Our Family- An Institution in Crisis

Our Family: An Institution in Crisis

Opening and Introduction

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. (اللَّهُمَّ صَلِّ وَسَلِّمْ وَبَارِكْ عَلَى سَيِّدِنَا مُحَمَّدٍ، سَيِّدِنَا عَبْدِ اللَّهِ وَالْعَجَمِي - Allahumma salli wa sallim wa baraka ala Sayyidina Muhammad, Sayyidina Abdullahi wa'l-'ajmi) والناصر والمؤمنين وعلى آله وصحبه وامتداعهم بإحسان إلى يوم الدين Muhammad, Sayyidina Abdullahi wa'l-'ajmi wa'l-Nasiri wa'l-mu'minin wa ala alihi wa sahabihi wa imti'di'ahum bi ahsanin ila yawm al-deen). Alhamdulillah, I first want to say that I'm honored to be here in all seriousness, partly because I'm very honored to be part of what's happening with the youth, these dedicated youth in Toronto.

Hope for Islam's Presence in the West

And I think it should give us a spark of hope that Islam does have a presence in Toronto and the presence is not a temporary one. And I heard a story once of some Muslims that bought a mosque, it was actually a synagogue, and they bought it as a mosque, and they were very happy. But the imam who gave the talk on the first day that it was open, it was like an opening ceremony, mentioned that we should be wary of being happy about this mosque. And the reason is, is that this mosque, before it was a mosque, was a synagogue. Which means there were people in here of another faith, who were worshiping their God as they saw fit. But the point is, they sold it. Which means that there weren't people to sustain the synagogue anymore.

And so that should be a warning to us, that the mosques that we build, the Islamic schools that we're building, that if there's not a generation to come after us, to fill those mosques, and to commit themselves to the Deen of Islam, and to send their children to the schools that are being established, then Islam will be in these lands, like it was for the first generation of Muslims that came here.

The First Wave of Muslim Immigration and Assimilation

And a lot of people are unaware of the first migration, and if you've heard Dr. Suri Maniang from Howard, talk about the first migration, it's very enlightening to realize that in the first migration, the people who came from Lebanon, the people who came from many places in the Muslim world, Bangladesh, one of the first mosques in California, was in El Centro, California, and I happened to live in that area, and I met a lot of people named Lydia Muhammad, and John Saeed, and I asked them, how did you get these names? And they said, our grandfathers were Bengali farmers, who came to this place, and they married Mexican women, and they built a mosque here, and I said, well what are you? They said, we're Catholics.

You see, because the grandpa died, and the grandma maybe never, she never became a Muslim, and she raised her children Christian, and now there's no mosque there, there's just Christians who have last names, that reflect a Muslim heritage. There are many Arabs now, living in these countries, that don't speak Arabic anymore, and they say, well my grandfather was Iraqi, or my grandfather was Lebanese, or my father was Egyptian, or my

father was Palestinian, but I don't know Arabic. Shweya, right? This is tragic, because it's a severing from their identity, and that's partially what I want to talk about tonight.

Understanding Social Engineering in the West

But before I get into that, and I want to cover some areas, so I'm going to be going a little fast, because the time is limited, and it is an awesome topic, but I will say what I'd like to do, and I usually don't do this, but what I would like to do, so people can keep me on track maybe, is I would like to look, at what's happening in the West, because the problem, or the great tragedy of the modern world, is everybody is following these people, so they're 5, 10, 15 years, 20 years, ahead of the rest of the world, but the world is desperately moving, towards catching up in everything, the good and the bad, because there's good in these societies, there's no doubt, the traffic system works, and we hope that Cairo, and Lebanon, and other places are going to catch up, to the way people drive here, but there are many other things, that are actually quite frightening.

And I just want to first state, don't think there is not an agenda, don't think that this culture, does not have social engineers, we all know about engineers, engineers think things out, they plan things, they draw drawings, maps, and they show people, this is the most efficient way to do it, and here's my diagram, and everybody gets the point, they have people in these cultures, that are called social engineers, they work in think tanks, that are supported, and funded by these governments, and Canada has its social engineers, believe me, America has its social engineers, United States, they look at what's going on, they examine it, and they give you plans, now the thing about these people is, we often don't find out about the plans, we just begin to see them implemented, in the public schools.

Values Clarification and Cultural Relativism

And just to give you one example, of a social engineered plan, values clarification, values clarification came about, because of the new migrations, and also because of the new world order, George Bush's new world order, I mean it's not his, but he was the first one, to literally come out with it, and say it in his famous speech, there is a new world order plan, and part of the plan is, people have to live, according to this new world order, and what is called, the international community, the international community, now in order to do that, the Americans or the Canadians, have to start getting used to the idea, of having an international police force, in other words, a Canadian working with a Karachian, or a Pakistani soldier, in the United Nations peacekeeping force, so you have to begin to see other people.

Now somebody can say, well that's interesting, that's a good isn't it, that we get to know each other, Allah says, we created people and nations and tribes, so we can know each other, so that's positive, well you have to understand, how they're presenting it, they are presenting it, that first of all, the problem is the word values, and unfortunately the Muslims, have started to use this word, it is very alien to the Arabic language, it's alien to the Muslim tradition, we don't use the word values, the word qiyam, in Arabic now is used, because it's a loan word, from late 19th century, and 20th century English, they hack writers in Cairo, and Beirut, and Damascus,

translating newspapers, and things like that, began to use the word values, and they look, well let's look it up in the motive, or something like that, and what do they see, oh value, qiyamah, and so they say, okay qiyamah.

Now the Muslims don't have that, there's no such thing as qiyam islamiyah, Islamic values, we have qawa'id, we have rules, we have ahkam, we have mabadi, we have akhlaq, we have words, we don't have to borrow words, our language, the Islamic language is very rich, but we borrowed this word, now the interesting thing about values, if you look at another word in Arabic, which is fadila, which is translated usually as virtue, if I say to you, well I have different values than he does, that sentence works very well in the English language, but if I say to you, I have different virtues than he does, suddenly it sounds strange, I have different virtues than he does, why? Because we have a general idea of virtues, virtues are not relative, virtues are shared by people, and understood objectively, they're not relative, whereas values are relative, they become relativized, so well his values are not my values, but everybody's entitled to their opinion.

So what values clarification is in the schools, is to teach people, yes you have these beliefs, and these values, but he has other set of values, a set of values, so truth becomes relativized, and everybody has their own individual truth, now I had to take a course by law, in the state of California, to clarify my values, so the state is now clarifying for me, my values, in other words, what he's telling me is, they're just yours, they're not universal, don't try to impose them on other people, so when you see a homosexual, you have to recognize, he has values too, and they're different from your values, so don't condemn him, and this is what they're doing in the schools, this was socially engineered, and the words are engineered, etc, etc.

The United Nations Agenda and the Family

So I want to look quickly, very interesting, I think, at what is the agenda, well the way to look at the agenda, is look what's on the menu, look what's on, when you're going to an event, you look on what's on the ceremonies, what they're going to talk about, well let's look at what the United Nations, in the 1990s, have had their summits on, the UN Summit on Biodiversity, the UN Summit on the Family, the UN Summit on Population Control, the UN Summit on Sustainable Development, the UN Summit on the Rights of Women, the UN Summit on Housing, the UN Summit on the Environment, the UN Summit on Education, the UN Summit on Global Warming, there's an agenda there, and the agenda, if you look at that, at the center, and at the heart of these summits, is the family, because they have one on biodiversity, the family itself, population control, related to what we're going to do about this problem of overpopulation, not in Germany, where they're encouraging and paying money to have children, because they're so worried about their low population, but the brown people that are proliferating too fast.

Right? They're not talking about population control in the industrialized countries, but they're talking about population control in other places in the world. So this is the agenda. Now, just to look at, there's the agenda. Well, let's look what's happening, and what's a result of the previous agendas, because they've been doing their social engineering for some time.

Alarming Statistics: Youth Crisis in America

Pleasanton is a city in the Bay Area. It's got one of the most affluent parts of the Bay Area, very wealthy people, upper middle class to rich people, and they did a study there. Pleasanton teens detail drug use, sexual activity. Seven percent have tried suicide in Pleasanton. Seven percent. And suicide now, for the first time, they're seeing suicide in six, seven-year-olds. Prozac is now, thank God, we've just discovered a drug that works in children, because prior to that, antidepressants didn't work for little children. Right? Now, Prozac is being tested on children, so we don't have to worry about their depression anymore, right? We can just give them drugs.

Now, this is a very interesting study. Used marijuana during the last month. Los Angeles, 21 percent. San Francisco, 18 percent. San Diego, 27 percent. It's right next to the border. Right? Tijuana. That's where the marijuana, a lot of it comes from. 25 percent in Pleasanton, and the U.S. overall, 25 percent of teens between eighth and twelfth grade. That's one out of four. So if your children are in these schools, right, one out of four of those children are using drugs by their own estimations.

In Los Angeles, attempted suicide during the past year, 16 percent between eighth and twelfth grade. 6 percent in San Francisco, 10 percent in San Diego, 7 in Pleasanton, 9 percent overall in the U.S. That's their estimation. 9 percent of teens between eighth grade and twelfth have attempted suicide. Had sex in the past three months. Los Angeles, 30 percent. San Francisco, 23, 31, 36. U.S. overall, 38 percent. 38 percent. Now, obviously, boys tend, at that age, they'll lie about things like that because it's a big thing in American culture to brag and boast, right? And people who've gone to school here know about that. So we do take that. I mean, all statistics you take with grains of salt, certainly, right? They say there's lies, big lies in statistics, right?

So, smoking, drinking episode, 25 percent. Overall U.S., 33 percent. Sniff or inhaled intoxicating substance, U.S., 20 percent. Right? It goes on. It's quite frightening.

Crisis Within Muslim Communities

Now, where do the Muslims fit into this? Well, believe it or not, we have our own problems in our communities. And as somebody who deals with these things and gets phone calls quite considerably concerning these things, I know very well that within the Muslim community, we have a lot of premarital sex going on with our Muslim youth. We have drug use. We have alcohol use. We have a lot of parental abuse. And in America, they have, by law, in the counties, child abuse, then they have adult abuse. They have agencies for adult abuse. And a friend of mine who's a Muslim works as somebody who's a counselor in adult abuse dealing with parents that are beaten by their children. So, there's a lot of rage there. So, this is what we're seeing.

The Protection of Religion

Now, you will notice that all these statistics radically change when you have religious families in the United States as well. These statistics radically change when you begin to look at Christian surveys, when you begin to look at Jewish surveys. Not an exaggeration. I'm talking about people that are practicing their religions and have

religion at the center of their households. Now, unfortunately, for many Christians, this was USA Today, are you a Christmas and Easter Christian? One of the priests says on Christmas and Easter, It's good to see you. By the way, we have a church together 50 weeks out of the year.

Now, this could be the imam on the Eid. As-salamu alaykum. Nice to see you. By the way, we have a masjid and there's actually five prayers. Count them. One, two, three, four, five prayers a day. You have an opportunity to pray five times a day in the masjid. Right? So, there are now what we call Eid Muslims. Somebody put it in a good classification. He said there's Muslims you see every day in the masjid. There's Muslims you see once a week in the masjid. There's Muslims you see twice a year. And then there's Muslims you see once in their lifetime where you do four takbeers. Right? And these are the categories of Muslims. You just pray the janazah.

And I've been at janazah prayers where those people didn't even know they came. The family didn't even know what to do. They said, our father... This happened to me. In Sandika, our father was a Muslim. We don't know how to... What do we do? How do we bury him? Is there a ritual? Do you have like something you do? They don't know. There are Muslims like that in the United States and in Canada and in the West. And there's Muslims like that unfortunately in many other parts of the world. So, we have a very serious crisis on our hands.

Breakdown of Community and Family

Now, if you look at what's happened in the breakdown of families, the first thing to remember is that the disintegration of community is one of the primary factors in destroying the family. The disintegration of the community. One of them is migration, moving. Corporations now control people's lives. They uproot people. There's very difficult times people have in establishing communities because they're moving and changing jobs constantly. So, neighborhoods are not established. Neighborhood is part of the community. And so, the destruction of neighborhood which you still find in many parts of the Muslim world is collapsing in these countries.

Television has had a profound influence in radically changing the nature of social intercourse not only in the West but now all over the globe. People prefer to spend their nights watching television than social intercourse with the family itself. And most Americans are eating their dinners the one time that they have to spend with their family is watching television with the television on. There are people that don't talk. One study did. They said most people now in the United States have five minutes of meaningful discourse between them during the day. This is serious, very serious stuff going on. And people have to realize that. And the Muslims have to realize that if we follow them in their behavior we will share the same symptoms of their disease state and this is what's happening.

The Meaning of Usra (Family) in Islam

Now, just to look if you look at what Islam has done. How to get out of this mess? Right? The first thing. Usra in the Arabic language means to bind. It relates the word Asir means prisoner. And Usra is a binding factor. If

"O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women. And fear Allah, through whom you ask one another, and the wombs."

He created you from one soul. And He made from it its mates. Right? So men and women spread out all over the world. It's amazing to think that we were come from two people. Everybody in this world comes from two people. We have an original soul and their own material sciences have reached that conclusion. I'm not making this up. Their own material sciences have reached that conclusion through their own studies of DNA that there was one father and one mother of the human species. That's what they believe now. And why haven't we heard that? Why isn't it front page news? Why isn't it on Time magazine? I saw it. It was only a very small article in one of the side pages of Time magazine about the father. There's a book out called In Search of Eve which was talking about the fact that they recognized there was one mother but they did not know that there was one father. So we came from two people. Allah made us from these.

Fear Allah and Guard the Wombs

And then Allah said, (اتَّقُوا اللَّهَ الَّذِي تَسَاءَلُونَ بِهِ - Ittaqullaha allathee tasaa'aloona bihi) Fear Allah. Have taqwa of Allah. The one who you ask each other, say (بِاللَّهِ وَاللَّهِ - Billahi wallahi) By Allah, I'm asking you. (أَسْأَلُكَ فِي سَبِيلِ اللَّهِ - As'aluka fee sabeelillah) I'm asking you by Allah. (وَالْأَرْحَامَ - Wal arhaam) And have fear of the Arham. Have taqwa of the Arham. Of the roots that bind you which are from the womb. It is the women who bind us as a family. The Ummah comes from Umm. The Umm is the source of Ummah. The mothers bind us.

And this is why, (أُمُّكُمْ أَوْلَى النَّاسِ بِصُحْبَتِكُمْ - Ummu-kum awla an-naasi bisuhbati-kum) The most, the women, those most deserving of your companionship are your mothers. It is the mothers that unite us. And that bond is there even on the Day of Resurrection because we will be called by the names of our mothers, the names of our fathers. We will be called by that. So we have to recognize the importance that Allah has placed in the womb itself.

The Sacred Connection Between Rahm and Rahman

And the secrets of the womb are many. The greatest as far as I'm concerned is that Allah says in the Hadith Qudsi that the Prophet ﷺ told us (أَنَا اللَّهُ وَأَنَا الرَّحْمَنُ شَقَقْتُ الرَّحِمَ مِنْ اسْمِي - Ana Allahu wa ana ar-Rahman, shaqqatu ar-rahima min ismi) "I am Allah and I am Ar-Rahman. I have derived the womb (rahm) from my name." This is something very powerful. The womb itself is derived from an attribute of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala which is Rahman. It was Ar-Rahman that He created us.

It was Ar-Rahman that Allah created us. He gave us consciousness. He made us into peoples and tribes that we might know one another. It is Ar-Rahman from Allah. The greatest Ar-Rahman is the Prophet ﷺ who came to guide us.

"A mercy to the worlds."

He is An-Nabiyyul Ummi. The Prophet from the mother. Ummi means of the mother. That's what it means in the Arabic language. He is coming with Iman from a woman named Amina. The one who gives Aman. He is coming out of this womb, this blessed womb. This is the Prophet who came as Ar-Rahman for all the world. And the womb is Ar-Rahman that we have to guard.

Severe Warning About Severing Family Ties

And the Prophet ﷺ warned us. He said in the Sahih (لَا يَدْخُلُ الْجَنَّةَ قَاطِعُ رَحِمٍ - La yadkhulu al-jannata qati'u rahim) "He will not enter Jannah, the one who severs the womb." And the ulema say he will not enter it with those who enter from the first, with the Saliqeen. In other words, it's from the Kabira. It's a Kabira. It's not Kufr. But he will not enter with those who enter from the first people. The fact that he disobeyed Allah and cut his womb, ties his kinship bonds, this prevents him from entering into Jannah with the people who enter into Jannah. Subhanallah.

So the womb itself must be guarded. (اتَّقُوا الله - Ittaqullah) Fear Allah (وَاتَّقُوا الرَّحِمَ - Wattaqur rahim) And have taqwa of the rahm, of the bind of the family. Why? Because the community is based on the cells that make it up. The body is only as healthy as the cells that it is composed of. If the cells begin to deviate, it becomes pathology. Pathology is literally studying diseased cell tissue in the body. And as one cell begins to become diseased, if it is allowed to spread out and proliferate, this becomes cancer and it will destroy the body.

The Nuclear Family: A Warning

So cells of uncontrolled growth will literally take over and destroy the body and deprive it of all its nutrients and nourishment so that the body itself dies. The social body is destroyed by the cancer and the destructive breakdown of the society. One of the interesting things that Dr. Khoury pointed out about the Arabic word for nuclear family (أُسْرَةٌ نَوَوِيَّةٌ - Usratun nawawiyyah) Right? The nuclear family. (نَوَوِيَّةٌ طَاقَةٌ نَوَوِيَّة - Nawawiyyatun taqatu nawawiyyah) is nuclear power. It's toxic when it's split.

And a family that becomes split becomes toxic and the poisons are spread throughout the community and the society itself. And this is what we're suffering from. We are suffering from the toxic result of the split of the family.

Children Filled With Rage

The children in these cities that are killing people with rage, they don't know why they're killing people. They're filled with rage. It's an age of rage. And the Prophet ﷺ said one of the signs at the end of time (يَكُونُ الْوَلَدُ غَيْظًا - Yakunu al-waladu ghayzan) Children would be filled with rage. (وَالْمَطَرُ غَيْظًا - Wal mataru ghayzan) And rain would be acidic. And we're seeing it with our

own eyes. We're seeing acid rain fall down. (رَحْمَةً - Rahmah) is turning into acidic. The rain that Allah sent down. By what? By what our own hands have made.

"By what your hands have earned, and He pardons much."

He forgives so much of what He could do to us by what we deserve. So the destruction of the family is happening. We as Muslims know we have to guard our bonds of the womb.

Consequences of Abandoning Jihad

Now if you look though, when Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says about jihad, about people turning away from jihad (فَهَلْ عَسَيْتُمْ إِن تَوَلَّيْتُمْ أَن تُفْسِدُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَتُقَطَّعُوا أَرْحَامَكُمْ - Fahal 'asaytum in tawallaytum an tufsidu fil ardi wa tuqatti'u arhaam-akum) If you turn away from jihad, what will happen to you? You will sow corruption in the earth and you will sever the ties of bonds of kin. This is one of the results. There is a cause and effect result here. This is one of the results of bleeding struggle. And it's not simply the struggle of the outward enemy, but it's the struggle of the inward enemy, the mujahidah of the soul, of recognizing that you have to show kindness to your arham.

True Maintenance of Family Bonds

One man, the Prophet ﷺ asked about, he said a man who his family is good to him and he is good to them, he said that's mukafin. That's a person who is doing what the other person deserves. He said al-wasu, the one who is tying the bond, the wound of the bond, (لَيْسَ بِمُكَافِئٍ - Laysa bi mukafi'in). It's not the one who just gives to the people what they, how they treat him. Al-wasu, the one who is uniting the kinship bonds is the one (إِذَا قُطِعَتْ رَحِمُهُ وَصَلَّى - Itha quti'at rahimuhu wa sallaa) If the kin bond, if the person from the family cuts him off, he continues to show respect and kindness. That is the wasu, that's the one guarding the ties of family.

And I know many, and there's people in this room, and you know yourselves, there are people in this room that have severed bonds with their brothers, with their sisters, with their mothers, with their fathers, with their cousins, with their aunts and with their uncles. It's happened, because I hear it all the time. I hear it from Muslims. I'm not talking to you. I know brothers that pray in the same mosque, they don't talk to each other. Why? Why? Because there's no mujāhadah. And the best of you are those who begin with the salam. So we're in a crisis. We're in a serious crisis.

Protecting the Mother and the Family Environment

The womb must be guarded. The mother must be protected. The environment that she exists in must be an environment conducive to the nurturing of a family, because she is the (مُرَبِّيَة - Murabbiya). She is the one who is nurturing the family. The woman is the first teacher, and if you prepare her right, you will prepare a people that have deep roots. In other words, they're powerful, like an oak that has deep roots, that go deep. The tree that has superficial roots can be blown over, and this is what happens. So the bonds of the family are absolutely essential, and we have to be nurturing this in our children.

The Family of Islam

So if you look, Allah has bound us together with our families. We are an (أُسْرَة - Usrah). We are the (أُسْرَة - Usrah) of Islam, which is the highest (إِنَّمَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ إِخْوَةٌ - Innama al-mu'minuna ikhwatun) "The believers are but brothers." (أُسْرَة - Usrah) The word in Arabic, إخوة is familial. We are one family because our belief is one. Our belief is one. Our deen is one. The deen is one.

The Unity of Prophets

The Prophet ﷺ said that the (الْأَنْبِيَاءُ أَبُوهُمْ وَاحِدٌ وَأُمَّهَاتُهُمْ شَتَّى - Al-anbiya'u abu-hum wahidun wa ummahatuhum shatta) "The prophets, their father is one, and their mothers are different." Or (بَنُو الْعِلَّاتِ - Banu al-'illaat) They're (بَنُو الْعِلَّاتِ - Banu al-'illaat). They have one father, but they have different mothers. In other words, their father is توحید. And the mothers are the different شرائع The different laws that they come with. But the father is one. We are bound with the father of توحید and the mother of the شريعة. This is what binds us, and this is what makes us the family of رحمة.

"So make reconciliation between your brothers and fear Allah that you may receive mercy."

Be a رحمة between us. But this is based on the رحم bond of توحید that we come out of the matrix of توحید. We are believers and we are one family.

The Foundation: Sound Individuals Create Sound Communities

Now the believing family cannot be sound at its social level if the community is not sound. In other words, if our communities are not sound, we cannot be sound as an ummah. The ummah cannot be sound if the communities are not sound. The community cannot be sound if the families, if the neighborhoods are not sound. In other words, the neighborhoods that compose the city you live in, if they are not sound, then the entire city is not sound. And even in these cities, if one neighborhood is out of control, it affects the whole city. People have fear. They live in fear. They have difficulties because of one area. Oh, that's the biggest problem we have in the city. And people know those areas in their cities. The city has to be sound.

The city is not sound if the neighborhoods are not sound. The neighborhoods are not sound if the families are not sound. The families are not sound if the relationship of the members of the families are not sound. They are not sound if the individuals that compose those families are not sound. And the Arabic word for sound is صحيح And it's a word related to صحة to health

What is True Health in Islam?

What is health? In Islam, health is believing (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا الله - La ilaha illallah) and acting according to (لَا إِلَهَ إِلَّا الله - La ilaha illallah) by believing (مُحَمَّدٌ رَسُولُ الله - Muhammadun rasoolullah) and acting according to محمد رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم. And this is the believers. They are those who if Allah and His Messenger decree something, they follow that. We are severing our ties. We're not training our children the way Allah has commanded us to train them. We're not treating our women the way Allah has commanded us to treat them. Our women are not treating their husbands the way Allah has commanded them to treat them.

There's a breakdown at all levels and we suffer from it. Each one of us suffers from it. The community suffers from it. Ultimately, the ummah itself suffers from it.

The Prophet's Final Words

The Prophet ﷺ,on his deathbed, what did he say? On his deathbed, his last words according to the hadith: Prayer, prayer. The last words of our Messenger on his deathbed, the last words of our Messenger is نصيحة before he leaves this ummah. نصيحة to the people he loves. His ummah (الصَّلَاةَ الصَّلَاةَ - As-salata as-salata) Not... And I've seen many people die. I worked in a critical care unit. I've watched people die. Their last words are not words of advice to other people. His last words الصلاة الصلاة Guard your prayer. Guard your prayer.

(وَمَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُكُمْ لَا تُكَلِّفُوهُم بِمَا لَا يُطِيقُونَ - Wa ma malakat aymanukum la tukallifuhum bima la yuteeqoon) And those who your right hands possess, don't burden them more than they can bear. Your servants, treat your servants, those below you, treat them well.

اللَّهَ اللَّهَ فِي النِّسَاءِ "Allah, Allah, in regard to the women." This is the last thing our Messenger said. Allah, Allah, فِي You have made their private parts (عَوَانٍ بِأَيْدِيكُمْ إِنَّهُنَّ اسْتَحْلَلْتُمْ فُرُوجَهُنَّ بِكَلِمَةِ اللَّهِ - 'Awaan bi'aydeekum innahunna istahlaltum furoojahunna bi kalimati Allahi). They are in your hands فِي النِّسَاءِ فَإِنَّهُنَّ عَوَانٍ halal by the word of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala because we marry with the ahad of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.

And then he died. The last breath of our messenger. These were the words he said. Prayer, the poor and those lower than you, treat them well, and the last thing, your women. Why? Because they are the secret to the society. If you don't have women, if you don't treat your women well, you won't have children. If you don't have children, you have no society. You have no society because they are the next generation. Allahu akbar.

Prayer and Women: The Foundation

Beginning with the prayer, and ending with women. If your women are not praying in the houses, your children will not be praying. And I know many people who came back to the prayer because of seeing their mothers when they were young children praying, reading the Qur'an. I heard this from many Muslims. They remember the righteousness of their mothers. And I know one man, he was a physician. He went to study in Ireland. Right before his mother left, she said, Please pray. Please pray. Don't leave your prayer. And he told me he could never forget those words. And he left the prayer when he was in Ireland. But he said, he used to say the Fatiha every night for his mother. And he ultimately went back to the prayer. He was fortunate that Allah didn't take him before that. But it was from his mother. This is what we have to recognize. We have to preserve our women. We have to treat our women well. We have to treat our women with respect. And we have to teach them the Deen of Allah, the rights and the responsibilities. They have rights and they have responsibilities.

Equal Rights and Responsibilities

Look at the one ayah in the Qur'an. (وَلَهُنَّ مِثْلُ الَّذِي عَلَيْهِنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ - Wa lahunna mithlu allathee 'alaihinna bil ma'roof) They have the same rights and responsibilities. They have the same rights that they have responsibilities. In other words, the same rights that

Understanding Daraja (Degree)

And then Allah says,

But men have a daraja over women. Now this, many men in the Muslim world, they think, well, there you go. We have a daraja. You see, I have this daraja. Allah gave me this daraja. I'll tell you two things about daraja in the Qur'an. It's a very dangerous word in the Qur'an. Daraja. There are two types of daraja. Daraja to takrim, and daraja to takleef. Daraja to takrim is based on a gift that Allah gives to certain people with the prophets to whom He pleases. He raised some over the others daraja. The highest is our Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam). And that without a doubt.

But there is another type of daraja in the Qur'an which is based on qabool. In other words that Allah says those who make hijrah and struggle in the way of Allah have higher daraja than those who didn't make hijrah and didn't do the mujahida. What is that based on (إِنَّمَا الْأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ - ʾinnamā al-ʾaʿmālu bi-n-niyyāt)? It's not based simply on doing the act. It's based on the act was for Allah and it was accepted by Allah. Now the other daraja is takleef.

Men as Caretakers and Maintainers

Men are caretakers and maintainers of women. Because Allah has... There is tafdeel there of takleef. And the ulema say, many tafseers say, the takleef of jihad, the takleef of imama. Well, where is the jihad now? Where are the men doing jihad? And where are the men establishing the khulafa? Therefore, where is the daraja? Where is the fadha? Where is it? You show me. Amongst the men. Where is it?

The Equal Reward of Women's Domestic Work

The Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) said in a hadith, to one of the women, she's called wafidatul nisa. In the sahih, she came to the Prophet and she said, Ya Rasulullah! We see the men, what they do in jihad, and they have all this ajr. What about the women? The women have sent me to ask you this question. And the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) said to the woman, Tell the women who sent you, and whoever you see from the women, that if they establish their responsibilities in their homes, that they will have the same as jihad of mujahideen. And in another riwayah (مِهْنَةُ إِحْدَاكُنَّ فِي بُيُوتِكُنَّ تُدْرِكُ جِهَادَ الْمُجَاهِدِينَ - mihnat ʾiḥdākunna fī buyūtikunna tudriku jihāda al-mujāhidīn) of the domestic work, that domestic work will achieve the rank of the jihad, of the people making jihad.

Why? Because those mujahideen are protecting the thughor, the outward thughor. They are protecting the boundaries of the Muslim country. But the women in the houses are protecting the other thughor, which is the boundaries of the youth, so that these insidious ideas, and ideologies, and misunderstandings, and misbeliefs don't enter into them. It is the women who will give the talqeen.

The Power of a Mother's Teaching

And I can see it. Sometimes my boy, he says things, and I know it's coming from my wife. But I'm not there when she's telling him that. He says things, and I say, Subhanallah, why? Because there's talqeen. There's constant talqeen. You see, I said to my six year old the other day, he came into my room and has a lot of books, and he says, he says, Daddy, I love your books. They're so beautiful. Because a lot of them are Arabic, and have a lot of nice gold, and I said, you know, when I die, they go to you. And then he said to me, and when Ibrahim dies, when I die, they go to Ibrahim. That's his little brother. You see. Children understand. If you inculcate in them these things. He's six years old, but already he's beginning to understand these things. We have to teach our children these things. We have to inculcate in them that they will die, that they're responsible. At the time they reach puberty, they are responsible.

The Quranic Prohibition of Adoption

Now, if you look at other aspects, I mean, I could go on about these things, and the time's limited, so I'm going to finish this, in fact, because I really want to see these slides, because I think they're very profound and beneficial. The last thing I want to say, and I want everybody after they hear this, just to say,

There is a verse in the Qur'an. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, it's the prohibition of adoption. And Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Allah did not make those who you claim to be your children, your children. In other words, they did not come from wombs that you inseminated. Allah did not make them your children. That is just a word that's coming out of your mouth. It's a lie.

In other words, it is not true. Allah is clarifying it. So before them doing that, the hukm is not clear.

So when the Prophet (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam) said Zayd ibn Muhammad (صلى الله عليه وسلم - ṣallā Allāhu 'alayhi wa sallam), he was not lying. Don't misunderstand that. But Allah now is clarifying the hukm. You can't say this. And now he's no longer Zayd ibn Muhammad, he's Zayd ibn Haritha. The Prophet called him Zayd ibn Muhammad. He adopted him. And that was something that the Arabs used to do before his shariah clarified the matter. Now the orientalist has always used this. If you read orientalist literature, they always use this. As if they want to get in there and dig a little bit. About this issue of Zayd and Zaynab ibn Jahsh. Very interesting. Why is this so central and important?

Call Them By Their Fathers

Allah says after that

He's guiding you to the straight path. Allah is telling you this not because He doesn't like it. He's guiding you to a straight path that will make you upright. Call your children by their fathers.

Call them, not your children. Call them by their fathers. This is more just with Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. And qist is about giving things their due.

So, and then Allah says,

If you don't know their fathers, they're your brothers in the deen. Their deen is their father. The deen of Islam is their father. (أَبِي الْإِسْلَامُ لَا أَبَ لِي سِوَاهُ سَلْمَانُ - ʾabī al-ʾislāmu lā ʾaba lī siwāhu salmān)

No Blame for Past Mistakes Before Clarity

So, Allah says, if you do that, right? If you don't know that they're your brothers in the Deen.

There's no wrong action in the mistakes you made. In other words, before this hukm was clear, there's no ithm there because you didn't know the hukm. But now the hukm is clear. But what your hearts intended...

The American Adoption Crisis

I just want to... It's very interesting. This is a brilliant article by John Taylor Gatto. He's very, very interesting man. Wrote, dumbing us down about modern schools. I recommend everybody reading that. It's not a long book. And he talks about the American pseudo-family, the destruction of family in the United States. And at the end of this, he talks about family disintegration. Is it receding or accelerating?

The American adoption foster care business, larger already by a factor of four. It's four times greater factor of four. So how many... Who's mathematician? I can't... Somebody. I know there's engineers in here. It's larger by a factor of four. It's four times, yes. Okay, that's what I... Four times. So it's larger by a factor of four. Then all of the world's competing adoption businesses combined. There's more unwanted children in the United States by four times than the rest of the entire world we live in. What that is, is news for the future. Because everybody wants to be just like America now.

Social Engineering Against Mother Love

Now look what he says about this. For 25... There is this... He said, there's a bright red danger signal flashing. For 25 years, a substantial fraction of our total population has been engaged in ridding itself of family or wildly scrambling to add a child of a stranger to its nest. Making mother love dangerous, a dream of many minds since Plato. Social engineering. We don't want mothers to raise children anymore. We want the state to raise children so we can indoctrinate them. So we can tell them what's good for them. Because mother love is very dangerous. It's dangerous. If mothers give their children their love, they don't go seeking for it from other places. They're secure in themselves. When mothers don't give their children love, they go looking for it everywhere else. And sometimes it involves doing crazy things like becoming so promiscuous that they end up spreading horrific diseases like this young man in New York. It's an article in Newsweek.

It's a byproduct of our national hysteria about immigrant families from Southern and Eastern Europe who didn't act like Northern Europeans. Right? In other words, Northern Europeans, very cold. Suddenly all these Southern Europeans start coming and they had these mothers that were very nurturing. This is not a joke. Now

considered more important than accountant rationality. Only then can it begin to reorganize to produce human quality by keeping families intact instead of producing maximum material profit by destroying them.

Returning to Divine Guidance

Wallahi, this is people we should rejoin. Actually, Allah sent us guidance 1,400 years ago, told us, don't do this, do that. Why? Now, we have to have non-Muslims telling us why. Really. Why did Allah say, don't call them by pseudo? So, you're not, you're a pseudo-father. It's not real. And so you don't call them, they're orphans, and you take care of them.

Images From Traditional Islamic Education in Mauritania

So, before ending, I just want to go through these, if you can just turn the lights, if that's possible. This place is an extraordinary place. It's one of the only places that the colonialists did not get to in the Muslim world, and I'm not making this up. They really, and you can see why. I mean, who wants it, right? My friend, Abd al-Azim, who's a professional photographer, who took the pictures, said he felt like he should have a space suit on, because he felt like we were on the Voyager, just landing on Mars here. And, you can turn it anyway.

This place here is in a place called Al-Ahsira, and if people know Muhammad al-Amin al-Shinqirti, he's a famous commentator on the Qur'an, wrote a large tafsir called Adwa al-Bayan, in this center, the Qur'an bil-Qur'an, which has been published in, this is where he grew up and studied Qur'an. He wrote about, it's almost 15 volumes tafsir. Next one.

That's actually a student housing, that tent right there. Quite literally. This is Shaykh Abd al-Rahman, he's a Mufti, who works for the United Arab Emirates, and that's also where he grew up, and he was just visiting with me, he's one of my teachers, and he's the son of Murad al-Hajj. Could you turn? This is Shaykh Abd al-Rahman praying, this is a guest house for the school we visited there, and then the tent was down, it's usually higher because it's very windy that day. Next one. This was a man welcoming us there. I mean he really was. Next one. One of the students there, memorized the Qur'an.

Traditional Methods of Islamic Learning

Next one. These are all students, they're studying, if you notice on the, the nurh here, is the traditional way that they write, and they write all that they learn, beginning with the Qur'an, and then studying grammar, and fiqh, and hadith, everything they write on the board, and they memorize it. When I asked one of the Shaykhs why, even though they have books and paper, why do they still do it, he said, because Allah used a lawah, when he wrote. Allah used a lawah when he wrote, a lawah is a, next one, tablet. You can see very fine writing, one of the students there. They're all students. Next one. This is Shaykh Muhammad Zain, who's a descendant of the

Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلمand he's one of the teachers there, he studied with Murad Ibn Hajj. This was the first time he ever been photographed too, other than for his passport.