Advice from Islam to Muslim Quran Teachers & Parents
The Deen Show – Bullying
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AI: Transcript ©
Getting some of these questions.
And in in one of them,
you have a dilemma that the person is going through that they
sign their kids up for a his program they really like to teach her, but they're teaching certain values to their children at home, about not using certain words, in particular, like dumb, stupid, etc, etc. But they're finding that their teacher is getting very upset, angry and not controlling their temper and using such words that they are telling their kids not to use. And when approaching the teacher, it's under this, maybe you can define what this means to BIA. Right? So they're trying to understand like, because they we wouldn't tolerate this in any secular school. But why is this happening? Right? are we sending Miss mixed signals to our children? That there's a lot of
yelling and shouting at the kids? What should they do? Should they take them out? They're scared that the children might end up growing to resent current to leave Islam, maybe because it is having a traumatizing experience? How can we address this with the teacher? And and what advice do you have for us?
Okay, it was smilla. I pray Allah guides my words correctly here. Irrespective of this particular situation, this could be something that's like ubiquitous could be all across the globe, in many different spheres, even in the parenting dynamic with their children.
And yes, I mean, you can Institute right for Islamic research.
our inaugural research was the pathways to doubt what causes people to doubt what adds. And there is no doubt that a primary reason why people reconsider their affiliation with Islam and start doubting it is bad experiences that cause a resentment, whether it's conscious or subconscious, of the religion and the personalities of the religion and just the whole ethos, I don't want to be anywhere near that atmosphere. And so this is not a small factor, like I would so much rather someone
not be in tip top shape as their parents would want, get to medical school and memorize the whole quote, and and because that stress factor that the parents sometimes artificially create, it doesn't have to be that way. Right? Kids have different types of intelligence doesn't mean they're unintelligent if they can't memorize quota, or if they can't, you know, find a passion in engineering or medicine or otherwise. There are different types of intelligence, there are different interests in people.
At the end of the day,
this stress causes parents and educators, Toby, it just means like discipline or child rearing, development pedagogy.
It causes them to think that there's a quick fix, and that's what makes them angry, and the prophet SAW them says does not get angry, do not get angry, do not get angry. And you don't copyright him unless something very interesting when explaining this hadith he says this like fundamental advice should not be understood at face value, because anger is not a light switch can just not get angry. So do not become angry, he says. So it means either number one, because these are the things within our capacity and allow only asks us within our capacity means number one, don't put yourself in a situation where you're going to fall into anger. Right? So walk away from the conversation with your
spouse or stop having high expectations of the person in front of you. impatience the things that make you angry, avoid them the precursors. He says number two, or it means that when you get angry, don't act angry, meaning restrain your anger. So part of restraining your anger problems also Allah Himself said the Hollywood is good. One of you becomes angry and I'd love to speak because that'll only thing things works when you speak or act when you're angry. You will if you have some sort of conscience regret it at some point later. Oh, man, I broke the laptop. Oh, snap. I have divorced my wife. I don't have any more divorce is this fair? Oh, man, I pushed this child away from the masjid.
You know, they put on a show for me. And they memorize the entire hole. And but they were just using that as a reason to get out of the program. They were accelerating. They're jumping ship from the masjid atmosphere, you will regret it. That's a very important part. What makes us so impatient? We think we have control. No, you don't have control. People have their own pace. That's a huge part of it. You know, there's a very good book called scream free parenting. I advise What is it called scream free scream free parenting, you recommend books? Certainly. And I haven't read it entirely. I have to make a disclaimer. But just the concept of you actually being at the end of your wits, by
screaming is what it really boils down to, like you feel like I'm losing control. No, you were never in control. Sometimes. They just have to take their natural course. Right. The next thing is, this is a very forgotten center of our profits also loves to focus on the positives. This is what allows negative
to evaporate right like we're not even talking anymore about using bad language that's unacceptable unacceptable we don't curse we don't make do against our children we don't make dry against people we don't use derogatory language is unbefitting of any believer with adults with kids just Is there anything from the Quran and Sunnah that somebody can use this as a former top tibia because most parents would think okay maybe this the mom maybe he's got something I don't know the whole Dean maybe there's something there in the Hadith and there's a wisdom behind this using such words you know, towards the kids Is there anything there a benefit and people know specifically calling a kid
stupid * absolutely cool. We can say that
people will become agitated angry emotional and that means that you're like emotionally invested in the kid in front of you. That's fine, right? Like I'm gonna react sometimes because I care so you're not so that's one thing though, so Khurana sooner nothing you cannot use Quran and Sunnah to say that. Okay, I'm following Quran as soon as I mean the gas your prophet is although Sam's face and he said they said to make dua against them. He says my birth doula and I did not I was not sent to invoke God's curse perpetually constantly on people he did in very rare circumstances before I'd even says that David and Jesus peace be upon them they made dragons been in process them in very
exceptional circles but they have to remain exceptions he made throughout this door out to Allah, right? This is not lashing out against people, these are against enemies are trying to kill you. And even then he refused to be recurrent with it. He said I was not meant to be like this. But we're talking about kids. You're trying to teach the book of Allah the Quran.
You know, reminds me of that when I think about what is the NSM anon Malik he served the Prophet salsa for how many years? 10 years. And what happened after that? Forget cursing, forget the all he said he never said to me about something I did. Why did you do that? Or something I didn't do Why didn't you do that? He said I even tested him one time. Like I said, let me just see what he's gonna do when I defy him. And so he said to me to do something, and I, I refused. So he came out after me. I was just deliberately just playing with the voice in the streets. Basically, he came in, he put his hands on my shoulders gently lay Serato setup. And they said, Oh, ns
Why don't you go do such and such like you? And I know you're supposed to but just look at the approach. like human beings are like seatbelts. They just don't come with snatching. It just doesn't work. You know, I I'll give a personal story just to show that I'm not enough.
I was so frustrated with one of my children because they did not like to be told what to do. And this insha Allah will be a good quality of theirs, if we're able to channel it correctly, that they will not buckle to pressure to ever need to say a word of truth. speak truth to power sha Allah, hopefully. But I spent two years trying to force my kid to say thank you. And just because I said, What do we say? Say thank you. They would refuse to just like, I don't take orders. And it would get me so frustrated. I was at the end of my wit's as they say. Then my wife said to me,
just ignore him.
Just praise His sister. She's she'll never forget to say thank
you one week. Mashallah. So until he says, Thank you Mashallah, you never forget to say thank you. This is all conversations. They're in the backseat, were in the front seat. Usually, within one week, he was saying thank yous without missing a beat. So the concept of positive reinforcement, catching people doing it right and amplifying it, that for their sake, and the sake of those around them, is so much more effective, and so much more merciful, then focusing like we're good at catching people doing wrong things. You know, the prophet SAW said,
he said to us, the believers like a beat, right? And I just gave a quote, but recently, it's on YouTube somewhere. About Are you a bee? Or are you a fly? Because flies land on dung? Yeah, yeah. Number two, are the things that are rotting carcasses. And you know, the decomposing bodies of 30 things right? 30 things trash. And bees land on nectar. And they take the good from it, and they give the good back, and they land ever so gently. This is what the problems are. So I'm saying. And so he used to always land on the good things that people are doing and praise them. And this has to be understood, like the concept of you shouldn't praise because someone's gonna get diluted and
conceited. The prophet SAW him praise many people. And so those Hadith about don't praise must be understood to mean don't excessively praise, don't praise when you feel like someone's heads getting really big, don't praise in a way that's going to cause them to become haughty and you know, pompous and proud and arrogant and the likes, but positive reinforcement. It'll make you fear. Like I was like, my goodness, I put myself through two years of stress about this issue. And I was almost about to give up. And then Allah blessed me with a with a wife who turned on the lights for me. And I was able to like my goodness, it didn't have to be this hard. Yeah. And so feeling you're in control.
You too angry? No, it has to take its natural course. And not all kids are at the same pace. Not all kids are identical. Even between boys and girls, I don't want to get into the gender debates. But boys and girls have
general tendencies that they are two camps, right? So not the same exact form of education could necessarily be ideal for both genders. And appreciating that and addressing it adequately will make things so much more pleasant than educational atmospheres. Anyway, I'm ranting, I'm so sorry. No, no. So it takes a little more effort here. But you have better results. And it goes back here. I mean, we've all been there. I mean, you and I know, I know, personally, you know, you get let's say you have, you know, 6789 kids, you know, you're dealing with and you kind of lose your cool and you, you raise your voice and I take it from my own experience after you, you you go on a screaming rant.
You know what I mean? It just takes a lot of energy out of you. I've got caught myself. So was it really harder to do it the other way? No, it's just harder to break the habit break, the harder to change your lens from instead of noticing the negative, and only landing on that the nasty stuff like the fly, you just start looking for the nectar and start landing on that stuff. Your body is releasing toxins actually, when you get all stressed out like that, that are actually cancer causing your toxic use toxin and the whole and then and then it makes it and I catch myself and I said okay, I get there's got to be a more efficient way. I understand. Sometimes you have to be firm and
whatnot. But then going down to demoralizing words. I mean, this is something that obviously this is totally sometimes you know, there's needed so this is a huge problem in just parenting apparently.
Here's a tip do not speak about people speak about their actions. Golden Rule do not speak about people speak about their times a parent or just a mentor or a teacher. They'll say you're dumb. You're hard headed. They may have been unacceptable, of course, unacceptable. We covered that. Okay, I just want to re emphasize Absolutely. Okay. You don't call a kid dumb, you don't call it I teach. Also, I teach, you know, Marsha. I mean, if I did that, and one of my students, I'd be out of business customers, I use customers. So we need to keep our customers not from the financial perspective from the dean. Do you know a Pew Research forum says that the number of people entering
Islam are offsetting the number of people leave leaving Islam.
So it's just like, no, retaining your capital is far wiser. Economics wise, far wiser, is the prudent thing to do, even if you're not going to get any profits. Right. But really, there's nothing happening here. We're losing as many Muslims, at least according to those surveys, or those those numbers as we are gaining. Yeah, that's just devastating. They're both at around 23%. And so No, absolutely not. So again, do not write the child off by branding them early. Right, the child is as ready for being crafted and shaped as you're willing to believe that they are. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam would land on the good things and say to his grandson, or about his
grandson, he is a say he's a chief that's going to lead the people. He would say that more than a gentleman who is 18 years old. He's the most knowledgeable of my own Manhattan, our men. So certainly, they've done so many studies on this man. There's so much research on this on this empowerment. Yeah, just even a touch right there. A person is more willing to do things feels more motivated, with a soft touch with a soft word, you know, as opposed to saying that's it. This person is stubborn. Okay. Might as well. Brendon I'm stubborn. Yeah. We I'm sorry. No, that's all so just the issue of mercy. Right. being merciful with the creation is a requirement for being eligible for
the mercy of God. The prophet SAW Selim said that but he specifically mentioned after that, and alongside that, that extra mercy particularly, it's just so needed extra mercy with the youngsters, he says, You are not one of us. They are not one of us, those who are not revering of our elders, merciful with our youngsters, and recognizing the rights of our scholars. So this issue of I don't care how religious you are, I don't care how good of a job you think you're doing. I don't care too much how sincere you are. I I admire your sincerity, but that is not going to absolve us of using the wrong techniques. Mercy is the most fundamental technique you know, the prophet SAW Selim said
another Hadith. Allah is gentle, and loves gentleness and grants like there's good turnaround on this stuff. He grants on the basis of gentleness what he does not grant on the basis of harshness, and we see that in living color, just try it you'll make your life better, and the life of those that inshallah you're trying to impact with positive change better. Yeah. Just a few more points in will conclude. The police man is held to a higher standard. He's a police officer. He
Some methods he's got to go by the same way the mayor, the governor, the President, right? karate teacher, man, this person is helping to, you know, develop the future generations. Let's say the person is teaching karate and the hold the prophet SAW some had said, It reminds me that I have not been sent except to perfect good manners, certainly absolute. So now you held to a higher standard and a heito comenta. elemental Khurana. So the best of you are those who teach the karate. Now if you're calling kids stupid and foolish, and you know, demoralizing them, and then bringing them down, and not lifting them up, and you're not, and you're not holding yourself to yourself to a
higher standard, you can be accountable in front of a loan, right? Absolutely not, and not to absolve anyone of accountability we all have to answer for our own, but the core and teachers should be the last person to forget that, right? That this is not about knowledge, at the end of the day, this is not about us, not recognizing the station of someone who bears the sacred revelation. But that in and of itself, will not qualify unless it's matched with actions or it will qualify to the degree that it matches with your actions. If you're calling to Allah book with your words, and deterring from it or calling away from it with your actions, actions are going to speak louder than
words. So you're gonna have a negative sum total at the end. Right? And may Allah protect us from
from keeping people from being able to get to him right? Like May Allah protect them from us. It's just, it's it's a frightening but a very real sentiment that we need to remind each other. Yeah, a couple more things that came to mind is that I mean, we often talk about okay shaden facilitating away Let's say on one end, right to the clubs to the you know, the sins of of the desires and you know, negligence of performing and living your purpose in life and etc, etc. Right keeps you there. But then you come in, you're in the dean now you think, okay, you're safe. No, you can go to extreme on some ends. And then also now I thought he doesn't care which way you go, he doesn't because
you're not here. So now let's say even here, we're always being we're always being attacked. So it's a test of an indigenous lambs a path. Yeah, lamb is not a deed. Yeah, that was not an act and you're training you're teaching people about the book of the Creator, and your and their responsibility in life and to be carriers preservers of this thing. Now also is it positive shade can also be you know, trying to disrupt is, because now and get people out of programs like this. And because these are future leaders, I have yet to forget advice of one of my dear Michigan mentors in Medina, central alto said to me once, you need to realize that shaytan is going to work far harder on you,
then he's going to work on someone else. Because everyone who considers you some sort of inspiration or icon for guidance, or whatever it may be. When you fall, people follow by example, by association just were followers by nature, right? If you fall, people fall with you. Whereas another person, if shaitan is able to get them to fall, they fall on their own, it's not consequential beyond their own predicament. And so, we should certainly be conscious of this more than others, right? Even Japan alone, you imagine that false sense of security that previous nations had that we read about so much in the Quran, it says, and they never became divisive and fell apart and fragmented. 11 baggage, in
building a main home, except after the knowledge came to them, due to animosity that tensions arose after knowledge was there, you think knowledge is going to solve it, but and now it will solve it sacred revelation is the greatest gift Allah sends to humanity greater than giving them their lives, showing them how to live, and how to qualify for the next life. But the problem is, our settling for knowledge becomes the greatest detriment to us. Because number one, it will not deliver us on its own. And number two, those have knowledge. When they fall all those they carry fall with them. Yeah. Someone says, look, Brother, you don't understand these kids. They act like you know, they're out of
control. And that's how we did it in my country. Brother, you don't understand?
It's not right. What can I say? the gold standard is the prophets on the law. And it was like, are you doing it right? Or was he doing it? Right? I just with all due respect, the preservation of our religion, and the Messenger of God, and the messenger of this religion has to be preserved above preserving personality. So it doesn't matter how we did it in our country.
No, it doesn't matter. We did it in any time or any place. Yeah. Unless it's conforming with the way of the product value. So auto setup. We're not saying there can be different techniques for different times and places. Yeah, like, in Africa, if you're sitting in a 10th learning quota, and from a slate that you're carving in, I would accept that. That's not necessarily contrary to the way that the prophet SAW setting them. It's not we're talking about you, right. No one's saying here. We don't like about the schooling system out there.
They took their desks out and they want to do it the African that's not the way because that's just about resources and technique and whatever is available and readily
offered to the kids. And that's not contrary to Dean. We're talking about the aspects which the dean did regulate for our own betterment. Those cannot be downplayed. One practical thing I think of because often you go and let's say you go into an institution, and you have like, 3040 kids to one teacher, I mean, I mean, that one thing you can do is like,
I would think like, because also we're human beings, we were susceptible to losing patience and whatnot, maybe narrow it down, make less students, you know what I mean? Maybe focus on 510, get another teacher for the rest, because Have you ever walked into let's say, a program, you got like, 40 kids, you're losing your mind? You know what I'm saying? What do you think some practical we can do? We gave the the the advice about the book, we took it back to Quran as soon as it's not something that's allowed there, you're actually doing more harm? What are the practical things tangible? I mean,
there are no reasons to invent to reinvent the wheel, as they say, Yeah, oh, there are people that are doing it right to botica law, different places around the world, the United States, even if doing it, right, we're employing the rule of relativity here, they're doing a better job. We can benefit ourselves by just giving ourselves pause to figure out what's the most efficient way to do it. Yeah. Many times people are, know what's wrong with their methods, whether it's on certain kinds of like, logistics or just conduct and, but they just don't know any other way. And so I think having that graciousness in us, as parents as gusta, to offer them alternatives, like we're all in
it together, like we all just want to make the best out of a difficult situation sometimes. And so just suggesting alternatives, helping them develop a reward system, for example, easy, right? figuring out a way to be cost efficient, so you can hire an assistant, they just need help in that regard. Someone who's specialized in what and doesn't necessarily mean or usually many times does not mean that they're specialized in administrative protocol and business management. And you know, the five year plan, any truth to this statement? There's no best students only bad teachers. Have you ever heard this statement?
It needs to be qualified. It needs to be qualified.
It is correct in the sense that you've heard it, you've heard this, you're the teacher. Yeah, you're on the steering wheel.
You can affect them in a way you're the adult, you're the parent, you can affect them in more ways than you realize. Meaning 99% of the time, there's potential for high there's potential for good. You just need to be sure of that and act on it the right way. You got to find it, right. Yeah. So it's 99% of the time it's there. It's challenging attire, everyone's unique and they're all normal. I mean, we're learning on the job and none of us are infallible and we're all struggling and at the end of the day, our greatest asset is admitting our powerlessness to a lot of surgeons tell me I can't do it alone please open my eye offer me to help I'm stranded without you. I mean, I'm the
first one that can benefit from this I'm also I'm trying to be a better parent I make the mistakes I lose my cool hair ties and I but I'm trying to I tried to I want to be better I want to learn I want to grow and inshallah followers can keep that open mind and as part of the love the love It's not like we're sitting here we say hey we figured it out and we were perfect but all of us are the slaves of Allah we make mistakes Days and Night but allows most merciful but we're trying to do these things and benefit from these advice so we can become better inshallah better parents better worshipers of the Creator and we can end up in genda So yeah,
I mean, but you know what, this is an excuse now to have you back because we we only did one question and we got some more so next time Chicago we got to finish these are some really good questions hopefully someone better than me steps in and takes it I enjoyed talking with you and inshallah we can have pleasure Always a pleasure. Thank you so much as applied can we do a shout out to our cameraman Hamza? Yes, Allah bless him. Eddie son is doing an awesome job. Michel. Lon. He's an inspiration to raise his rank and help us and him the carriers of his book and his Dean. I mean, I mean, where can people get in contact with you, they can visit you the website. I'd rather refer
them to the Institute for
it's doing amazing work, inspiring conviction, contribution through conviction. Check them out and child law. I have some work on there as well. But stay tuned for more and more cleared from them in sha Allah, we're learning a lot. The first part we talked about fuzzy you don't want to be a fuzzy to Muslim or modified Muslim. You want to be a Muslim, one who has submitted themselves to the creator that has an earth Allah, we talked about, we're creatures of imitation. So out of His love, Allah sent. Prophet Muhammad peace and blessings be upon him to be imitated to be followed, his sooner we have it and you gotta live
sinsational people out there doing some wonderful work.
Maybe we can learn some good things from them. But you also got some people who are doing opposite
to the true purpose of life. We don't want to follow them. So the door of a lost love is always to his forgiveness is open, for fuzzy for juicy for all these people, and we got nothing but love form. But we don't like the things that many of these people are calling to it just like someone let me put it in more palatable way that you can understand. Imagine you're in school, and you're being tested. And for sure we're being tested in this life. And now you got someone cutting class, partying, flunking out failing, and you got your other friends saying, Come on, man. Let's go. Let's listen to the teacher. Let's pass the class and let's graduate with honors. You would think nothing
wrong with that right? And then you can be successful. Well, that's exactly what we need to do in this life. We're not an accident that happened, just randomly appeared in this world. No, Allah created us and he's testing us. So when you pass the test, you got Jenna failed the test is the consequences of hellfire. And we don't want to end up there. So hopefully, people get this message. They can go ahead. And if they're following people like that, they can waking it up. And then we talked about also recapping and summarizing. As I said before, the policeman has the responsibility. He's held at a higher level. He's supposed to stop crime, not facilitate crime. The same way the
Quran teacher, as a prophet xoma said hi to comenta LML Quran Allah Allah, the best of you are those who learn the Quran and teach it at a higher level. The Quran teaches what patience What does the Quran teach good manners, ethics along the foundation of worship and to create another Christian, pure monotheism. So the Quran teacher, not just helping people memorize the Quran, but they have to be walking the Quran with their good attitude good manners, good behavior. So now if we're teaching our kids not to use demoralizing words, stupid idiot, * all these things, and the Quran teachers using it, unacceptable, unacceptable. No, we wouldn't tolerate it in a regular school or
public school. No way are we gonna tolerate it from our current teachers, these are supposed to be the best amongst us, and inshallah they can get this message with that love. And we can make these adjustments and they can learn from it grow for him, because we're human beings as a prophet. So some said, all of the sons of Adam are sinners, right? But the best of those are those who turn to Allah and repent. And we're all trying to grow. We have to keep our minds open, learn, grow and correct our shortcomings and mistakes so we can become better so we can get to Jenna, subscribe if you haven't already. Hope you benefited. Because we do this out of the love. We sear We sincerely
try. Thank you very much. Until next time, peace be with you.