I am Bored!

I am Bored!

Ustadh Abdelrahman Murphy (ICNA-MAS Convention)

Opening

Everyone say ameen.

Main Body

We always begin by praising Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He). We always begin by thanking Him for the blessings that we are just completely unaware of. You know the word alhamdulillah is so remarkable because it makes up for our forgetfulness.

Because we say alhamdulillah and it's a word that is so comprehensive that you are not the one who is responsible to remember every single thing that Allah has given you because that's quite frankly impossible. So we always begin by saying alhamdulillah. This session is probably going to be the one that I am most passionate about.

It's because my wife and I alhamdulillah had our first child 11 weeks ago today. Alhamdulillah, baby Musa who I miss a lot. And the weight and the responsibility and the reality of these sessions talking about building a family and refining the relationship between parent and child.

To me before these 11 weeks has always been theory. And I've studied it and I lived it. I grew up a child to parents so I understood it from certain capacities.

But as with everything in life the more experience you gain the more wisdom you gain and the more mature your knowledge becomes. And so now that I sit here a young father able to look into the face and the eyes of my son all of these topics about how to have a relationship with your child in a way that preserves their iman their relationship with Allah and their relationship with you all these topics have become a lot more heavy. And I ask all of you to make dua for my son and my wife inshallah.

The Wisdom of Luqman

But I wanted to give a couple pointers and mostly to the parents and I can talk to the youngsters inshallah towards the end. But in this lecture alone references to Luqman Hakim (may Allah be pleased with him) someone who is a lighthouse he's a bastion of guidance for us in the Qur'an about parenting and the relationship between parent and child references to Luqman have been made numerous times. And whenever someone references Luqman it's always in the construct of trying to tell children look listen this is what Allah is telling us through the Qur'an about how you have to be with us.

I just did a family night session in my community in Dallas, Texas about actually this chapter this passage from Surah Luqman where he's advising his son and you should have seen miraculously all these parents with their teenagers magically showed up the ones who never show up and they made all their teenagers sit front row and every time I mentioned something about respecting parents they would look at their child and just nod their head slowly. Right and kind of yes exactly but what's interesting and I'm going to be very honest with you is that as I was researching the topic as I was reading the different tafasir and different explanations and different understandings there is something that we skip. There is something that we gloss over we quickly mention it and then we go to all of what we consider to be the good stuff the meat and potatoes and that is that Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) mentions two very interesting characteristics not about how Luqman's son should be with his parents but he mentions two characteristics about how Luqman approached his son.

So he says Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) says to us two phrases the first is he says and remember when Luqman said to his son:

And he was and the translation is kind of bad but it's and he was admonishing him he was reminding him he was preaching to him if you look up the word وَعَظَ وَعِظَ in the Arabic language it has the meaning not of preaching but of being so concerned out of love for somebody's goodness and their safety and their well-being that your love sort of spills over out of your heart and into your tongue like your love is so you can't contain it that your love is so strong that you just have to say something notice here that Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) doesn't tell us that Luqman went to his son and he was angry at him he was disappointed in him he was trying to rectify him no he says that he went to him and he went to him in this state of such love that his love was unable to be contained and then he spoke to his son and these words were filled with love so much so that instead of saying (يَا ابْنِي - ya ibni) which as growing up as an Egyptian (يا ابني - ya ibni) means you're in trouble all right you get (حبيبي - habibi) and you get (ابْنِي ابْنِي - ibni ibni) means you're going to get in trouble (حبيبي - habibi) means inshallah you're going to get some halal rice crispy treats right or something nice okay and instead of saying (يَا ابْنِي - ya ibni) which is the literal translation for my son he says (يَا بُنَيَّ - ya bunayya)

(يَا بُنَيَّ - ya bunayya) in the Arabic language it also means my son but why choose (يَا بُنَيَّ - ya bunayya) over (يَا ابْنِي - ya ibni) because (يَا بُنَيَّ - ya bunayya) has the meaning of love and adoration built into it so before we talk about all of the advices that Luqman gave to his son before we tell our children look read this chapter tell me what you've learned we need to ask ourselves as parents and I can say that now alhamdulillah how many of us when we approach our children to remind them we do it number one in the same way that Luqman did where his heart was filled with love and number two where that love was so strong that our words became super soft and easily receivable ask yourself honestly the last time that you critiqued your child that you tried to change their behavior that you tried to remind them of something that was good for them and I'm not doubting that you want good for them every parent wants good for their children and this is something that children need to understand that your parents are not trying to make your life horrible.

You know one time I said that in the halaqa I said you know I said teens I was talking to my teenagers I said your parents don't hate you and one girl goes really I said yes your parents don't hate you she goes prove it I said well you're here right now you know how difficult it is to get you from here to here how many diapers there are from here to here I said your parents love you but the fact that she had to challenge that notion shows me something that sometimes the love that we have gets lost on the way from our heart to our tongue and it ends up coming out instead of roses like daggers and the words that we use they stick and they make young people feel irrelevant they make them feel not worthy they make them feel not sufficient not good enough.

I once had a young child who said to me you know subhanallah if I ever get like a 98 or a 99 percent all of my other friends their parents hug them and compliment them my dad says where did the other one percent go and you're laughing now but how many of you are like yes where did it go right you're asking like you're sympathizing with the dad the reality is that these words we think that they're small and we move on we quickly forget them because the tamar gosht is cooking we have to go make sure it's done right but the kids remember this not for minutes not for days or weeks or months but for years and it changes them for their eternity for their lifetime and the cycle repeats itself.

The Soil and the Plant

So we're going to talk about how to raise amazing young muslim children we have to understand something that the plant is only as healthy as the soil that it came from that if you look at your child and this is imam al-ghazali he's so powerful when he talks about communal change or family change or any kind of change he always says go and look at the mirror go and look at yourself you see your child being a certain way ask yourself what am i doing and how can i change this in myself.

You know the topic that was given to me the subtopic was addressing our children whenever they say the phrase i'm bored any parents in here your children have ever said that to you i'm bored anybody raise your hand if your children have ever been bored wow mashallah you are boring people i'm joking.

So i wanted to speak a little bit more broadly because i think that this is saying i'm bored is more of a symptom it's not the disease right it's like if you went to the doctor and you're like you know he the doctor says to you hey you have the flu you're like yeah yeah just take care of this runny nose and the doctor says no no no we have to take care of the disease not the symptom and you're like no no no just the runny nose i'll be fine thank you that's not how we work if your children ever feel bored or they ever feel let's say disconnected we have to first understand something very very important.

Generational Disconnect

And that is mashallah may Allah reward her dr suzy ismail who is a pioneer mashallah for women's education and women's empowerment in the community for as long as i can remember coming to these conferences she mentioned something very very beautiful and that is that every generation is going to have that tension with the older generation every single generation.

I'll be honest with you when i was younger when i was younger i used to have that tension and i always said to myself i said abdulrahman you're never going to have this sort of disconnect with your children or with youth you're always going to be up to date you're always going to know everything and then snapchat came out and i was like what is happening or i go to my halaqat and the kids are telling me about little yadi and drake's new album and i'm like who's little yadi and i have no idea what's going on and i just look and nod and say yes have some more krispy kremes right i don't know what to do so i'm experiencing that disconnect as well.

But i'll tell you something that's amazing dr suzy mentioned a couple of really awesome points like picking up on the language understanding what they're saying but i'll tell you something that's really really going to empower everybody in this room you know what connects people better than language you know what will connect you with your children better than the ability to say wow mashallah daughter your hijab is on fleek today right or son mashallah your beard is lit right instead of saying those things to connect to your children you know what connects universally across time across place it doesn't matter where you live what you are smiling when you smile at your children.

The Prophet's Example

The prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was described by many companions but in particular the young ones as we never saw him except that he was smiling now i want you to think for a second when you read the hadith literature you and i both know that there were times when the prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was not smiling we know this for a fact there were times we know where he was crying there are times we know where his face was very serious there are times we know where he was even frustrated a little bit so we know that the prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was not always smiling so how is it the case then that so many people can come and say that this man (peace and blessings be upon him) always smiles.

It is because that is his default that is his asl if i were to ask your children today what is your parents default face what face do you think they would make to me you tell me and by the way we use this even in the english language some people spend so much time at the library we say things like man it's like you live there you live at the library people spend so much time at the gym do you sleep at the gym too we use levels of hyperbole to communicate what is a person's default what is their norm what are they always doing and so the prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) did not in fact always smile but he was smiling so constantly that when people thought back to their memories about him (peace and blessings be upon him) they could not remember a face other than one that was smiling.

This is a challenge that we have to live to that when we think of our parents i want every parent in this room make this your goal and i know that this is going to get a little bit heavy but at your janazah at your janazah you want your children shedding tears remembering your face as one that's smiling at my janazah i want my child to remember me as a father who smiled not one who had his finger like this and a brow that was furrowed and lips that were pursed making him feel insufficient as a son that's not going to produce anything that we want in this life or the next.

So the prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) was someone that was always in a state a mood that was good and you know the difference when you show up to work or show up at home and your co-workers or your boss or your spouse when they're in a good mood versus a bad mood you know how that makes you feel so try to apply that to yourself.

The Story of An-Nughayr

The second thing that the prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) did that connected him where he was always relevant with young people and by the way we're talking about a father who was in his 40s and 50s you know a lot of you are thinking oh yeah you know you young fathers and young mothers you guys are all mashaAllah connected but it's tough when you're old he was older (peace and blessings be upon him).

You know there's a beautiful story of the prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) and many of you have heard it but i want to tell it to you with a specific lens where the prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) one of the younger companions you know the prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) they had a kunya for him the younger companions because he didn't have a child he had a bird you know normally when someone has a child they earn a kunya in the arabic language it means like a nickname so for me my son's name is musa so what's my kunya abu musa very good right thank you for the three people who got it mashaAllah so abu musa is my kunya so this young child obviously doesn't have a child of their own they have a bird and the bird's name is an-nughayr an- nughayr and this child's name was umair.

So one time the prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) walked by and noticed that this child was crying and he said to him instead of walking by and saying okay i have better stuff to do he said to him:

What happened to your bird and if you notice it was like a beautiful little couplet it was like a rhyming couplet and the child looked up at the prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) with tears in his eyes and he said my bird an-nughayr he passed away he died and the prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) at that point could have taken one of two paths he could have said everything will die worry about your fajr what's wrong with you why are you crying over a bird there are people there that are dying and starving he could have made him feel worthless but what did he do (peace and blessings be upon him) he took this young boy and he proverbially put his armor on his shoulder and he actually took the bird and they buried the bird and they gave the bird a burial like a janazah for a bird and that made this young boy feel what feel like he was worth something to the prophet muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him).