This lecture was delivered at the 15th Annual MAS-ICNA Convention, McCormic Place on December 27, 2016.
Yasmin Mogahed – Modern Family
AI: Summary ©
The importance of having two-way communication is discussed, as it is difficult to determine if one is religious. Personal behavior is also emphasized, including finding a balance between respect and love for parents and children. The importance of forgiveness and self-acceptance is emphasized, as it is a choice for everyone. The speaker also emphasizes the need for priorities and avoiding mistreated behavior. The importance of seeking help from Allah is also emphasized.
AI: Summary ©
Out of la mina shaytani r rajim Bismillah R Rahman r Rahim wa salatu salam ala rasulillah. Juana Liu savage mine of the shrine in Saudi were silly omniva Dr. Melissa Annie of Kahu Kohli.
I remember going to these conferences when I was younger. And it's just always very surreal that I'm up here. And I was always there. And I just honestly feel like, when I speak with you, I never want to feel as though I'm speaking at people. This is why one of my favorite types of audiences are American audiences. Because we're pretty if you guys actually travel around different parts of the world, find that Americans are quite expressive. And when I say expressive, you don't even have to speak we make faces. And I love people who make faces. So keep making your faces because then I know whether or not you get me or you don't get me if you look confused, and I explain a little more. If
you look like oh, yeah, I got that, then you know, I understand. So inshallah, hopefully, it's a two way conversation, I always try to ask my audiences to just use nonverbal communication, just just just be very expressive my faces if, if I'm making no sense be like, that's okay. That's good. And if I am, do this, so then I know, okay, they got that. Okay. Um, then I can move to the next point, you got me. So it's a way for us to have two way communication. The topic today is something that's extremely important. I'm going to talk about family. And the reason why this is so important. And I'm going to emphasize the importance of it. As oftentimes we believe that religion that Deen so we
have a very limiting definition of religion and Deen, for example, if a person is looking to get married, right, as maybe many of you in this room are, if a person is looking to, you know, complete half their Deen is looking for a good spouse and, you know, their teachers, their parents, the scholars tell them look for Dean, right. So we all know this, we got this. Okay, we're supposed to look for Dean. Right. But then we have this challenge of Well, how do I know a person's Dean? Right? Well, oftentimes, what happens is the definition of a religious person is very superficial, very superficial. So for a brother, it's the ones who have the biggest beard, the shortest pants, if
that's what they do, and, and they can maybe recite the most heavy. And that's awesome. That's all very awesome. However, our definition of Deen is just very surface. It's a person maybe, who has the most things memorized, which is great. But sometimes and and on the other end we have with sisters, it might be very much a surface thing, right? Although unfortunately, and this is just a side thing. A lot of times, they're even among I found this trend that even among very religious brothers, there is an absolute positively kimete complete definition on looks, even if the bro is religious. The most important thing in this this is looks, and I found this unfortunately, across the board, this
is something we have to start getting a little more balanced about. Right? In the sense that yes, attraction is important. However, we have to start being a little more deep, a little more deep about the substance of a human being. And this applies to whether you're just looking for looks, or whether you have a superficial definition of what it means to be religious. And that's what brings me to the topic of family. Because the prophets I sell them for example, gave us a definition of a religious person. He says in one Hadith haidakhan Cairo komiya la now all of a sudden the prophet SAW Selim has given us a litmus test for character that's what he's doing in this hedgy he's giving
us a litmus test for character. And what is that litmus test he's saying? The best of you are the best to their families. So right now, we already have a litmus test. He actually didn't say the best of you are the ones with the longest beards. Yeah, it okay. This is this is a beautiful thing to follow the Sunnah. However, when he's really talking about the litmus test of a human being of a human's character, he says, Look at how they are with their family.
Why do you think that would be a litmus test? Well, there are many reasons. Number one, is that what happens behind closed doors is behind closed doors. It's not on social media, how you are with your children, how you are with your parents, how you are with your siblings. That's a hard one.
Isn't it? Right? Because the reality is we sometimes have it flipped. We aren't the best of their families. We're the rest of their families. We save the best for outside the home. Isn't that the truth. We save our politeness and our kindness and our generosity and our pleases and our thank yous for the people at the grocery store for the maybe the teller, maybe the waiter, maybe the people in the masjid. But once we get home, all the pleases, and thank yous are done, they're expired, you know, I'm saying, and now all of a sudden,
some time, sometimes we even go to the extent that our family is our punching bag, both figuratively and literally, this is an extreme, right. But even if it's not physically our punching bag, although sometimes it actually is, we use our families as our emotional punching bags. So we're frustrated with our boss, we're frustrated with our teacher, we're frustrated with someone, you know, someone, whatever is happening to us, outside the home, we come home and take it out on the people inside the home. And this is the exact opposite of what the prophets I send him is teaching us. He's teaching us we're supposed to be the best with the ones in the home. Meaning on our best behavior inside the
home, not the other way around. Because the way we've got it often is that we're on our best behavior outside the home, we come in the home, now it's our time to relax. But relaxation, unfortunately means I don't have to be on my best behavior anymore. You get it, I can treat them however I want. I can talk in whatever tone, I can snap, I can this all of a sudden, we're not so concerned about the feelings of the people inside the home. As we were just concerned with our colleagues and our boss and even just the teller at the at the grocery store. That's a big problem. And it shows a problem in character. It shows actually a problem in character, because the prophets
I send them gave us the litmus test and the litmus test is quite concrete. That actually if you want to know who is the best, who is the best among you, in what actually matters, not only in your dress, not only in what you can recite, not only in you know the external superficial like the the the surface things, but in really your character. The litmus test is who How are you with your family? How are you with the people closest to you, the people who we tend to take for granted? The people who aren't paying our you know, our income, our check our monthly check the people who aren't giving us that status, you see, because at the masjid, how we behave in the masjid, we get some
thought we get something from it, right? You know, that's gonna that's it. That's a status thing. Sometimes it's an image thing, what are people going to say? What are people going to think? I want people to think of me a certain way, you know, this nap, this feeling of wanting that. But in the home, you know, there's no, there's no trophy at the end, there's no position. No one's you know, putting it up on social media. It's not being Facebook lived. You fill me. And so sometimes what happens is, we don't, we don't follow this formula. And instead, we do the opposite. But if you really want to know a person's character, truly test a person's character. You look at how they are
with those in their family. You look at how they are with those closest to them, those who don't have power over them, but they have power over them. Make sense?
If you see how a person is with the one who can like benefit, can't benefit them, or can't have Sultan or power over them and see how they treat those people. Who are they their kids, their siblings, their parents, you understand the things that are in private. And why does the prophets I sell them tell us this? Because here's the amazing thing. If a person can be on their best behavior, this is called sn by the way sn don't ever think sn means perfection. Sometimes this Miss translated, sn doesn't mean perfection because there's no such thing as perfection except with Allah. Human beings are not perfect. Human beings are not perfect. This doesn't mean we are expected
to be perfect. However sn is to strive for excellence in everything you do. to strive for excellence in your behavior to strive for excellence in your manners, to strive for excellence in how you treat everyone whether they can benefit you or they can't. All right. And so if a person is able to have SSN with those in privates, then that's the real test of how they're going to be with those in public.
Make sense, if you want to really know a person,
you know, because at the end of the day, you'd as they, as they say, you don't know really know a person to live with them, or travel with them or deal with them with finances, you know, the prophets I sell them told us that you don't really know a person unless you deal with certain in certain ways with them certain circumstances. And one of those circumstances Is that you, you, you travel with them, that you're with them in a in a in a living situation in a in a in an extended period of time. Why? Because that's when somebody is uncomfortable. Travel is uncomfortable. Travel is not, I mean, even now, even now, with all of our, you know, our transportation, our comfort that
we have, we have airplanes now we're not on camels, however, it's still stressful. You know what I mean, when you're missing your flight, or you're close to missing your flight or, or someone is, is being, you know, discriminating against you or whatever, you're put under stress. And when a person is put under stress, it tests their mettle, it tests what they really are. So if you really want to know a person, you really want to know a person. These are some of the ways, but I'll tell you this,
if you want to know a person, say you're you know, you're trying to get to know someone for marriage. And you want to know that person, look at how they are with their family. Look at how they treat their mother, look at how they treat their father. Look at how they treat their siblings. Because even if a person is you know, sometimes you might have someone who's really, really great with their parents having dinner. But then again, you always also have Mama's boys Sometimes, however, however, if you look at how they are with their siblings, you look at how they are with people who can do nothing for them, then you start to understand the real metal, the real character
of a person. And there's something else I'm going to say when it comes to family.
It's very hard to find a balance sometimes. Now I want to take a moment and talk about the relationship with our parents, that relationship between parents and children.
So much emphasis is put in the Quran and in the Hadith, about the the elevated status of parents, and how much respect and sn our parents
have a right over us. It's their rights.
But sometimes we find it difficult to find a healthy balance. I mentioned in passing a term which we use mama's boy, right. And I'm going to explain that term for a second. And why that's one extreme and why it's also it's also dangerous, and I'll explain everything in our life needs to be balanced. Allah subhanaw taala says that we are a people of the middle path. And while on the one hand, we are told to respect our parents, and we are told to be kind to our parents and have a son with our parents. We I have I have seen and we've seen in our communities, a certain type of extreme, which is unhealthy. And that is that even when the parents are asking of the children something that is
unjust. For example, this is a very typical example. When someone gets married, yeah. And maybe the parents or the mother is being unjust to the wife, unjust to the wife, maybe mistreating the wife. Now this is a situation where the husband is being put in a moral dilemma, right? Because the mother is is the mother and she has her status. However, she may be doing something unjust to his wife, and he's put in a situation. This is really where we have to find, okay, what does the law want me to do in the situation? How can I be just and still be kind to my mother and still be kind to my wife. This is a real life situation, many people and actually there's a lot of marriages ending because of
this because of the inability to find that balance. Okay, respect for our parents. Absolutely. But there is a limit in that obedience, there is a limit. Now one of the clearest limits Allah told us in the Quran, which is that if our parents are asking of us something which is displeasing to Allah, meaning something, how wrong, for example, you have families where the parents aren't even Muslim and the child is a convert or a river. In this case, the parent may not even want the child to be Muslim. This is a one extreme example, doesn't want the child to be Muslim. Obviously, in that case, they can't obey the that that particular request of the parents make sense.
What's even more common, for example, the parent may not want the child to wear hijab. For whatever reason, you know, you're not going to get married or no one's gonna want to marry
You that kind of thing? In that case, it's a situation where it's a test. But the correct answer is you can't obey your parents in that which disobeyed Allah subhanaw taala.
But then there's these other sort of
another level, which isn't as black and white. And that I'm going to talk about next, which is what happens when there is an injustice, right? So in this case, for example, do you have like the the example I gave, where there is an injustice that's being done to the wife, for example, by the parents? What should the what should the husband do? Now, in that case, it is required of him islamically. To be fair, it is required to Semak Lee to be just to do that justice, with sn to do it with sad meaning in a beautiful way, you know, you know, even when there was a companion, his mother was telling him to leave Islam, she wasn't a Muslim. And she was saying, unless you leave Islam, I'm
going to starve myself until I die.
And his response to her was something of the sort of, even if you had 100 souls, and they left your body one by one, I wouldn't leave this Deen.
Well, okay. There's a way to say things. Do you know he was actually told he was corrected, even though what he's doing? Obviously, he shouldn't leave Islam. But the way in which he spoke to his mother, he was corrected for it. He wasn't, he was told that this he had to be corrected, because that's not the way. So although we do things with correctly, we may have to stand up for justice. However, we should do it with sn, that means that there's a way to do it, there is a way to be just if if if there is an issue where our parents are being unjust, there's a way to handle it. But do it with justice it is doing with
what we shouldn't do. And what we are going to be held accountable for is when we don't stand up, in a circumstance where something is unjust. And it is within our control and within is within our authority to say something and we don't, that's something we will be held accountable for. So we have to find that balance of respect. But at the same time, justice, and sn, if that makes sense. Okay, the other thing that oftentimes happens is that I've had a lot of people come to me and sort of struggling with, one of the issues they struggle with is I'm trying everything, but I can't seem to please my parents, like I'm trying, I am working, I am doing everything I can, but they're just
not pleased with me. Because of x, y, z. And the x y, z is usually something like I didn't go to med school, or I don't want to be a doctor, or I'm not marrying my cousin, you know what I'm saying? And,
and the problem there. The problem there is now again, you're put in a situation because it's like you're taught, but you need to play, you need to your parents need to be happy with you and the you know, you have to treat your parents. But then what happens when they they're, they're being pleased with you is dependent upon you going to med school and marrying your cousin? What if you don't want to go to med school? And what if you don't want to marry cousin? What then does that mean? Allah is going to be angry with you because you didn't listen to your parents. So you understand these kinds of matters, that are where we have to find a balance. All right. And and and and the reality is that
we are only held accountable for our efforts, we are not held accountable for the results. So what does that mean? If you are giving your parents their rights
and you are not disrespecting them and you are treating them with sn,
then you and you put in all of the effort that you can from your end alone will hold you accountable for that you've done your part. If on the other end, they are still not pleased that's not in your hands. What is in your hands is have you given them their right? Have you given them their right? Are you respectful? Do you treat them with sn? Then as long as you've done your part then then the result is from Allah subhanaw taala. Okay. I'm finally I'm going to say this. And then I want to leave time for questions because I'm assuming this is a topic where there will be a lot of different kinds of questions.
When it comes to relationships between family, when it comes to relationships between family.
There's a principle that we have to keep in mind and it and it governs every kind of relationship. In fact, whether it's with your parents, or whether it's with your spouse or whether it's with your children, and that is this there is a relation there is a direct link between our relationship with Allah and our relationship with people.
Now what do I mean by that, when we fix when we fix when we rectify our relationship with the Creator, then Allah rectifies our relationships with the creation.
So by fixing my relationship, your relationship with your Creator, a law will then help you and, and rectify your relationships with people, the people in your life, the people in your family. But it also goes the other way around, too. And this is another principle we are taught. When we fix our relationships with the creation, when we rectify it, when we work on it, it also helps to fix our relationship with Allah. What do I mean by that, I'll give you a few examples. I'll give you a few examples. One,
the prophets I send them taught us that, for example, if you help a person in need, so you see someone who's in need, and you're compassionate with them, Allah will help you when you're in need. And Allah will show you compassion. If you are merciful with people, then Allah will be merciful with you. So there is a relationship between how I am with people and how Allah is with me.
The other thing to keep in mind is this. There are ways to fix our relationship with others, that fixes our relationship with a law. I'm going to give you one example for that.
At the time, that is shuttle the line who was accused, she was accused of being on chest. And during that period, that very difficult period.
Her father, Abu Bakar, on the line found out that one of the people spreading the rumor was a relative. And not only was he relative but he was a relative that that Abu Bakar The line was financially supporting giving financial support to and you can imagine how he would have felt how would what would we do right? Now all this all that elbow buckler, the line did. He didn't like go after him. He didn't try to get revenge, all he did was withhold the financial support. That was it. That was it.
And a law actually reveals an A and sort of a note about this. And he tells ebook on addressing this issue, and obviously addressing all time,
what is translated as let them pardon and overlook. Now, why I want to emphasize this is because it's very important to study why Allah says, Let them pardon and overlook. Oftentimes, what keeps us from forgiving our family members. What keeps us from forgiving people around us, is we say to ourselves, but they don't deserve my forgiveness. Right? They don't deserve my forgiveness, or they didn't apologize, or they didn't do they didn't rectify. They didn't fix it. They didn't kiss my feet enough, you know, I'm saying.
And they did this thing, October 3 1991, to my family's neighbor's dogs, you know, owner's cousin. And I'm going to remember it forever. Right? And it's going to go down in the books, and then it's going to be spread from generation to generation that this person, this family did this to our family. five decades ago, you know what I'm saying?
The problem with this attitude
is that we're missing something very important. And that is this. Our interaction with people is actually about our relationship with a lot. It's not about people. It's not about people. When Allah revealed this area, he said to ebook in this in this circumstance, Allah to help buena and York Federal law Holcomb he's telling a buck to pardon and overlook why because do you not love for Allah to forgive you? You see what's happened here is the focus is completely being shifted. It's not about Abu Bakar and the one who harmed him and the one who's who was spreading the slander about his daughter anymore. It's about a buck and Allah, Allah to Habana and Yasser Allah, Allah come do you
not love for Allah to forgive you?
And because of that, because obviously Abu Bakar the line wanted a lot to forgive him. He not only continued the financial support, he increased it.
Why did he do that? Because he recognized that it wasn't about this person deserving forgiveness. It was about the fact that he wanted the forgiveness of Allah. And Allah made a deal. See Allah is making a deal with all of us. How many of you guys like Black Friday deals?
Exactly. I know you like Black Friday deals we all like breakfast because human beings like a deal. You like to get something that's of this value for a lesser value for a lesser price everyone loves it loves the sale right? I know you do because people stand outside of BestBuy camping
Literally sometimes standing in freezing cold weather to get a few $100 off a laptop. That's the reality, right? I was making a deal with you, Allah saying, I will give you a Allah is saying that he will give us something that is priceless. Imagine for a moment that you find a house. All right, and you're in love with this house, and you find out that it's $13 billion. That's the cost. Because it's like on some famous Cliff off of some beautiful, you know, ocean right $13 billion house and you go to the one selling the house and you say,
you know, I really love your house. And and the owner says, well, it's your lucky day. It's on sale for a quarter.
Would you feel like you got a deal?
Yeah, right. So Allah is making a better deal. a better deal than that. Because Allah is giving us something that's worth the mercy of Allah, what's it worth?
Anyone?
It's priceless. That means that had it means it's infinite. It's infinite. It's not $13 billion, the value of the mercy and forgiveness of Allah. Like for Allah to forgive you. That's not something you can't put a price tag on. You can't even put a price tag on Jenna and none of us are going to enter gender without the mercy of Allah we all need it. Even the prophets I seldom said that he would not enter agenda except by the by the mercy of Allah. Just his deeds alone wasn't enough. What are our deeds? If the prophets I said liens deeds aren't enough. What about our deeds? So here Allah saying, I'm going to give you this thing called my forgiveness.
And and this thing that is infinite in value, and I'm going to give it to you for a quarter. All you got to do is forgive this person. We get it.
You get it. All you got to do is forgive so and so who harmed you on this date? On this day of the month on this day on this year? That's it That's what you got to do to get the forgiveness of Allah. Abu Bakar on the line was he not wrong? Was cadet was was I should have the line not wrong. It was like it's the worst kind of wrong you slandering a woman in this like chastity, you feel me? And yet, Allah is saying, I will give you my foot. Do you not want Allah to forgive you? Forgive him? Pardon? pardon him? And I will walk pardon Tim rather lon? So you see with us within our families, within our communities. When we forgive people, we're actually benefiting ourselves. Because what
we've done is we're paying a quarter for something that's infinite. We're paying a quarter forgive this person and Allah Subhana Allah will forgive you and that is priceless. That has no no price tag that you can assign to it. Or clinically, Heather was stuck for a while you will come in Nova una Rahim. subhanak Hello behind Dhaka Chateau La Ilaha Illa and istockphoto tubo. like Santa Monica Rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh.
Kabir
Zach, Aloha, that was a beautiful speech. As you can see on this table, there are about 100 questions and we will not be able to get to all of them. So I think everyone for asking your questions. inshallah, I'll be summing up some of these questions into like, one question, and we'll be getting some great advice. So first question reads, sometimes after a long days at work in school, we come home and explode on our families. Does this make us a hypocrite? If we are outwardly very kind and composed, but can sometimes have a temper or angry at home? Bismillah Okay, Bismillah? To answer your question, it doesn't mean you're a bad person. But it is definitely something you
have to work on. See what I believe is what I believe is as a fact is this, where there's a will, there's a way, meaning that if you believe that something is important enough to you, you will make it happen, like you will make sure that you do it. I'll give you an example. Let me just give you an example. This same person who asked this question,
imagine it's the other way around for a moment. Just follow, like, stay with me.
Imagine it's the other way around, that this person got in a fight with his wife just before going to work. All right. So he's very upset. He's angry. He's going into work, very angry and very stressed. My question to you, is he ever ever going to take it out on his boss?
No. Is he gonna take it out on his boss? No, not if he has any kind of like, rationality right? No. Why? But he's angry. You know, I couldn't help it. Because it's not on the menu of options. You understand my point. All of a sudden he has self control. When it comes to his boss. All of a sudden self control exists. See?
It's a choice we make. It's a choice, believe me, it's a choice, we choose that we're going to have less self control with our families. It's not that we don't know how to have self control. And if we don't know how to have self control, even with our boss as well, then we need to seek anger management, we need help. Because self control is a necessary component in anything in life. You can do nothing in life without having self control. And you definitely can't have a relationship without self control. Okay? Just like you're not gonna keep your job, unless you have self control, you understand. But see, we care about our job more than our marriage, sometimes.
That's the reality. We care about our job more than our children's, you know, well being or maybe psychological well being, because we wouldn't mess up with our boss. But we mess up with our spouse and our children. That's a big problem. It's really about priorities. It's about priorities. So I I believe that if you make it, see, the first step is for it to be a priority. If you make it a priority, and you and you really internalize what the prophet SAW, Selim is saying, hydrocodone, hydrocodone LA, that you cannot be the best, unless you are the best to your families. And so this is a litmus test that we should have for ourselves, for ourselves first, right? Because it's all
about me, I need to change. A lot of times people listen to lectures like this and be like, oh, wait till I tell my wife or wait till I tell my husband or wife tell tell my friend. No, we have to look at ourselves first. What do I need to change? What do I need to work on? So yeah, it's about it's about priorities. It's about priorities.
The next question reads, how do you deal with a parent or parents who have ostracized you? Because you are gay, and truly kicked you out of the family? And are forcing prejudice against you? Do you still need to treat them with kindness? How do you deal with this? So the the ruling of treating parents with kindness is actually regardless, it's not conditional. So even I gave an example of a man whose mom was actually telling him to be a Catholic. Like she was pushing him to Cofer. And she was threatening him this was a companion threatening him that unless he left Islam, she was gonna, like, kill herself, like, starve herself. So she died. And even with him, she needed to be
and even with with her, sorry, he needed to continue to be kind, this injunction of kindness, this injunction of kindness is regardless, it's not a See, the thing I've learned is
the relationship with parents isn't meant to be
how do I say it?
When you're dealing with your parents, you are not dealing with your your, it's not supposed to be like, tit for tat is not supposed to be like, like all but I'm doing this to her because she did it to me. Like, that's not how it works. That's not the differential with your parents. See, when Allah subhanaw taala says that you should, you know, lower the wing of humility to your parents, that that whole concept means it's not like you would be with your friend, it's something different. So even when they are not treating you, well, the your responsibility is how you treat them. Okay. Now, having said that, having said that, and obviously there's a whole other component to that, which I'm
not going to get into. But, but since this is about marriage, this is about family, I want to add this other component, and that is this. I definitely want to emphasize this is slim never ever, ever tells you to allow yourself to be abused, to allow yourself to be mistreated, okay? And it doesn't matter who's mistreating you, whether it's a spouse or it's a parent, or it's a friend or whoever it is, that Islam is not a passive religion. And being patient. Having sub does not mean turn the other cheek. It doesn't mean see the concept of turn the other cheek is not a must is not an Islamic concept. turn the other cheek means that if someone came and hit me on this cheek, I turn so they
can hit me on the other. No, no, if somebody Islam the Islamic concept is if somebody hits me on this cheap, I do everything in my power within the obviously within the Sharia and within the rules to make sure that they don't hit me on the cheek to make sense that we are a people of action and we are people of justice, and the people of sn so we do things but we do them in a beautiful way but we do them. We are not passive. We don't see abuse and say
Just stay quiet, just stay quiet, right? Just be just be patient. Because sub is also an active term, sub is also taking action and being persistent and persevering in that action, it requires sub to run a marathon. Okay? It requires sub to wake up profession on time, it's an action, it's also active. It's not only that you just do nothing. That's not what sub It is, in its essence, in its comprehensive meaning. So I just want to really put that out there, that it doesn't mean that you allow for abuse by anyone. Because Islam is a religion that teaches us to preserve the individual, the dignity of the individual, the safety of the individual, the Dean of the individual, these are
all things that must be preserved, and to stand up to help others who are to preserve those things for others.
Thank you, if a family is facing issues, and the parents are too proud to seek professional help, such as therapy or counseling, what can you do as a child?
Okay, well, it depends. I mean, it's such a general question, I don't know how old the child is, I mean, is the child 21 or the child 12. I don't have any idea. But I will say this. Number one, seek help from Allah. And now when I say that, I'm not saying not to seek help outside, and from from therapy, etc, I'm saying first, first, seek help from Allah, meaning, ask Allah to make it easy for you. And make do I ask Allah subhanaw taala to rectify your problems, to rectify your situation to make it easy to open the hearts of your family that they will be willing to take to do counseling. So I want to emphasize this first point, because at the end of the day, everything is a tool. your
therapist is a tool, the counselor is a tool. me speaking up here, I'm just a tool, I hope for good inshallah. But at the end of the day, everything is from Allah. Everything good is from Allah, and any kind of help. And any kind of salvation and any kind of cure is ultimately in the hands of Allah. Only Allah can really fix the problems that you're having. But he puts tools out there in the world as bad. That's what they're called. And so within those tools, we are told to seek those tools, right? We when we're sick, we take medicine, when we're sick, we go to a doctor, when we have a problem, we go to a counselor, this is this is all within the injunctions of Islam. However,
remember that the source is Allah, the source of help is Allah, the source of salvation is a law that only comes from Allah, that means opening. That means when you have a problem, everything seems closed. The opening comes from Allah. So make sure that that's first and foremost that you're seeking that help from Allah, and then see what kind of action you can take. Depending on your situation you might make do I try to talk to your parents, maybe if that isn't working, try to talk to someone who your parents respect, maybe a scholar, a teacher, any man in the masjid, and see if you can do it that way. Now, let's find out that I make it easy and rectify all of our situations. I
mean, we're gonna have one more question. I have family members who are mad at me and starting problems with me, because I'm friends with the ex wife of my cousin. The reason why I asked this is many questions here concerning people who are divorced out of the family, but they're keeping relations with them. And the family is being mad at them. Can you comment on this? Yes.
Okay, so here's one of the challenges that we are. And this is one of the things that we are told as believers, that you have to stand up for justice, even if it is against yourself, or even if it's against your family. What that means, again, is that if something is right, you do it, you do it.
And you stand firm in it in a polite way. Does that make sense? So you don't cut off this person, just because everybody else is mad because they got divorce or whatever. But at the same time, you can do it and continue. But do it with sn do it with respect, do it respectfully. And you have to we have to be again I'm going to emphasize this. We have to be a people of justice and SN and they go together justice and SN and mercy. So be firm, be firm on what's right. Yeah, if someone needs to be defended, defend them. But do it in a beautiful way. If that makes sense. Medical Luffy that's actually all the time we have. May Allah preserve you for us and increase your knowledge. I mean,
oh, Blimey, one last round of applause.