Why I Don’t Do DMs and Private Messaging – Live Discussion

Bismillah Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa Salatu was Salam ala Rasulillah wa ala alihi wa sahbihi women WA, Salam Alaikum Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh we are back for a nother live session hadn't been enough. I'm actually quite proud of myself. This is the third week in a row, that we've been consistent with these live sessions. So it's good to be doing something consistently, online had the love. So for those of you who are joining us live, I would love to hear where you're from, where you're joining us from so in the chat, be sure to mention where you're joining us from. And also, I do like to make these like a discussion. So I'm going to answer the question that is posed today.

I'm going to give you my perspective on it, but I want to hear your perspective on it also. So any comments, any questions? Drop them in the live chat and I'll try my best to address them in sha Allah, Allah Allah. So we're going to keep it kind of light when keep it as a discussion in sha Allah. So let's get started with today's prompt or today's question. So Emad from Sri Lanka, like Allah here, it is good to have you here. How did he last saw you were one of the early people who joined before the live stream started Marois from London. Oh, it was set on the luck. Good to have you here from London. I always find a lot of people join from Europe from the UK. And I tried to

make this one a little bit earlier. So we can have people I know there's people even in like Pakistan and India in that part of the world who'd like to join in as well. So it's good to have those two. So I try to make a little bit earlier today. And I'm going to try and vary the time.

But it's going to be on Sundays in sha Allah. So hair from Dallas, and with Sutton's O'Hare, Anakin was set off to La Saria from Bangladesh. MashAllah beautiful all across the world. It's good to have all of you here, and I'm looking forward to this discussion. Can we ask any questions on any topic? So in general, I like the questions to be related to the topic itself so we can have this discussion. And as I mentioned, last time, I'm going to do a specific like open q&a, one of these live sessions in sha Allah but for today's session, to try to keep it related to the topic so we can have this discussion Xena from Kuwait Mashallah. Mazatlan, S S S. A, from Chicago from Chinatown,

how they love Good to have you as well. hamdulillah All right. So why I don't do DMS and private messaging? So this is a question that I actually get a lot of how Allah for what jersey? Good to have you have a son from Sweden, honey love beautiful. So this is a question that I get quite a bit actually, on my

Instagram. I don't do DMS on my Twitter. I don't do I think they're called DMS as well, direct messages. I don't do any type of private messaging on my Facebook, so on and so forth. So people always ask, like, why can't we just message you and ask you a question. You know, like, someone's dealing with something and they're like, you know, I need your advice. I'm like dealing with a problem. And I need your advice on something like why can I just hit you up? Or someone has like a fifth question like, is this hidden or not? Or is it okay to do this or not? Why can I just hit you up and ask you a question directly? Why don't have access to like that, and Subhanallah I just right

off the bat. Sometimes people you know, and I'm not really here to judge anyone's heart or anything like that. But sometimes people will judge my heart and they would like, you know, you think you're too good to like, respond to messages or something like that. Or, you know, like you think you're so famous and you can't lie that is not it at all. I don't think I am above anyone, only Allah knows our true values. How Allah may Allah protect us? That is not the reason. So I want to clarify my reasons for doing so. A couple different reasons. I'll let me start off with probably

I guess there's two main reasons. One of the reasons is that, I don't believe that answering questions through private messaging is the best thing for me. So I want to first of all say that this is a personal issue for me, it may or may not apply to other people. First of all, there's the very big glaring issue and I can we can call it Subhanallah the elephant in the room of speaking to someone of the opposite gender, who is not madam, right, who you're not madam to. And so that is the natural outcome of it, you know, and and, you know, sometimes people say like, why can't you do brothers only? Well, it's really hard to control that and say, like, Oh, I'm only going to answer

questions from others. And that has other problems, which I'll get to in a bit. But in general, right. So the issue one of the issues is, I don't want to be having private conversations.

with someone that I'm not related to, for a number of reasons, but one of the big reasons is the issue of Halawa. Now what is Halawa? Halwa is a concept in Islam which is basically means being alone with someone who you're not home to. And we have many evidences for this one of the evidence of this is the hadith of even Omar or the Allah and in which she said that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, yes Luhan Raju Loon, the Moroccan in Cana thoroughly feel mushy upon, he said, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam that a man is not alone with a woman, except the third of them is the she upon meaning they're never if they're alone, then the she upon will always accompany them in

this hadith is sahih. Inshallah, Allah is mentioned in some Timothy if I'm not mistaken. So, you know, a lot of times we interpret that and people see that and they're like, well, that's being alone in a room or being alone physically alone with someone, which is correct, we're not supposed to be physically isolated, with someone that we're not related to, in that way to protect ourselves from the attacks of the chiffon. And a person may say, Well, I trust myself, you know, I know I'm not gonna, like say anything bad, or I'm no, I'm not gonna be tempted and so on and so forth. Well, that, you know, that's, that's a hard thing to really say, Subhan Allah, but even if a person has

full confidence in themselves, the prophet civili send them actually, he tells us of the Shere Khan because a person from themselves may not have a bad intention. But as the prophet satellite send them said, that in the shaytaan, Yejide, middle in San Madrid dam that she upon flows, through human beings, like the flowing of blood, and meaning, and so parcela elaborated on that. And he said, the shift button can put a bad thought into your heart, right, so a person may not have a bad intention, they themselves, you know, they may be talking to someone of the opposite gender, and they're, you know, nothing, they're in their heart, and they went in with a very good intention. But Subhanallah,

something creeps in from the ship bond. And then a person puts themselves in a position where, you know, they have to really fight that desire or have to fight that temptation. And you may be able to be victorious in that fight, and you may not and a lot only knows. So I choose to not put myself in that position. And look, as I said, this applies to being alone with someone physically like in person. But also a lot of times people forget that this also applies to being alone with someone in a conversation. So private messaging, or like WhatsApp, or like messages and all that. That is also a conversation. And that is also being alone with someone because there's no one else who has access

to this conversation. So this is not a public conversation that is happening. This is a private conversation that is happening. And so that issue of Halawa being alone with someone applies to our conversations as well, whether it be on the telephone, whether it be you know, messaging, whether it be direct message, even emails of how long I think we should be careful, even when it comes to emails. And so for this reason, I don't want to open that door at all right? So Insha Allah, I have a good intention. And I'm not judging anyone's intention, someone who may ask a question or send a message, it's not my place to judge their intention Insha Allah, they have the best of intentions,

and surely they need help, right. But the issue is, that is opening the door for something that very much potential has the potential for leading to something which is haram or something which is forbidden, let alone we live in the

the me to era, right, the hashtag me to era where a lot of times have different interpretations of the same conversation. And this is one of the problems with the homie too, one of the issues I should say, that has come to light with the whole metoo era. And that is that you may have two people who have different interpretations of the same incident. A person may say, Oh, I wasn't flirting, I wouldn't mean anything by it. I was just having, I was just being nice. I was just being polite. And the other person says, no, they're definitely flirting with me. Right? They were definitely like, coming on to me, or they're definitely they were being improper with me, right? As

a Muslim, we don't put ourselves in that situation to begin with, right? We don't put ourselves in a situation where we would be isolated. We're now it's just you and them. And now it's your word against their word, right? So we don't want to put ourselves in that position. I certainly don't want to put myself in that position. And that's why I don't open that door. From from the get go. I do have an email that is checked by someone. I have a bookings email, if you really want to get in touch with me on my Facebook page on my Instagram page. On my Twitter, it's bookings at Syed disclaim.com Very simple [email protected] If you want to really reach out to me, there's a third

party who will read that email and and you know, discuss it with me or forward it to me or whatever it may be. So I haven't completely cut off. That's one of the big issues right, so I would rather protect myself

And, and not put myself in that position. And over the years, you know, I've been online now for

probably a decade now. And I, you know, as a panelist seemed like, a long time, but I have you know, very quickly in very early on in my online presence I decided this, this is what it should be. Because even in the beginning, you know, when I would receive those private messages, I was just very uncomfortable with them even though you know, Inshallah, the person asking the question did not have anything, no bad intention or anything like that. But it's just weird. To be alone in a conversation with someone who you really don't know, or you know, there, you don't know, you don't, you just don't know. So I'd rather take myself out of that situation. And I like to practice what I

preach, I try my best, you know, to practice what I preach. I tell a lot of young brothers and sisters, a lot of times fitness starts from that conversation, someone DMS you, you DM somebody trying to slide into somebody's DMS or someone's trying to slide into your DMS, right? It's sometimes it can start very innocently. And a lot of times I've seen cases where it's like, you know, I'm just trying to talk to this person, even a person may say, for the sake of marriage, right, I'm interested in this person, so I hit them up, you know, on Instagram or whatever. But that doesn't always and a lot of times it does not work out? Well, subhanAllah, because a lot of times,

you know, when that private conversation happens, we may be making an inquiry for marriage. But when feelings get involved when a person gets attached, you know, turns into love and infatuation. And then you know, marriage and stuff just become secondary, it's just out of the picture. And actually, people end up getting hurt. You know, a lot of times, you know, I've seen sisters who, you know, get hit up by a brother and brothers like, Oh, I just want I'm getting in touch with you, because I'm interested in marriage. And then like, six months later, like, there's no, there's some talk of marriage, but he was just trying to, like, you know, get to know or maybe like, whatever, right man,

may Allah protect us. And so I tell young brothers and sisters, I'm gonna look, if you're interested in somebody, get a third party, right to reach out to them, protect yourself, don't put yourself in a position where you are alone with someone where the chiffon may have an influence on this interaction, right? So I try to practice what I preach, and I try my best to for even in my personal life, I try to apply that as much as possible to not be in a situation where those those isolated conversations take place. That's number one. Number two, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well, by the way, so in the chat. But the second issue for me is that, in my experience, when I

have come across these questions that people ask, it's one of two types of questions. Either it's let's take the easier one first, it's a fair question, right? So it needs a ruling. So it needs a fair trial, right? They say, is this halal or not? Is this haram? What should I do in this situation, so on and so forth? Well, one of the responsibilities of someone who's being asked a question, who has been asked for a ruling is to know and understand the person that they are giving the fat to? Or giving the answer to. And it is very difficult to do that in a online message or an email, let alone in many of those cases, I would need much more information than what is being

presented to me. And I don't want to give an under informed answer. Right? Even a person's culture can make a difference in how that in how I would respond to that particular question, or what type of answer would be given. This is something by the way I cover in detail in one of my seminars called trends, we talked about how culture can affect if ruling in a certain culture something may be considered acceptable and normal. In another culture, it may not be considered acceptable and normal. So if a person is in this culture, the scholars in that culture may say, Yeah, it's fine. In another culture, scholars may say, You know what, this is not. Okay. I'll give you an example of

this. And I know this is gonna spur a lot of questions. Maybe we'll keep this for another, this topic for another time. But the question of is a woman

will keep men out of it for now is a woman allowed to get her nose pierced? Right?

And I'd like to hear what you guys think about this first, what do you all think? Is it permissible for a woman to get her nose pierced or not? Is it okay? Any thoughts? Any ideas? What do you all think? Is it okay? Is not okay? The answer to this really depends a lot.

Depends on the culture in certain cultures. A woman getting her nose pierced is very normal. As a matter of fact, not only is it normal, it's it's not only acceptable, it's the norm. So in like South Asia, for example, you know, Pakistan, India, those countries, if a woman has her nose pierced, nobody thinks twice about it doesn't look odd, doesn't look weird or whatever, in other cultures and maybe kind of weird for a woman to have her nose pierced in some Arab cultures.

It's not normal women don't have their noses peers. So if the scholars over there asked, Should I get my nose pierced scholars will will likely say, it's better not to do that, because that's not normal in our society. On the other hand, in a different culture, it may not be a big deal for a woman to have her nose pierced. So here's a case where culture makes a big difference. And I'm not going to get into men having their ears pierced. Maybe this is a question we'll answer in another live session. Inshallah, is it permissible for men to get their ears pierced? We'll leave that topic for now. But that's number one. So it's a fifth question, even a fifth question. It's very difficult

for me to answer just through a message. The second type of question is advice. Someone says, I need your advice, right? I'm, for example, I'm having problems with my husband, I need your advice. I'm having problems with my wife, I need your advice. I'm having problems with my in laws, I'm having problems with my parents, I'm having problems with my children. Whatever issue, I'm having this difficulty at work, I'm going through this with whatever in the Michigan, whatever the issue is, a person says, I need advice.

That is even more of a serious issue for me, even though the fifth questions are serious as well. But that is even can become even more serious. Because I'm lacking even more information, I would need even more information to answer that question. Because there's so much more than I would need to know, I you know, in most cases, I would need to really understand what is happening here to give advice, not only that, I would actually need to hear both sides of the story. Someone says I'm having problems with my wife, right? I would say, Okay, let me hear your problems. And let me hear your what your wife is saying as well. On top of that, it requires an extended back and forth.

Right, which as I said, going back to point number one, the issue of having those private conversations, it's just it's it's going to be very, very difficult. On top of that, I recommend and I usually when I see questions like that, I very quickly see, look, this person doesn't need a quick answer. They don't need me to say, hey, you know, what, just do this. What they actually need is counseling. Right counseling means that they sit down with someone who can listen to them, who can hear them who can understand their background, and who can counsel them. One of the things that people don't realize a lot of times is that the Prophet civili seldom himself, he would actually

counsel people, in a lot of cases, it wouldn't be that he would say, you know, what, do this, get out of here and go, he would understand the person was asking the question, he would talk to them, he would talk to them based off of who they are, I would understand that, and he would counsel them, just like that young man. And I'm not gonna get into too much detail regarding this incident. But just like that young man who came to the prophets, I send them and said, Make zinna halal for me make it permissible for me to commit Zina. The rest of them didn't say It's haram, get out of here leave. The process hadn't counseled him. He spoke to him. He said, you know, would you like this for

your female relatives, he talked to him, he had a conversation with him. And that is what is required in a lot of these cases. And I understand that sometimes people don't have access to someone that they can call up or they can reach out to maybe they will have a local counselor therapy, yes, you know, someone's at their counseling and therapy. In many of these cases, people need therapy. And I know in our in our, a lot of times in certain cultures, there's a there's a taboo, there's a stigma when it comes to getting therapy, when it comes to going seeking counseling. It's looked down upon, but it is my opinion, and Allah knows best that we need to remove the stigma,

right? That this shouldn't be a taboo issue, that counseling is actually part of our deem to get in. But it should be counseling from someone who's qualified to give counseling. Many times people give counseling are not qualified to give counseling, that's another topic for another time. But simply ask, answering a question on a private message to me oftentimes can do more damage than good. So those are some of my reasons why I don't do DMS why I don't do private messaging. And, and, you know, I tend to stay away from that. And also, if it's really about learning, you know, to me, learning should happen in a classroom environment in an environment where there can be some back and

forth. Even environment like this, right? So I'm more open to discussing topics in this live environment, because now you're here in the chat, you can ask your question, you have some some clarification you need, we can discuss this issue, that can be a real conversation instead of just one sided or one person just gives their side. And then you know, the other issue even often that people say to me, like why don't you respond to comments online? Well, maybe that's a topic for another time. And I don't know if I have a lot of time to get into that right now. But it's very similar problem when it comes to comments. What do you do? Mother was asking, what do you do when

people leave negative comments or trolling on your videos? My personal

My personal way of dealing with this, and those few people who know me, they know this is how I deal with it. Number one, I generally don't get into the comments. I actually, you know, and I hate to say this, a lot of times, I don't read the comments, especially if there's like, a lot going on, I won't read the comments. And I do have admins on my pages that will check the comments, make sure it's nothing offensive, or nothing rude or nothing bad being said, and they'll filter out those comments. And I've told my admins, if anyone is being rude, if anyone is using foul language, if anyone is insulting people, delete their comment. And let them know at work, they do it multiple

times, block them, like banned them from the page, I have no problem, no problem banning people from my page, there are plenty of other plate places that they can go if they want to be negative, and they want to be condescending, and rude and mean, that's not I don't want that on my page. So so leave it

generally, you know, I leave it to my admin to recognize trolling. And the best way to deal with a troll is to not respond to them. What a troll is looking for is a response. That's what they want. They want a reaction out of you. So the best thing we can do when someone does something that is not to leave them be right. But if it is, like I said, if it's offensive, if it's rude if they are,

you know, if it's if it's just bad, then that comment should be deleted, and the person should be blocked or or removed from the page. So that's the way that's the way I deal with it. You know, honestly, as I said, these type of issues should rather be covered in person, you know, to get rid of that whole situation. So here said we would a conversation between a brother and a sister in Islam in a public domain, with other people surrounding them also be considered halwa. Good question.

It really depends, right? So there's many and there's more detail to the issue of Honeywell, which really should be studied in detail. And perhaps I actually do cover this in one of my classes, we do go over the issue of color in more detail.

But in general, if it is a public environment, and other people can hear what you're saying, and then it's it would not be considered Halawa. One of the things that I would

that I would tell you one of the disclaimers, I should say that I'll give, one of the things that watch out for is that sometimes we can be in an environment where we are surrounded by other people, but they don't care. And so it's almost as if we're alone. So I'll give an example of that someone goes to a restaurant. And they're surrounded by other people, let's say they're in a, in a in a in a non Muslim country, or in a country where

they are they are which McCall it they're the Muslims on the minority, right? So it's non Muslims, and you go to what you go to a non Muslim environment. And even if if the if the guy and girl are saying like super flirt, like flirtatious things to one another, like super inappropriate stuff in terms of Islamically inappropriate, the people weren't, wouldn't really care about it. And they may not even really care to listen, that could be considered 100. Because now even though there's people around them,

a person does doesn't feel any type of shyness or shame in saying something which is Islamically wrong. So that's something to watch out for. But in general, in general, a person should, in general, yes. If we're surrounded by other people, and they can hear what we're saying, then that would not be considered Halawa. And I often say, Look, if you're ever in doubt, ask a person of knowledge. Right? Say like, Okay, this is happening. Do you think I should be here? Do you think I should be in that environment? Or not?

If there's a video on YouTube, and you leave an open message on the video, and there's a response to that question where everyone can see that comment. Is that okay, yeah, so in general comments on videos is a public environment, right? So this is everyone can see your comment, everyone can see the reply. So that is not considered Kanwar. Right. So there's other people there. Inshallah? Giada. That is not considered 101. It's a very good question. So public, this is considered a public domain and public environment. That will be something which is okay. Well, Allahu Allah, darlin. Any other questions or comments? I'm surprised people are quite understanding of my reasoning. Generally, I

find it I've found a lot of pushback when I say like, I don't, I don't do DMS. I don't do private messaging people. Like why not? But there's so much benefit and so on and so forth.

But But yeah, that's my that's my reasoning. Someone said, what if? Or sorry, SSS, aka, I don't know your name. But that's your screen name on here. What if you're working on something together? Look, even if you're working on something together, it should not be a enclosed environment, right? So it should not be an environment where it's like a private room and nobody else is there. And I understand there are certain situations where it's out of our control. Those are exceptions. So for example, you get onto the elevator and someone

comes into the elevator, and you know, and you press the button and you're in the elevator with someone. I mean, that's just that's the circumstance. That's the situation. There's nothing you can really do about that. You're not going to like, be like stop the elevator, press the emergency button and run out or whatever, you know and shout loud. This is, you know, like a 10 second ride or eight second, whatever five second ride he just taught us like, that's what you can do if a duck a llama still died, right? Have the Taqwa of Allah to the best of your ability.

Right. So those are exceptions. But in general, whatever is in our capability, well, we have control over we should try our best to

you know, avoid that situation. Sata sr. Sata is like a login. Does that go? Okay? When will the next open q&a be coming up? So generally, I try to do it every Sunday. So so last three weeks, every Sunday, we'll be doing it around this time. If you're subscribed to my YouTube channel, make sure it sounds weird for me to say this to Petalite because, you know, I had this thing about sounding like a YouTuber, right? But I have to say this, so subscribe to the channel, hit the hit the bell button, right that the alert. So you get an alert when these live sessions are taking place. I usually a few days ahead of time I post the session, so you know what it's about. You know what time it is. And

you can you can join in live inshallah. Tada. So, subscribe to the YouTube channel. And also share this with others if you think others would benefit. And also, when this is over, I go and go back to the comments as well. So if you have any suggestions of topics or particular questions that you think we should discuss,

on these live sessions, I'm open to it in sha Allah, any particular topics you want to talk about, we can have a live discussion about it, that would be totally awesome. Emad said, speaking of Halawa in the case of getting to know someone for marriage, can I ask for space when talking to a potential to an extent where the Muslims can still hear us, but they're not right next to us? Yeah. So this, this, this, in my opinion, and and Allah knows best would be an exception, right? So the exception is, it's not really a true exception, because there's someone still there, even if they can't hear you, right, you want to be open to express yourself, that is completely understandable.

They can see you that will insha Allah to Allah be enough where a person is, is is is cautious, and conscious of what they're saying. So even if they can't hear exactly what you're saying, in shallow data, that is a that is an acceptable environment, especially if it's a case of marriage. And it's a case of you know, they're right there you can see, like, let's even see the girl's father, or you know, you can see their family, you're not going to start flirting or whatever, your love protectors, right, you never know. But in general, a person will hopefully go down that route when you know, the girl's father or brother or whatever sitting right there. Even though they can't hear

you, this general person won't be hopefully tempted to do something like that. So that is in sha Allah protecting oneself. And in that case, well, luck to Ireland. Very good question. What age do you start teaching children about how to non Muharram. Look, the closer they get to puberty, because that is the age where obviously their desires begin to become an issue. And it's also the age of accountability. As they're getting close to the age deaf, this conversation should definitely take place not only for the sake of like halal and haram, but also to protect our children from from abuse. Because there are many cases, we have seen to Pamela. There's many cases of abuse, when

children are not informed, right? And you know, especially young girls, you know, they may fall victim because someone can can come from the perspective of Milla protector, sometimes it can be a person in a position of leadership, it could be, you know, a public speaker or a person may Allah protect is a person of knowledge, who says, you know, what, come I'll counsel you in private, you know, or I'll teach you a quote on Mila protect us, right? I'll teach you put on in private, right? This is something that we don't want to put our daughters, our children, even boys in this type of situation where they're alone. So we need to teach our kids like, Look, don't be alone with someone

that is not any someone who is you're related to or in that situation. So this is something we need to have a common we thank you so much for bringing this up. We should definitely be having this conversation with our children. Especially, you know, other issues of gender interaction touch, you know, touch is one of those rules, right? We don't touch the opposite gender. And that should be very clear for our children that no one is allowed to touch you. Right? It doesn't matter if they're, they're a Koran teacher or whatever it be, this person should not be touching you in any way right that touch should not be there. So these conversations should be happening the earlier the

better. As we said, you know getting it fits

If you know the age of puberty actually is too late, because they've already they're already they're already into it. They're already into it.

You know, so it should happen before the age of puberty. And obviously every child is different in terms of their maturity. But this is something that we should be talking to them from an early age will love them. Okay, I've hit the half an hour mark, I promised myself I want to make these live sessions longer than half an hour, so I'm going to have to cut it off here. Thank you to everyone for your wonderful questions and having this discussion with me. I look forward to seeing you next Sunday in sha Allah, I will announce the time but as I said, if you're subscribed to my YouTube channel, you'll get a notification. And you'll know exactly when these questions are. It's nice to

see some of the regulars were able to join us because we can build a rapport and you'll get an idea of how these go. And as I said, please share this with others and let them know about these live sessions. And Allah has pointed out knows best I'll catch you in the next one in sha Allah take care was set on what a cool Warahmatullahi Wabarakatuh