Auto-generated transcript:
In the name of Allah, the most Gracious, the most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the worlds. And peace and blessings be upon the honorable prophets and messengers, Muhammad and the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and upon his family and his companions, peace and blessings be upon them. What is next? Brothers and sisters, I am here in Florida, standing by this lake, this pond, near the golf course, what we call a water hazard. And these are the American ibises, the American ibis. You see the long curved beak, see how they dig in the grass to eat. There is a, you can see one, they’re all white and one colored one. That is a juvenile, it’s a young one. And they feed him by the pond. Very pretty scenery, Alhamdulillah. On the pond, there are also ducks. Let’s see if they come close. So, they are, they look like morgan serves of some kind, not sure what. The demand for myself and you is we’re talking about things that we keep saying teach children, but I think it has to do much more with teaching ourselves. Because children are little monkeys. They imitate adults, they imitate their parents, they imitate other adults who they respect. They learn by taking their values from adults they respect. I think of myself, I think of my own childhood, that’s exactly what I did and that’s exactly what any child does. They take their values from the adults in their lives and that is the reason why it’s also very important to ensure that your children don’t lose out from the company of respectable and respect worthy adults in their lives. Make sure they are around good people. Because that’s how they learn and depending on the kind of people they are with is what they will learn. So if they are around adults who are, who take pride from the pride in the disobedience of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, or who take their children to clubs and to partying and who teach their children, give them their first drink, Subhanallah, may Allah have mercy on us. These are statements I’ve heard from Muslims. My father gave me my first drink. My father took me to the race course. The first time my father got me membership in this gambling den, in this club, which of course obviously the club is created for clubbing, so it’s created for the enjoyment of everything that Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has disapproved of everything which Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala has prohibited. May Allah have mercy. So this is the danger. This is also how animals and birds learn from the company of elders. Here we have some more ibises and another youngster here, another juvenile one, which is flying off. I don’t know why he is so skittish, but he is. The others are fine. Nobody bothers them here. The ducks people even feed, but these ibises, they are not fed. They don’t need to be fed. If you notice the little black feather at the end of the tail, this is all the khudrat of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala. The attention to detail is incredible. Let me make this bigger so you can see them closer. So among the things to do with children is to keep them around respectable, respect worthy adults. That’s the first thing. Second thing is to ensure that they are exposed to the right environment. And that environment for most of us is the environment of the masjid. So make sure that your children go to the masjid. Now, there is a tendency to say, children will say, oh, you know, there is nothing attractive there and I’m not attracted to the masjid. If your child makes that statement, consider that to be a statement which is where the child is admitting to having a major psychological, a major spiritual illness. Don’t take that as a norm. The biggest problem is that parents take that as the norm and then they want the imam of the masjid or whoever is an authority in the masjid to say, well, do something to keep my child interested, do something to keep my child engaged. I am reminded of a true story of Syed Ahmad Khan, the founder of Aligarh Muslim University. When he was trying to fundraise for the university and he was facing the usual difficulties that Muslims face when they want to fundraise for long term projects, especially to do with education. May Allah have mercy on us. We are good at funding emergencies. You know, something goes wrong and you ask Muslims for money, for help. Alhamdulillah, may Allah bless those who give it. People are happy to give help. We are good at fundraising for for masajid, right, to build a masjid. But if you say, well, fundraise for a project which will in the long term ensure that the emergency that happened, the blood and gore that happened, the orphans and widows who were created, who you are now trying to support, this will not happen. Where the problem will be dealt with, the problem will be solved. There will be no oppression. There will be no wars and there will be no negative effect of predatory capitalism, where Islamic values will be spread to the extent where we will have peace and harmony and good relations with different people, different communities, long term projects, but eminently doable. Put your hands in your pockets and donate. People don’t want to do that. Very, very short-sighted. May Allah have mercy on us. We are suffering from that. We are suffering terribly from being so short-sighted, but I don’t know, the penny doesn’t seem to drop. Anyway, that’s beside the point. The point I’m saying is therefore, make sure that your children have good company and take them to that company. I have said this many times before, my Allah swt, I grant my father, Janatul Firdous, without his help, he used to take us, he used to take me and my brother to every religious gathering you can imagine. He would take them, he would take us to meet Shuyukh, he would take us to meet just wise people, just good, wise adult people who we went. We would spend sometimes three hours, four hours, because people are hospitable. So if someone comes to meet you, then you know, you immediately invite them for lunch or something. And so now you go there at 10, 11 o’clock, sitting in composition, time for prayer, you pray, and then time for lunch. You say, please have lunch. So we have lunch. And then we say, well, I mean, obviously, if you have lunch, you have tea. So, you know, literally spend almost the whole day with them. And in that entire day, my brother and I would be with our father, listening to this conversation. Believe me, we’re not sort of, you know, going there with notebooks and taking notes. We just there, listening to conversation, listening to behavior, seeing how they behave with each other and so on. And a lot of that was subconscious because I mean, they said, we didn’t really go there with notebooks to say what are these people saying and doing. But it happened. Obviously, it will happen. If you are around people, you get to listen to them speaking, you see them behaving with each other, you see interactions, you see disagreements, you see how those are dealt with, how the disagreements are, how people disagree with each other. Some of my most valuable learnings about dealing with disagreements and which I used to do for counseling, for arbitration, for conciliation came from these meetings, meetings with adults, people who, you know, were older than I and much wiser and so on. And these are the people I learnt from. May Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, be pleased with all of them. Not all of them were Muslim. There were many who were not Muslim at all, but who taught me phenomenal lessons in character, in ethics, in values and morals and in courage, in fortitude, patience, you know, you name it. People who I think of with great love and great, you know, gratitude to this day. I’m not talking about, I said to this day, I’m talking now about some of these people, my memories with them are fifty years old, sixty years old. But I remember them and I remember their interactions with them like it was yesterday. So give your children the company of respectable, respect worthy adults. And as I said, there doesn’t have to be only Islamic scholars. Doesn’t have to be Islamic scholars. It can be anybody, anybody who is respect worthy, who is a Muslim, who is a Muslim and who is a Muslim. And as I said, there doesn’t have to be only Islamic scholars. Doesn’t have to be Islamic scholars. It can be anybody, anybody who is respect worthy, respectable, is worthy of taking your children to them, talking to them, being with them. You will find also in this case that many, if not most, I would say even all such adults welcome the company of children. They know what they’re doing. They know that they are being given this unique opportunity to build a generation, to leave behind their legacy in the hearts and minds of people. They realize that they are getting this opportunity to teach a young person how to live their lives. And they are hugely appreciative of that. And they will spend the time and they will share their thoughts and they will share their experiences unstintingly and openly and without any hesitation. You know, I’ve seen this over and over again. I’ve experienced it over and over again. To this day, I sometimes think that when I was young, when I was, you know, 12, 15, 10, the kind of people I was around and usually it began with my father because, you know, that was my entry doorway. But then I just used to go and be with them. And no one ever threw me out. And no one ever said, you know, what’s this kid doing here? They were appreciative. They liked the fact that I was there and they taught me. And as I said, they didn’t teach me, you know, with a book or a notebook, say, learn this, do this. No. They lived their lives. And I learned just by observation. So this is what I want to say to you. Keep your children, give them the company of good, respectable adults. And believe me, that will help you build up a social network like that of people who are worthy of respect. And again, I’m repeating myself. Doesn’t have to be religious scholars. Doesn’t even have to be Muslims. Respectable people. People who are, who have good character, who have good manners, who are accomplished, who are high energy, who have achieved things in life, who are a source of inspiration and guidance. That’s the kind of company you should choose for your children. And this is from your duty as a parent. This is from your, what you can give to your child. Your greatest gift to your child is memories. Great memories with wonderful people. Today is the first of January, 2025. I ask Allah to make this year a year of dedicated to His obedience, starting with myself. And each one of you, I want you to make that as a promise for yourself and say, starting with myself, meaning yourself, that we will spend this year and the coming years, as many as Allah gives us, in the company of Allah. His company in His dhikr, in learning about Him, learning about His Habib Muhammad Rasulullah, in learning about His Deen and practicing it in our lives and ensuring that we never do anything which Allah has prohibited. And we try to do our best to do everything that He permitted and allowed us and commanded us to do. And may Allah bless the Prophet, his family and the companions of his family and his children.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:31 — 11.3MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | Youtube Music | RSS