Zia Sheikh – Respect Your Parents Jumuah 08052016
AI: Summary ©
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
to
AI: Summary ©
In the name of
Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious,
the Most Merciful.
My dear respected elders, brothers and sisters, one
of the most frequently requested topics for khutbas
is the issue of the respect for the
parents.
Frustrated parents come to me at all times
and say that my children do not listen
to me, they don't pay attention to me,
they are rude to me and they disrespect
me, so I'd like you to give a
lecture or a khutba about this issue.
And I thought that it would be an
appropriate time, being the summer break and having
the majority of the children here, to
refresh the minds of especially the youth, the
young, who tend to be hot-headed and
tend to be the most disrespectful when it
comes to the parents, that they should get
an opportunity to listen to the khutba and
be reminded about this very important topic.
But prior to me going into that, we
have to understand that relationships, all relationships, are
bilateral.
They are not unilateral, they are not one
-way traffic.
Relationships, they work two ways.
So, when parents, they want to be respected
and they want their rights to be fulfilled,
it is very important that they also make
sure that they are fulfilling the rights of
their children.
And from the youngest of ages, give them
such a tarbiyah and such an education and
such a teaching that they understand and respect
the position of the parents.
And I think that if we expect that
for 15 years or 12 years we just
leave them to do what they want, with
the understanding that they are just kids, they
will grow into and they will understand as
they grow up, and then we expect at
the flick of a switch that they should
start respecting us, that is very unlikely to
happen.
We find in the seer of the Prophet
ﷺ and his teaching that he used to
teach the youngest of the children, children who
are sitting in his lap, the etiquettes of
life.
A child who is sitting in the lap
of the Prophet ﷺ and eating and making
a mess on the plate.
The Prophet ﷺ took an opportunity to teach
him at that point.
And said, O boy, say
Bismillah before you eat and eat with your
right hand and eat that which is close
to you.
And the Sahabi, Amr ibn Abi Salam, I
believe it was, he says that from that
point on, after the Prophet ﷺ taught me,
he said that was my method of eating.
So the children, they pick up these things
and they are taught and they learn at
these young ages and we should not think
that because they are small, they are too
young to be taught things.
So if we want to be respected, we
have to make sure that we earn that
respect from the children.
We should also make continuous dua to Allah
ﷻ.
This is the first and foremost thing.
Allah ﷻ, he describes the qualities of the
pious believers and at the end of those
qualities, Allah ﷻ says that they make a
dua to Allah ﷻ.
They make a dua to Allah ﷻ, O
Allah, give us from our progeny, a coolness
of the eyes.
Coolness of the eyes means that when you
look at them, you become happy.
So we ask Allah ﷻ, the pious slaves
of Allah ﷻ, ask Allah ﷻ that, O
Allah, give us from our progeny and our
wives and our spouses this coolness of the
eyes.
And these are the qualities of the very
famous dua of Ibrahim ﷺ, O Allah, make
me one who establishes the salah and also
my progeny, make those from the ones that
establish the salah.
So those people that recognize the right of
Allah ﷻ and they fulfill his commands, it
is most likely that they also recognize the
status of their parents and take care of
the parents also.
The Prophet ﷺ, he warned us that the
disrespect of the parents is not just a
major sin, it is the major of the
major sins.
In a hadith which I have just quoted,
the Prophet ﷺ, he said, shall I not
tell you of the major of the major
sins, not the kabaith, but the biggest of
the major sins.
Then he went on to say, the first
is making partners with Allah ﷻ, which is
of course the unforgivable sin, that if a
person dies in the state of committing shirk,
then that person can never be forgiven.
The second is, which is disrespect and disobedience
to the parents, which can come in many
shapes and forms.
And the third, the Prophet ﷺ, he said,
which is false testimony, which can destroy many
lives and the Prophet ﷺ emphasized the importance
of shahadatul zuhr by getting up from his
seat and saying, beware of this false testimony.
But our focus is on the second one,
which is the disrespect to the parents.
So the fact that the Prophet ﷺ did
not just make it a major sin, but
the biggest of the major sins should tell
us the gravity of the sin that is
being committed when a person is disrespectful to
the parents.
Something that we should keep in mind.
And a verse which we hear all the
time, whenever Allah ﷻ has talked about the
respect of the parents, he has coupled it,
he has joined it with his worship.
Why?
Because Allah ﷻ, he is the original creator,
he is our creator.
But the secondary means of our creation were
our parents.
And because of that Allah ﷻ has given
them such a status that when he talks
about his own worship, the next thing that
he mentions right next to that is the
respect of the parents.
وَقَضَىٰ رَبُّكَ أَلَّا تَعْبُدُ إِلَّا إِيَّا وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانًا
Your Lord has ordained that you should not
worship anybody except him and make ihsan towards
parents.
Especially as they get older, they get more
feeble, sometimes they lose their mind, they become
victims of dementia, they reach what is known
in Arabic as ardal al umar, they become
childlike again, they become childlike, they will become
incontinent in terms of not being able to
control their natural bodily functions, they will not
be able to control themselves.
So they become like children once more.
So at that point to respect the parents
and to take care of them, it's a
huge challenge.
I recently got an email from a sister
who was very disturbed about her husband who
was beating up her physically disabled father, who
was beating up his own physically disabled father
for something that the fact that he was
becoming impatient with the fact that he is
physically disabled and he has to look after
him.
So these things do occur.
But to be patient at that time is
what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has told
us.
إِمَّا يَبْلُغَنَّ عِنْدَكَ الْكِبَرَ أَحَدُهُمَا أَوْ كِلَاهُمَا فَلَا
يَتَقُلْ لَهُمَا أُفْحُ If they reach this old
age, that time you have to show patience
and at that time do not say off
to them.
Generally speaking we say that we should not
say off to our parents at any time.
But the biggest challenge is to show disrespect
and displeasure at the time when you have
to clean them up, when you have to
take them to the bathroom, when your whole
schedule is disturbed by looking after your own
parents, your whole life is turned upside down
because you have to look after your parents,
you cannot go out to eat, you cannot
take your immediate family outside.
Why?
Because the elderly person is there and he
needs to be taken care of so no
vacation, no me time, no free time.
At that time Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
says فَلَا تَقُلْ لَهُمَا أُفْحُ Do not say
off to them.
That's the biggest challenge.
وَلَا تَنْهَرْهُمَا وَقُلْ لَهُمَا قَوْلًا كَرِيمًا Do not
scold them and say gentle, noble, nice things
to them at that very difficult time.
وَخْفِضْ لَهُمَا جَنَاحَ وَخْفِضْ لَهُمَا جَنَاحَ الظُّلِّ مِنَ
الرَّحْمَةِ And lower your shoulder to them out
of humbleness and humility and make dua for
them.
Don't curse them.
Make dua for them and say and the
dua is actually a reminder to oneself.
رَبِّرْحَمْهُمَا كَمَا رَبَّيَانِ Oh Allah have mercy on
them as they raised me, they changed me,
they cleaned me and they fed me and
they looked after me when I was a
baby.
Now I have the chance to do the
same thing for them.
Oh Allah have mercy upon them as they
took care of me and they raised me
when I was small.
So this is very important to understand the
status of the parents in the eyes of
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and the respect
of the parents.
I'd like to just turn to a story
of one of the Tabi'een who is
known as Uwais Al Qarni.
A Tabi'een, he is the one that
comes after the Sahaba.
And the fact was that Uwais Al Qarni
was around at the time of the Prophet
ﷺ and he could have visited the Prophet
ﷺ.
The only thing that prevented Uwais from coming
to visit the Prophet ﷺ was the fact
that he had an elderly mother and that
elderly mother had to be looked after and
because of her he could not travel.
And he longed to come to see the
Prophet ﷺ.
The Prophet ﷺ, he mentioned in a Hadith
that he, Uwais Al Qarni was the best
of the Tabi'een and there's a difference
of opinion about who the best of the
Tabi'een was.
The Tabi'een was the status of the
generation that came after the Sahaba.
So some people say that it was Sa
'eed Ibn Al Musayyib who was the best
of the Tabi'een and some say that
it was Uwais Al Qarni and some say
that it was Al Hasan Al Basri.
And the scholars have actually tried to corroborate
the opinions and they say that the most
knowledgeable of the Tabi'een was Ibn Al
Musayyib and the most closest to Allah ﷻ
in terms of his war'a, in terms
of his taqwa, in terms of his devotion
to Allah ﷻ was Uwais Al Qarni.
So this is how you corroborate between the
opinions.
In any case, Uwais Al Qarni was prevented
from coming to visit the Prophet ﷺ.
So because of that, he lost the status
of being a Sahabi and a companion of
the Prophet ﷺ.
That definition of a Sahabi is the one
who saw the Prophet ﷺ in the state
of Iman in his life.
So that makes you a Sahabi and a
companion.
But the Prophet ﷺ, he told the Sahabi
that when this Uwais comes to you, ask
him to pray for your forgiveness.
The status of Uwais Al Qarni was such
that the Prophet ﷺ instructed not just regular
Sahabi, but the biggest of the Sahabi from
the Asharul Mubashara, the ten prominent Sahabi that
had been promised Jannah by the Prophet ﷺ
in one sitting, he told them that when
this Uwais comes to visit you, make sure
you ask him to pray for your forgiveness.
So this shows the status of Uwais that
he did not reach the status of being
a Sahabi, but because of the fact that
he was prevented from coming and he looked
after his mother at the same time, the
Prophet ﷺ told the biggest of the Sahabi
to ask him to make dua for them.
So it's mentioned in a rewrite of Muslim
that Umar Ibn Khattab used to make it
a point whenever groups from Yemen used to
come, he used to make it a point
to look for Uwais Al Qarni and to
try to find this person that the Prophet
ﷺ had informed them that he's going to
come to you one day and when he
comes, ask for dua.
One day he ran into him.
He was looking for him for so many
years and then finally, according to the rewrites,
he started looking and looking and looking and
people used to say that no, nobody by
that name is here.
And then one day finally, when the groups
came for Hajj, he said he asked the
same thing and they said the same thing
and then finally one of them said, you
know what, there's one person that he's not
with us.
He kind of stays aloof.
He tends to sheep and so on.
You might find him under that tree far
away from here.
So Umar r.a set off to try
to find him and finally he found him
and said, are you Uwais Ibn Amir?
He said, yes.
Are you from Murad and originally from a
place called Qarn?
He said, yes.
The Prophet ﷺ had said that he will
have had a skin illness, an illness of
the skin, discoloration of the pigment of the
skin, which will have disfigured his face but
Allah will cure him of that sickness except
for a small small part on his back,
which is equivalent in size to a dirham.
That will still remain discolored but the rest
of his face, it will be normal and
he would have been cured.
So Umar r.a who asked him, so
you had this skin illness and Allah subhanahu
wa ta'ala, he cured you from it
except for this place, which is equivalent to
a dirham.
He said, yes.
He said, you have a mother?
He said, yes.
So then Umar r.a who said, I
heard the Prophet ﷺ say, Umar
r.a who said, the Prophet ﷺ, he
told us everything about you.
The Prophet ﷺ had told us that this
person called Uwais ibn Amir, he will come
with the groups from the people of Yemen
and he will be from a place called
Murad and originally from a place called Qarn
and he will have this skin illness and
Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala will cure him
from it except for one place, which is
equivalent to a dirham and he will have
a mother and he will be good and
pious and obedient to his mother.
If this person takes an oath by Allah
subhanahu wa ta'ala, Allah subhanahu wa ta
'ala will fulfill that oath.
And then Umar r.a who goes on
to quote what the Prophet ﷺ had told
them.
If you have the ability to ask him
to pray for your forgiveness, then do so.
So please pray for my forgiveness.
The second Khalifa and one of the biggest
of the Sahaba, he is asking forgiveness from
Uwais al Qarni and Uwais al Qarni he
made dua for him, he made istighfar for
him.
So Umar r.a who then said to
him, where do you want to go?
Where do you intend to go?
He said, I want to go to Kufa
and this is actually where he ended up.
And Umar r.a who said, Shall I
give you some kind of recommendation letter so
that you can take it to the governor
over there and he can take care of
you?
And he said, He said, I prefer to
stay with the humble and lowly of the
people.
I don't want any of this protocol and
any of this going to the governor and
so on.
I prefer to stay with the lowest of
the people.
So it's mentioned that Uwais al Qarni actually
he participated with Ali r.a later on
in the Ghazwa of Siffin and at that
point he was martyred in that particular battle.
But the point of this story is that
what made Uwais al Qarni special?
The thing that made him special was the
fact that he took care of his mother
and taking care of his mother made him
into that person whom the Sahaba, the companions
of the Prophet a.s. came and asked
for dua of maghfirah from him.
So who knows where the dua of our
parents can take us?
It's mentioned in a hadith that there are
duas which are accepted by Allah s.w
.t, guaranteed and there is no curtain between
that dua and Allah s.w.t. There
is no barrier between that dua and Allah
s.w.t. And one of them is
dua ul-walid li waladi, the dua of
a parent for the child.
The word walid is used.
Walid can mean father or mother.
There is a concept of taghleeb in Arabic.
Either of the parents make dua for you,
for me or against us.
For us or against us the dua will
be accepted.
There is no barrier between that dua and
Allah s.w.t. It goes directly to
Allah s.w.t. So if you want
our duas to be accepted, if you want
to have a fortunate life, if you want
to be at ease, we need to make
sure that we earn the dua of our
parents.
Many of us are away from the parents,
they are away maybe living in a different
country.
It's incumbent upon us to call them, to
talk to them, see how they are doing.
If possible we should try to visit them
as much as we can.
Whenever we have any free time, vacation time,
take the opportunity to go and spend time
with them.
They will cherish those moments and you will
cherish those moments.
Just in case Allah s.w.t. has
written to take them at any given time,
you will not regret the fact that you
spent some time with them.
You spent money to be with them.
So we need to make sure that we
keep these points in mind and look after
our parents, respect our parents as much as
possible.
I'd like to finish the khutbah by talking
about something that is very important.
And that is the issue of the Friday
collections.
And the last few collections have been very,
very weak.
With a congregation which is masha'Allah about
2,000 or 3,000 people, we are
getting an average of about 70 cents per
person.
So we mentioned many times before that the
Friday collections, they go towards the operational expenses
of the masjid.
So that means the bills, water bill, electricity
bill, the salaries and the upkeep of the
building.
Everything comes or is supposed to come from
this collection.
If we are only getting 2,000 a
week, you can imagine how difficult it will
be for the management to try to take
care of the expenses of the masjid.
So we request everybody to try to make
sure that they put something into the donation
box as they leave.
20 is what the request is.
If you don't have 20, if you cannot
afford that, put 10.
If you cannot put 10, put 5.
If you cannot put 5, put 1.
Put something in there.
So this will be insha'Allah a form
of sadaqa for you.
So do not be stingy when it comes
to the upkeep of the masjid.
This will be a form of protection for
you insha'Allah.
It will be a form of sadaqa for
you.
I pray that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
gives us tawfiq to understand and practice what
has been said and heard.
Praise be to Allah.
We praise Him, we ask His help, we
ask His forgiveness, we believe in Him and
we trust in Him.
And we seek refuge in Allah from the
evil of our souls and from the evil
of our actions.
Whom Allah guides, none will misguide him.
And whom He misguides, none will guide him.
And we bear witness that there is no
god but Allah, alone, with no partner.
And we bear witness that our master and
master is Muhammad, His servant and Messenger.
La ilaha ill'Allah La ilaha ill'Allah