Sikander Hashmi – Dealing Fahishah KMA Friday Message
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Respected elders, dear brothers and sisters, my young
friends,
We find ourselves at the end of the
month
of Dhul Qadah, and in a few days,
InshaAllah, the month of Hajj
will begin
and these will be the best days of
the year.
The best days of the year are the
1st 10 days of the month of Hajj,
the month of which is called Dhul Hijjah.
And we also have, mashallah brothers and sisters
who are leaving for the Hajj as we
speak yesterday, today, tomorrow
in these days. We ask Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala to grant them safety, we ask Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala to grant them acceptance,
we ask Allah azza wa Jal to accept
their worship, their du'as, their supplications in the
favor of our brothers and sisters in Uzza.
As we enter the season of Ibadah, my
brothers and sisters,
at the same time, unfortunately, we are also
entering
into the season of
the season of
immorality and indecency.
And generally, we find this to happen
due to the warm weather
and the effect that it has on people,
but also due to specific
celebrations
that we find around us. Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala tells us in the Quran in surah
2nuur, a number 21,
O believers, do not follow in the footsteps
of shaitan.
Whoever follows the footsteps of shaitan,
then let them know that he, shaitan, surely
bids
immorality and wrongdoing.
Shaitan, what does he do? He calls towards,
he commands
immorality and wrongdoing.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us Suratul An
Kabut. And number 45,
Inna salatatannaanil
fashha
iwalmunkar
walaathikrullahi
Akbar Allahuyaalamumatasnaoon.
That surely
salah restrains one from immorality and wrongdoing. Same
wording.
So you have these two polar opposites, you
follow in the footsteps of shaitaan, shaitaan is
going to command and bid immorality
and wrongdoing.
On the other hand salah indeed
it restrains one from immorality and wrongdoing. So
we have these two pathways,
right? The path of shaitan and the path
of Allah
And then Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala tells us,
The remembrance of Allah
is even greater,
Right? Even greater some say, even greater deterrent
and Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala fully knows what
you all do.
Wazhmajal also tells us about prophet Lut alaihis
salam, Suratun Nam al Aye number 54.
And remember Lut, when he rebuked
his people
saying, Do you commit
that shameful deed? Do you commit that
while you can see? Right? So either while
you can see the truth that it is
wrong or while you see each other. Right?
And you commit this act. Allah tells us
Surah Al An Ayam, number 151.
Do not come
near.
Do not come near immorality,
indecencies,
openly or secretly.
Whether it is out in the open or
whether it is hidden and no one knows
and no one sees, in both situations do
not come near.
Do not even come near towards.
Now my brothers and sisters,
being in an environment
of open can
have varying degrees of impact. You see, we
are,
you know, we are products of our culture,
of our environments.
Yes? A person, no matter how much we
try, we cannot live in a bubble. Yes?
We try as much as possible to protect
ourselves, to protect our loved ones, but at
the end of the day, we live in
this dunya, we live in this world. And
at some point there will be some exposure,
some interaction,
something to do with these things. Similar to
for example reba. If somebody wants to stay
away from all types of haram financial transactions,
very good, alhamdulillah.
We try our best. But at the end
of the day, at some point there is
going to be some interaction with the conventional
system, which is based on ruba, and which
is based on things which are contrary to
Islamic teachings. Right? So we live in this
dunya, and this dunya has all of these
things around us. And at some point we
are going to have to interact or we're
going to be affected, we're going to be
influenced. There's going to be something. Right? We
cannot completely
put ourselves on a different planet because Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala has put us on this
earth and we have to face these things
in this dunya.
So what should we do?
So what should we do about this?
So first of all, as we have discussed
in previous weeks,
we must protect ourselves and our families.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us,
Right? And protect yourself protect yourself and your
loved ones from the fire. Yes? And what
are the things that
that lead us to the fire? Right? Are
these types of things? The disobedience of Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala especially when it is of
such a serious nature. So
we have to protect ourselves and our families.
The first thing my brothers and sisters, for
ourselves and to teach our children as well,
is what Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala teaches us
and the Prophet Sallallahu Wa Ta'ala have taught
us, should be our response
to anything
inappropriate that we come across,
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Tell the believing
men and the next believing women to lower
their gaze. And the Prophet
also said as related by Bureidah radiAllahu an,
That do not follow one glance
with another, verily you are excused for the
first one but not for the second. So
this is something very
simple yet also powerful that Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala and the prophet salallahu alayhi wasalam have
given in our to, for our toolkit.
Yes? That when we come across something and
we are not able to control it, yes,
we are not able to control
that thing, it is not in our control
and we come across it. So the first
thing we do is we turn away, we
avert our gaze,
we turn away from that indecent, immoral,
impermissible
action, material, image, whatever it is. Okay? So
this is the very first thing for us
to understand. Why? Because if we start looking
and we look back again and we start
getting interested, then that is going to open
the door to being influenced and being affected
by
the, the evil effects of that indecency, of
that immorality, of that haram. So the first
thing we do is we turn away. And
the prophet also tells us that the first
one is forgiven. Right? The first exposure is
forgiven because we don't know. We may not
know that we are coming across something of
that nature. So if you come across it,
the first one which is unintended, the first
glance or the first exposure which is unintended,
that is forgiven by Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
because it was not in our control. But
if we follow it up
with interest, and now knowingly, intentionally
exposing ourselves
to such things, then for that we are
going to be held accountable. So that is
the first thing that we learn to turn
away whatever there is something that is it's
just immodest, indecent,
impermissible.
Number 2,
we keep away
when we are able. Right? So that was
a situation in which we have no control.
When we do have control
then we try to keep away and we
try to keep our loved ones away as
well. You know? And this is particularly when
when we're talking about especially younger children, when
we talk about books, you know, that they're
going to read story books.
You know, when there's shows that they're gonna
watch,
you know, on their devices or whatever. Or
maybe, you know, they're gonna watch a movie
or something or, you know, whatever they're doing
on the Internet. Right? I'm not saying this
as encouraging these things, but what I'm saying
is these are practical realities that people deal
with.
And before
any of this type of media consumption,
in most cases, you can actually look it
up beforehand. You can actually search up a
book, the title of a book and find
out what it's about. Does it contain this
type of material or not? Or a show
or of, a movie or whatever, a kid's
movie.
Or even for the Internet, of course, for
many younger kids, you can have YouTube kids
for example. Or you could have, you know,
parental controls and filters that you install to
limit the exposure
to our children,
our loved ones regarding these things.
Now, of course, we're not able to control
forever. So I want to caution that along
with control and I'm gonna talk about that
in a minute. We also need to educate
and teach as well. Right? We cannot just
control, control, control. How long are you gonna
control your kids?
One day they're gonna be able to bypass
all your controls.
One day they're gonna go out, they're gonna
know more about technology than you do, even
if you're, you know, a tech guy maybe.
Right?
Yes. What day are they gonna go out
on their own when you're not gonna be
around? Yes. So only control doesn't work because
when there's too much control
and no education,
then what happens? As soon as the control
is gone, it has reverse effect on many
people because they've been held back for so
long and so controlled that now they want
to experience freedom to the fullest. So there
has to be a balance. But yes, when
the children are very young, yes, there has
to be an awareness about this that we're
not just openly allowing them to watch whatever
they want. Just give them the device, give
them the phone because it's good babysitting, and
then they watch whatever they want. They, you
know, they're just we just leave them. Right?
Even books by the time by the way,
sometimes you'll find books that look like,
you know, there's someone with a hijab on
the cover. You know, it looks like it's
gonna be a nice Muslim book, a story
book for children, or maybe it sounds like
a Muslim author. Read the book first. Search
up the title first.
Right? Because,
you know, never judge a book by its
cover is the same.
So look into it because you don't know
what's going to be inside sometimes. Okay? So
that's b.
1 or whatever we are able to control
in a good way, we do that for
ourselves and, for our families as well.
Thirdly,
you know, when it comes to our children
once again in schools,
you know, we have to be open about
our needs and our expectations first.
If you do not set our expectations, we
do not communicate
what our concerns
are, then we don't really have a right
to get upset. Yes. 1st, we have to
make clear what is the issue, what is
our concern. So inform the school about any
faith based restrictions, any exemption requests, any concerns
that you have, communicate that first to the
school because that way we have done our
job and then the ball is in their
court. Yes. They may
honor our request or not. That's a different
story. But at least we have communicated what
our concerns are and we have registered
our concerns.
And 4th thing my brothers and sisters, getting
closer to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. As I
just read in the salata,
so get closer to Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala,
increase in the zikr of Allah Subhanahu Wa
Ta'ala, whether it's through rusala, whether it's through
tasbih, tahlil, you know, istafar, tabeer, whichever form
of zikr we take, recitation of Quran, listening
to Quran,
the more dhikr we have in our lives,
the more dhikr there is of Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala in the lives of our children,
of our families,
then it will help develop
a stronger Islamic identity, inshaAllah. It will bring
us and our families closer to Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala
and the closer a person is to Allah
the more difficult it gets for shaitaan
to influence them through his whisperings, right? It's
as simple as that. The further a person
away is from the dhikr of Allah
the closer he's going to be to shaitan
or being influenced by shaitan.
Okay? So
it's
a zero sum game. Right? If one goes
up the other goes down. And the dhikr
of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala goes up, then
then the influence for shaitan goes down. Doesn't
mean that a person is totally immune, but
the risk goes down. And if a person
lowers the dhikr of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
in their life, then they are more susceptible
to being attacked by shaitan. It's as simple
as that. Okay? So we try to increase
the dhikr in our lives and in the
lives of our families and inshallah it will
help them be and help us be protected
by the mercy of Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala.
Okay? So that is basically the first category
of
protecting ourselves and our families. Number 2 my
brothers and sisters
is
to discuss and to explain.
To discuss and explain. This is part of
tarbia.
This is part of education.
And nowadays we need to explain the reason
to the children.
Back in the days, Masha'Allah, many of us
who were growing up,
There was no other option. You hear, you
obey khalas, okay? You don't ask why. Even
if you ask why, that becomes why do
you ask why. Okay? So there's no why.
Yes. That's how many of us are raised,
let's be honest. Okay? But nowadays, this is
not how children are raised in the society.
This is not what they learn in schools.
They learn to be inquisitive, they are learned
to be they are taught to be curious,
they are taught to be taught to ask
questions, to ask why. The why doesn't necessarily
mean to
It doesn't necessarily mean that it's a challenge,
the why. But rather it's why. You know,
like they want to know why. Okay? So
we have to give them some why. That
why could be because Allah
said so, because Allah is Allah
is the most wise, He knows how we
are, and this is the harms, this is
We have to give some sort of explanation.
Okay? If you don't give explanation, sooner or
later somebody else is gonna be giving other
explanations, and you're gonna find yourself in trouble.
Okay? So
a point is that children need to be
vaccinated.
What do they need to be? Vaccinated, inoculated
against incorrect beliefs and practices that are prevalent
in society.
And what does that mean? It means that
we
educate them in an age appropriate way
about the things that people are doing and
what is our belief about it and why.
Yes. This needs to be done. Because if
we don't do this,
then what's going to happen?
Those ideas and those beliefs are going to
reach them first
and they're going to be a blank slate.
Their immune their spiritual immune system will not
have
any way to cope with it.
Right? Just like a person who is not
vaccinated, who is not inoculate, I don't want
to get into a discussion about vaccines, but
generally, a person whose immune system is has
not been exposed
to a foreign, you know, agent, they're not
going to be able to respond
appropriately. Right? Because they don't know how to
respond. So similarly our children also need to
be educated
about these things. And what does it do?
It builds resiliency. It equips them on what
to do
and how to process these situations when they
face immodesty, when they face haram. Because again,
eventually they're gonna come across it.
Either it's gonna be on a device,
either it's gonna be a friend or a
classmate or someone who's gonna show them a
peer who's gonna show them something, or they're
gonna come across something in school, they're gonna
hear something. Eventually it's gonna happen. Right? So
the better we can prepare our children and
make them resilient,
the better the chance that they will be
able to respond in an appropriate way. Will
they make mistakes? Of course they'll make mistakes.
Who here has not made a mistake when
we were growing up?
Everybody has made a mistake. Right? Everybody did
things that we probably look back and we're
like, oh, you know, I'm ashamed of doing
that. You know, I why did I do
that? So everyone's gonna make mistakes. We can't
expect our children to be angels. We weren't
angels ourselves. So how can we expect our
children to be angels? Right? They're not gonna
be angels. But if we prepare them, then
insha'Allah they'll be better equipped to deal with
this,
with various things that they face. Now I
know it is much easier to ignore.
It is much easier to ignore because it
may be uncomfortable,
right? Or we may not know how to
approach it, right? We may not be equipped.
We may feel that we are ill equipped
or we are not equipped to deal with
these things.
But
leaving them unprepared will make them more vulnerable
to accepting
what comes to them. And by the way,
it's happening earlier and earlier now. It's not
how it was when you were growing up,
when I was growing up. It's earlier and
earlier and earlier.
And I can tell you that the greatest
risk right now is for children from JK
to grade 3.
Kids,
JK to grade 3 are at the greatest
risk. Why? Because that is their formative years.
That is the years when they're innocent. They're
an open book. They're a blank page.
Whatever they're told, they'll believe and they'll accept.
So that is where the greatest risk is
right now. And if you have children in
this age group, then you need to be
especially
cognizant and paying attention to these matters and
working on building their strong Islamic identity.
Make it easy.
Number 3, my brothers and sisters, the 3rd
category is to educate and to advocate. So
first of all, educate yourself
on the detailed Islamic perspective
on these issues. It's one thing to say,
Oh, everything all the colors are haram, for
example. Okay. It's haram, halas, 5 second conversation.
Okay? But no. There's more to it. You
can't, you know, talk about the issue. You
can't educate people. You can't advocate if you
don't understand the subtleties, the the the context,
the nuance,
the arguments for against all of those things,
right? We need to be educated and prepared.
So educate yourself on the Islamic perspective,
and also on how to counter
the arguments
that support these types of things.
How
do you navigate it? How do you explain
it in a way that makes sense to
people? Right? And then find opportunities
to educate and advocate others and especially decision
makers.
Especially decision makers, you know, whether it's at
the school, whether it's politicians, whoever it is,
people who are making decisions, people in positions
of
authority, educate and advocate to them as well.
It's very important that we be polite
and we also recognize the good. We thank
the good that maybe they may be doing
or that they are part of. And
we share this
knowledge and we educate them with hikmah. As
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala tells us,
So invite to the way of your Rabb
with wisdom
and kind advice,
and only debate with them in the best
manner. And that's the third thing. You don't
start with a debate. Yes? You start off
nicely
sharing,
explaining.
And in case there is a discussion, a
debate, then we do it in a nice
way. Why? Because many people do not know
any better.
They don't know any better, really. Or they
have been trapped by shaitan,
or they have come under pressure.
They have come under pressure from others.
And probably they do not have the same
reference points as us. They don't believe in
the Quran and the sunnah. They are not
looking at the issue from the same perspective,
the same angle that we're looking at it
from. Thus we need to advise
and educate in a manner that actually makes
sense to them. You know, if you talk
about Quran and Sunnah to a person who
does not know Quran and Sunnah, he doesn't
believe she doesn't believe in Quran and Sunnah,
they don't know what it is,
you're not on the same wavelength, right? You're
like on different frequencies, right?
So we have to speak to people in
a language that
they understand,
yes? And finally,
this may seem like a lot, sometimes you
may feel like it's too much.
You may feel overwhelmed. So at that point
my brothers and sisters, actually throughout but especially
at that point,
it's very important that we place our trust
in Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. And we say,
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala is sufficient for us,
and He is the best disposer of affairs,
and He is the excellent protector and the
excellent helper. We ask Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala
to protect us, ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
to protect our children, our future generations
from every type of immorality and sin. We
ask Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to guide those
who are misguided. We ask
Allah to grant his wisdom to deal with
the challenges of the time. We'll
take a quick break and we'll continue.