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 is the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him and upon his family and companions. Peace and blessings be upon him. I’m sitting under this tree and I’m literally within maybe 10 feet of these beautiful amazing birds. The Sandhill cranes, absolutely incredible. And it’s a pair with two youngsters. The male is standing there on top, as you can see. He’s the guardian, the custodian, the sentinel. And he doesn’t see any danger from me, so he doesn’t give any alarm call. And he hasn’t, he says, there is no danger from me. And this is the one in front here. This is one of the juveniles behind him or her. I don’t know how to distinguish. It’s the mother and behind that is the other juvenile. Absolute privilege, Subhanallah. I thank Allah Subhanallah for granting me this privilege of being in such close quarters with these birds. My brothers and sisters, one of the big things to teach our children is the value of community, the value of togetherness. And that begins in the home, in the nursery, in the family. As many of you know, and those who don’t know, you will know now that I consult with business families. Family business consulting is my specialty. I have a book on it called The Business of Family Business. And one of the things I see that I see with business families, and I am very sorry when I see it. But I wish I didn’t have to see it, is internecine conflict, conflict between brothers, conflict with the father. I know a case in which where the sons filed a suit against the mother. Inna lillahi wa nna lillahi wa rajim. The mother of our two Muslim teaches us that under her feet is Jannah. And imagine a son filed a suit case against the mother. Over what? Not over that piece of Jannah under her feet, but for some, you know, father’s property, a father passed away, a father’s property, a piece of the business, and so on. Many times people come to me, wealthy people, all of these are wealthy people. Some of them are millionaires, some of them are billionaires. I have one client whose business is four billion dollars. So we’re not talking about small money. We’re talking about people who may Allah have mercy on them and us. Oh, all I can say is that they didn’t raise their children right. And that’s what I want to talk about now. How do you raise your children right? What is the meaning of raising them right? That is a squirrel. It’s a peculiar squirrel to this place. It has this long tail and it has a black mark on its forehead. Anyway, let me stay with my cranes. So we don’t bring them, we don’t raise them right. And when I say we don’t raise them right, the biggest mistake we do is we don’t orient them towards their responsibility as community members. And as I said, that starts with the family. The community begins with the family. In Islam, the family is the fundamental foundational building block of the community. And that’s why Rasulullah sallallahu alaihi wasallam said that a Jannah is under the feet of the mother and the father is the door to Jannah. When one of them dies, he said that both the parents are the doors to Jannah and the father is the door to Jannah. And the Jannah under the mother’s feet is Jannah for the person or the son and daughter. And he said that when one of the parents dies, one door to Jannah closes for you and the other parent dies, the other door for Jannah closes for you. So take care of your parents, value them, serve them, be good to them. And Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala went to the extent in the Quran of saying do not even say oof to them. Do not express any displeasure with them. It is your job to please them. It is not their job to please you. And this is where we get caught up in our own, in the problem that we create for ourselves. So sense of community. How do you teach that sense of community? One very simple way, which is this way simple, but it’s very profound. And that is that in the nursery, and I’m sure every single one of us has seen this scenario playing out. In the nursery, one child gets a toy and the other child wants the toy mostly only because the other one has it. It’s not that this child was genuinely interested in that toy, but you know, because the other one has it, I must have it. And the usual response of parents, especially wealthy parents is don’t fight. I’ll get you your own. I will get you your own. Now take that same child, fast forward 40 years and you have a case in court, brother against brother, sons against father, and so on. And guess where that case really began? In the nursery, when that son and that daughter and those sons were three years old, four years old, two years old. And what message did the parents teach them? Don’t share with your brothers. Don’t share with your siblings. What belongs to you is yours. Grab it, keep it. Don’t lose it. Fight for it. Even if in the fight you hurt your sibling, you harm your sibling, you offend your sibling. Doesn’t matter. You must get that piece of trash, which is called your property. That piece of trash is more important than the bond that Allah created between you and your siblings. That trash is more important. This is what we are teaching them. Believe it or not, this is what we are teaching them. I know we don’t teach them in these words. I’m just vocalizing for you the lessons that our children are learning thanks to how we raise them. And if that is the lesson we teach them, that is the lesson that they’re going to learn. So teach them to share. Tell them it’s we. Not you and me. It’s we. You know, my sensei in Aikido, my very dear friend Julius Abe, he told me a wonderful story once in Bangalore, and this is in 1994. Julius has two beautiful children, a boy and a girl. And at that time, if I’m not mistaken, his son is older than the son, must have been about, say, five, and the daughter was probably about three or something. They slept in their room across a little hallway from their parents’ room. And the first thing they did as soon as they woke up in the morning is the two of them would come and they would climb on top of the bed and they would wrestle with the father. They would wrestle with Julius. Julius said to me that if they, when they come to wrestle me one by one, individually, I always make sure that they fail. I mean, you know, you’re wrestling a two-year-old, three-year-old. So he said, I always ensure that they fail, that they don’t win. But if they come together, if they gang up and come on me, then I fall down. Now imagine, he didn’t say a single word about you should be together, don’t fight, share, no. But the behavior itself is giving this huge message to the brother and the sister that this is my brother, this is my sister, I need to take care of them. They are mine. I need to take care of them. And there’s no money and there’s no land and there’s no material, there’s no property that supersedes these people, that supersedes me and my relationship with my brother or my sister. That is the message that is being given. And that’s what I suggest to you, teach them. We and not I. We and not I. And that doesn’t come by lectures, it comes by teaching with example. Which means that if you are one of those who has a suit against your brother in the court, the first thing you do after you finish listening to this reminder is call your attorney and say, I am withdrawing my suit. Because when a relationship is involved, especially a blood relationship is involved, money has no meaning. We don’t look at cost when it is blood. We don’t look at cost when it is our family. We don’t count the cost. When my brother comes to stay with me, I hope he can stay, I wish he can stay forever. That he doesn’t need to go back at all. That is the spirit. Not to say, well, you know, how long is he going to stay? What is it costing me? Bill of grocery bill is going up, heating bill is going up. La hawla khota le vilya. My brothers and sisters, this is the most valuable lesson that you can teach your children. So please, go ahead and do that. As I said, start with yourself. Withdraw any case you have against your brother, against your sister, against your father, against your mother, whoever. A lanat on those people who file suits against their parents. Inna li-llahi wa inna li-rajim. Take it off. Don’t die with that. Don’t go to Allah with that. Don’t fight your own blood. Because no money compensates, and no money is enough to pay the value of your own blood. As-salallahu alayhi wa-ala nabiyyil kareem wa-ala alihi wa-sabiyyil ma’in bi rahmatul kareem.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:58 — 8.9MB) | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | Email | Youtube Music | RSS