulty within their own family. So Ibrahim alayhis salam had a challenge with his father, you know, and then he had a major trial with

his son that I love tested him with his son, you have no holy Salaam, his wife and his son, you have Rasulullah Sai Solomon, his uncles, you have, you know, think of any prophet or messenger, you find some sort of a trial or difficulty associated with a family member. And that's important, because Allah azza wa jal taught our messenger RNA Sato Salaam for the killer in NEMA and Tomodachi plus de la him the Messiah. Remind, because all you are is someone who's meant to remind, your only job is to deliver something that will help people remember that's it, you are not in charge of them at all, less than anything be most likely you're not in control over them. sedara in Arabic is control. And

the messenger is being told, no matter how much you remind them. You know, when you remind somebody or you give somebody advice, you're hoping they'll take your advice. It's it's logical, it's good for them, you mean it in good intention? Why wouldn't they listen to you? And when you give somebody advice out of concern and love for them, and they don't listen to you, it's frustrating. Why aren't they listening? I mean, I told them, I even clarify to them why I'm telling them this. They know what's good for them, and they're still not listening to me. And it kind of a frustration and anger builds inside you. And that frustration, maybe even it may not be because you're arrogant. Maybe it

may not be because you want you know people to be under your command. But it may simply be because you want them to change for their own good. And that's what the prophet wanted sallallahu alayhi wa sallam for his people. And yet they many of them wouldn't change. You know, I'm reminded most powerfully of what happens at the casting of Abu Talib. Abu Talib is an uncle of the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam who's not like a Buddha, he's not like a Buddha and his other uncle's were adamantly against Islam. They insulted him, they attacked him. Abu lahab was the most vicious of them. He even celebrated when the prophets child passed away, next door neighbor celebrating that he

heard that a baby just died. How sick is that? And that's his uncle, you know. And so he experienced incredible amounts of suffering at the hands of his family. But we thought it was a support butadiene protecting the profit or the subtle system, he took charge of him. And he even brought him back securely back into America. So you know, there's so many things that Abu Talib did for you could say not just the Prophet, but actually for Islam. But he didn't accept Islam. Until his dying breath. He wouldn't accept it. He was closed, but he just couldn't get himself to do it. He just didn't take it. And that hurt the profit so much. Salallahu alaihe salam that someone who loves him

not just someone who hates him, someone who loves him, someone who cares for him, someone he cares for also, like a father figure, and he just won't listen to the messengers of Allah hearts and like, think about this for a moment. Nobody can give a better speech. And nobody can make a better argument. And nobody can present something more lovingly. Then the Prophet himself sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, he is the best teacher for all of humanity. So Abu Talib had the best teacher with the best message and the best opportunity to learn this message. There was nothing missing. Everything that could be done was being done. And yet he's still not listening. And so this pain that maybe the

prophet SAW I said, You know what, what did he do wrong? What did What's missing? Why won't he just accept and so a lot hold the messengers a lot more some something very heavy that I want you to really think about today. And that's the words of Allah when Abu Talib passed away in Nicoletta de mana Bob De La Creme De La Hoya de Manisha you cannot use certainly our

Not the one who guides whoever you love. You're not in charge of guiding whoever you love now, I love my children.

You can love your spouse, you can love your parents, you can love your brother or your sister. We have love for family. The profit slice alums love can never be compared. The kind of love he had the kind of heart he can never compare. And that love makes you want the best things for the person you love. Which is why the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam wants guidance for a butadiene, that's the best thing you can have. The ultimate gift would be guidance. And Allah has given the ultimate gift of guidance to the messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and his loving uncle didn't take it. He didn't take this profound gift. It's so painful, and a lot taught him a very heavy reality. And

through that painful experience of the Prophet sallallahu wasallam he taught us a reality, you for sure are not the one who guides whoever you love. You know, every time we read about the Prophet, sly Solomon, something painful that he went through, you have to understand something Allah put him through trials and difficult experiences, not because Allah wants him to go through difficult experiences. Allah loves him more than anyone else. These This is the most beloved creation of Allah. So you have to ask yourself, why is Allah putting his messenger through these painful experiences, because he is rotten, will either mean because he's a mercy, and a teacher, and a care

and an act of love from Allah for all people forever to come. In other words, you and I are going to have people that we love. You and I are going to have people in our life that we want to see guided, that we want to see change, and we're not going to see them change no matter what we do. And it's going to be frustrating. What are we supposed to do? I've tried everything. I've tried speaking softly. I've tried gently reminding, I've tried this. And I've tried that, and I've tried the other nothing's working. I don't know what to do. The they seem to be getting even further away. And it isn't these moments that we have to remind ourselves of the exact same pain that the Prophet

salallahu alaihe salam felt at people like his uncle, and by the way, it's not even limited to his uncle in, in the Arabic language in nicoleta. demon. This is called Allah, Allah in grammar. So the expected language is in Nicoletta demon, who there's a woman expected, but the there's a half of the male pronoun missing. And what that does, is that the ayah is not even limited to the uncle of the Prophet salallahu alaihe salam, the IRS is actually open to his love for all people and all you know the entire creation, all of humanity, the profits, Iceland's burden was not just his family, the profits Iceland's burden out of love for humanity was actually all of humanity, whoever would not

listen, whoever would not listen, can you imagine the analogy he gave a lot more I said him about his love for finding gifts, giving people guidance, he would compare himself to someone standing in front of a fire. And these eggs, insects and these moths, you know, they get attracted to the light and they fly right into the fire. And he's trying to shoo them away. You know, like, literally like you get those zappers, bugs, diapers and stuff in homes, that attract the bugs, because of the light, you know, that and he's trying to get them away from there, you're gonna kill yourself, you're attracted to something that's going to destroy you, and he's trying to push them away. That's

the incredible love of Rasulullah sallallahu, hundreds of them. And yet Allah told him, actually, your only job is to remind people, your only job is to deliver a message in a loving caring way. But what they do from there on but in some other NFC he basura will come as a person has to be in full view of their own self, everybody's responsible for themselves. You know, when I travel, and I, you know, sometimes people see me at a restaurant and recognize me, and then after wanting a selfie, they want to have a conversation, or whatever. And we sit down and have a chat. And when we have a chat, a lot of times, it's about their family. Here, this is my daughter. And you know, she used to

pray. She used to pray every single day. And

until she was 1213 years old, I made sure she prayed on her prayers. And then by the time she got 18, she went to college. And now I don't know if she prays anymore. What can you tell her? Tell her something that can translate. So and she and the daughter sitting next to her rolling her eyes like Oh God, here we go again. You know, she'd been put on the spot. So first of all, I apologize to the daughter, sorry. And she even tells me the mom even tells me I sent her all your videos.

And so I'm sorry that she sends you my videos. First of all, let's let me apologize about that. But after that, the thing is that we have to understand something. Allah Who controls we believe Allah controls every leaf on every tree. We control Allah controls every movement of every honeybee. Allah Who controls every step that every n takes. And I asked Do you believe in this control that Allah has? Yeah, I do that why do you think you can control your child who's in charge? Who's going to control the outcome for our kids, what they are going to do and what they're not going to do. Once they become adults. Then their choices are theirs to make

We have to understand our only job can be to remind but even that so gently, you know, and some some parents or something. It's not just about parents, it could be siblings or spouses whoever else. We start thinking No, no, that's all I do is just remind. But yeah, nagging is not the same as reminding. Sarcasm is not the same as reminding criticizing someone or making someone feel like scum is not the same as reminding embarrassing someone is not the same as reminding. Oh, you didn't pray? Did you?

know but I remind I remind very gently How do you remind, you know, you're just gonna burn in hell if you keep keep keep this. This is not the way you remind someone.

This is not the way you you're hoping they dress the way you'd like them to. That they behave the way you'd like them to. They pray the way and and ask a hard question to people who want to do that. I would I just wish my son would pray and your son comes over to the house to visit. He works in some different city. He comes to visit you. And when he visits you, you say Pray, pray, pray, and then he prays fine. And when he prays, why did he pray? I mean, if he was gonna verbalize his intentions, they're not going to be I'm about to praise the Lord Allah for Allah subhanho wa Taala. He's gonna say I'm gonna pray for Raqqa because my mother won't leave me alone, Allahu Akbar.

Those intentions are not for ally anymore. That he didn't do that for a loss of what good? Is it? in the yard? actions are only good if their intentions are right. Doesn't everybody know that. So if we're trying to control what somebody else does, and now they're doing it, because we wanted them to do it, and we forced them to do it, or we pressured them to do it, or we nag them into doing it, then they're doing it for the wrong reasons, which makes it completely worthless. It's utterly worthless. And so here, what the messenger is being taught is a profound heavy truth, we are not in control. We're not in charge. We cannot control any other human being in what they do. No One No

matter how much we love them, no matter how much we think we're responsible for them. And that's the next thing. parents feel like they're responsible. a spouse might feel like they're responsible, an older brother or a sister might feel like they're responsible. But I'm responsible my my brother, my younger brother is drifting away. He's doing bad stuff, I need to stop him, I'm responsible for him. A father might feel responsible, or mother might feel responsible. The thing is, nobody's ever going to feel more responsible than Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam. Nobody, nobody will ever have more of a sense of responsibility. And he did feel the burden, the pain of people not listening of people

drifting away, he did feel that pain. And yet a lot told him there's a reality that even if it's in your mind, your heart forgets it. And your heart needs to remember that you cannot guide whoever you love. And when you see the one you love going in harm's way, if you saw your child, you know, going towards a swimming pool, and they don't know how to swim. If you saw somebody heading towards a car crash, if you saw, if you saw that you'd want to stop them, that's what naturally we want. That's a protective, you know, sense sense that a lot put inside all human beings, we want to protect those that we love. But we have to do it after understanding that when it comes to guidance, when it comes

to changing somebody's behavior, that we have to follow the model given to our messenger sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, and he's being told your only job is to remove it, you are not in control, less than a lymphocyte. You are not in control over them at all. You are not going you cannot guide whoever you love ally. In fact, he guides whoever he wants, you know, sometimes people are in the best environment. Let me let's take that a step further. Sometimes people are in the best environment, they're brought up in the masjid, they're around people that remember Allah all the time, the best environment, everybody around them is good. And you assume that if you're if a person

is in a very good environment, that they're going to their upbringing is going to be good, that they're going to turn out okay, you know. And on the other hand, if somebody is brought up in a very bad environment,

then they're going to turn out bad. But think about that when Allah decided that Ibrahim alayhis salam is going to be guided. He was in the worst possible environment, nobody believed everybody around him was doing all these are under was idols. When the young people of the cave decided to turn to Allah. They're not even prophets. They're not even prophets. There is no good environment around them. They're young, they're wealthy, they can do whatever they want with their life and yet a lot turn their heart and they turned meaning your environment doesn't decide whether or not you're going to turn out okay? That's not what decides it. On the other hand, you have the city of Medina,

how many people would wish What if Allah gave us the opportunity to live in Medina at the same time as sudo la sala la harissa? Anybody would take that wish any believer would take it? Yeah, I'd love to be there. I'll take it. I'll give up anything to be there. in the company of a total loss I showed up in the city of Medina. And yet you have some of the worst hypocrites that have ever lived, living in the city of Medina, in close proximity to the Prophet sallallahu Sallam are they not in the best environment they are. They're actually praying in the first row behind

Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam some of the leaders of the menorah clean, the environment doesn't decide whether or not you're going to be a good person or a bad person. That's not going to decide when the law decides to guide you, then none of the misguiding factors have any effect. When a law decides that you don't you, if you walk away from a lot of guidance, you could be in the best environment that will make any change. So we start assuming that maybe we can control our children's behavior or anybody's behavior, if we change their environment completely. I want I want to give them a different kind of environment, I want to give them a more suitable environment. The best

environment is actually a supportive environment from a person. It's not society. It's not the street, it's not the school. It's not the outside world. It's the world inside the family. That's actually the ultimate influence. Think about this. You have this child use of Elisa, just a kid tells us tells us that a dream, you just saw a dream. And his dad tells him not to tell his family, his brothers and, you know, encourages him and reminds him of Allah. What we learn as a hint from the Quran is from an early age, his father actually gave him some good lessons in life, how to remember Allah, how to keep conscious of align your life as a child. And clearly his family is not a

good family situation, his brothers are no good. We learned that early on. So it's not like he's in a very healthy family environment. And soon after that he's kidnapped. He's taken away. He's now a servant in a non believing society, which means there's no believing influence left. Later on in his life, he's in jail, obviously jails not a good environment. So most of his early life he spent in a bad environment. Most of his early life was in a terrible environment yet that that did not control his guidance, that did not dictate whether what kind of person he's going to be. But good influence, good reminder from his father had an effect. Our job is to remind each other lovingly, our job is

not to control. Our job is not to get a you know, anxious and frustrated with those that we love, when they don't behave the way we want them to behave. And this is this is actually not the way of the prophets Howdy, Masato, salaam, I'll add one more thing. And that's important. You know, when when people find sometimes, you know, many of us are because we're in the information age, we discover things about our Deen later on in life. You know, some of us were brought up Muslim, and Muslim families. And we didn't really know why we're Muslim, except that our parents are Muslim. Right? So we just kind of took it for granted that we're Muslim. And when you know, when you move to

a different part of the world, or you're in a city or somewhere else, and you are now exposed to a life that doesn't really go with Islam,

you know, you don't you don't really know why you're Muslim, to begin with, why your family practices or believes these things to begin with. Islam just gets reduced to just a few rituals. There's some things that we do some maybe prayer, maybe some Muslims, just Fridays, or at least we go for the prayer. That's what it gets reduced to, or at least I think Ramadan is coming. So yeah, there's there's a diet season coming. So your Islam gets reduced and reduced and reduced. But for some people later on in their life, they discover Islam, again, they rediscover their faith, they realize, whoa, this is this is serious. There's a lot of talking to me. They rediscover a lost book,

they rediscover a lost messenger sallallahu sallam, and they become more serious about their religion, they change the experience of transforming transformation. Then when when they change, obviously, everybody around them notices that they've changed, right, so they don't dress the same way anymore. They don't talk the same way anymore. They don't, they don't hang out the same places anymore. They're socializing has changed, everything changes, everything around you changes. But what happens unfortunately, with people that change like that, especially parents who change like that, they're so eager, and so excited to want their children to change immediately do

because I made so many mistakes when I was younger, I never want my children to make those mistakes. I don't want my 18 year old or 10 year old to make the same mistakes. So they start getting so excited to give their children what they now found. But the way they do that can be so overbearing, the way they do that can be so overexcited, they don't even realize they're doing more damage than good. They're doing more good. They're trying to be more cyclists. They're trying to be in control. They're not doing it for bad intention. They're doing it out of love. But we have to remind ourselves when you do that, when you try to enforce something, nag something when you try to overdo

something, instead of bringing somebody closer to a lesbian, you're actually pushing them further away. So you find conversations between parents and kids. Where the mom says the same she brings up Dean in some way she brings up prayer she brings up a job she brings up whatever and the son says of the daughter says, Oh, I gotta go talk to you later mom.

Because now every time you bring up the dean you bring up religion, it's an allergic reaction and you created that that time and then you say, maybe I'll have maybe I'll send something Oman videos that's going to help and you know what, those videos I'm now in their spam folder. Because and I'm blocked

on social media, because looking at my face gives those kids an allergic reaction like, Oh, here we go. This guy reminds me of all the times my mother yells at me. You know, or other people like me. Oh, you know what he said? You know what this one said? You know, you should watch this video you should do this. No, no, no stop. Easy, easy, easy. Take a step back. The first thing is actually love itself. When you when you show someone love when you show someone care, you know, we're so eager to make someone listen to what we have to say. How often is it that we're listening to what they have to say?

When someone's struggling? How often are we listening to them? This is actually a big difference between us and other faith communities. I'll tell you a story before I conclude about how do you bring people's hearts closer to yourself?

You know, some time ago, I actually attended

a church gathering. Just want to see what these guys do.

So it's like a Wednesday night.

And the preacher speaks for like five minutes. He says whatever he says. And then the most interesting thing happens. He asked the crowd, so who's having a problem?

Tell me about it. So I'm gonna I just lost my job. It's been tough. All right, everybody pray for Jeff. Everybody starts praying for Jeff. Sorry, guys. I just got divorced, she took the house.

You know, everybody pray for. And then this woman, I just got diagnosed with cancer. And everybody's praying for her. And then this guy in the corner says he lost a job. Talk to me afterwards, there's opening in my company and they start, you know, because the, what brings them closer together was not that this guy is going to speak for hours and hours. And they're going to sit there and listen, actually, they were drawn to this gathering, because they have a place where they can be heard, where they can feel supported.

The slow loss of a lot more isn't wasn't an amazing listener. We think of him as an amazing speaker. Yes, he was also incredible listener. A lot of times the people whose hearts you want to affect you, you and I start thinking if we just talk to them, they'll change. Let me tell you more than talking to people. We have to learn to listen to people. We have to learn to listen to people. And when you listen to people and you don't listen to just answer them on argue back, or before you even finish hearing what they have to say you already have 10 answers for them. No, no, just listen. Don't listen with a pre programmed, I'm gonna answer him real good.

Now, there are some people that are listening to a question halfway through I let me tell you what, no, no, just just listen, just listen, this is not a debate, it's not a contest, you're not going to crush them with evidence, this is not going to be a you know, some sort of a competition where you're going to answer them real good. And everybody's gonna go to quit, no, no, none of that. None of that. Your job is just to be a good listener First, let let people say what they have to say, let your family members air air out what they feel. And you have to first if you can't empathize, you know, one of the qualities of the prophets, I saw them, Bill minero, for him, the profit section of

his roof, which means extremely empathetic, meaning he goes out of his way to try to understand what others are feeling what others are feeling. You know, so many times you find variations of the prophecy. So people came to him and said, I need this, I need this, I need this. You know, find the prophets I said, I'm going directly to them and saying you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this, they're coming to him and telling him their problem. This is the this is the level of comfort that they have with Allah sallallahu sallam. And today anybody who even looks religious, or represents their religion, people don't want to come to them, they want to run away from them.

Just go anywhere close, the lecture is gonna start. You know, I don't want to do that. So this, internalizing that you and I are not in control. Our job is to give gentle reminder, and, and we cannot do so if we don't become good, empathetic listeners, if we don't empathize with the feelings that you don't have to agree with somebody else's feelings, but everybody's entitled to their feelings. Everybody has feelings that they have to work through. And we have to be able to do that we have to be especially for those that we love, as always, should soften our hearts towards those that we love, and make us better able to listen to them. May Allah azzawajal make us wise in the way

that we give reminder and realize what will make us humble that even when we give advice, that doesn't mean that we know everything. We should actually always remain humble that we are students ourselves. We're learning ourselves. And so we make us careful about the advice that we give that it's actually based on sound knowledge. barakallahu li walakum feel carotid Hakeem when the final year coming. It was