How to Be a Fantastic Parent

ALLAH IS ONE

We all want success for our children. How do we make sure we do our best in making sure we fulfill our duties as parents and make sure our children be the best Muslims they can be?

Transcript

00:00:00Now that's our challenge in this world and you know parenting is essentially

00:00:04to help our children

00:00:07find their qualities and use them correctly and

00:00:11Find their weaknesses and deal with them and control them and channel them properly now, that's one thing

00:00:17Okay, so we've got this theory of qualities capabilities and weaknesses

00:00:22qualities are not always used well if you've got a

00:00:28Mufti or a university professor top of the game very smart high IQ

00:00:36You also got another person with the same IQ level, but he's gone into scamming. He's a top scammer

00:00:43You understand what you know the top criminals they're not idiots

00:00:47They're very intelligent. They've just used their intelligence in the wrong way

00:00:51You

00:00:56Handle a lot of Robin I mean

00:00:58What's a lot of a salamu ala?

00:01:00Mabuthi rahmatan lil alamin wa ala alihi wa sahbihi or the Raka wa sallama tasliman kathiran ila yamin deena ma bad

00:01:10So absolutely honored to be in your midst

00:01:14But the problem is that my job has become a lot more difficult

00:01:21With the presence of

00:01:23Mashallah whole cross-section of our community

00:01:27So we have the elderly

00:01:31Mashallah relaxing on the walls and

00:01:35We have

00:01:37Middle-aged people

00:01:40We have

00:01:42Young adults

00:01:45We have the youth

00:01:47Which is I think that part is all relevant to the topic and then mashallah you've decided to bring your children along

00:01:55For something to do about parenting mashallah. I

00:02:01Don't know what you had in your mind when you bring your children along

00:02:05Unless they're just gonna sit there and just get bored, but it makes my life difficult because I

00:02:12Mean I'm not trying to throw you out, but it's just very difficult to talk to four or five different generations

00:02:18at one time and

00:02:20Make it relevant and not put somebody to sleep

00:02:24But we pray to Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala to make it easy and let us begin

00:02:28So as Maulana said we have I can't possibly speak about everything in the hour or so with that

00:02:35We have that is relevant

00:02:38Because

00:02:40Parenting is

00:02:41literally the most difficult thing

00:02:44it's easier to get a job than to parent because even all the research in parenting says that

00:02:51There is no one

00:02:54Method that is effective

00:02:57Everybody that's research, you know

00:02:59In all the universities and elsewhere that they research the best way the scientific way of parenting

00:03:05There is no single way of parenting that is effective in all cases

00:03:10However, they've probably excluded the Islamic guidance the general Islamic guidance

00:03:16Now in Islam the way Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala guides us is in some cases. He gives us very specific guidance

00:03:22For example inheritance is very specifically laid out in the Quran

00:03:26This is how much so-and-so gets this is how much so-and-so gets and this person gets nothing. So it's very very clear

00:03:33but when it comes to for example how to

00:03:36Rule a country how to have a political system

00:03:41There's no one way mentioned likewise how to parent there is no one particular method that's mentioned with everything

00:03:49Related to it. However, that doesn't mean we have nothing

00:03:53They Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala has provided us a much better system because it is difficult to have one system of parenting

00:04:00because we are from different cultures and

00:04:03Different backgrounds different ethnicities and not only that

00:04:07Every child including twins, you know, if you know a set of twins, you'll notice that they're actually both very different in terms of their personality

00:04:16Have you ever seen twins and they're both very different in terms of it

00:04:20But even though they were just born literally a few minutes apart or if that much and from the same parents

00:04:26They've had the same food same nourishment same upbringing

00:04:30And the reason for that is very simple and keep this in mind and inshallah if we can understand this will benefit ourselves

00:04:36It will benefit our children as well is one of the biggest

00:04:41Challenges of parenting is this right? So Allah has created every single person here, right? What's what's your name?

00:04:50Yeah, your name you have a name, right? So what's your name? You're Ahmed and who's a little brother, huh?

00:04:58I asked

00:05:00On us. So I'm more than honest and you are

00:05:04Ilyas mashallah. So I'm more than Ilyas and honest they they and every single one of us here is

00:05:11Created with a set of qualities

00:05:18Capabilities and

00:05:20We've also been created with a set of weaknesses and challenges

00:05:26every single person here every single human being Allah gives qualities and capabilities and

00:05:32The successful people in this world are those who recognize their capabilities

00:05:37So then they use it to earn money to live life to speak to people to make a home for him

00:05:43Themselves and get through life and think they're successful the successful people of this world are those who've recognized their capabilities

00:05:50Let's just see if we have any capable if we have any successful people here how many of us here think they're successful

00:05:59They're not just be me, please

00:06:03Okay, mashallah, mashallah, that's two people so far only two people are successful three. I'm doing Allah

00:06:08I don't mean you become like Bill Gates. That's not success

00:06:12But what I mean by success is alhamdulillah, you're doing fine

00:06:15You've got your house

00:06:15You've got children and is going by you know with all the roughness of the world

00:06:19But it's going by and that's what I mean by success. I'm any successful. Otherwise, if you're not successful, you're losers, okay?

00:06:25Okay, that's a lot more. So the few that didn't put their hand up. What are you losers?

00:06:30Because that's the opposite of being successful

00:06:32So those who don't recognize their qualities and their capabilities, whether you're good. You're good with your hands or your mind or

00:06:41With your action, whatever it may be, you know, that's how people do it

00:06:45Now while most people do recognize their qualities, they don't recognize their weaknesses. So they keep stumbling

00:06:52they keep

00:06:53messing up essentially

00:06:55The most successful person for this world and the hereafter is the one who recognizes their qualities and uses them

00:07:01what their qualities means what you're good at and

00:07:05They recognize their weakness and they control it. What do I mean by weaknesses?

00:07:09So imagine it you've got a family with three or four brothers and sisters four or five children

00:07:14Say every one of them will be different. One of them will be sharper than another one

00:07:19Right. The other one will be one will be laid back one will be ready for a meeting

00:07:24Whereas the other one will take five minutes late

00:07:27Okay, you can decide what you are. Okay?

00:07:30I'm not here to judge anybody

00:07:31I'm just saying this is the guy who's sharp he may be he may get angry quickly and the other guy gets angry less

00:07:38One of them is willing to share his last sweet and the other one is stingy and won't even he's got a whole packet

00:07:44Which one are you?

00:07:48Right, you understand everybody is different they come from the same parents, but one of them will be stingier than the other

00:07:55They're a bit more protective over their assets

00:07:58So everybody is different. Now, that's our challenge in this world. And you know parenting is essentially

00:08:05To help our children

00:08:07find their qualities and use them correctly and

00:08:11Find their weaknesses and deal with them and control them and channel them properly. Now, that's one thing

00:08:17Okay, so we've got this theory of qualities capabilities and weaknesses

00:08:22qualities are not always used well if you've got a

00:08:28Mufti or a university professor top of the game very smart high IQ

00:08:36You also got another person with the same IQ level, but he's gone into scamming. He's a top scammer

00:08:43You understand what I mean, you know the top criminals they're not idiots

00:08:47They're very intelligent. They've just used their intelligence in the wrong way

00:08:52As I said scammers, you understand what I'm saying? So just because you've discovered your quality doesn't mean you're gonna use it correctly

00:08:59You could use it in the wrong

00:09:02right, for example, if Allah has given you a lot of beauty or handsomeness and

00:09:07Then you don't thank Allah for your beauty or your handsomeness. But what you do it is you use it in the wrong way

00:09:14To basically do haram with then that's wrong

00:09:18Right, so that's why it's very important that parenting means that we first if parents don't know how to figure out their own

00:09:26Qualities and capabilities and their own weaknesses. How are they gonna find that in their children if they're losers themselves?

00:09:32Then they're gonna make their children losers and then unless they figure it out themselves

00:09:36So now the first our first job as parents at wherever we are now

00:09:41even if you've got children who are 10 years old already, let us figure out our capabilities and

00:09:46Alhamdulillah, I think most people have as they said but have we figured out and

00:09:51Our weaknesses my weakness is for food

00:09:55My weakness is for sleep. So I miss prayers

00:09:59My weakness is for something else. I commit haram. I fall into sin

00:10:04Those are if we know our weakness at least we can start doing something about it and we can help our children

00:10:12To understand their strengths and their weaknesses

00:10:14This is probably the way to sum up parenting Allah has given us that job and this is like pruning

00:10:22you have if you're into far if you're into

00:10:27planting good

00:10:30Fruits and trees and plants and things like that or you've got a Allah has given you a garden

00:10:36now you can let it overgrow and

00:10:39Let let let basically the weeds take over and they grow as they wish or you can prune it and clean it and

00:10:46Do everything else that you need to do to everything takes time now children have been given to us

00:10:52To prune properly and not to be allowed to grow like weeds

00:10:57Some people just make life easy. They just take the grass off and put artificial grass on

00:11:03It just makes life easy give them an iPad that's the cheapest

00:11:08Babysitting you can get it only cost 200 pound and it lasts for like two three four years and

00:11:12Once the iPads on there, mashallah, they'll entertain themselves forever and you can go and do whatever you want to do

00:11:19That's like putting, you know, not looking after the ground

00:11:23So anyway, as I said, I can't the variables are too much

00:11:26That's why they can't be one system because every individual is different and as a parent

00:11:32Each child is going to provide a a different challenge and we have to be adaptive

00:11:40Now we can only be and Allah has given us the capability because if parenting was so difficult that we couldn't do it

00:11:47Then Allah's words would have been wrong. Like you can leave allahu nafsan illa. What's our her?

00:11:52that Allah doesn't

00:11:55Make it difficult for us to do it. So we have to be adaptive

00:11:59That Allah doesn't

00:12:02Make anybody accountable for what they don't have the capability

00:12:06That's why people like scholars like ibn al-qayyim rahimahullah said that if ever a child goes wrong

00:12:13Does something wrong?

00:12:15At some level the parents are definitely the ones responsible for it

00:12:19I can't blame the madrasa for not teaching well enough. Ultimately. It's my responsibility to find a better teacher

00:12:25I can complain all I like but it's still my responsibility

00:12:29Let me find a better teacher then

00:12:31It's my responsibility

00:12:35So

00:12:37One very important very important advice

00:12:42Is that we our children need to be able to discuss

00:12:47We need to know what's going on in the mind of our children

00:12:50They are ours. That's our extended mind. It's who we take pride in

00:12:54We need to know what they're speaking about what they're thinking about what they're being challenged by

00:13:00What they're we're not saying get into their minds, right?

00:13:05This isn't a series of inception

00:13:07Okay for those who know inception

00:13:11But what this is talking about is that at any given time we need to understand where what's

00:13:17Our children are doing we need to be aware of their friends

00:13:20We need to aware of their likes and dislike and assist them in finding better likes

00:13:26And creating dislikes of the right thing

00:13:29And the phone is what creates a massive challenge in this regard because it is the biggest challenge

00:13:34I think that one of the biggest challenges that we have is the phone which we'll discuss a bit later

00:13:39But if the most difficult children to parent are the closed books

00:13:45What I mean by closed books is they don't reveal anything

00:13:48They don't reveal anything and it's from my experience of dealing with this is that it's too late by the time you actually find out

00:13:54in many cases

00:13:56Three of them left their faith in the last two years closed books said you didn't see it coming. No

00:14:03We didn't see it coming. It was just too late

00:14:05So if you do have a closed book child, what do you do?

00:14:09You're gonna have to find some way to open up the book

00:14:13If you can't do it

00:14:15If you can't do it

00:14:16The reason you can't do it is because there's become a trust issue. They can't

00:14:20They're just naturally very introverted

00:14:22Or very closed or reserved or very secretive

00:14:26Could be a psychological problem based on something or the other

00:14:29Either we have to change ourselves in a way that they open up because ultimately they do open on somebody or otherwise find somebody

00:14:34They would open up to

00:14:37Find somebody else like a brother or sister or a friend and get them in your confidence say look

00:14:42Please find out about this because you'd rather do that than

00:14:45Before we lose them. So anyway, that's what we say. So inshallah will give you a time to ask your questions

00:14:52So i've got some i've got some

00:14:55Several bits of anecdotes which i'm going to share with you today to give us general idea firstly

00:15:04Some of us have not done it right from the beginning

00:15:07And then we realize when it's a bit late or when the going gets tough

00:15:12The best parenting is the one that's from a young age

00:15:14That's for sure because then we grow together

00:15:17and

00:15:18The tarbiyah is done in a way that as they're growing up. We're looking after them

00:15:23The best time to raise up a teenager if we're talking about teenagers was a decade ago

00:15:29That was the best time

00:15:31So that when they're teens you've already given them the input that they required. You've already helped them

00:15:37find their qualities

00:15:39And how to use them and their weaknesses

00:15:43The second best time is today so we still have to do it it's never gonna be not a responsibility

00:15:51Parenting cannot be left to a chance. They're not like weeds our children

00:15:57The gamble is too great and the stakes are very high

00:16:01Because then we've lost the part of us

00:16:04Unfortunately, what happens is that parents usually acquire their knowledge of how to parent through trial and error

00:16:11Gone are the days when everybody of your extended relatives lived in the same area

00:16:17And it was pretty standard. There wasn't much changing in the world. There was no technology

00:16:23It was the same old community that had been the same for a few hundred years

00:16:27So everybody knew how it was done

00:16:29The children expected it that way the parents knew exactly what to do the whole community took part in the upbringing

00:16:34But now it's become very difficult

00:16:37Because there are just so many different factors. So that's why we have to adjust

00:16:43It's such a challenge that it needs constant attention. Every day is a new

00:16:48Especially if we've not done it, right then every day is a new challenge

00:16:51If we've done it, right, then the new challenge will come every few months

00:16:53Maybe there'll always be a new challenge. We have to be just ready to be flexible and to adjust

00:16:59One of the biggest things that we can do for our children is communication

00:17:03The benefit of communication is that they know what we want

00:17:07and

00:17:09We know what they want

00:17:11And what I mean by communication is not orders

00:17:15Just do this. Just do that

00:17:17Communication means an explanation a discussion of why we do something

00:17:23Another thing that I want to bring up is gone are those days when the whole community was one and we brought it up

00:17:29So what we've lost is we've lost

00:17:34A sense of community and belonging so every individual is for themselves because this we call this individualism

00:17:41We it's so difficult to find parents and children who still think alike

00:17:47Parents could have a business but the children don't want to take over that business unless they get they just have to sit and

00:17:51Collect money then it'd be cool and then they'll run it down the drain, right?

00:17:56But otherwise, it's so difficult to get parents and children to think alike

00:18:00Why because there's massive cultural changes that are taking place

00:18:04That's why parents have to upgrade themselves and update themselves to think on another level

00:18:10effective communication there has to be at least one parent in the house that the that the children can come and

00:18:16literally

00:18:18Speak about anything they want with whether that be homosexuality

00:18:22it be

00:18:24Dysphoria of some sort

00:18:27or

00:18:28Gender fluidity or whatever else it may be that somebody in school is talking about or somebody at home is talking about

00:18:35Because remember children are exposed to the environment at school. They're exposed to the environment madrasah

00:18:40They're exposed to the environment outside when they go shopping when they see billboards

00:18:44What what their neighbors are saying what the park what the people in the park are saying the home has to be the filter

00:18:49If there's no communication and there's no discourse, there's no discussion

00:18:54Then you never know what's going on and then they are get they need answers. So they'll ask somebody else

00:19:00So be open as open at least one of the parents need to be that open now

00:19:04Uh, one thing that our culture deals with is that we've got old practices that come from the villages or wherever we came from

00:19:12And for some reason we think that they have to work right now

00:19:15That's how they used to do it. Why can't you do it like that is because things have changed massively

00:19:20It's just not possible the way

00:19:23The older generation thinks and the way the younger generation thing is two levels. No, but they should understand

00:19:27No, they can't understand if you wanted them to understand you should have left them in the village and stayed there

00:19:33Because then everybody would have thought the same maybe still because the globalization has taken over everywhere

00:19:39You've brought them to a different country where for example, if you're from a gujarati background, not everybody's gujarati around you

00:19:45Or not everybody's punjabi around you or kashmiri or bangladeshi or whatever it is, right?

00:19:51There's different

00:19:53things

00:19:55That you never heard of and your children are going to be exposed to it. Their clothing style is different

00:20:01Right. They much rather have fish and chips than they have uh pani puri

00:20:10Do you know what pani puri is

00:20:12No

00:20:14But I mean our idris chacha there he's like pani puri man all the any time or fish and chips what's what's

00:20:20You've already messed up

00:20:25British culture very strong mashallah fish and chips over pani puri. What about bel puri?

00:20:31These guys think what the heck is bel puri and pani puri like what is this kind of stuff?

00:20:36So

00:20:37What i'm trying to say is that things have changed but some people think they're still in a village bringing up their children

00:20:43And then they lose their children. They don't realize why

00:20:46Things have changed massively things have changed massively

00:20:49So new circumstances have emerged which require new and creative treatments

00:20:56and

00:20:57responses

00:20:59And that's difficult

00:21:03We have to bring our children up

00:21:06To be

00:21:09Proper leaders

00:21:11When I say leaders, I don't mean leader of the country you can but at least leaders of their family

00:21:15Why why what are we bringing up because the biggest job we're doing with our children is we're making them into adults

00:21:20So then they can also run a family

00:21:23That means they've got leadership

00:21:25That's a leadership. We need to tell them you are going to have to look after your family

00:21:29How many times have we said that to our children?

00:21:32Give them the understanding. You know what you're going to be a father. You're going to be a mother and these things are necessary

00:21:39We have to bring them up to understand leadership and for leadership we need traits where there are leadership traits, right?

00:21:47And what we mean by leadership is not this ambitious hunt for power as everybody's trying to do today, but rather

00:21:54Developing people of strength

00:21:57and courage

00:21:59moral fiber good caliber

00:22:01Ethics and other qualities so that they can become active members of the society

00:22:06So as I was saying earlier

00:22:09I

00:22:10The point I was trying to make is that before

00:22:13You would be concerned if you did anything wrong because you felt that you were going to take your family down with you

00:22:19Like if you did something wrong if I did something wrong, I would be concerned that the mangera name would be

00:22:25Criticized and would be blemished

00:22:28Nobody cares about that anymore

00:22:32There's no sense of pride of your family

00:22:34As I said, nobody thinks alike children and parents what we have to do

00:22:38We really have to bring this back in as best as we can

00:22:40So you tell your children that why you can't do that is you're a mangera. You can't do that

00:22:47Right. You're a khan khans. Don't do that kind of stuff

00:22:51You give them a sense of greater pride

00:22:55You're a raja. You can't do that

00:22:57You know you are a

00:22:59Ali by you're a raja

00:23:01You are a

00:23:03Ali by you're a I don't know about patels. I mean, they're too big. So I don't know if you can say patels

00:23:07But you can say you're a patel

00:23:10Mangera is cool in it. Yeah

00:23:13He's my relative. He's my dad's cousin brother

00:23:16But for some reason he became a patel

00:23:18If we give that or we are muslims, we don't do that

00:23:22That's really amazing. You know why when they go out and there's somebody is going to give them a possible haram option

00:23:28I'm a muslim. I don't do that stuff muslims. Don't do this. It's a bigger idea than I can't do this because my dad said so

00:23:36Yes, it's because my dad said so but it's also because muslims don't do this you you're adding a whole weight

00:23:43Like if you're told muslims don't do that. That's a much more important idea

00:23:47so give them that glory of

00:23:50Being proud of who you are because of good qualities. Really? That's what we need to do

00:23:55Another thing just in random while i'm on this topic

00:23:58Many of us want our children to be certain in a certain vocation and say we want them to be a doctor

00:24:04Or an architect or a maulana

00:24:08All right, or a mufti sahib or whatever it is, and that's fine

00:24:12But don't tell that that's what that's your end goal

00:24:16The end goal of a maulana is not to be a maulana

00:24:18The end goal of an architect

00:24:21Or a doctor just to be a doctor to make a lot of money and buy a house in wherever and and and so on that's

00:24:28Too reductionist and too restrictive and too lowly

00:24:31You know, you should tell them I want you to change the world. I want you to be a

00:24:37Positive contributor to the world you're going to become a doctor

00:24:41So being a doctor is part of this greater idea of

00:24:44Helping people changing humanity being positive being a contributor rather than a selfish doctor

00:24:54You're still going to become a doctor you're still getting them to become an alim

00:24:58But the reason they're going to do that is not for a name

00:25:02They're going to do it for a higher purpose

00:25:05It's just about changing mentality to have greater ideas

00:25:08And it's not difficult to do

00:25:10Unfortunately, our homes have in some cases have

00:25:14Degenerated to the level of being a hotel and a restaurant where you get free food and free board

00:25:20The father's like that. He's working

00:25:24Works many hours and then after that he goes to maybe a shisha lounge or his friends or

00:25:29Gets holed up in his room in a on a laptop and then the food is there comes to sleep

00:25:34There's no interaction. That's not what a home is. There's a poor guy is sitting in his room

00:25:38That's not what a home is there's a poor guy is 30 years old and he's trying to refind himself

00:25:43He says you know what i'm so so sad because my family my mom makes this big pot of food

00:25:48But we've never sat together and eaten. What do you mean?

00:25:51There's a new mom cooks. No, she cooks she puts a pot of food on the stove

00:25:55we all come in and take whatever we want whenever we want and we eat and we go like a

00:25:59Like a what do you call a buffet system?

00:26:02And he feels bad about he's 30 years old. He's married now

00:26:05He he feels a sense of deprivation

00:26:08Because something eating together

00:26:12And the prophet saw some even ate with children together there's something about it there's ideas

00:26:18Uh exchanged in eating food opens up the mind food opens up the heart

00:26:23And there's just something about food. So use that time use your food time to discuss

00:26:29And you know while as difficult as it is for me

00:26:32It's easier for my wife to ask how the day was for the children

00:26:35But after I realized I actually said like, okay, how was it whenever I can it sounds weird because i'm not used to it

00:26:41And that's the challenge for a lot of men that they're not used to asking these questions. No, like you have to force it

00:26:47While in the same thing people say that you a father should become become a friend

00:26:52A father is never a friend meaning a friend is a different idea completely because for a friend

00:26:56You have to do what they do all the time, right? So

00:26:59You're still a father, but you're friendly to your children

00:27:02That's what I would write rather push that you're a father. You're always a father

00:27:06You never forget that but you can be friendly

00:27:08And that's the amazing thing is that one of the challenges that the very religious have

00:27:14Right is that they think that keeping an iron clad

00:27:19instruction and order and making sure that

00:27:22Discipline is well maintained and overly maintained and nobody can do anything wrong. That doesn't work

00:27:28That usually backfires because then it's a rigid system at home

00:27:32It's okay if they're going to school and that might be the case even that's bad

00:27:36But at home where you're spending so many hours of the day, how can you be so rigid?

00:27:41The Prophet ﷺ himself wasn't like that. Allah says

00:27:45وَلَوْ كُنْتَ فَضًّا غَلِيظَ الْقَلْبِ لَنْ فَضُّوا مِنْ حَوْلِكَ

00:27:49فَاعْفُوا عَنْهُمْ وَاسْتَغْفِرْ لَهُمْ وَشَاوِرْهُمْ فِي الْأَمْرِ

00:27:54The Prophet ﷺ was being told to

00:27:57Firstly, he was commended and complimented that had you been tough and harsh then the Sahaba would have

00:28:05Scattered they would they would have dispersed they would not have remained with you

00:28:09then still Allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala is saying look forgive them be pardoning be forgiving and

00:28:14seek forgiveness for them and

00:28:17consult with them

00:28:19If we consult with our children to a certain degree, they'll actually feel they're valuable

00:28:25Right. We consult with them. We have a and so what I would do is I say look I'm saying this

00:28:31But you convince me. Otherwise if you want to do it another way

00:28:34It doesn't always go down perfectly because sometimes

00:28:38as the children are different so you have one child who gets very angry if you time to get off the computer and

00:28:44He will see no sense you can give whatever beautiful argument you want about why he should get off the computer

00:28:51But for that five minutes, he's so crazy the Junoon the insanity has gone to a level

00:28:56He doesn't understand anything you come up with the craziest responses

00:29:00Give him five minutes and then talk to him afterwards. Like oh, yeah, I get that

00:29:04We have to recognize our children as to how they are

00:29:08Then you get some children if they get angry they go off in a strop for five hours

00:29:13You have to know how to deal with that and that's the same family. You'll get that

00:29:18How do we deal with that well both we're gonna have to deal with them differently I

00:29:22Just mentioned the other places one guy. He has a lot of OCD problems

00:29:27About whether he's done kufr or not by certain things. They say whether his marriage is correct or not and stuff like that

00:29:33So I've dealt with quite a few people like that

00:29:35One of them told me that I think I might be like that because my dad was so strict

00:29:39That if I like drop something I'd get in massive trouble

00:29:43All right, for example, you know when you have cereal

00:29:46Have you noticed is that sometimes the way you pour the milk and if it falls directly on the cornflakes?

00:29:52It spills out it rebounds and so have you noticed that you have to be very careful now as adults you kind of figured out

00:29:57Let me do it from the side or whatever that kid is always doing them like telling like why are you dropping the milk for?

00:30:02all the time I

00:30:03can keep saying that all my life don't drop the milk, but

00:30:07The reason I don't drop it and he does because I know strategy that you do it this way instead

00:30:12So then what you say to them is look, you know

00:30:14The reason you're dropping is because the milk comes out a bit too fast

00:30:17It's quite heavy right and you have to control it and then when it falls on this flat surface

00:30:21It actually rebound

00:30:22So what you do is kind of you know, tilt the bowl slightly and do it to the side so that it doesn't you know

00:30:28Like how do you fill a glass of fizzy drink without the fizz going over and only a bit of drink?

00:30:34Just tell him strategy

00:30:37You got no time for strategy to do he's like don't do that

00:30:40Figure it out yourself. I know I'm 40 years old. So I figured it out, but you are 7 you need to figure it out

00:30:47It's not worth it. Just teach it to them. So can you pour a cereal without dropping the milk?

00:30:55What I'm saying is just think about it like what is it why is he pouring it does he want to pour it is he

00:31:02Is he losing things because of and some some some are just more scatterbrained than others

00:31:08So it's just about trying to teach them strategy

00:31:10Somehow we have to get our children to ultimately believe

00:31:14That we will be

00:31:16For them regardless of the situation if they're they're done wrong, they might have to hear something

00:31:21But ultimately you are you love them and you will respond to them

00:31:27And you're dependable

00:31:29And ultimately you can provide an answer

00:31:31We can only become like that if we're going to be creative in providing multiple types of answers

00:31:36But if it's going to be the same answer, they know then they're never going to tell us

00:31:42For example, there's children they wet their bed until they're 7 8 9 10 11 years old

00:31:48And unless you recognize so I know one person they said they didn't used to tell him off too much

00:31:54So somebody asked why not?

00:31:56I mean, shouldn't you be they're 9 10 years old. They're still wetting their bed

00:32:01They figured out that they have a weak bladder

00:32:04Or they have some other issue

00:32:05It could be a medical issue and you'll keep banging on about it every time

00:32:10Even though you've done it for the last five years. It hasn't improved. So why tell him off in the same way?

00:32:14Is it worth it? No, there's find out what the issue is. There could be other reasons and causes

00:32:20Hey kids, i'm not giving you the right to wet your bed

00:32:23Okay

00:32:25But what i'm saying is try to understand why they're doing what they're doing rather than keep telling them to do it this way

00:32:32So we have to put a lot of time and money and effort in our children because that is our investment

00:32:41Most parents don't take courses

00:32:44Of parenting in fact, is there even a course in parenting?

00:32:49Have you ever heard of a course on parenting? There's not that many available

00:32:52I mean, there's very few if there are and most parents don't because historically we didn't need to do so

00:32:58I mean, where do you find in the sunnah that?

00:33:01The professor awesome set up a course on parenting or even later on even 50 years ago

00:33:06But why it's become necessary now is because of the confusion the breakdown of family structure and communities

00:33:13and everybody's scattered and

00:33:15Everybody is getting independent knowledge from the various different things that they observe on tv and social media and so on

00:33:21That's why it's I mean a soap opera or netflix can't tell you how to bring your children up. That's just glamorized

00:33:28sagas, that's a

00:33:31controversial, you know

00:33:34Extraordinary ideas that they do just to make people interested. That's not real life

00:33:38That's why parenting becomes necessary. Otherwise, what's going to happen is that you do it on trial and error

00:33:43And then you mess up your first two kids and then you might be fine with your third kid

00:33:47But you've already messed up one or two kids and you may have harmed them beyond, you know beyond repair

00:33:54That's why it's important to figure this out

00:33:56So we've got some parents

00:33:59They rely solely on their instinct and common sense

00:34:04Problem is that it's a bigger challenge than common sense because common sense is based on our own experiences. We don't know the future

00:34:10We don't know if especially if it's our first child

00:34:13We don't know that if I tell him of too much in this is that right or wrong?

00:34:18So, you know, what's really beneficial I think what's really beneficial is to have a

00:34:23Collection a group of

00:34:27Genuine sincere friends who all have children your age

00:34:32Your children's age and share good practices

00:34:37If you can't find a good because no course is going to provide you everything it's going to give you general ideas like I'm giving

00:34:43Here but at least in that way. Okay, my daughter she's got this issue

00:34:46Yes, don't worry. I had that issue a year ago, but inshallah, it'll be fine, you know, because children go through things

00:34:52for example

00:34:54as

00:34:56Young teens are growing up they're discovering

00:35:00various different things about their body their mind

00:35:04their

00:35:05when they shift when they become badly and they shift between

00:35:09Being still a child and no care for the future to suddenly

00:35:14They're more aware of their looks

00:35:17Of what other people are going to think about them

00:35:19About finding friends and so on. It's a very very very tough time

00:35:25now as parents

00:35:27We need to tell them this is going to happen

00:35:29Don't worry about it

00:35:31We have to reassure them

00:35:33Preempted

00:35:34It's just we've had it so long ago. We don't even remember and we just expect them that nobody told us

00:35:38So we shouldn't tell them problem is that the world is a very nasty place right now for that because one in four teenage girls

00:35:46Have a mental health problem

00:35:49standard one in four girls have a

00:35:52Have a mental health problem. Why because the world is putting out to them a role model that they can't follow

00:35:59that they want

00:36:00themselves they have to look a certain way smell a certain way be a certain way

00:36:05And get certain things a certain way and they can't do it it's too much so then they become mentally depressed

00:36:15So there's some common sense which is usually outdated because when they were

00:36:19Parented it was a different world

00:36:22If you're about 40

00:36:24When you were parented or 50 when you were parented is very different from now

00:36:28The world has shifted like anything has moved

00:36:32so a lot of the stuff that

00:36:34Some parents do it's outdated. It's no longer for this culture anymore

00:36:39They inherited from their inheritors and they have this romanticized

00:36:44Memory about it. That's how it used to be. Unfortunately, you know, it's not like that anymore, right? So then

00:36:51They don't realize that parenting now has a different cultural meaning

00:36:55There's others who completely have taken up the western way of doing things

00:36:58Which is very different that they expect that the child is going to leave home at 18

00:37:02Muslims don't do that usually, right?

00:37:06Some parents they try to fulfill their own unfulfilled unfulfilled wishes through their children

00:37:14I couldn't be this you better be this but the children don't want to be that

00:37:22Come whatever and you don't want to be a doctor and your parents are going to be really upset

00:37:27For example, right, it doesn't always work. You can't always fulfill your personal wishes of what you could have done

00:37:35If you do, you're gonna have to work really hard from a young age. I have to mention this that there's some cultures

00:37:41They wake up when their children are maritable age

00:37:45Marriageable age at 21 22 23 and said no. Oh you have to marry your cousin

00:37:51What do you mean I have to marry my cousin? I don't like my cousin

00:37:54But I promised you to his father and mother 20 years ago

00:38:01In some cultures this is literally what it is

00:38:03Right. This is literally what it is. Alhamdulillah. Gujarati culture has other issues. They don't have this issue

00:38:08Alhamdulillah, you never promised to anybody. I hope not anyway

00:38:12right

00:38:14And it's a really bad people have lost their iman because of this because the parents usually don't

00:38:21Say you have to listen to your parents. Allah said that's the only way they bring a line

00:38:26Namaz and all of that. It's out of the window. But this is where you have to listen to your parents

00:38:32I've seen blackmail this poor girl. She got forced to marry somebody

00:38:38And her she didn't want to marry him because there were no compatibility

00:38:41But the reason she got blackmailed into it was that her father was sick at the time

00:38:47And I said look if your father has a heart attack, it's all going to come on you

00:38:52And then she then she had one child and she used to go to her mom look it doesn't this guy's a loser

00:38:57It just just it wasn't working. Mom said have a child then he'll wake up had one child

00:39:04He still slept

00:39:06And then goes back have another child

00:39:08Three children no change and finally she got out of the marriage

00:39:11And some have lost their faith one woman she was talking she called and she had a masala a question, right a very specific question that

00:39:19Only somebody who's focused on their faith would ask like does this break your namaz?

00:39:25For example, I did this. Does it break your namaz? I can't remember what the question was

00:39:29And then as we carried on speaking, she said she's married to a non-muslim man

00:39:33That didn't sound right because she's married to a non-muslim man

00:39:37She said she's married to a non-muslim man

00:39:40That didn't sound right because that seemed contrary that she's asking a very specific masala

00:39:45Ruling but she's doing such a big thing as being married to a non-muslim man. I said what's going on here?

00:39:51So she said yeah about 20 30 25 years ago. She was 40 years old. So about 25 30 years ago. I was forced into marriage

00:39:58and

00:39:59Pretty much. I lost I I left it. I left my faith

00:40:02Whatever I got married to a non-muslim and now i'm coming back when I realized that that wasn't islamic

00:40:06That was cultural

00:40:09So one has to be very careful about these things

00:40:12When parents have lack of time because you see if there's so much distraction in the world parents are going to be distracted as well

00:40:17You've got your football to watch

00:40:19Before you can only watch football whenever the game was on but now you can mashallah watch whatever you want anytime

00:40:25the highlights

00:40:26You know every day

00:40:28Five hours a day. No problem because it's always something available right because it's all on demand now

00:40:33So everybody has that so what we're doing is we're delegating our parenting to

00:40:38Babysitters to a machine to an ipad or something like that or school teachers or relatives or television or computer games

00:40:45They can play a bit of that, but that should not be

00:40:48The easiest way it's all right. They'll be on the computer. Don't worry about it

00:40:54There are different types of parentings one is authoritarian

00:40:58Everything has to be regimental as though you're in the army

00:41:01Nothing can be off

00:41:03That's very difficult

00:41:05You're going to create kids that are like obsessed

00:41:07Ocd

00:41:09Doesn't always work

00:41:11People make mistakes. You have to take it easy

00:41:14Or be so that's authoritarian or any dictatorial

00:41:18Parents demand obedience and severely punish any disobedience

00:41:24Then you have those which are just authoritative not dictatorial

00:41:28Parents expect their children to be responsive to their demands, but they are also responsive to their demands

00:41:34It kind of works both way that look we want things with some authority

00:41:38But there's a give-and-take and there's more understanding of why things are the way they are

00:41:45These are the parents who explain the rules clearly not just rules, but they explain why they wonder

00:41:51What's the benefit of the rules and what's the harm in not?

00:41:54following the rules and

00:41:56And they provide well considered reasons for rules and regulations

00:42:01If we can give our children good rules, like for example, if I tell

00:42:05What's your name?

00:42:07Ilyas

00:42:08Have you got an a color who really do you know what a color is?

00:42:13an auntie

00:42:15You know what one of those are right they're really cool people you got a color or not

00:42:21You either have or you don't I mean there's no one laughing about it. What is it?

00:42:24Do you have a color or not, man?

00:42:27Do you have an auntie?

00:42:29Do you have an auntie that really likes you and gives you a lot of stuff?

00:42:32Everybody has one of those alhamdulillah

00:42:34They're so beautiful. Allah bless them whoever they are, right?

00:42:37So you've got an auntie like that, right?

00:42:38now imagine the next time you go to her house and

00:42:41You ignore her because you want to go and play on the playstation that your cousin has and you just like go in

00:42:47You don't even

00:42:48Say salam to it. You just go and run. Is she going to feel good about it?

00:42:52Is that good what you just did to her?

00:42:54No, right

00:42:55So that's why we make namaz. You know why we do namaz

00:42:59Because allah has given us everything that you have

00:43:03everything

00:43:04And all he wants he's been so kind to us

00:43:07The food you get the parents you have the clothing

00:43:10The warm house everything the fact that you're even in this world in the first place

00:43:14What he wants is us to pray five times a day fast in the month of ramadan. Is that too much?

00:43:19Now imagine if we don't do that. Is he going to be happy with us?

00:43:22Is that even good for us to do that kind of stuff to an auntie and then thus to allah like that?

00:43:27No, right

00:43:28So that's it. It says hardly anybody explains namaz

00:43:32Like that there's like namaz for all you have to pray. Otherwise, you're going to be punished

00:43:40If we can get our children to be conscious of allah our job will be easy

00:43:45And the way to find out if our children are praying for us

00:43:48Or for allah is very simple

00:43:51Do they pray when you're not around?

00:43:55Whether they pray late or early they've got a consciousness of it

00:43:59And if they don't then forget about telling them to pray work on

00:44:04Developing their relationship to allah and praying for that reason then your job will

00:44:09They can be anywhere and if you tell them we as muslims don't do this because we are with allah

00:44:14You've given them that identity. It's very important

00:44:17Remember a domineering attitude is not the same as training somebody

00:44:22Domineering just means that you're just forcing people to abide

00:44:26But training is what we're supposed to be doing with our children

00:44:29We're training them training means you're finding their weaknesses

00:44:33And you're trying to sort them out and turn them into strengths and you're getting them to recognize their strength again

00:44:38It goes back to what I said at the beginning

00:44:42You have to remember the lack of

00:44:44Attention given to skilled parenting

00:44:47Is equally responsible for the serious emotional and psychological deprivation in young children

00:44:55The reason why there's so much rage out there among criminals people who go into crime

00:45:00Who go into these why does somebody from a comfortable home?

00:45:05With loving parents who are considerate and have a good dialogue. Why would they get into drugs?

00:45:10So I spoke to somebody why do kids get into drugs one for money

00:45:16Number two for some clout

00:45:19Number three so they can belong

00:45:21These are multiple reasons if parents are providing all of that and they're satisfied. Why would they get into drugs?

00:45:26They'll think twice thrice four times about it

00:45:31We have to know

00:45:33What our children and I think?

00:45:35If I can leave you with one advice is that kids are not the only ones who are getting into drugs

00:45:40Keep your children busy

00:45:43Your child can be going to

00:45:45school

00:45:46Then university in the morning

00:45:48Or madrasa wherever it is. And so if you're going to school, let's just say you're in university in the evening going to

00:45:55Some madrasa arling class whatever it is

00:45:57And in the weekend you're giving them some job to do where they're working and making some money and they literally have no time

00:46:02To waste then while you might feel sorry for them for doing so much work

00:46:07But that's their youth years protected

00:46:10Because they're once they beyond the years of youth. They're less willing to take silly

00:46:17Risks and make silly mistakes and get into the wrong crowd. You've protected them keep them busy

00:46:22But for that we're going to have to really think of how to keep them busy

00:46:26And that means we have to come up with ideas to keep them busy

00:46:30Parenting can make or break a family

00:46:35Not just a family a society

00:46:37And a full civilization

00:46:41We encourage I mean we're encouraging parents to think of the bigger picture when you're parenting it's not just about your child

00:46:48It's about the whole society that your child is going to contribute to and we're going to contribute to this is a very big idea

00:46:57You have to also remember that if children are going to be raised

00:47:00in a lot of in a state of fear

00:47:03That they're always worried about when their dad so when their dad comes in they go to another room

00:47:07When they come into the house, they fear of their mom and dad

00:47:10They just go and hold themselves up in the room. If you've got a child who'd rather be outside with his friends than

00:47:15Comfortable in the home or if he's in the house

00:47:17He wants to be holed up in a room with the door closed on an iPad. Then you've got a problem for sure

00:47:23That's 100 you've got a problem

00:47:26Why should children not feel good about sitting with the families?

00:47:29You know sitting because there's nobody discussing there's nobody giving them something worthwhile

00:47:35But remember if a child is raised in a state of fear and oppression

00:47:39they will become afraid to take risks and will be afraid to make decisions because

00:47:47They've not been allowed to do that. They've been punished on every week every mistake they've made, you know

00:47:52After observing many people who came out right afterwards when I see a child they tell me that he messes up

00:47:57He messes he gets in trouble at school every now and then I think mashallah. This guy's going to do something good

00:48:04He's going to be a bit of a risk taker and inshallah if you do proper tarbiyah, he'll be actually willing to be a mover and shaker

00:48:11So I don't write off children who mess around a bit

00:48:15There's two different types of messing around one is innocent messing around. You know, I don't write off children

00:48:21One is innocent messing around child is meshing messing around and the other one

00:48:26is evil

00:48:28It comes from a place of evil shaytaniyat

00:48:31if

00:48:32Our children are learning shaytaniyat like an evil that is a problem

00:48:36But if they're just messing around let them mess around a bit not too much. They have to get disciplined

00:48:41There's one kid. He's always getting in trouble at school

00:48:46Right innocent messing but he gets in trouble

00:48:49Parents saying to him like what's wrong with you if you want to mess around be smart about it

00:48:55What else are you gonna do tell him not to mess around he still wants to mess it's okay be smart

00:48:59Because he says actually it wasn't me. It was my friend. I said it afterwards. Yeah, but why did your friend not get caught and you did?

00:49:08Because you're a little show-off maybe

00:49:11So if you want to mess around

00:49:13Then mess around in a way. You don't get caught then

00:49:15I

00:49:17Don't mean shaytaniyat. I mean like, you know people want to mess around a bit. I said you're silly

00:49:22That's what I would tell them right like you're sitting you're being silly

00:49:25If you want to mess around do it in a way that you can have your little and and don't get caught about it

00:49:31I mean that doesn't work all the time

00:49:33I don't want to give you bad ideas

00:49:35But i'm saying that sometimes children just don't stop

00:49:38So then you tell them okay at least do it in a way that you don't get in trouble

00:49:41So at least that will stop them from doing it half the time

00:49:44But yeah, i've seen a because you know when you go through madrasa

00:49:47A boarding madrasa, you see a lot of kids that used to mess around and now mashallah

00:49:51They are big imams. They're big scholars. They're doing so much work for the community and they're all messing around. They're in madrasa

00:49:58There's a lot of promise people alhamdulillah, they can become good people

00:50:02Right, you don't have to be a saint from when you're there's a few people like that. There's saints from birth. MashaAllah

00:50:08But not everybody's like that

00:50:10Right, there's people gotten in trouble all sorts of trouble alhamdulillah, they become successful people afterwards

00:50:15So don't write off any child. You just have to work and get them right. It's just another challenge

00:50:20right

00:50:22Parenting is the most rewarding stimulating and ultimately pleasurable experience one ever will go through

00:50:29But it can be the most demanding, you know feminists who are against

00:50:34Having children because they said that that was going to disturb your progress

00:50:39If you have children, you have to worry about children. You can't go to work your occupation your career

00:50:44When those same feminists from 20 30 years ago became 40

00:50:49Divorced no children. They're complaining now. They realized they were wrong. They're feeling alone

00:50:56That's why parenting the reason is reward if you do it

00:50:58Right, is that when you get to that age finally and that's why I do it earlier because you'll be fresher to do your tarbiyah

00:51:04Then when you have children when you're 30 40 and you're too tired

00:51:07Then they'll walk all over you. Maybe do it when you're young and more vigorous

00:51:12Right the culture, you know, you go to a school in the morning drop your kids off

00:51:15Most of the muslim parents are young 20 year old girls 20 year old women

00:51:21And you see you're a lot unfortunately the law of the non-muslim and they're like 30 and 40

00:51:25Because they just start later because they were more worried about their career

00:51:30Just remember good character is rarely a product of chance

00:51:35Rarely, is it like just something that comes about even if you didn't try

00:51:39Good character is always the result of happy homes

00:51:43Stable environments committed parents and good tarbiyah. So for example, i've been hajj

00:51:49Multiple times in a group of like three four five six hundred people

00:51:52And it's interesting how humans are

00:51:54And out of everybody who are like just standard you'll see one or two people they stand out. Why do they stand out?

00:52:01They have some amazing character

00:52:03They're just different

00:52:05They are just special

00:52:07They're not alims or anything. They're just very special people and you see that mashallah. They just

00:52:12Got things right and then you get speaking to them multiple occasions. I've gotten to speak to them and I find out

00:52:18That it's because

00:52:20Their father or grandfather was this special person

00:52:23You can see the tarbiyah

00:52:25Now remember anything that you do to your children is going to have impact and repercussions all the way down in your generations

00:52:34You have grandchildren yet?

00:52:36How many 10 grandchildren?

00:52:38Now those 10 grandchildren are all yours

00:52:42They're yours. They're not ashraf chacha's or

00:52:45They're yours they're not ashraf chacha's or you know, they're not nazir chacha's they're yours

00:52:51Is there any stopping those 10 grandchildren from having their own children now?

00:52:56No, we'll be gone and they'll carry on

00:52:59And they'll multiply inshallah. You got 10. They're going to multiply right soon

00:53:03They're going to be a hundred and we'll be long gone

00:53:06But on the day of judgment, you'll come up

00:53:08And you'll see in front of you maybe hundreds or thousands. I think these are all your children

00:53:15Think about it that way

00:53:17So, you know when you're parenting, I'm not parenting just for my children. I'm parenting for my descendants

00:53:24And i'm scared

00:53:26Because the way I want my children to be I want them to want their children to be and their children to be

00:53:32and when I see

00:53:33There's some, you know, really great person and then their grandchildren have messed up something like subhanallah

00:53:39Only allah can protect but you have to have that vision

00:53:42And every dua in the quran that is about children is not about children. It's about progeny

00:53:58Allah is telling you don't just pray for your immediate children pray for your descendants. Why not?

00:54:05Why not but for that it's a bigger job now, right?

00:54:07I want all my grandchildren

00:54:09To be a certain way. I'm gonna have to do proper tarbiyah of my children so I can increase the chances

00:54:15And for me to do tarbiyah of my children, we're going into a whole different subject. I don't want to open that up

00:54:20I better find the right wife

00:54:23And if I want the right wife then I better start before I find my wife

00:54:28Now you might think well i've already got a messed up husband or wife what do I do now?

00:54:34You do the best that you can people have changed for example, you've got a mother-in-law who oppresses her daughter-in-law

00:54:40So you find out from the mother-in-law. Why do you oppress your daughter-in-law?

00:54:44Like honest

00:54:46Well, because my mother-in-law did that's how she did it to me. So that's why i'm doing it

00:54:49So you go and ask her mother-in-law if she's still alive. Why do you do that?

00:54:52Why did you do that? Oh because my mother-in-law did that

00:54:55So you she's dead. So you go to her grave and say why did you do that?

00:54:59Why did you start this sunnah? She said I didn't start the sunnah my mother-in-law did that as well

00:55:04Come on, man, you're gonna have to stop that

00:55:07So tell the last one you stop that so that you don't have to continue this bad sunnah

00:55:13You be the new one to start a new sunnah for your descendants think of children

00:55:17As more than children its descendants

00:55:20Its descendants, right? That's the most important thing that you can think of and that will

00:55:25Keep you up at night. How do I make that happen?

00:55:28But if you have the concern you can ask allah then he's willing to give we'll be gone

00:55:32Wallahu yata wallah salihim, you know, I was once with a mufti muzaffar hussain sahib

00:55:38He was the muhtamim of the darlum waqf of saharanpur

00:55:44This was in 1999

00:55:46His father was maulana yahya sahib

00:55:49Right maulana yahya sahib big mufti of darlum waqf

00:55:53Right maulana yahya sahib big mufti of darlum waqf of saharanpur

00:55:57He was a proper zahid this mufti muzaffar sahib

00:56:02So was his father's name yahya or

00:56:04Maybe i'm mistaking his name

00:56:07Once we were in his majlis and he said that my father left nothing

00:56:10when he died

00:56:12He would give he was like abu bakr as-siddiq, you know, like

00:56:15Giving away everything and not keeping any just taking enough money to survive. So somebody asked him

00:56:21Now what are you going to leave for your children? He said i've tried to make them salihin

00:56:27righteous people

00:56:29God fearing and allah says wallahu yata wallah salihin

00:56:33Allah takes care of the salihin. So i've i've done my job. Allah does the rest and mashallah. That's it. That's your descent

00:56:40So unless we think far

00:56:43Far into the future

00:56:45We're gonna think it's just about me and my wife and my child. It's not about that

00:56:49It's a much bigger idea. It's a much bigger idea. It's a much bigger idea, you know, I have several friends from different countries

00:56:56That are sayyids

00:56:58that are

00:56:59Sharif sayyid, uh, which means a family of the prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam descendants

00:57:03And there's a quality in every one of them of generosity and other quality open-heartedness and generosity

00:57:10I've seen that in multiple countries. They're all sayyid right indians jordanians

00:57:16Pakistanis they're proper sayyids right and they all have a certain quality this comes down

00:57:23I have seen families where there's no alim in the family. And now mashallah the way they've made it is that

00:57:29All of the next generation is all hafiz now

00:57:32There was not a single person

00:57:38And now everybody is that tradition is going to carry on what tradition you need to make changes

00:57:44One family I know none of the women used to wear hijab

00:57:48It wasn't a tradition. One of them went to become an alima. She came back with a niqab forget hijab

00:57:54Everybody protested

00:57:56Like you

00:57:58Alhamdulillah, most of them now are fully covered

00:58:01You start it off

00:58:02You change the next generation, but it's a big job. It's a big job. That's that's why people lose out

00:58:07They all have this idea, but we lose out but at least you know now

00:58:10So anyway, i'm going to stop here

00:58:12These were a lot of disparate thoughts

00:58:14To just get us to think how important this is and some ideas to put into motion

00:58:19Remember, let our children find their qualities and their weaknesses and let's prune them

00:58:24And get them to become the leaders of the next generation and our descendants to be wonderful people inshallah

00:58:30Okay your questions

00:58:33How can we create love and nurture among siblings

00:58:37Allahumma salli ala sayyidina muhammad make a lot of dua to allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and keep reading allahumma

00:58:47Very powerful dua whenever i've had

00:58:49A little misunderstanding with somebody you read this dua. Oh allah resolve that which is in our hearts

00:58:56And reform the whatever the issue is between us and it's amazing. It works very well

00:59:01So number one keep making dua for them and then basically I think from a young age

00:59:04We need to give them an understanding you need to

00:59:08We don't want to make them each selfish competitors

00:59:12Only healthy competition is fine. So there must be a reason why they're at each other

00:59:16so it's completely fine by the way for younger boys or girls to have a bit of a

00:59:22Banter or a bit of fighting. It's fine

00:59:26Right that doesn't mean you go and do it

00:59:29It's fine. It's healthy for them. They need somebody to vent their you know, their energy

00:59:34Expend their energy on or something like that. So that's completely fine, but it's when it becomes uh,

00:59:40If they can't make up and they're fine after five minutes, then that's a problem

00:59:44So some of it is completely natural

00:59:46But if they're at each other and they stop talking to one another and all of that

00:59:49Then you've got a serious problem and then you have to find out why?

00:59:53That's the question now

00:59:55It may be very bitter what you discover or you may not want to think about it. Do you do that to others?

01:00:00Do you stop speaking to people?

01:00:02Do you speak bad about people and shun them and abandon them and stop speaking about them? Where did they learn to do that from?

01:00:10We genuinely have to ask that question once my kid came back from school and he said

01:00:14He's not talking to a certain friend. I was like, where did you learn to do that?

01:00:18We never stopped talking to anybody. Where did you even learn that that kind of thing exists?

01:00:23You obviously learned it from another friend. We said we don't do that. We deal with the matter

01:00:26You got an issue with somebody let's just deal with it. Let's say what it is. Let's sort it out

01:00:31Or let me ask you how old are you

01:00:35How old you're nine years old and you

01:00:39You're 10 years old. What's your name again?

01:00:43Ilyas

01:00:44So Ilyas, do you have anybody in your class at school or in your school that kind of bothers you a bit every now and then

01:00:50a bit

01:00:51bothers you sometimes

01:00:53Sometimes what do you do about it?

01:00:56Change the subject to give a clever answer or something like that

01:00:59So if you want him to stop bothering you, you know

01:01:01What the best way to do is have you ever tried this you can try this

01:01:04Is make dua for him that oh allah this guy bothers me a bit. Yeah. Allah sought him out and me out

01:01:10Because you've got the next two three years to spend with him, right?

01:01:12So rather than every time trying to deal with him just make that dua and inshallah that will work

01:01:19So anyway, we need to first find out why that why they have so much animosity

01:01:24Is it because of us then we're giving them a bad model

01:01:27Then we have to

01:01:29Teach them not to be like that

01:01:30I think if we give them the understanding you must defend one another

01:01:34And again a bit of it is fine as long as they come out of it

01:01:37And then we get them to maybe give gifts to one another we tell them how to

01:01:41Go beyond the acrimony in the hearts and one beautiful way of doing is making that dua

01:01:46Number two if you have this with anybody you give them a gift

01:01:49You you literally go beyond yourself to do something good for them

01:01:52We teach them how to deal with the anger of their heart

01:01:56And and get beyond it again, these are just some ideas may allah put blessing in them

01:02:02What is suitable age to speak about rse with our children I want ideas what do you think

01:02:09Nine or ten

01:02:13In some cases seven it just depends on what they're exposed to and I think you should figure out what they actually you can ask

01:02:18Some innocent questions some probing questions and if you find out they already know because believe me

01:02:23You know, you might pull out your children from rse

01:02:26classes the proper ones they do the the weird ones they do and then

01:02:30the

01:02:31So you you keep them at home the next day you go there and their friends have told them everything secondhand with masala

01:02:38Right, so that's why it's important

01:02:41That you bring this up the best way to do it to when it's very difficult for parents to speak about this

01:02:45But if you can it's okay is to organize a class

01:02:50For with the local imams on masjid for teenager classes

01:02:54Or there's actually now decent small booklets written for coming of age

01:02:59We're going to have a lecture coming up very soon on so I did it in batley last week

01:03:04It's going to be put up on zamzam academy soon on literally coming up of age and what that entails

01:03:10Um from the ages of I would say 9 to 14. That's when the major changes happen

01:03:16So I think it's very important a lot of the rse stuff is involved in that and it has to happen

01:03:21We can't say that they should be blinded of this fact because they're going to learn about it

01:03:27so if it is ever brought up at home, like what does that mean just explain in a

01:03:34In a formal kind of way what it is without dismissing don't think about that

01:03:39You could say look this is how much we know

01:03:40We don't think you'll understand when you grow up

01:03:43You can say that but at least give them something to go by

01:03:46right

01:03:47so what I did last week in batley was that I

01:03:50Mentioned how to say these things

01:03:52I don't want to go through the whole thing right now

01:03:54But that just gives you an idea of how to speak about it because you're embarrassed usually but you can speak about it

01:04:01How can we know okay we did that one

01:04:03How can parents discuss the topic of intimacy with teenagers when they don't say i've been shamed and never talked regarding the topic?

01:04:08I think I just answered that question, right parents will inevitably differ on issues

01:04:12How should they handle such matters in the presence of their children as it can come across that they are unaligned? Yeah

01:04:18So look you can't always be 100 on the same wavelength as your partner

01:04:23Right, that'd be really weird. If you were it's very difficult. Then it'd be a boring life, right?

01:04:28So it's fine to have some differences of opinion as long as you generally agree on the big ideas

01:04:33You have to be on the same wavelength there

01:04:35If you're not you better work on that if you aren't any major disapprovals

01:04:40You do that privately not in front of the children, right?

01:04:42Otherwise, it's fine if they can see a healthy kind of to and fro

01:04:46Trying to say no we should do it this way

01:04:48We should do it this way and then finally you agree with the you know with the spouse or she agrees with you or either way

01:04:55Then the children will understand that that is fine

01:04:58I don't always have to be right

01:04:59So if the father is always going to make himself out to be right then the son's going to think they have to always be

01:05:04right

01:05:05And the women are going to think that women are never right or we can't be right

01:05:08Even if we think so that's going to cause major psychological problems later on

01:05:13Do you understand? So I think

01:05:15it's fine to have a

01:05:17difference, but just have it in a

01:05:22In an understanding way while providing your arguments

01:05:26So just try to be less authoritative

01:05:30And more discursive when you're discussing this kind of stuff so the children can see healthy discussion

01:05:35There's nothing wrong with that

01:05:36But any major issues if you do have them and you need to have them then take that away

01:05:40Don't do it in front of the children as as far as possible

01:05:44How do you encourage girls to adopt the hijab from a young age?

01:05:48well, I guess what we

01:05:50we

01:05:51Can do is to talk about the importance of modesty

01:05:55Rather than saying that you must cover

01:05:57We talk about the importance of modesty of why they need to cover why women cover in the first place

01:06:03And we show how other women covered and if we've read them good stories, then that will come about in there as well

01:06:09There may come a time eventually

01:06:12The biggest challenge to covering is usually the fact that their friends aren't covering

01:06:16That's usually the biggest challenge I would say or their cousins aren't covering or people of their age aren't covering

01:06:21That's why it's a good idea to have children

01:06:23Or one of the biggest issues that we have right in this disparate society we live in

01:06:30where community has broken down is that

01:06:32If you are a practicing person with your family

01:06:36And around you and even your cousins are not practicing. That is the most difficult way to bring your children up

01:06:42Because you have to visit cousins

01:06:45They do everything and you don't let your children do anything. It just sounds very

01:06:50depriving

01:06:52So what we really need is to find families

01:06:56that think alike

01:06:57And become friends with them and then visit one another so that they can be reinforced

01:07:01I've seen this there is a young girl and she's like, why should I do this? She's the only one

01:07:07She's the only practicing muslim as such

01:07:10Alhamdulillah when they went to this kind of a family event where they saw others that oh, okay. It's not just me

01:07:17I'm, not the odd one out. There's others and they were very uplifting

01:07:22And very empowering lectures that were taking place

01:07:25Literally that has to be done. So I think that can be done within our youth

01:07:29facilities that literally

01:07:31Try to encourage that so that they see others doing the same thing

01:07:34It's just much easier for people to do what they see others doing rather than feel odd one out

01:07:39So if you are in a family where everybody else doesn't cover and you do it's going to be very very tough

01:07:43So you have to find other people to do it

01:07:48I mean

01:07:50Which age is I would probably say I don't know is it?

01:07:53Encouragement from you know to practice and so on if you're doing it properly

01:07:56They'll probably want to do it, but I think when they become balik then it becomes necessary

01:08:00But before that the age of nine ten eleven at least nine if possible. It just depends on if they're small

01:08:06They're they're bigger in their body or whatever. There's a lot of factors that are involved in that

01:08:10So whenever you think that they should actually start doing it because now they're you know

01:08:15Becoming a woman as such

01:08:17Then after that you need to encourage it more and make it a bit more emphasized

01:08:22And assist them and help them and speak to them about it

01:08:27Father has hit mother and abused in front of a two-year-old many times and it's affected his behavior

01:08:32How can you undo this?

01:08:34To help the child who is now three

01:08:36Look, what's done is done. You need to just sort yourself out so that that can be erased

01:08:40Alhamdulillah. Allah has given the plasticity of the mind

01:08:44Which basically means that you don't have to be scarred for life

01:08:48Alhamdulillah. Allah has created the mind as a wonder

01:08:52They literally the brain studies and there's not some really good books on that study

01:08:56on this subject you

01:08:58Everybody goes through a quite a significant change in their brain structure and the way they are as human beings every 10 years

01:09:07Right, so just make it right stop crying over that

01:09:11and

01:09:12Really try to over compensate for this and inshallah that will be erased with dua to allah subhanahu wa ta'ala

01:09:19In my area madrasas are not great

01:09:20My child is seven has been taught at home until now, but I am aware of the benefits a madrasa can give what to do

01:09:28Make a madrasa up a new one. That's really five star

01:09:31I mean, I don't know what to do

01:09:34I mean some of these questions I can't answer

01:09:35I mean if you don't have a madrasa you might have to go to an area where there is a good madrasa if that's

01:09:39Not the case find some like-minded people

01:09:42I mean unless you're just over the top and you think madrasas are bad because you want it

01:09:45I've had parents like that and i'm not blaming you for that. Whoever you are anonymous, right?

01:09:50I'm going to make fun of some of these people if that's okay because I don't know who they are

01:09:53Right just to give a bit of humor, but I don't mean it. Okay, so mr

01:09:57Anonymous or mrs. Anonymous whoever you are. Allah bless you. I've given you some duas as well

01:10:02Right, but sometimes some people are over the top. No islamic school works for them

01:10:06I said that one. No, I had probably in that one that one down. Come on. I think must be the problem with you now

01:10:11Yeah, and again, I don't know right so you really have to think what I would say is that if all the madrasas are problem

01:10:17Then find some like-minded parents because there must be somebody else who also thinks their problem and you start a new madrasa

01:10:24Find a place find some really cool teachers pay them

01:10:27Very very well and then and then make sure they start a new madrasa and say this is state of the art

01:10:32This is not a joe blogs madrasa

01:10:34And

01:10:37You have to I mean there's no magic about this and I give that's genuinely what you're saying and it's possible that you know

01:10:42The madrasas aren't very well, but I mean it can't be that bad. Can it but if it is then start a new madrasa

01:10:49It's not going to come to you you'll have to start one

01:10:52Or go out to another area. How does one deal with a child who does not follow instruction is easily angered

01:10:58I think i've discussed that I think no I haven't

01:11:00What we need to do with any of this type of question is we need to first find out why they are the way they are

01:11:06There must be some reason they may be very bitter

01:11:09Uh reasons for that that we you know, is it from us we get very sensitive

01:11:13So they've learned to be sensitive. I don't want to blame the parents all the time because sometimes they can learn it from their

01:11:18Friends, so we just have to discuss with them that it's not worth doing that

01:11:22And you might you're not going to get an overnight change, but once we carry on calmly

01:11:27patiently

01:11:29Discussing this. Hopefully they'll come out of it. They'll grow out of it. You know, there's a massive uh from the time that they're

01:11:36You know from the babies to when they're about 25

01:11:3923 24 years old there are going to be major changes and sometimes they just need time

01:11:45With reinforcement you can't change it overnight

01:11:50How can we equip our children to be confident in their religion to be able to interact with non-muslims at school in the current

01:11:55climate ie crisis in gaza

01:11:58The way you do that is you have good solid discussions

01:12:02Make them proud of their faith that look this is the way why do this and this is why that side is wrong

01:12:08And then we make them confident, but we tell them to be careful about the way they

01:12:12Carry them. Otherwise, they'll be taken to prevent

01:12:15So you have to make sure that they do it in a way that they confident but cautious and careful and they know their boundaries

01:12:23How can we explain to children when parents don't live together and help them cope with the emotions of losing the family unit

01:12:28You need a psychologist for this. I I don't have a proper answer for this

01:12:32I've not considered it enough, right? I can give you some guidance, but that that's uh, that's uh,

01:12:37maybe uh

01:12:39I think the basic thing I can say is you just talked about the reality

01:12:43But I would really encourage that you don't

01:12:46Don't be a malicious mother or father

01:12:48Don't be a malicious mother or father in in the sense that you are trying to

01:12:55Deprive your child of their

01:12:58Other parent that is haram

01:13:01Very very wrong very detrimental. It might make you feel good that you've got one over the other but it's very bad and it's increasing

01:13:09Right. It is absolute selfishness and narcissism and you shouldn't be doing that

01:13:12It's very bad for your children if that's what you're doing, you're not done. Most people don't do that inshallah

01:13:17So then you have to just say look we had a bit of an issue and this is what's happening

01:13:21But I would recommend you get married again a pair a child needs both

01:13:26Unless you've got good sharing custody

01:13:29Usually the mother has the primary care, but the father should have good access and sufficient access, right?

01:13:35I mean, there's a lot more confusing possibility

01:13:37If the man is if the father's a loser he's not really involved and that's another issue try to get married again if you can

01:13:43That's very very important

01:13:45Otherwise if you can't do that

01:13:46Then at least have your own relatives like your brothers and sisters have close connection because your child needs both the mother and father

01:13:54There's an interview done with a woman who was brought up by two women the modern way of two women. I don't mean co-wives

01:14:00Right one man with two wives. I don't mean that I mean two women

01:14:03He was brought up by she was brought up by and she said it's not the same

01:14:07It they're both wonderful women. She said but it's not the same

01:14:11You need that and there's a lot of studies that show that when children don't have both sides there's instability in that relationship

01:14:17It's just natural phenomenon for us to be covered by both

01:14:21Father gives something the mother gives something else one parent can't do both get some help. Allah make it easy for you

01:14:30How will a child be affected were there in

01:14:33Where there is domestic abuse in family where the husband is harsh to wife and speak bad

01:14:39I guess you if you already know then, you know

01:14:42Right. I can't answer that question. It's just going to be very bad

01:14:46A few days ago last week

01:14:49there's a

01:14:50female teacher who who teaches a alima class

01:14:54of teenagers

01:14:56So third fourth year, whatever it is

01:14:59They were having a conversation

01:15:02And it turns out that the majority of the girls in that class said they don't want to get married

01:15:08It's like why why don't you want to get married men?

01:15:12Uh, what did she say?

01:15:15men are

01:15:16Men can't be trusted

01:15:20Men are liars

01:15:22All right, so she's prodding more like what do you mean by this said i'll never marry any guy who's on social media

01:15:31She's seen the worst of it I guess right of what people do on social media

01:15:34So then the teacher asked do you have social media? Yes, I do but i'm going to get off it now

01:15:40Alhamdulillah, right? They've figured it out

01:15:43Now my question when I heard that was

01:15:46Why do they think all men are messed up?

01:15:49Because all men are not messed up. Okay, because if that was the case, I mean that would be very sad for you, right?

01:15:54How do you feel about that?

01:15:57You won't be able to I mean men are like yeah, I want to get married

01:16:01But girls don't feel comfortable about that and it is a problem

01:16:04Feminism is to blame for a certain amount of that because say, you know, you don't need men and so on that

01:16:10But it's not fully that

01:16:12There's somebody I know who within five six homes from his house. There's three muslim families who have 40 year old daughters

01:16:19Who are not yet married?

01:16:21It is a big issue. Okay, and there's multiple reasons for that

01:16:25So one could be an element of feminism, however, the other bigger issue the other issue is is the way people are parenting

01:16:34There is a lot of

01:16:37Discrimination against girls in our families

01:16:40Boys are mollycoddled

01:16:42they're brought up to be pampered and girls have to do all the work and

01:16:48Just a week or two ago, they said that there was a girl

01:16:52who is

01:16:53Considering changing agenda to a boy. Why somebody got to speak to her?

01:16:58Like why do you want to do that? He said because my brother gets all the

01:17:02Favors in the house. I don't so i'd rather become a boy

01:17:07Can you see what our and some cultures are worse than others?

01:17:11There's some cultures who make their girls do all the work

01:17:14There's some cultures

01:17:16Who make their girls do everything?

01:17:18And the boys are pampered they don't even have to make their own bed

01:17:21The mother will do it or get the sister to make it all the food breakfast everything

01:17:26The guy doesn't know how to tighten a screw

01:17:28He doesn't know how to let guests in

01:17:30He doesn't know how to pay a bill

01:17:33and

01:17:34He's just on his playstation

01:17:36Or he's just studying but then they've got the girls studying as well and they still have to do all the homework

01:17:42I'm, not talking about the permissible study not study. I'm just saying this is the reality

01:17:46It's as if the boys get a lot more pandering than the girls do

01:17:51And that's a problem

01:17:53What we need and this is an important point is what we need is we need

01:17:58To create such a family that your daughter can look at her brother and say that mashallah. He's such a good guy

01:18:05That I would like my husband to be like that

01:18:08The model that you're providing

01:18:10I'm, so sad about that

01:18:13That those group of girls which may be representative of a bigger issue in other places as well, right?

01:18:20So I asked the question to this teacher I said, but what about their what about her pair her father her brother

01:18:27Said one of the girls said that my father has been beating up my mom for the last what 20 years

01:18:34And she just takes it

01:18:37She just hates men because that's what all men are like in her mind

01:18:42And this is a big issue that we're going to have to solve because this is a very cultural issues in some cultures

01:18:49If you beat your women up

01:18:51You're really messing up the next generation

01:18:54That means you want all of your grandchildren to do the same

01:18:57When I first got married and a friend of mine got married. He's a maulana as well

01:19:02He's a maulana as well some months later he called me he said no no, I hit my wife

01:19:08like he's shocked

01:19:10and he's

01:19:13Disgusted by what he did

01:19:15So I spoke to him and everything alhamdulillah since that he's never done it again. But why did he do it then?

01:19:20All I can think of is because he's seen his father do it. So he thought that's the way to lash out

01:19:25That's the way to react in an anger

01:19:28So if you've seen somebody do it you'll do the same thing it's not the way to do it

01:19:32In fact, I believe that you don't even have to hit your children

01:19:36I mean it may even be illegal and that stuff

01:19:39But if you know a lot of people they think that they have to beat their children up to get them to do stuff

01:19:43That's the that that was seen as the last resort before anyway

01:19:47Right, you know even traditionally when people used to hit the way you do it is you just frown

01:19:53You just tut or frown that's the first stage if that doesn't sort them out

01:19:57Then you give them a stern look or a stern word

01:20:00It's the second level the third level if that doesn't work is you say, okay fine

01:20:06You can't play for one hour or you can't do this or you can't do that, right if that doesn't work

01:20:11Okay, you know what?

01:20:12You really need to just go into that corner or that room you can't play with everybody else and just think why?

01:20:18reflection

01:20:20You understand if you use these stages you'll never have to get to the highest stage you start off by hitting

01:20:27What do you have beyond that?

01:20:30If it's a you start with the chapel you want to go into a belt next or what?

01:20:35Ridiculous you don't have to do that. There has to be a system in place

01:20:40Right and believe me that system works

01:20:44You know, you don't have to hit at all

01:20:47So what methods can be used to create an environment with children of discussion so that it can approach us

01:20:53You just start of a discussion

01:20:55Random discussion on some issue and then see what they say

01:20:58If you're never used to a discussion and you might be difficult in the beginning to do that

01:21:02Right, but just start of a discussion find a talking point or whatever it is

01:21:07Like do you see so I would say like, you know in your school do

01:21:11Kids do is there anybody on drugs?

01:21:16Just random question. Yeah. Yeah, there is this guy or whatever and so on right in your school

01:21:22Is there somebody who does that you can just start off like that?

01:21:24Then you know the way they will say praisingly disapprovingly, you know where we are with this

01:21:30They just have to be a bit creative about it, I guess

01:21:33What what advice can you give when parents are not on the same page and he and your child then behaves differently with each one

01:21:38Sort your relationship out

01:21:40There's no magic sort your relationship out

01:21:43Otherwise send him to somebody else to bring up like the grandfather or somebody who's got otherwise

01:21:47There's no there's no there's no magic and make a lot of dua to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala

01:21:51If a father is on the phone all the time, so he doesn't give time to mother or son

01:21:55What can we do to stop this and how will this affect the child?

01:21:57I don't know how it's it's gonna definitely have an effect but

01:22:01You're gonna if you want to change this i've got lots of lectures about the marital issues online on zamzam academy

01:22:07So i'll leave you to that i've discussed that a lot but briefly speaking

01:22:10What you have been using for the last five six years to try to change your husband

01:22:14It's not working then stop using that way. It's not going to work because it hasn't worked

01:22:20He knows that's all you do so change your style

01:22:23Use a different power

01:22:25Maybe a soft power soft feminine power. If not that then take a stand

01:22:30Get somebody else involved

01:22:33If you don't do anything, it's not going to make you you're making dua only nothing's going to happen unless

01:22:38There's a time of acceptance and you get a karamat and a miracle but miracles don't happen often

01:22:44Get somebody involved

01:22:45Think of it this way, right? You've got husband and wife for those who can see on two sides

01:22:50If they have a problem then just imagine that the ground

01:22:55They go slightly down like a foot into the ground

01:22:59Now for them to come back together

01:23:01They have to come out and be nice to one another and resolve it

01:23:04If you don't sort that out and they have another problem you go another half a foot in the ground

01:23:09And you have a third problem and they go another half a foot in the ground and over 5 10 15 years

01:23:14You're going to go 20 feet down. So you both can't even see each other see eye to eye anymore

01:23:20The only way you can resolve you both come out somehow

01:23:23But you're not willing to because you both want to stay in your trench. You think you're secure and you're right

01:23:28That's why it's better to sort this out

01:23:30When you're only half a foot or one foot down than when you're 20 feet down after 20 years

01:23:37I'm dealing with several over 20 year old marriages some with ulama and alimas as well. They've just

01:23:45Put it under the carpet they've just messed around with it for all this time and now

01:23:49while they're after their children are, you know mature and ready to get married now they wanna

01:23:56They want out of the marriage it's so difficult. I've been trying with one. We've been trying with one couple

01:24:01It's now nearly the third year

01:24:03I can't believe they're not divorced yet. There's like some desire to get back, but they just can't they just can't change their ways

01:24:11get

01:24:14Help sooner than later

01:24:15That's the secret get help sooner than later and don't go running to your mom all the time

01:24:21Moms are usually usually not always sometimes they're very fair, but moms are not usually the best idea

01:24:27I've seen marriages break because the first person you went to for a little small issue you went to your mom

01:24:34Because mom are very sentimental but some moms are very good so it just depends you better know your mom

01:24:39is she gonna help you or is she just gonna

01:24:42Support you to break your marriage

01:24:44You need to be honest enough to think about that. I've seen many moms break their marriage and some are very decent. Masha Allah

01:24:50How can we address the issue of a nine-year-old who finds it easy to lie first find out why they lie

01:24:55Do you tell untruths?

01:24:57Do you say when somebody comes to your house that he's not here?

01:25:02Do you

01:25:03Do this weird flexing of the truth. They've just probably learned it from you

01:25:10It's a lot of the time they do but we know why we're doing it. We think children don't know

01:25:14They're not discriminating of why they do it. So they just do it

01:25:17as they want

01:25:19That's number one. Number two. We have to tell them it's not right and we have to show them the

01:25:25The importance of truth and the the problem with nifaq essentially of hypocrisy and how it's bad for your heart

01:25:32And how you want you don't want to be different outside to how you are inside

01:25:36You know you you explain all of that to them and hopefully they can change inshallah inshallah. It's just the passing phase

01:25:42When spouses are of different parenting approach, what's the best way forward?

01:25:46Either make mashura and agree to some

01:25:49Arrangement. Otherwise

01:25:51Find somebody else you can go to who will decide between you if you can't agree find somebody neutral and decent

01:25:56Who can who can assist you?

01:25:58How does a parent repent if they've been tough on their kids beyond bounds?

01:26:01Just be nice to them now without overdoing it and just try to and inshallah

01:26:05It will be sorted out just be very good to them now and and maybe you know say look I need I need to do

01:26:11This in a in a better way and just do that. Don't cry over it. Otherwise, you know, you're just going to get worse. So

01:26:17Seek forgiveness from allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and just start being extra nice to the children

01:26:22But not in a way to spoil them obviously, right and inshallah. It'll take a it'll take some time

01:26:26But it will be sorted inshallah

01:26:28Is there a need of a british muslim identity to reinforce positive cultural influence in our children?

01:26:33Absolutely. It's just I spoke about it in the other in the other masjid. So I didn't speak about it here, but

01:26:41Whether you like it or not

01:26:43We are creating a new muslim identity and what is the identity? Let me just take two minutes for that

01:26:50When people are in the same place, we're in the same village. Everybody has the same identity

01:26:54They eat the same kind of food. They wear the same dress. We've come to england, right?

01:27:00Now where I live and i've traveled a lot. So i've got moroccans. I've got bangladeshis. I've got pakistanis. I've got

01:27:08Afghanis i've got and and i've got the fish and chips

01:27:13And the italian pizza and all of that

01:27:15We take the best

01:27:17And we remove every one of us

01:27:20Has a culture

01:27:22Nobody can escape culture. There's some people that i'm not cultural. I'm a cultural you are

01:27:27You don't know what you're talking about

01:27:30Everybody has a culture. All you've done is that you've taken off or you've become a self-hating gujarati

01:27:37Or bengali or whatever it is and you've just taken on a new culture because culture is part of our life

01:27:42Culture is the way we dress culture is what we eat culture is the way we behave

01:27:48Now nobody here who's been born in this country or have come and stayed here for 20 years

01:27:53You know when you go back to congo, don't you feel it's a bit they do a few weird things

01:27:59Yeah

01:28:00right

01:28:01Why?

01:28:03Because we've understood it from it. Now. We've picked up slightly different culture. It's as simple as that

01:28:09Anybody who's still in this country who still thinks they're 100 punjabi culture? They're not you can't be

01:28:16It's impossible culture is what you take on

01:28:19We need to drop the bad culture from our cultures because there's all these bad elements

01:28:23Especially related to marriage and all that kind of stuff. We need to drop that

01:28:27We need to take the best of our culture and take the best of any other culture

01:28:31For example

01:28:33You go to some people's house and they force you to eat

01:28:35They put the food in your plate and then there's some cultures like my friend from half egyptian palestinian

01:28:41He was in egypt. He went to a friend's house. He'd already eaten the friend said you better eat

01:28:45He said i've already eaten. I'm, you know, i'm i'm watching my he's careful about me. He says i'm not going to eat

01:28:52so he said

01:28:53Wallahi, my wife is divorced if you don't eat

01:28:56That's messed up now if my if my friend was stubborn

01:28:59He could say I don't care about you

01:29:11Right, it's ridiculous

01:29:13You go to some people's house. You go to some cultures. Would you like some tea and you're like a bit embarrassed?

01:29:19You say no. Okay, no problem

01:29:21And you really want to you think like he's going to say yeah, you know because you're used to that

01:29:26And then there's some cultures like

01:29:28They just bring the tea and everything

01:29:31Jokana e kado

01:29:33And there's like would you like some tea like would you really want some tea?

01:29:36These are various different cultures

01:29:39So pick which is the best. I just told our moroccan imam sab that I we have

01:29:44Moroccan harira soup and tagine in the house and i'm actually wearing this moroccan dress

01:29:48I would never wear this in gujarat

01:29:51I've been to gujarat

01:29:53From india in the madrasa and you wear anything different. They look at you

01:29:57Because they're all one way

01:29:59There's not much variety there only now saudi jubbas are fine there now, but before when I was there in

01:30:041997-98 I was bin laden

01:30:07For them, right you understand it's just when you got

01:30:11Strong cultures, then you can't do anything different. It's very difficult to go against that

01:30:15But here we need to find out what culture we are and many people have figured that out

01:30:18I think we just don't call it a british culture. Otherwise it is there

01:30:22Right. So now

01:30:24There's going to be multiple variations. I don't think we can put everybody on the same british culture. So converts

01:30:31They're going to have a certain british culture. We can't expect them to be like have elements of indian culture

01:30:38Although to be honest indian food is everywhere so that they're going to have a certain

01:30:42Indian food is everywhere. So that they're going to have to have everybody's going to have indian food in this country

01:30:47That's indian culture. That's part of indian culture, which has become british culture now, right?

01:30:52Culture is a very important idea

01:30:54There's people who come and say I don't want to get married to a gujarati or a punjabi

01:30:57But I said why not I said they come with baggage

01:31:01I said, okay, who do you want to marry them a convert? I said they just come with a different baggage

01:31:06Everybody comes with baggage

01:31:08It's just that you don't like this baggage because you're used to it and you found some bad elements to it

01:31:13Well, they're just going to come with a different baggage and you better get used to that. There's nothing wrong with it though

01:31:18So remember that culture is very important. You can never be a cultural

01:31:23Which means you can never be against culture and never have any culture because whatever you do is cultural

01:31:29But we're we're I mean, for example, if you look at me right now

01:31:32I'm supposed to be from you know

01:31:33I'm supposed to be a gujarati and i'm proud to be a gujarati. I don't have any problem with that

01:31:37Not in an arrogant way. Allah protect us from that, right?

01:31:40But this thobe here that i'm wearing this jubba here is saudi probably made in china

01:31:45This this thing here is moroccan, but it's been specially made in jordan, right? This watch is japanese. This phone is uh,

01:31:54Yeah your phone mine is korean, right?

01:31:58socks are american and

01:32:01um

01:32:03It's just we're mixture now

01:32:05So what is the identity?

01:32:08Who defines that?

01:32:10And let it be a flexible culture with certain norms, which is because islam gives us boundaries

01:32:17And general guidance as long as we're within that that's completely fine

01:32:21But if somebody wants us like this is british culture

01:32:25Whatever that is

01:32:27What is british culture?

01:32:31You understand so that I guess that's what we're talking about here that all the good that is in all cultures take it on

01:32:38So in my house, we cook gujarati food, but we also cook moroccan food

01:32:43lebanese food hummus and so on right syrian food

01:32:48And and and bits of because i've traveled quite a bit. So you find things wife made shakshuka yesterday, which is an egg dish

01:32:55It's an arabic egg dish

01:32:57It's fine nothing wrong with doing that in gujaratis, right?

01:33:04How can we build tolerance and patience while doing the tarbi of children it can be very hard we choose the easier route

01:33:09Sabar sabar understand the long game. This is a long game, by the way

01:33:12You're not going to get response. You're not going to get a reaction straight away

01:33:15And remember your benefit of that will be shown 20 years later

01:33:1930 years later when you're old or even after your death, but remember you're leaving a legacy let that drive you inshallah my child

01:33:26I'm gonna quickly just finish this up

01:33:27My child is six years old and she only eats her food while watching her ipad fine. They will break the habit

01:33:31Who started that off?

01:33:34How did she have an ipad at food my kids aren't allowed ipad except in the weekend so where did this ipad come from

01:33:44I mean, why don't you use the same strategy of how to wean them off milk?

01:33:49What strategy did you use for that

01:33:53Use the same strategy let them cry one day

01:33:56How long they're going to cry for?

01:33:59There should be there's a lot of research on this you need to probably keep the ipad away from them for a whole

01:34:05month

01:34:06To let it come out of their system

01:34:09And then they'll be completely fine. They won't be dependent on the ipad

01:34:13Let them be away from the ipad for a month so psychologically their hard wiring of their brain

01:34:20To want an ipad while they're eating that will be disconnected. They're still children

01:34:24They'll understand that and then you'll be fine inshallah, but you know, you'll have to bear the crime

01:34:30And break your heart

01:34:35Is the schooling and maktab system outdated since our kids are nine hours away from home and get really tired

01:34:42It's not outdated because this isn't what they did in other countries in most muslim countries. It was all part of the system

01:34:50So the only way to beat that system here is to have a fully integrated islamic school with both things done

01:34:57Well, because a lot of the not a lot, but at least some of the subjects in the regular school are waste of time

01:35:03They're filler subjects

01:35:05They don't contribute to you know, so you either get a proper islamic school

01:35:10And I mean we all went through maktab alhamdulillah. I think we're fine

01:35:15We did normal school and we did maktab as well

01:35:18And we're fine. We're not that destroyed. Are we so I don't know why you're mollycoddling them

01:35:23Right give them better food

01:35:26I'm, just having a i'm just having a little uh thingy, right?

01:35:29Give them better diets maybe so that they don't feel too tired

01:35:32Maybe they got an iron deficiency or something give them some vitamins give them some good food rather than just chocolates and

01:35:38And and so on no fish and the fish is good the chips is yeah too much potato and starch

01:35:45How can you raise your child the way you want with islamic values while having family you have different values and your child that needs?

01:35:49a whole bayan

01:35:52My kid is having I think i've discussed a lot of these issues today

01:35:55You just do your best and ask allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and inshallah

01:35:58You will change your family ultimately if they see a good model in your children, okay?

01:36:03My kid is having anger issues. I think i've answered that already any thoughts or suggestions

01:36:07Anger, why are they getting angry? Is it because one of you is getting angry or what are the trigger points?

01:36:11What makes them angry? Is there a frustration? Do they feel deprived? Do they feel discriminated against?

01:36:17There could be multiple reasons for why they're feeling angry try to find out the reasons then inshallah. We can help them

01:36:24Any thoughts or suggestions on the age to give the child a mobile phone? I think around

01:36:2816

01:36:31Within the home right how to create a strong

01:36:34Home

01:36:36Strong muslim identity simple thing is that if we can develop god consciousness in them meaning taqwa

01:36:42That they can do namaz for allah rather than for you

01:36:45Then we are successful. And how do we do that? We do that organically

01:36:49What that means is we're bringing allah subhanahu wa ta'ala's mention in every discussion not every discussion but in discussions like

01:36:57You got a new set of clothing. You know what we really not you we really need to thank allah that he gives us so much

01:37:03Look how beautiful that is

01:37:05And look at those guys. They don't get we're so lucky. Look at this food

01:37:10Like every time you enjoy the food that you eat just allahu akbar. We have so much to be thankful to allah for

01:37:17Organically, you just mentioned that you can't get this into your children until

01:37:21It's at home number two. You glorify

01:37:25ilm and scholarship and islam

01:37:28There are a lot of people ask me why did you follow this career this this way

01:37:33I can tell you and I used to say my father's and

01:37:37Maulana and a hafiz and his dad was a hafiz as well

01:37:40my uncle's a hafiz from my dad's side and my mom's dad was a qari and

01:37:47Her brother was a mufti and it just runs in the family now, that's very useful for you, isn't it?

01:37:53It doesn't run in my family. So, okay. I don't need to do that

01:37:56Then I got thinking because you get people in their family have loads of those kind of people or they're all businessmen or they have all

01:38:02Doctors, but they don't want to do that

01:38:05Really what it was is that the deen

01:38:07Was glorified in my house

01:38:11Whenever a buzur came or a somebody finished his be like, wow, you know that guy is their child. He's become hafiz of the quran

01:38:20Look, he's gone to so-and-so country for taraweeh

01:38:24Look, he's become an alim

01:38:27Ulema were not criticized

01:38:29They were not looked down upon the deen was glorified. We saw it in practice. We saw the way it worked

01:38:37I'll just leave you with one story. There's a girl who's seven or eight years old her older brother nine years old needed glasses

01:38:45He went to the optician, you know in that age. They check the eyes. He needed glasses. She started making fun of him

01:38:50You need glasses you've got glasses you're gonna have glasses so the mother said to the daughter

01:38:56Don't make fun of him because your dad has glasses. Your mom has glasses

01:39:00Your older brother has glasses

01:39:03You're gonna have glasses it runs in the family

01:39:08And then okay stop finish ten years later no more set ten years later

01:39:13She is now 17 18. She's got younger siblings as well. They have glasses, but she doesn't

01:39:18Everybody's got glasses except her. Why doesn't she have glasses?

01:39:23Yeah

01:39:25Allahu Akbar, I

01:39:28Think inshallah this ban has been successful because the kids are still awake

01:39:35I'm not that I accept so

01:39:39Allah is gonna give victory. All of those kids are dying. Allah is gonna give victory

01:39:43There has to be there has to be has to be so

01:39:48She made dua, but she only told everybody

01:39:51After when she's 18 that you know, mom when you told me that

01:39:55I'm gonna get glasses. I started praying to allah subhanahu wa ta'ala

01:40:00Why did she start doing dua to allah answer me that question

01:40:04Okay that

01:40:05You're saying that because she wanted to prove her mom wrong and she wanted to justify that she made fun

01:40:10I don't think it was that second one and it was a good try masha'allah

01:40:13But I don't think it was the first or second. She just started feeling like no, I don't want glasses

01:40:18And i'm gonna ask allah not to give me glasses. My question is why did she ask allah for?

01:40:27Because she was brought up to be to to ask allah

01:40:31Now the mother at this point should have said look you make dua

01:40:34That allah doesn't give you but she didn't she forgot about talking about that. She said look don't make fun of him

01:40:39But she decided herself

01:40:41That I need to make dua because she already learned that dua works

01:40:47That is how you bring the faith in the house because you teach them that from a young age

01:40:52You're telling them stories of the prophets where duas are accepted. They're going to imbibe some of them

01:40:57That's why I read stories of the prophets and the sahaba

01:41:00Alayhimussalam radiyallahu anhum to your children when they're young they imbibe a lot from that some really important goals

01:41:07Now imagine if your dua has been accepted

01:41:10Like that are you going to doubt god? Are you going to doubt allah?

01:41:15That's experiential

01:41:17You've had the experience and dua is very powerful in my kids

01:41:21What we've done is that from a young age whenever they have a little pain somewhere

01:41:24Instead of rushing to get a paracetamol or something you say I read a bit of duas

01:41:28Bismillah

01:41:36Any dua and blow on them 50% or more of the time they get better

01:41:42Call that

01:41:45Placebo effect or godsebo effect or whatever you want to call it

01:41:49And they get old enough. They they read it for themselves

01:41:53I said put your hand on the pain

01:41:56They all know this

01:42:02We don't just rely on that all the time we might give them medicine as well sometime but for small things they just get better

01:42:08You have to teach them to invoke allah

01:42:11And we don't invoke allah enough. We need to get them to invoke introduce the names of allah to them

01:42:17I'll give you a simple example and we'll finish last point. We'll just finish here. I did

01:42:22I

01:42:23Produced this copy of al-hizb al-a'adham

01:42:27Arabic beautiful illuminated edition to make it easy. We actually did a makra here in this masjid before it was fully done, right?

01:42:34It was arabic only a lot of people started asking for english

01:42:37and

01:42:38So in by 2021, I got the english translation ready. I was very happy with it, but I wasn't happy with the design

01:42:46Of how it should look finally

01:42:48So I kept it on the back burner and I just couldn't be satisfied with a design

01:42:52Then finally after this ramadan, I said look i'm wasting it. It needs to come out

01:42:57But who's going to give me a design that i'm satisfied with i'm a bit fussy on these things

01:43:01So I decided that you know what I need to ask allah with a relevant name

01:43:06Which name is relevant?

01:43:10Which other name is relevant

01:43:16Elegant beautiful one

01:43:18I called out with the name of allah subhanahu wa'ta'ala within five minutes. I had a design that I was satisfied with

01:43:24Allah responds if you call out to him

01:43:28Believe me anything you go out. I go out on my bike. I I ride on my bike to madrasa

01:43:34Right because just traffic and all of that is a crazy. It's good for you

01:43:37And sometimes it starts raining or it's gonna rain and you're like, oh no

01:43:44Around us and not on us most of the time it works

01:43:47Most of the time it works

01:43:50Once I was in mufti taqisa

01:43:52Where we were in jordan?

01:43:55And we're just waiting to visit

01:43:57It's a conference that we're we're members of and uh, he's myself mufti

01:44:03Molnar madani

01:44:07So we're sitting there waiting for the next meeting

01:44:11And I had developed a stomach problem. I don't know what I ate. I don't know. I was just

01:44:16Paying in the stomach

01:44:19He goes to mufti. He goes to me. He said

01:44:21if mufti sahab

01:44:23Puts his hand on your stomach

01:44:25And pray and makes dua you'll be sorted

01:44:29I'm like that's not gonna happen

01:44:31I said

01:44:32I said if he can do it. It was a bit of a banter and mufti sahab is mashallah mufti taqisa

01:44:38We're talking about

01:44:39I didn't expect that, you know, so I said so mufti taqisa said oh he can do it himself

01:44:44Then dua will be effective

01:44:46So then I decided to put it in I said but

01:44:53The faster dua to be accepted is for by a person for a person who's not present so he said but i'm present you're present

01:45:01Then allah bless him allah bless him allah bless him raise his status even more

01:45:04He put his hand on my stomach and did the dua

01:45:07Not the allahumma rabban nas the other one. What is it?

01:45:10What is the other dua for shifa? I forget the beginning words

01:45:14That one. Yeah

01:45:16I

01:45:19That one he said it and several times right and alhamdulillah within an hour or two I was fine

01:45:24These things work man. They work is just that when you take your tablet

01:45:28Take your tablet, but say yeah shafi when you're taking it

01:45:32When you're asking for something use the right name, you know read the uh,

01:45:35Take the 99 names of allah and adopt a few for your current situation

01:45:40And you'll find that they're amazing because allah loves to be known

01:45:44And he he he he gives a lot when when you recognize him so teach our children that organically and inshallah

01:45:51um

01:45:52Allah bless this program. I know it's gone late

01:45:56Uh, uh, but mashallah may allah bless your sacrifices

01:46:01On this saturday night, right?

01:46:02It's a saturday night when you could have been doing so many things you could have been going out to eat

01:46:06You could have been watching football. You could have been just bantering and doing a lot of other stuff, but you decided to stay here

01:46:14and

01:46:15Mashallah, so may allah not just bless us but bless our progenies until the day of judgment

01:46:23The point of a lecture is to encourage people to act to get further an inspiration

01:46:30an encouragement

01:46:31persuasion

01:46:32The next step is to actually start learning seriously

01:46:35To read books to take on a subject of islam and to understand all the subjects of islam at least

01:46:41At their basic level so that we can become more aware of what our deen wants from us

01:46:46And that's why we started rayan courses so that you can actually take organized lectures

01:46:52On demand whenever you have free time, especially for example the islamic essentials

01:46:58Course that we have on there the islamic essentials certificate which you take 20 short modules and at the end of that

01:47:05inshallah, you will

01:47:06have gotten the basics of

01:47:09Most of the most important topics in islam and you'll feel a lot more confident

01:47:13You don't have to leave lectures behind you can continue to leave, you know to listen to lectures

01:47:17But you need to have this more sustained study as well. Jazakallah khair. Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh

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