Mind the Gap Improving Family Relations

Can you not say أُفّ and not give them body language but still at the same time not be like loving? It's possible. So you might control your body language. You might try to walk very respectfully.

You might not talk back to them. But at the same time, if you don't talk to your parents, it's kind of a difficult situation. Right? True? Right? True? It's rude.

Right? Exactly. It can be rude. And parents can see that as rude.

We have a parent who's testifying right here that it can be considered rude. Let me tell you something. And I've said this before in speeches, but this is the truth.

When we are all younger, as younger people, when we are young, you guys should see Shaykh Abdul Nasir's daughter. In fact, you don't even have to see her. You'll know when she gets here that she's here.

Why? You'll hear, Abu, Abu, Abu. It's like Abu's speaking right now. Can you stop saying Abu? No, Mashallah.

She's cute though. But his kids, Mashallah, when you see them with him, what are they always doing to you? Constantly they're chatting you up. Right? Like never stopping.

Right? Yeah. Like you can't give them a cell phone. It's going to be difficult issues on your phone bill.

Right? Your kids are always talking to you. And parents, when your kids were younger, did they ever stop talking to you? It's like they wanted to tell you what their whole world was like. Right? It's like when we were younger, we get back from school, we're in third grade.

We're like, yeah, mom, school was fun. I had a cookie. I ate that sandwich.

I ate that crayon. You ate the what? You ate the crayon? Yeah, I ate the crayon. It was good.

Green. Right? You just keep talking, talking, talking. You tell them everything.

Everything about your day. I saw a bird on a tree. Then I saw the cat.

Then I saw the grass. Then I saw this, this. And the parents' ears are just like, oh man, so much.

But they love you so much. They have so much love for you that every word that's coming out of your mouth, even though they're tired and they've had a long day, they love hearing you talk to them. Now imagine that you have this kind of relationship with your parents.

You can't stop talking to them. Right? You're a chatterbox. You love talking to your parents for like years and years and years.

Then all of a sudden, you hit the seventh grade and you come home and they're expecting their son to come home from the first day of seventh grade. They're like, mom, I'm in middle school. I'm awesome.

Right? But instead, the son comes home and the mom's like, Habibi, how was your day? And he goes, fine. Leave me alone. You never understand me.

I know a tweet about you. Can't stand this house. I want to move out.

I can take care of myself. Right? Can I have allowance now? Right? So like years and years and years of like, the kids can't stop telling their parents, right, about their day, about their night, about everything. Always, always talking to the parents.

Right? Look what I did. Look what I did. Right? It's like you just stained the carpet with ketchup.

That's not something to be proud of. Look, I stained it. Right? And then as soon as you hit like 12 or 13 or 14, then all of a sudden we're too cool.

Too cool to talk to our parents. And it's embarrassing. It's like, I'm going to drop you off at school.

No, no, my friend will do it. Don't drop me off. Please.

Everyone's going to make fun of me. Right? So Allah says, the next advice, He says, and speak with your parents or speak with them words that are kareem, that are generous and kind and something that just people enjoy. Right? Speak to your parents words that are kareem.

So the first step is don't talk back. Don't say (أُفّ - Uff). The second one is don't have bad body language.

Don't walk around like, oh my God, I can't like. Right? And the third one is once you reach this level of you're not talking back and you're not having bad body language, then approach your parents. Talk to them.

Ask them, how's your day? Honestly, ask your parents stories about their childhood and you'll have the opposite problem. Your parents won't be able to stop talking. Right? I went and asked my dad.

My dad's a little bit older and I asked him about like his college years and stuff like that. I got the full biography. Like I could have like, seriously, it was very long.

Right? But the reality of the situation was that when I approach my parents or when any of us approach our parents with kind words that are loving, then the relationship will just bloom. It'll just blossom. And all those difficulties that we have with our parents might just disappear.

Right? These are advices from Allah. And Allah created us and He created our parents. So He knows exactly the solutions to the problems that we have.

Step 4: Make Dua for Your Parents

So that's the third step. The fourth step now, I'm sorry I said five steps but it's four steps to achieve Ihsan with parents. To bridge this gap.

The fourth step is this. And this is a huge test to see. A lot of us, we try to pride ourselves on being good children. Right? Even if a lot of us have problems or maybe fights with our parents. And by the way, having disputes and fights with your parents and your children is normal. Prophet Ibrahim (peace be upon him) had a big issue with his parents.

Right? Prophet Nuh. Right? He had an issue with his son. Right? Even the Anbiya had family issues that they had to deal with and we learn from those issues.

So having disputes with your parents is not in and of itself bad. But it's how we treat those disputes. It's how we try to resolve those disputes.

That is important. And so Allah gives us the final step. The final step to see if we are good to our parents, good children.

And Allah says, He says that, and when you, when they, He's talking about specifically when they reach older age. But this, as Sheikh Abdul Nasir was saying, that's just the bar. So imagine if your parents aren't as old.

Right? Imagine if they aren't as old. But Allah specifically here He mentions if they reach older age not to treat them with these negative characteristics. And He also says, finally the final step is that you make dua for them.

And the specific dua that you make is:

"And this is a very powerful dua. So Allah says, the final step to see if you're a good child, to see if you're someone who is really doing Ihsan to their parents, is that you make this dua where you say, Oh Allah, Ya Rabb, ارحمهما Have mercy on both of them, those two, كَمَا رَبَّيَانِي صَغِيرًا Just like when they raised me, they had mercy on me when I was small. Right?"

And we talk about this a lot sometimes in my khutub, sometimes in just regular talks, that often times at young ages we can't remember the mercy that our parents had for us.

Right? Like Aisha is two years old right now. Aisha is two years old. From now, from the beginning of her life till now, she might not remember anything that you and your wife have done for her.

And I don't think I have any specific memories that are like sticking out in my mind of things that my mom or dad did for me when I was younger. Right? When I was two years old. Maybe like once you hit the age of like four or five, you start remembering things like vividly.

But when you're really young and you're the most fragile, and you're in your infancy, and your parents take care of you to every degree, right? Like if you're at a restaurant and that kid is crying and that kid starts, you know, whatever, maybe something is caught in his mouth and the parents are like going in there and they're trying to fish the potato chip out with their fingers and it's like really awkward.

Like I was at Tomato with two of my friends or my friend and his wife and their son was there and their son is two years old. He just turned two.

And he just, he was hungry I guess and so he grabbed all these potato chips and you know Tomato had the thick potato chips, the kettle chips. Not easy for kids to chew. So he grabbed it from his mom's plate

and he took it and he just shoved it all in his mouth, right? Like he was one of those like squirrels while he's just waiting.

And we're all just staring at him like, oh God, like something is gonna happen. Cause kids, I don't know if you know this but younger kids, they have this like lock jaw thing that when they don't want to open their mouth, they will not open their mouth. Right? You can take like an industrial construction plier and like they'll be like mm-mm and they'll like bend it.

Right? So the parents start trying to reach, my friend and his wife start trying to reach and Abdullah, his name is Abdullah, they try to reach in Abdullah's mouth and take out the chip and he's like and then all of a sudden his face like tenses up and his cheeks start getting like pale cause he's choking. Right?

And he tries to open his mouth but there's so much food in there that he can't even open his mouth. And all of a sudden instantly his mom and his dad start going nuts.

Right? They've only known this kid for two years now. Right? But their love for him, they just start going nuts. My friend gets up, his chair falls down, his wife gets up and is literally like trying to like pry the kid's mouth open and like reach in there and like fish it out because he's so fragile that even a potato chip, right?

The only other person I've heard this happen to is George Bush.

Right? But even a potato chip could have taken his life away. And you know what? The sad thing is when Abdullah hits 16 or 17 or 18 and he tells his parents, you don't understand me. You don't do anything for me.

Right? Maybe he won't say it to them but he'll think it when he gets angry. He might not remember the time that he was choking on that potato chip at Tomato in Knoxville, Tennessee and his parents were going crazy trying to get it out and save his life. He won't remember that.

So this dua is particularly powerful because you're admitting, you're admitting the fact that your parents when you were younger and you can't remember anything they did for you, they were merciful for you. Why? The evidence of that is that you're here today. The evidence of your parents' mercy upon you when you were younger is that you're sitting here alive today because if your parents didn't have mercy on you, they wouldn't have changed that diaper.

They wouldn't have fed you on time. They wouldn't have given you nap time. You wouldn't have become a nice young healthy person like you are today.

And so that dua is forcing the human being to admit at one point I was helpless and my parents helped me. So oh Allah, when my parents become helpless, help them. And that's the beauty of this dua.

Practical Application of the Four Steps

So when Allah tells us and tells us the command, He says, be the best you can to your parents. He gives us four steps. First step, don't talk back.

I know it's so difficult. I know it's so tough. Trust me, trust me.

I used to call you on the phone like literally like, oh my God. When I was still in Chicago, and I love my mom beyond belief, like alhamdulillah, like my mom is the reason I am anything, right? Clearly, I mean, all the biology majors were like, duh, like she gave birth to you. Like I know that, okay? Pre-med students, literalists.

No, but my mother and my father are like obviously any khair that I have inside of me comes from people who are around me and they start with my mom and my dad. But my mom and I, I don't know if any, are any of you Egyptian? Yeah. You know Egyptian moms.

They're serious, right? Or even North African, right? Egyptian or Algerian or Libyan or Moroccan. North African parents are serious, right? And sometimes it's not that easy to get along, right? Because we all have strong heads.

And we like it our way.

And the young people like it our way. like it too. And I tell this story but I tell it all the time so I can remind everyone that like I could not wait to move out.

When I was getting, when I finally graduated and I was getting job offers from here and there and I was going to Dallas for that one year that I was there, may Allah forgive me, and I finally moved to Dallas, the whole ride down I was with my friends I was like, yeah, I'm out of the house, I'm a real man, right? I'm gonna go buy dinner by myself, right? Watch a movie by myself, like all these things. That night I was on the living room floor of my apartment crying like a baby calling my mom saying, I miss you, right? And I only spent 37 hours away from her, right?

I was like, I miss the koshary, I miss the falafel. Who's gonna cook for me? I looked in the cupboard, there's no cups, there's no plates.

Where do you get that stuff anyways, right? It's so obvious how fragile we become. So Allah says, don't say (أُفّ - uff) and I know it's tough because trust me, I have a North African mom, I know it's tough. But you gotta bite the bullet You gotta bite it because you don't want to answer for it on the Day of Judgment.

The second tip after not talking back is to give a positive presence in the home. There's one young man who came to me and said, my parents, they always bother me, they always do this, they always do that, they never let me, they never trust me, all the problems that any youth might have, they named it. And then I went to his mom and I asked him, I said, what's the deal, right? What's the deal? And she said, you know, we never see him when he's home.

He's home, he goes straight to his room, he locks the door. The only time I see him is when he comes out to get his food, he goes back to his room. Right? Have a positive presence.

Make sure that your body language at home is not hostile. Make sure it's merciful and open. Right? Because as soon as your body language gets hostile or concerned or worried, trust me, your parents

Closing

I ask Allah to allow us to be mindful and to follow what has been said and what has been heard. And inshallah, if I made any mistakes there from myself, if anything is khayr, it's from Allah.

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know exactly what's going on and they feel for you and they get upset.

So you don't want to have that. The third is to engage them in good conversation. As tough as it might be, I know that you might not have anything in common.

Right? But you got to try it. You got to do something. Right? That's part of being a muhsin.

That's part of having ihsan is that no matter what, you try your best because you're doing it for the sake of Allah. And the fourth and final is that when your parents aren't there. Right? You don't do it when your mom walks in the room.

Your mom walks in your room. (رَّبِّ ارْحَمْهُمَا كَمَا رَبَّيَانِي صَغِيرًا - Rabbi irhamhuma kama rabbayani sagheera) Right? And look at your mom. You do it when no one's there.

You do it when your parents and the ultimate is when they passed away. You continue to make dua for your parents when they're not there. That's the true test of whether or not you are doing ihsan to your parents.

And trust me, this gap that we're talking about, the bridge that's broken between parents and siblings, if these four steps are followed and tried at your best, I promise you or your money back. Right? Keep in mind you didn't pay anything. Right? That inshallah, your relationship and the gap will be closed with your parents.