Manhood & Womanhood in Islam
Date:
Channel: Yasmin Mogahed
File Size: 33.50MB
Episode Notes
By_ Yasmin Mogahed & Yassir Fazaga
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AI Generated Transcript ©
This is our main session titled manhood and womanhood.
We have two amazing speakers. And we'll go ahead and
sorry. Yes. So inshallah we're gonna get this started
just a little bit about the, the session. So, throughout history of reciting has defined its manhood what it defines as
the ideals as for manhood and womanhood. And you know the 14th the 14th in the 14th century sociologist in Kaduna noted that the common denominator of all cultures is that the they usually take the rich and powerful as their ideals for the manhood and womanhood or for what what a man is and what a woman is. And in our current society, where pop culture you know, reigns reigns supreme. And this poses a problem because of the morality and the the ethics and in such INSEAD pop culture and, and,
and society. So,
I have that as a solution and the session the session will basically discuss the man or the woman, obviously, from the Islamic narrative. So, we'd like to welcome our first speaker, sister Jasmine Morgan.
Salam Alaikum.
I was a bit lame and a chanela Jima salatu salam ala rasulillah Allah Allah savage mine, Maria de Laval, mo de la hohman, Yulin Farah della watch hadwen, la la la la de la sharika. Watch Hulu and now Mohammed Abdullah solo rubbish rocky sadri westerly armory while to lock them in the center of all calling.
So I'm always excited when I am asked to talk about this subject, because I get to talk about a story that I always loved growing up. And it's a story that begins with a mother duck, looking proudly at all the beautiful ducklings that had just hatched. But while she did, she noticed that there was one that was different. It was large, and not at all like the others. Soon that duck came to be known as the ugly duckling. It was different and didn't quite fit.
When God created humanity, there were men. And then there were some who were not at all like the rest. They were women. They couldn't run us fast, and they cried way too much.
Those women spent their whole lives wondering where they just bad copies of men. Am I as a woman, that ugly duckling? Am I just a bad copy of the standard? Well, no, a lot tells me that I'm a swan.
See, I'm different than men. But it's meant to be that way. And the reason why I love this story so much, is because it teaches that being beautiful. And having worth does not mean that you have to be just like everyone else. It teaches that
our standard and our words and our honor is women does not come from our sameness to men, but comes from our distinctiveness to men. Now the words of a woman and the definition of what is a woman and what as a man has been defined in many ways, throughout history and across societies. Now, one of the ways in which unfortunately, society has defined what it means to be a woman, or to be a successful woman is unfortunately, it has a lot to do with how she looks. And so we live in a society right now where women are very much defined by the way they look. And how successful they are, is determined by how attractive and how beautiful they can be for men.
Now, a law comes and tells us as women that we don't need to fall to that standard. We don't need to be an object because as women, Allah tells us that our worth is defined by our relationship with him and not by our relationship with any of his creation. And so as women we're told by Allah as Muslim women, we're told by Allah to actually cover ourselves and by covering ourselves. We're covered
Growing up what's irrelevant, and that's our body. And that's our external beauty. Because what really matters in our self worth is our character, right and our relationship with Allah. Now, this has been, you know, criticized this, this objectification of women in this hyper sexualized society has been criticized by Western feminists. But the problem is that in trying to break out of this, what has happened is that Western feminism comes into it and tries to liberate women right from this, this bondage of being a sex object. But there's one very serious problem in this so called liberation, and that is that God has been taken out of the equation. Okay. So what happens now is
that the way to liberate a woman is by making her like a man. What do I mean by that? Well, you need a standard of some sort, you need some something to measure your self worth, okay? And if you take God out of the equation, that thing to measure your worth, becomes that which is in power, right? So what happened? What happened over time, is that in trying to liberate men, ironically, women began to think that they should mimic men that they should be more like a man and therefore, they will be more honored and more dignified. And what are some examples of that? Well, for example, things which are wood things, which are usually considered uniquely feminine, or, or, or more to do with feminine
traits have been considered a degradation. Okay? So for example, to say that someone is emotional or sensitive, and it's like you're insulting them, right? This has become an insult, even though the prophesies send them define these things differently. For example, we in society have defined that to cry is a measure of weakness, right? And that to not show emotion means that you're strong. And yet the prophesized sanlam has defined it very differently. The prophets I send them when he when he cried, after the death of his son, people looked at him, and you know, the men, they also kind of thought that was strange. And they were taken aback by this. And they sent to him, you know, they
were like, what, what is this? Like, what, what are you doing, and the prophets I send them, explained that that that emotion that he was showing, was actually connected to Rama to mercy. Now, if you think about Rama, Rama is one of the greatest attributes of God. It's a godly attribute, which is mercy. And so he's actually connected this thing with this very, very honorable quality of mercy. And yet we in society come and redefine it as weakness.
And yet, ironically, the things which we consider as strengths are what the prophets I send them defined as weakness. And I'll give you an example. Usually, in our society, men are taught growing up, boys are taught that they're not supposed to show emotion. But there's one emotion which boys are allowed to show and it's considered manly and acceptable, and that's the emotion of anger. So men, boys basically are taught that everything they feel has to be suppressed, but the only externalization of emotion that you are allowed to show and still be manly his anger, and yet the prophesies send them explained that this is actually a sign of weakness. When the prophets I send
them asked his companions, who was the really strong person, and his companions, you know, they thought a lot in a very similar way that we do. And they said, well, it's the one who can wrestle the best. So they thought about it in terms of physical strength. And the prophets, I send them said, No, it's the one who could control themselves in the fit of anger. And so here, the prophets I send them is defining that that lack of control of your anger is actually a sign of weakness. On the other hand, he defines showing of emotion such as crying as a sign of mercy. So look at how we flip the script in terms of our own definitions. Another example of something that's looked down upon,
especially if it's seen in men, and it's considered, you know, not masculine is the expression of emotion in terms of affection. So the prophets I send them one time he was, you know, showing affection to his to it to one of his children, and another one of the auto men came in, you know, he, he was trying to boast I guess about his own masculinity by saying that I have all these children and I never kissed them and I never hugged them and I never showed any emotion to them and the process
As I sent him his response is very beautiful. He says, What can What can I do if mercy has been taken out of your heart. So again, this is another, this is another definition that we have of what it is to be a man, right, what it means, what masculinity means. And yet the prophets I send them explains this as being a lack of mercy to show no emotion, he connects it to a lack of mercy. Whereas to show emotion in terms of crying, he connects that to mercy. So this is interesting, because, again, our definitions are completely opposite. Now, how does that relates to how we interact together? Well, the interesting thing is because we as women, we start to actually
internalize these definitions, too. So what we start to think is that
unless we are also aggressive, and you know, stoic, we will be taken advantage of. And so we as women, we kind of try to, you know, try to fall into this definition of what it means to be a strong person as well. And so in doing that, we actually end up shooting ourselves in the foot. And I'll tell you why. Because when men and women interacts, and this is what the experts find, is that the primary need that they find for a man is to feel respected. Okay. And the primary need for a woman is to feel cared for or loved. And so what these experts have found is that the conflict that happens between men and women can basically be broken down into this, this formula, which is which
they call the crazy cycle. And what that crazy cycle is, is that and this is, again, this is interactions between men and women on any level. So whether it's in the context of marriage, or it's in the context of Islamic work, or the context of within a family, whatever. But generally, this is what happens. And the craziest cycle is this is the conflict when conflict happens, it usually can be broken down to this, that one of them so for example, a man might do something or a brother might do something that is interpreted by the sister or the woman in whatever context as being uncaring. So he does something that that feels like it's kind of insensitive. Okay. Now, what does a woman do
in response? Well, our knee jerk reaction also happens to be the absolute worst reaction, our knee jerk reaction is to react with attitude, right? It's through react kind of in an aggressive sort of,
you know, almost like disrespectful way. Okay? And that the root of that though, is that we feel uncared for or we feel unloved or we feel that someone has done something insensitive to us. So we react with harshness, okay? Now, what does that do? Well, now, when you're reacting with disrespects, you're now depriving the man of his primary need, which is to feel respected. And so how does he react? he reacts by being even more unloving, and even more uncaring, and even more harsh. And so now, you are in this crazy cycle. Because when now when a woman feels that she reacts with even more disrespect. So the question is, how do we break this cycle? And what they say is that
there's something called unconditional respect, and unconditional love, or care or care or consideration, depending on the context, of course. So what does that mean in terms of Islamic work? What does that mean in terms of a marriage or a relationship? What it means is that, regardless of whether or not we feel that someone is being insensitive, if we respond, especially when dealing with a man, if a woman responds with unconditional respect, meaning that she remains respectful, that that will actually trigger a man to be more caring, and more loving. And this is really interesting, because if you look at the advice, that the prophets I send them gives, it is exactly
follows this formula, so obviously, the prophets I send them is going to give us the advice that is most helpful right to have a successful relationship. So when a lot when when the Prophet Allah and His Prophet, command the women or or advise the women, most of the advice that's given to women is not to love men is not to love their husbands. Why do you think that is? Well, because women, love comes naturally, right? We we give love this is something that we naturally and we are very, we are very familiar with the concept of unconditional love. However, there's something we're not that familiar with. And that is respect. We do not understand the concept of unconditional respect. We as
women feel like well, you got to you got to deserve my respect. You got to earn my respect, right? So if you're treating me bad, I'm not going to respect you. Right. Now. That's the problem right there. Because we
When we take on that attitude, we're only going to get more and more harsh treatment. It's like It's like this knee jerk reaction. So the prophets I send them comes to women and he recommends to women, what respects your your husbands, right? obey your husbands. So the the, the emphasis is on respect, okay? Now when Allah and His Messenger talk to men, when the prophets I send them is advising men on how to treat women, what is the emphasis, the emphasis is in in terms of kindness and love. So the prophets I send them is telling men be kind with your wife, right? be caring be be, don't be harsh with your wives. And then one has to prophesize. And them says that a woman was created from a bench
rip, right. And he says, this is a really deep, how deep he says that, if you try to straighten it, you'll break it. But if you leave it as it is, you'll enjoy it. So what does that mean? Well, women are a certain way. And they're created that way, right? We didn't bend our own rib that we didn't make the rib bent ourselves, but we're created with a certain nature from God. And if you're going to go and try to change that nature, guess what, you're going to break it, you're not going to be successful with that woman. But if you accept her as she is, accept her as she is, and accept her nature as it is, you will be successful. And so the idea here is that if you treat her with
kindness, and you treat her with love, and that unconditional love commandment is more given to men, because men, on the other hand, have the idea usually on you know, the mirror of the women is that I'm only going to be kind and loving to my wife when she's respectful to me. But so long as she shows me disrespect, I'm not going to show her love. And this is also a formula for failure. Because the more that a man shows harshness to a woman, the more disrespectful she tends to be. Now one really beautiful example of this is the example of homeowner the lawn. Now when you think about in your mind, who is the most manly man, there is that you can like think about, you know, like, big
masculine man, you think of usually all most of you, you know, this is one of the most manly men, you know, you can think of right? Now, if you think about now, this is the man who this this story stars. Okay, so what happened is that when Amata Dylon was Khalifa, there was one of the men in the society who wanted to come to him to complain about his wife. Now, like, I guess the women of unslotted were kind of like strong, right? So he was gonna go complain about his wife. And then when he got close to Dylan's house, he heard Omar's wife like raising her voice to him. And he kind of turned around to go back. And I'm gonna Dylan came out and said, you know, you asked him why he
came? And he said, Well, actually, I was coming to complain about the same problem that you have. So home on the line at that time, told him something very wise. And he said that
my wife, you know, she cooks for me, she cleans for me, she takes care of me. And you know, when she takes care of, you know, my home, right? Can I not overlook it or be tolerant when she's, you know, raising her voice or she's talking in a disrespectful way. Now, the point here, there's a really deep lesson here, and that is that all mod odilon understood that to be a man. I mean, again, you definitely wouldn't call him on masculine right? That to be a man does not mean that you need to be harsh. Right? He understood that the actual strength that the prophets I send them talked about was in controlling your anger, not letting your anger control you. So you know, if you look at again,
this advice that we can look at from the prophets, I send them from Allah, it that's where we should be getting our sense of self worth, and what it means to be a woman and what it means to be a man. And until we can use that as our standard rather than society. Rather than you know, popular culture. We're never going to be successful. akula Cody Heather was the Hello Leo. Welcome. innovaphone Rahim. panicle Oh, behandeln definition de la land as the Filipina to ballet class in an incident of the host. eliminating a man woman is solid head to toe so we'll have some Santa Monica
zirkel man. So if you have any seats that are next to you that are empty, please fill them up. Or if you have a seat next to you that's empty. Just raise your hand. let somebody know because there's a lot of people on the sides. Okay, guys, if you see a hand raised, there's an empty seat. You guys can go ahead and sit down or scoochie and how about everybody Scrooge in one seat? screeching to your next door neighbors that way the seats on the edge are are open.
Okay.
Then so people sitting on the floors can get a little break.
Okay.
All right, so our next So a really quick announcement right after this session we're going to have method prayer in the same place we had awesome but please don't leave we're going to release the roll by row so don't get up after shift. Yes, it is done.
So just wait wait wait a couple minutes and we'll receive row by row so that way it's it's not jam packed.
So without further ado, please welcome Jeff Yes.
shavon rajim Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salam ala rasulillah In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, The Most Merciful. All praise is due to Allah and made his peace and blessings be upon our beloved prophet muhammad sallallahu alayhi wa sallam begin by getting your whole assalamu aleikum wa rahmatullah wa barakato.
jackal sister Yes, we in for your very insightful presentation. And due to the limitation of time, inshallah, I'll just get right into the topic. Please remember the following. TV does not only sell products,
TV sells ideas.
And many times, we are not paying attention. As we are being sold ideas by TV. We think that TV only sells products at the time of commercial. That is certainly part of it. But the ideas that TV sells us are extremely powerful.
Appreciate the power of DVD super analog, this machine is absolutely powerful.
And the people who are in charge of it, they know how powerful it is.
And they are able to manipulate us they're able to sell us ideas is able to sell us products, they're able to play with our emotions, they are capable of doing a lot of stuff.
And many times we don't even know that this is what is going on. Give you an example. And some of you may not be old enough to you know, appreciate the example. But there was a show called Happy Days.
And the star of the show was farce.
And supposedly he was the sexiest man alive at a time.
And this is a guy that was wearing the leather jacket black leather jacket. And he was wearing his jeans. And he was just this, you know, guy and his people absolutely loved. Because like jasmine said earlier, you know, we do know is quoted as saying that people look up to the rich and powerful as their models. And these are the people that they follow. So in one of the episodes Falls is this really stupid guy, he's really good, but he's really dumb. You know, like, Homer Simpson, maybe so anyways. So what happens is, falls decides that he wants to get a library card.
The guy has never set foot in the library before. He doesn't know what the library is. I don't think he could have spelled the word library. So he goes to the library, and he makes an absolute fool of himself. And it was really funny, it's sitcom. But the next day 500,000 teenagers went to the local libraries to get a library card.
This is how powerful it is. That it sells ideas. It sells products as well. So part of the ideas that TV sells us is what is the definition of manhood and who is really a man and what is the definition of womanhood and who is really a woman. And so Pinilla when you look into there is this great book by name by a man named Michael Kimmel, and it is on the cultural history of manhood in America.
He speaks about the different definitions and the different stages and the evolving definitions of manhood in the US. And he goes all the way back to the 18 hundred's, how people define manhood back then, and then later on as time went by how people would define manhood, and he gets to talk about playboy actually was a new definition of manhood. You know, because playboy when it came out in 1955, I wasn't around back then I promise you when it came around, in 1955, it came in was the idea of redefining what it means to be a man. Somebody said, No, man, playboy, that is just to sissy. hustler is the real deal.
And the accident presented hustler as the real definition of what it means to be a man.
But as they are defining what it means to be a man, they're also defining what it means.
To be a woman. And it goes on to the point. And this is really interesting. There was a period, if you remember again, you know, some of you may not be old enough to remember this in the 1980s, a set of movies and stars came out. One of them is Sylvester Stallone.
And I tell you, I am quoting him now. so versatile salon is this big guy. And he actually came in and he said, you know, the men that are presented on TV nowadays, are very women is
his time, he said now to set the balance correct.
So now they are redefining what it means to be a man. And they are giving us a set of movies that just came out at that point. Sylvester Stallone, Steven Seagal, Bruce Willis, Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and all of a sudden, you know, don't tell me how in all of these people. So now all of a sudden, what we have going on is that there is a new definition of who a man is. This is a person who is able to wrestle down other people. This is a person who is very powerful, extremely arrogant fool of themselves, but he can destroy all the people out there, no matter how many of them are out there.
And then we come to a definition that is very recent, even though our community and our society is very hyper sexualized. TV uses a lot of sex to sell, because sex really sells. It does not matter what the product is. If you can bring in a sexual image into it, believe me, people will remember.
Every man every person remembers that mechanical bull was Carl's Jr. If it's not all the place, it's not called union, you'll know what I'm talking about. Okay, if you're selling Pepsi, you're selling a car, whatever it is, bring sex into the picture. And what happens is you will sell and that is why it's a panel nowadays, we've got a huge problem with pornography. huge problem is pornography. People spend over $100 billion a year worldwide on pornography.
There are 29,000 people every second searching for pornography every single day.
68 million hits on the net people looking for pornography.
Listen to this, there are 420 million pages dedicated to pornography.
4.2 million websites dedicated to pornography. There is a porn site that comes out every 39 minutes. San Gabriel Valley, which is not very far from here makes about 13,000 movies a year porn dedicated.
Unfortunately, 160,000 of these searches are on child pornography.
You look into this and you say, wait a minute. See, these people are not just selling images, they're also selling ideas. What it means to be a man. There is nothing manly about being a playboy.
See, defining manhood by the way is not something it's not a talk for the brothers By the way, it really is a talk for the sisters as well, for two main reasons. Number one, you would want to marry a man
I hope
okay.
So what it is now is that you have to have an understanding of what it is or what it is to be a man.
Not only that, but you will also be in charge of raising one.
So you have to have an understanding of what it is what are you raising
so now we're being sold these ideas really a man you know, display boy image that this is the man will lie there is really nothing manly about this. So in a way, they're talking about us being very hyper sexualized, but they also have a new deficient definition nowadays for men, and that is the metro sexualized
and what they mean by that, you know, these men are being told almost to be like women, the you know, in touch with your, you know, sensitive part. We would be we would be told, so they're looking at this and so panela it is just very confusing. Now, I'm growing up I really want to be a man, but I don't know what it means to be a man. But so pound Allah. Do you know what is amazing about this? They say that if you leave a young girl alone
She will be able, on her own to grow up to be a lady so low that you don't interfere.
Young girls have the ability to grow up and be ladies on their own boys, they have to be taught what it means to be a man.
No, I kid, you know,
girls, they can grow up and be ladies on their own. But boys would have to be taught what it means to be a man.
And that is why suparna long, you know, when they speak about absent fathers, especially when you have boys, what do we copy you growing up to be a man, but you don't have an example that was set for you. And you need to be guided into what it means to be a man. So now what we're being told is that a real man is the man who is that playboy type, he can have as many women and he can, you know, he's the stud, you know, is the guy that is able to go around and do this and do that. That is one of the definitions that are being given to us about men. But see that definition about men is also leads to another definition. And that is what the job of a woman is. So there is this book called
porn land, written by a woman named Gail dines. And she speaks about how porn is not only defining manhood and masculinity, but it is also defining womanhood and femininity. And that is the whole, the whole purpose of a woman is to be pleasing to a man. And if you've been listening to Bella Wayne,
you'll know what that is. Again, you know, in their music, they're also giving us a definition of what it means to be a man and what it is to be a woman. But again, that is leading into something else that is really somehow very detrimental. And that is our sense of self worth, is dependent on us being validated by others.
Please check this out. Pay attention to it. This is this is part of the deep,
our sense of self worth.
If it comes from any other source, other than our relationship with Allah, we are in deep trouble.
We are in deep trouble if how you feel about yourself comes from any other place other than your relationship with Allah you are in deep trouble. Give an example. Now that he's the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said that a servant of Allah would seek to get closer to Allah, by fulfilling the obligations. And that servant of Allah, a man or a woman would want to get closer to Allah. So what they would do is that they do all the voluntary acts, abortion just goes on and on and on. And then somehow light goes on to say, if a servant of mine makes a mention of me, in an assembly, Allah would make a mention of him in a better assembly, it gets even more beautiful. And
then it says that if you make a mention of a lot in yourself, a lot of will make a mention of you in himself. Now, that is what I called real self esteem.
Just knowing that every time I think of him, he thinks of me.
Remember that, you know, childish first love that you had,
when you call up somebody and say, I was just thinking of you all, I was thinking of you too. And you know,
all that. Now imagine SubhanAllah. Imagine that, that makes people feel good. But now somehow imagine, every time you think of Allah, you make a mention of him in yourself, a lot of makes a mention of you in himself.
And then we are being given this definition of womanhood. And that is their job is to, you know, again, to be there for the guy satisfy the guy meet the needs of the guy, objectified commodified, your commodity and object and that is really your job. That is why today we have one of every four girls in the fourth grade has got some sort of an eating disorder.
Because they've been taught that in order for you to be validated and valued by society, you cannot exceed a certain weight, you have to have these physical characteristics and if you don't have it, tough luck.
You're out of there. So now we're being sold. You know, these these definitions of what it means to be a woman and this book called The Bible beauty. And what it talks about is all the possible plastic surgeries that a woman can go through
In order to look good,
and the book is like five, you know, different chapters, it starts from the neck up and talks about all the different procedures that you can have, you know, from the neck up, and what every procedure is called, and how much it would cost you, and why do you need it. And it just goes on and on on to the point that we stop living life for ourselves. And we start living somebody else's life, to the point that we don't no longer we no longer know who we are.
Because again, we have been given this definition. Sometimes we're also told that our wards, as men and women, comes either from our position or from our possession. Let the Lexus speak for you. I don't want no darn Lexus to speak for I want to speak for myself. I don't want that to speak for me. So we're constantly being bombarded. normally make a statement about yourself, you know, with American Express Subhanallah, the logo, you know, it's so prestigious to have American Express. And the point now is that again, just following on what Abraham has said, and that is our definition of success, is also it's just almost being copy what is being presented to us as success, the powerful
and the and the rich. So we end up accumulating so much, buying here and buying the thinking that you know, this is what's going to do it for us. But to handle I think what happens is that we become very dependent on stuff,
we become dependent on stuff. And so panela, the old type of dependency of dependency is emotional dependence.
Listen to this, specially my sister's, the worst type of dependency is emotional dependence. When you wait for somebody else, or something else to make you happy, when you wait for somebody else, or something else to make you feel worse, when you wait for somebody or something else, to make you feel validated or appreciated. At that point, what we have done is that we have surrendered so much power to the other. And that is you are in charge, you get to determine how we feel. Because simply if you don't say then I'll just be miserable. And as such Subhanallah we become extremely, extremely dependent. But the worst kind of dependency is not financial. Rather, it is emotional because we
become enslaved from within.
So now what we want is going back to this, or attic principle, or any guidance, prophetic guidance, as far as you know, I really want to know what does it mean to be? What does it mean to be a man? Or does it mean to be a woman Subhanallah the Orion uses two words. It uses the word zacher which means mail. And it uses the word Rajan, which means man,
and Evan Hyun in his Tafseer he goes on to follow this word, gradual man in the Quran.
And it's usually this very heroic figure that is in the Quran.
In surah, cossar, it said that, and this believe in man, who was of the people of the Pharaoh, we don't have a name for him. But what we have is a description that he was a man. He was a man that was benefiting from the status quo, but the status quo was not good. Even though he was directly benefiting from it, you belong to the royal family. How better can it be? So this man stands out and says, This is wrong? I don't want to be part of this. So the Koran does not give us a name, but rather it gives us a definition that is a Colorado, so I've been high on comments on this and he says, laser coolamon cannot enter hula hula, as Maharajah said that not everybody that grows a beard
becomes a man
says that it's no longer the superficial definition of manhood. You know, growing a beard. So Hannah, and I thought that, you know, why would he say this? This is I just thought that Who would think that. But I remember one time. I was working at displays and one of my co workers I haven't seen for a while and then I saw him and he just looked very happy. And I said What's going on? He said, My life is good. I grew my mustache
and said I have a car. But to him. That was his rite of passage to manhood. He's got a mustache.
And I almost wanted to quote Odin hayyan for him, but I didn't.
But now this is what is being presented. So abhiyaan said this is not how it is. So he said the Quran actually has a purpose for differentiating between a record amazing
And a man who said that manhood is a position that a person attains veker is just a biological fact, you're either male or female, and that is the end of it. But he said that to actually be a man, this is something that you have to earn. And so panela the Quran always emphasizes that truly a man, the words of a man is to be judged by their character,
it is to be judged by their character, it is not your position, it is not your position, but rather, it is about your words, as far as your relationship with your Creator is concerned, and also as to what kind of character do you possess. So, again, the teachings of the Quran, they just really reverse. And at that point, there is really no distinction between a man and a woman, remember this, this male female relationship is the most basic relationship in the world. And if we get that wrong, then everything else is wrong.
So this is really important. Understanding this, you know, at that level, that this is the most basic, you can't have any other relationships if that relationship does not exist. So it is very important to us as Muslims, especially as you know, brothers here, that we understand what and how it is that we see women. And it's also very important that our sisters see, you know, have a correct understanding of how they see brothers and how they see men. Simply, if we have this right, then we can make wiser decisions later on. But nowadays, the panel, what we see is that, you know, they say that there are three types of
at that level, the man male female relationship, is there are three types of connections. The number one connection is what we call the flesh connection. And that is people coming to an understanding to misuse and abuse each other's bodies. Are we connected last night?
we hooked up last night? And what does that mean? You know, just had, you know, whatever it is, he didn't quit, right.
So now what happens is that this is what people have in mind. So panela, you know, when I first came to the States, Isabella, I did not I did not speak much English, I only knew towards English. Good, good, very good. And
what happened is, I would I would go, and I would see these people like lunchtime, and they would be kissing and making out And remember, you know, I've never seen stuff like that before. So I would walk up to them say, oh, When are you getting married? And people look at me say Who said anything about marriage? And I'll say, Well, you know, you seem to be going at it.
And what they would say is we like each other for right now. Subhan. Allah will lie. It did not make sense to me back then. And it does not make sense to me now. Why would you be making an emotional investment with somebody? Knowing that it's going nowhere?
Will you Why would you?
Why would you give off yourself so much, knowing that this is going nowhere.
And once it is based on that, then you don't care for the well being of the person, you don't care for the happiness of the person, you don't care for the growth or the development of the person, because you're getting what you want from that person. And that is the end of it.
And if you are in that lifestyle, that is a sick lifestyle, you will never be able to truly develop a truly loving, intimate caring relationship. Because we have been so used to seeing people like an orange where you take squeeze and then throw away. We don't see the goodness in them, but we see the usefulness in them.
And the minute we go there, it means that we have messed up that male female relationship at its core at its very base. And as a result, we cannot truly have any more relationships that are meaningful. where the person is not really interested in your inner beauty. They're only interested in your outer beauty
and that is very very dispensable.
So what we want is, we want to consider people not because of that irrelevant stuff that has been talked about earlier, but rather is the inner beauty that really brings meaningful to relationships. So the Quran would teach that women are not different than men in anything. And also Allah the Quran sometimes would they would would would go and make that distinction. In Nila or the Rama Lama min comienza Quran said that no deed that was performed by the believers be they females or males will go to waste or will go into vain. Allah does not have different expectations from men and women.
We are equally responsible, and Subhana Allah, there is this idea of zellige in the urn, which means fair, but to truly have appeared, they must be equal. That's where the idea of zoji comes from. The Quran does not make a distinction as far as what it is that we would create it from the expectations or the reward, this idea of equality, or the very basic is really made, so that we can set our relationship there for or on the basis of these that male female relationship. So we don't want to be objectifying or commodifying. And believe me, Muslims are capable of doing so we just do it differently.
We just do it differently. So what we want to do is to step out of this self righteousness mode, and we want to be engaged with reality. So this is the American selling it at the time, and I don't have to turn it off. Anyways.
So this is what we looking for, in our, in our community, you know, there is no respect for you know, this idea of being a playboy or playgirl that none of that stuff, what we ought to really be looking for, interested in, not really the ideas that are given and sold to us by TV or by the stars, but rather ideas, principles and guidance that are given to us by Muhammad Sallallahu wasallam, a man's worth is indeed dependable, responsible, don't go live on your word, being in charge, this idea of you know what, being just being just being responsible, especially if you choose to have a family, make a family idea, a sense of, you know, an importance to what it is that
you have chosen, the type of choices that we make, the way that we use our time. These are all qualities that you don't hear about nowadays, about, you know what it really means to be a man. But this is really what counts by the end of the day, especially if you are a father, especially if you are a husband. And these are the qualities that we look for, you know, raising our children are looking for that person that we want to be married to. Final suggestion. If you're interested in a book about the topic, there is this great book written by Naim Akbar, and the title of the book is boys into womanhood and to maxillary womanhood in demand.
Now boys becoming, becoming men, that is really a great book, to read about the about about the topic, but be a man, be a woman. Please remember that our sense of self worth can only come should only come from our relationship with our Creator, a lot of animal dolla, dolla dolla